Artifacts recovered from sunk ship are in Ohio, up for sale
Thousands of items worth in total up to $1M, auctioneer says.
It’s a hulk of an apparatus, a massive tangle of hoses and cords and cameras and lights and steel, complete with a large robotic arm.
Three decades ago, the custom-built, remotely operated research submersible, named the Nemo, was being guided to a storied shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean, about a day’s boat trip off the South Carolina coast.
Online video footage shows the Nemo in action, gingerly picking up gold bars and coins and other artifacts from one of the greatest lost treasures in U.S. history.
“It’s quite a beast,” said Bob Evans, the chief scientist and historian of the expedition.
Today, the Nemo rests, long motionless, in a dark corner of a warehouse northeast of Downtown. And it’s for sale.
So is the large bronze bell from the shipwrecked S.S. Central America, submerged in water in a case near the Nemo and among a treasure trove of cultural artifacts that are on the market.
They’re part of continued court proceedings against Thomas “Tommy” Thompson and his exploration group after lawsuits were filed by investors who say they did not share in the profits of the lucrative expedition they financed. Local auctioneer Robert Cassel is working for the court-appointed receiver responsible for selling the shipwreck findings and other items connected to the project. He’s entertaining all offers. “There are thousands of items,” Cassel said, adding, “There’s still cigars rolled that you could smoke. There’s jewelry that people wore that’s part of the recovery. There’s clothing. There’s shaving gear. They have tickets from the passengers.”
The ship sunk in a hurricane in September 1857, carrying tons of Gold Rushera gold from California. Thompson and his exploration group spent years recovering items from the underwater site.
“The treasure of the S.S. Central America is just so huge and vast, it is like nothing else I expect to work on in my life,” Evans said.
Thompson headed the expedition but ran afoul of investors, who later filed separate civil suits in county and federal courts seeking their share of the bounty. He was on the run for several years after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the matter, subsequently pleaded guilty to failing to appear in federal court and was sentenced to two years in prison.
But that term was stayed, pending his cooperation identifying the location of the gold and other valuables involved, a disclosure that was part of his plea agreement.
He’s been in prison for more than two years, making appearances at hearings in federal court every couple of months, where he is afforded the opportunity to cooperate with authorities.
Until recently, he had flatly refused.
Last week, Thompson appeared more willing to finally turn over 500 missing gold coins, minted from gold bars recovered from the shipwreck and sought as part of the legal actions. A tentative settlement appeared to have been reached Nov. 14 in his civil trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, under which Thompson would return the gold by 5 p.m. this past Sunday. But by Nov. 15, the deal fell apart.
On Nov. 16, Thompson, 66, testified that he has no idea how to obtain the coins. The former Battelle scientist, whose meandering testimony was interrupted several times by the judge to instruct him to directly answer the questions, couldn’t identify the stranger who took the coins from his then-girlfriend in the lobby of a self-storage business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2010.
He said he couldn’t recall the details of the exchange, other than making plans on the phone, and said that the stranger presumably deposited the coins in Belize, where Thompson had set up a trust.
Thompson further suggested that the trust holding the coins likely wouldn’t respond to any inquiries because of ongoing litigation over the treasure.
In the meantime, under the direction of the court, a receiver continues to deal with the sale of artifacts and other items from the shipwreck recovery.
It’s a unique mix of items, including the silicone that was pumped onto some of the underwater gold coin piles as part of the recovery process. Though the coins are long gone, their imprints remain in the rubber.
There also are boxes of office items, radios and other equipment from Thompson’s business operations.
Cassel said the entire lot is probably worth between $500,000 and $1 million. The aforementioned bell alone is valued at $100,000 or more.
He’s been working with some individual buyers who were considering purchasing the entire lot.
The items will be sold to the highest bidder piecemeal beginning early next year if a single buyer can’t be found before then.
Any sale would have to be approved by the court.
Evans, who devoted years to the exploration and who was on hand when the items were initially pulled from the ocean, hopes some sort of museum will be established.
“It clearly can’t be maintained like this,” Evans said. “I would love it if there could be a museum or something that would memorialize and immortalize the efforts that we put forth doing this project. It was an American dream.”