Talk:SS Central America

Untitled
Explanatory note: The first four headings on this talk page relate to the article Central America Hurricane of 1857, later renamed North Carolina Hurricane of 1857, whose content was subsequently found to duplicate much of the SS Central America article. The hurricane page was merged into this article in December 2005, leaving the two titles as redirects. This explains why the first four topics seem to be talking about hurricanes rather than steam ships! -- EdJogg (talk) 08:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Missing information needed
How much of treasure has been recovered now? 5% ? --2605:6000:3D10:100:9041:9544:75FB:B72F (talk) 05:24, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Um.
This article needs a lot of work. Jdorje 18:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It needs a rewrite so it flows better, if you get my drift. *bad joke* The writing is rather stilted and difficult to follow. Given how long ago it occurred, I don't believe we'll find a great deal of reliable information... but it's worth a shot. If we can't, a merger back into the season article is a good idea. -- Sarsaparilla39 11:56, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Considering most of the information here is also found at the SS Central America article, this should really be merged. Much of the info in this article is about the ship, not the storm. Hurricanehink 20:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Misnamed
The hurricane is certainly misnamed, since it never came anywhere close to Central America. I assume the storm in question is storm#2 from ...not storm#4 which did cross the Yucatan. Jdorje 19:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Merge
I don't really think this one should be merged. It's fairly lengthy, and I don't think all those paragraphs should go into the main season article. And I really don't think you should delete info to do the merge. Jdorje 20:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It isn't necessary to delete info on the merge. The opener is the same as the article. This could be an example of what could be done on the seasonal page. As you can see, no information is deleted, rather re-aranged and short enough for the seasonal article (which is there for a reason!) . I just think the article is not notable enough for its own article. Hurricanes sink ships all the time. This just gives a story of what happened when it went down and the, I'll admit, awesome rescue that occurred in the eye. Hurricanehink 22:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I expanded the article and removed the merge notice. However it could still be merged since SS Central America contains a lot of the same information.  As for notability, apparently the ship had 30,000 pounds of gold on it (something like $250 million worth today at $500/oz, though I'm not sure how much it would come to if you took the 1857 price and converted it via inflation) so this has to go down as one of the costliest "old" hurricanes. Jdorje 22:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I like the way you did it. It focuses on the hurricane, and includes the important impact section. I am content, and will stop my whining. I removed the example, as it is not needed. Hurricanehink 22:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Merge it with SS Central America. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 04:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Strongly agreed. The info on the storm is so small. Merge with SS Central America sounds like the best bet. Hurricanehink 16:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. Jdorje 19:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Remove hurricane?
Seeing as it's not a hurricane article, should the hurricane template be removed? Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * done. íslenska&lt;font color=&quot;ff2020&quot;&gt;hurikein #12&lt;/font color&gt; &lt;font color=&quot;ffffff&quot;&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(samtal)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/font color&gt; 01:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Insurance companies
I understand (from a History Channel show about this ship that I saw the other day) that numerous insurance companies waged a mostly unsuccessful court fight for the gold recovered by the Columbus-America Discovery Group, claiming that they (or their predecessors) had paid out insurance claims on the loss long ago and were therefore entitled to the salvaged gold as reimbursement. It would be good, I think, to get some details on this aspect of the story and add it to the article. Richwales 06:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The following comment is unsubstantiated hype IMO.

"The gold coins on this treasure ship are priceless pieces of American history. Many items are of inestimable future value, worth far more than ordinary collections of precious metals or rare coins."

The sheer number of coins found in this wreck meant that the vast majority of available pieces of certain dates, most notably the 1856-S and 1857-S, originated within. Market prices of these coins reflect this, being noticeably less than other coins of the type. Gold ingots from the wreck do bring a tremendous premium over the value of the precious metal within, but this is the case with any gold ingot clearly traceable to the California Gold Rush.

Swhuck 20:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)swhuck

30,000 pounds or 10 tons?
The actual amount of gold lost is contradictory. In the US, a ton is commonly 2,000 pounds, so 10 tons is 20,000 pounds. And even if they articles means to say "long tons", long tons aren't 3,000 pounds each either. See Ton. What do the sources say?

