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More Sunken Treasure Recovered; 13,500 Gold, Silver Coins Found At 1857 Shipwreck

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(Kitco News) - More than 13,500 gold and silver coins and “significant items of cultural heritage” have been recovered off the coast of South Carolina as Odyssey Marine Exploration (NYSE: OMEX) continues its search of the SS Central America shipwreck site.

On July 18, the deep sea marine exploration company released a full inventory of the recovered sunken treasury, which includes a wide variety of silver and gold coins, including $20 double eagles. The company also said that along with the double eagle coins, the denominations ranged from $10, $5, $2.50 and $1. The press release also said that California fractional gold, coins of smaller denominations, were also found.

The company also said that it has recovered gold ingots, nuggets, dust and foreign gold.

Bob Evans, chief scientist for Recovery Limited Partnership, said that the coins date from 1823 to 1857 and is a “a time capsule of virtually all the coins that were used in 1857."

"The variety and quality of the coins being recovered is just astonishing," said Evans. “The wide variety of other denominations makes this year's recoveries very different from the earlier finds.”

Although the inventory list provided some details on the coins and artifacts recovered, there was no information on the value of the items found. Some of the historical items founds included, an alabaster figurine, a pistol handle, a Daguerro-type photographic plate and wooden domino pieces.

Odyssey president and chief operating officer Mark Gordon said that the operational reports detailed the “pre-disturbance and recovery of items visible on the surface of the debris field.”

The company will be releasing another report July 25 on the work conducted between mid-June and mid-July.

In May, the company reported that during its first two-hour exploration dive, it recovered about 1,000 ounces of gold, which was worth about $1.3 million.

The SS Central America was first discovered in 1988, at a depth of 7,200 feet, and recovery operations were conducted until 1991; according to media reports, the initial recovery operations were halted as the discovery became mired in legal disputes; 39 insurance companies filed claims for the recovered gold.

On March 6 Odyssey, a pioneer in deep-ocean exploration, was awarded the exclusive contract for the recovery operation with Recovery Limited Partnership.

According to historical records, the SS Central America was caught in a hurricane on Sept. 12, 1857 and sank 160 miles off the coast of South Carolina. The ship was carrying 425 passengers along with a large consignment of gold from ingots to freshly minted coins.

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