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Placer Gold Dust from Sotheby's 2000 SSCA Sale [166062]

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Bullion Start Price:350.00 USD Estimated At:700.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Placer Gold Dust from Sotheby's 2000 SSCA Sale [166062]
SOLD
1,400.00USD+ (280.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2023 Apr 29 @ 12:36UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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Approximately ten grams of placer gold dust in the original Sotheby's clear plastic box (2" x 2" x 1/2") with the original Sotheby's purple label from their first and only SSCA sale (2000), lot 355 in New York. The total weight of the gold plus plastic box is 25.8 grams.

The story of this little box has not been told, and it is "time," so we'll give you part of the story.

The SSCA gold portion of the entire ship's treasure was the subject of intense court battles that culminated in 2000. In an important legal decision and Court directive, simply put, the Columbus-America Gold group was assigned to split the treasure into equal parts such that the surviving insurance entities that had insured the gold in 1857 could take seven picks to randomly arrive at their awarded split, which was about seven percent (remember- this is the simple version). The court's directive had the CG group make up all of the lots from all the gold, and the insurance representatives would get the fist pick, and the two parties received alternate picks until the insurance guys had taken their allotted seven picks.

One of the lots consisted of all of the placer gold, which was chosen by the insurance group.

The insurance pics consisted of some ingots, placer gold, and gold coins. The entire seven lot selection was contracted to Sotheby's auction house, slated for sale in 2000. After further legal maneuverings, the sale finally took place. Sotheby's chose to sell the placer gold in small lots in what may have been their first ever attempt at internet auctions. As I recall, there were four sales. The first sale resulted in a sell through of all the placer gold at (as I recall) two to four times the spot gold price. The subsequent sales all saw the price rise dramatically, as everybody tried to obtain placer gold that was proof-positive mined during the California Gold Rush, the only such gold with this provenance left in the world. At the time, gold was under $500 per ounce.

This box of placer gold is one of the very few original Sotheby's placer gold offerings, and in itself, is a rarity. -Fred Holabird

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