California Gold Rush article says 3 tons and it's sourced. SHAMAN 16:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

A recent article said '15 tons of Army bullion." The secret shipment, detailed in a 1988 book about the wreck, “Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea," was meant to "shore up the faltering Northern industrial economy."' Group29 (talk) 18:19, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Very few references
In SS Central America section, there are no references, either internal or external, that cite the lawsuit involving who had the right to the riches discovered. There also is nothing citing the claim about the total value of the gold. There is only one reference in that section, and only one other reference, for a total of two references, in the entire article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenny Strawn (talk • contribs) 04:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Book Suggestion for those wishing to better this article
Exhaustive research was done by Normand Klare whose grandmother was a survivor of the SS Central America.

Normand Klare published a book in 1982 called "The Final Voyage of the Central America";

The book is an exhaustive account of the Captain, crew, passengers and survivors;

The accounts are drawn from letters of the survivors as well as historical news accounts and illustrations from that time period.

The book is available from http://www.klaretaylorpublishers.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.172.27 (talk) 17:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thompson
Why is there no mention of Thompson leaving the country with $52 million and not reimbursing his investors, etc?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 03:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

A current article in the Washington Post(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/12/14/a-treasure-hunter-found-3-tons-of-sunken-gold-and-cant-leave-jail-until-he-says-where-it-is/?wpisrc=nl_most-draw5&wpmm=1#comments) says he has been in an Ohio jail for some time (two years?); the text should be updated from "will be extradited."Kdammers (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Name
I thought the name of the ship was "S.S. Central America" or "S. S. Central America." It seems, at least in WP, "SS" is the standard. However, S.S. United States at least gets a re-direct. Let's do the same for this ship.211.225.33.104 (talk) 02:52, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Thomas Gregory Thompson, and girlfriend/lover Alison Louise Antekeier
Dicklyon, before reverting my entire edit you should have actually read the sources that I provided with my edit, Thomas Gregory Thompson, does have a lover or "girlfriend," Alison Louise Antekeier. The Washington Post even states it in the site that I cited which reads as follows: "When a warrant was issued for Thompson’s arrest in August 2012, he and his longtime administrative assistant and girlfriend Alison Antekeier disappeared." Furthermore, I also include Thompson's middle name, Gregory, to help identify the discoverer of the Ship of Gold from the plethora of Thomas Thompsons that pop up in the disambiguation. F15 sanitizing eagle (talk) 06:20, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on SS Central America. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051218050924/http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/Wrecks/centralamerica.html to http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/Wrecks/centralamerica.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:48, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Colón or rather Aspinwall ?
I believe todays Colón was named Aspinwall at that time. Wonder what would be the correct way to name it here. I tend to something like "Aspinwall (modern Colón)" or so ... JB. --92.193.250.60 (talk) 18:57, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Flag
The article says the ship flew its flag inverted, but it uses a picture (painting?) of the ship with the American flag in its normal orientation. Kdammers (talk) 15:36, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

unsourced inference of units
The source for the 174.04 number says "ounces", but gold is commonly measured in troy ounces. Without a better source which makes this clear, adding a conversion to kilograms goes beyond the facts stated in the source TEDickey (talk) 15:58, 22 August 2021 (UTC) In any case it should be per gram not kilogram. I believe if it is troy ounces the correct amount would be $55.90 per gram

obvious error in gold price
Rather than attempting to compute the equivalent price of kilograms of gold (and introducing obvious errors), a reliable source providing that information is required TEDickey (talk) 19:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

The sinking of the SS Central America
My Great GreatGrandparents Ansel Ives Easton and his bride Adeline Mills Easton survived the peril. They were on their honeymoon trip. Mrs. Adeline Easton wrote a small book and told the story of their journey. It is dedicated to her Next generations of ancestors. A copy exists with this writer. Another book on the subject is written by Gary Kinder.He tells a very fascinating story of heroism and survival. Ansel Ives Easton had a son Ansel Mills Easton and the great American Photographer Ansel Adams their nephew, was given the namesake "Ansel" Sincerely Cynthia Louise Ward Madrid Murphys Ca 2600:1010:B176:5E8F:1B19:99DB:8CCF:167E (talk) 06:10, 1 September 2023 (UTC)