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Justh & Hunter Gold Ingot. 464.65 Ounces....
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$1,320,000.00
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Description
Justh & Hunter Gold Ingot
Ex: S.S. Central America
Extremely Large Size -- 464.65 Ounces
The Largest Ingot From the Marysville Office
Justh & Hunter Gold Ingot. 464.65 Ounces. CABG-378. The
discovery of gold in northern California in January 1848 was a
transformative event for California itself, the nation, and the
people who participated in the "rush" to settle there. Before the
discovery California was a sparsely populated outpost in northern
Mexico. After John Marshall's discovery it became a major
contributor to the U.S. economy. The influx into the American
economy of so much California gold had the effect of increasing the
value of silver (an effect that would be corrected after the
discovery of the Comstock Lode). The Gold Rush spawned a
significant western migration by Europeans and Americans on the
East Coast. The Gold Rush also caused the city of San Francisco to
use gold dust as an awkward means of conducting commercial
transactions. The fineness of gold dust varied from one location to
another, and it was often adulterated with flakes of brass and thus
its value varied widely. Soon the citizens of San Francisco were
clamoring for a branch mint. Their pleas for standardized coinage
were finally answered with the establishment of the San Francisco
Mint in 1854, but even then, the mint could not keep up with the
needs of the conversion of placer gold into coins or ingots of
varying sizes and weights. Into this void stepped a dozen or so
private assayers, firms with impeccable reputations who could
convert gold dust into stamped ingots, some within 24 hours.
Assayers' ingots were accepted as a medium of trade, and as the
bars recovered from the S.S. Central America demonstrate
they were particularly popular and useful for the transfer of large
amounts of wealth.Marysville, "Gateway to the Gold Fields"
The firm of Justh & Hunter opened an office in Marysville because of its proximity to the gold fields. