Today, I have a tale of horror and treasure on the high seas for you...
On September 12, 1857, the SS Central America - known as the "Ship of Gold" - sank 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
She was caught in a violent hurricane, with 100-mile-per-hour winds whipping the ship around, shredding the sails, and eventually causing the boiler to fail - leaving the ship without power. The SS Central America was left at the mercy of yet another storm, and was left adrift for another day.
On the morning of September 11th, Captain William Lewis Herndon - one of the U.S. Navy's most decorated explorers - warned the passengers of the serious problems facing the ship. The lower decks were flooded and most of the cabins were in complete disrepair.
He knew they were in serious trouble...
As was the custom, the Captain ordered the American flag to be flown upside-down as a distress signal.
The next day, help arrived in the form of the brig Marine. But the Central America was ready to descend to its watery grave. Herndon began ordering women and children into lifeboats as the Marine approached from the horizon.
Nine lifeboats made it to the Marine, saving 109 lives in the process. But the pain and horror wasn't over for the remaining passengers of the SS Central America...
The winds and waves continued their violent assault and the Marine drifted miles from the Central America, making any further rescues impossible. The doomed ship began filling with water and the remaining passengers desperately began tearing wooden pieces from the ship for makeshift life rafts.
It was all in vain...
The sea crushed the ship with a final blow from a mighty wave, flooding it completely and sinking it to the bottom of the Atlantic.
425 people lost their lives - making it the deadliest commercial ship disaster in United States history.
So, why am I telling you this?
Because something else was lost in the tragedy and has finally been unearthed for the world to see: literally tons of gold. 9.1 tons to be exact. That's worth somewhere in the vicinity of $292 million today.
From Ship of Gold:
Aboard was over 1.6 million dollars in (1857 value) gold - thousands of freshly minted 1857-S double eagles, some earlier $20 coins, ingots, and gold in other forms. Some of the double eagles were stacked in long rows or columns and nestled in wooden boxes. Elsewhere around the ship, passengers had their own treasure - purses and boxes reflecting their success in the land of gold.
This treasure rested at the bottom of the sea along with its ill-fated owners for over 100 years until a remotely operated vehicle unearthed it in 1988.
The largest specimen of the Central America's treasure is the prized "Eureka" bar weighing 933 ounces. The Eureka bar is stamped with an 1857 currency value of $17,433.57. Here it is:
The tale got some exposure at the recent "Ship of Gold" convention, where they displayed $40 million of never-before-displayed California Gold Rush sunken treasure. The exhibit of gold and silver coins, nuggets, and California gold dust was housed in a 40-foot-long re-creation of the hull of the SS Central America.
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The three-day expo set an overall attendance record for any Long Beach Expo in a decade, and also set daily attendance records for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday visitors. Overall, attendance at the February 2018 show was 43% higher than in February 2017.
You can watch footage from the show here:
The point is, gold still holds a tremendous amount of interest for investors.
And like the shipwreck of 1857, we have a gold opportunity that has been completely ignored for too long. Nick Hodge has uncovered what could become America's biggest gold mine, and almost nobody knows about it.
It could hand investors the biggest and fastest gains of 2018, or the entire decade.
Officially, there are 6 million ounces of gold there now - in a place so remote that few outside the company have seen it.
To reach it, Nick drove hours through the Idaho wilderness along the Salmon River to a remote lakeside town...
Then took a chartered prop plane up into the mountains and landed on a small airstrip inaccessible to the public.
Then he proceeded to explore all 1,500 acres of the property.
And incredibly enough, gold was everywhere. In the span of miles, it was hard to find anywhere gold was NOT.
I'll let him tell you the rest...
Godspeed,
Jimmy is a managing editor for Outsider Club and the investment director of the personal finance advisory, The Crow's Nest, and cannabis stocks advisory, The Marijuana Manifesto. For more on Jimmy, check out his editor's page.