Gold Ingots?
oldgoldlover
Posts: 429 ✭✭✭
I saw the video from the link posted a day or two ago and the ingots seem to command a high price, well above the spot price of gold. I don't collect them but wondered if anyone does and if so who authentic s them. Also are they graded in any manner.
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Could you be a little more specific?
Google S.S. Central America, a ship that sank in 1857 while carrying gold coins and ingots from the California gold rush.
https://youtu.be/hXWtaA7chU0?t=110
Yes, of course these cost more than spot.
Consider the expense of finding them, getting them to the surface and carefully removing the contaminants.
A few people have collected these. Notably Josiah K. Lilly, who was fooled by some fake ingots back in the 1960s.
nytimes.com/2001/03/03/arts/gold-bars-glamorous-stories-and-a-battle-over-authenticity.html
Authentication can be based on the chain of ownership, which is pretty direct in this case, and the participants are legitimate.
There may be some authentication based on matching the punches used to other trusted ingots.
Just look at the photos or the ingots in person to evaluate the grade "by surface". But these are not like circulating coins.
S.S. Central America gold ingots in the 2002 Heritage sale:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/s.s.-central-america-gold-bars/ingots/ss-central-america-gold-ingot-blake-andamp-co-before-the-discovery-of-the-gold-on-board-the-ss-central-america-only-pa/a/280-7903.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
Sounds like PCGS and NGC are not in the picture. Everything else is faked and given the money to be made by doing so I would not be a buyer of any much over spot. Pouring gold into a mold and subjecting it to salt water for a period of time is not hard to do. I buy few coins but I like to stick with coins that are low pop and are at the grade where a particular coin gets very tough to find. One of my favorite coins is a $20 1850 O PCGS 55. It is at this grade the coin is tough to find as the highest PCGS graded 50 O is a 58, non 60 or better. It is also the first year the $20 DE was minted and almost all of them are worn and have heavily abrasions.
The recovery killed the price of a $20 1857 S relative to what it was prior to recovery of the Central America salvage in a very large way. I owned one and after a short period of time traded it in on another coin as the lure disappeared.
As far as the recovery cost I am not so sure that factors in, especially when the effort significantly increases the number of high grade coins like the 1857 S. It is all about supply and demand,
Naturally you should use your judgement on what you prefer to collect.
However, the gold ingots in the S.S. Central America sales (2002 and the new sale upcoming) are almost certainly genuine.
Remember, the first S.S. Central America ingots were the proof used by Buttrey to show that the Ford ingots were fakes.
The firms involved are reputable and have too much at stake to try dumb games like adding some counterfeit ingots to the sales.
To some collectors, the provenance is worth the premium. For me, be it coin or ingot, provenance is immaterial..... I just do not care who owned an item before or where it spent time. Now, that being said, if I were SCUBA diving and found a gold coin, or even found one walking the beach (it does happen), then it would have special significance to me. I will stick to items that interest me without the story....I have a great imagination and can invent my own.
Cheers, RickO
Regarding yosclimber's statement: Yes I agree, the gold ingots recovered from the S.S. Central America decades ago and more recently in 2014 are 100% genuine, period.
I remember a discussion that I had with the late John Ford Jr. regarding suspect old gold bars...
I told him that if PCGS or NGC graded gold ingots they would grade a beautiful small old Western gold bar
that I had in my possession, at the very least MS-65 or gem.
He took the bait and ask for more details.... I then went on to state ,
all of the gold coins that I melted down to make the bar were graded MS-65, so at the
very least the bar should be graded MS-65
I believe he laughed, but then the conversation turned to a more serious note...this occurred during the
time period of the Prof. Buttrey Great Debate vs. Ford.....