Rare $50 Coin Recovered from Historic U.S. Shipwreck Hits the Market for $135,000
By Affluent Page Editor • • Category: Collect, News & Noteworthy
A rare 1855 Wass-Molitor $50 coin recovered from the historic shipwreck, SS Central America, is now on the market. Albanese Rare Coins Inc, purveyors and portfolio managers of rare coins, is offering the piece for $135,000.
The SS Central America, carrying 578 passengers, 38,000 pieces of mail, and a king’s ransom of gold, sank into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas during a monstrous 1857 hurricane. The United States Treasury was shaken to the rafters with the tremendous financial loss and the 425 souls that perished in the depths of the ocean. According to record, this is the “one and only” $50 Wass Molitor piece recovered, which gives this coin a special place in the hallowed annals of true collectible rarities.
During the mid-1800s, the $50 coin suffered great popularity loss to smaller $10 and $20 denominations. Samuel Wass and Agoston Molitor, opened a gold processing plant and assay office in San Francisco in 1851 and later capitalized on the growing unpopularity of the $50 slug. During the coinage crisis in 1855, the company produced the only circulating $50 coin ever minted in California.
In recent years, rare 1855 Wass-Moltor $50 coins have fetched upwards of $200,000 at auction. David Albanese, co-owner and numismatist at Albanese Rare Coins Inc says that this 1855 Wass-Molitor $50 coin (AU50 SS Central America SSCA 6097 PCGS/CAC) recovered from the SS Central America shipwreck, is ”an investment opportunity of a lifetime.”
[Coin Ace]
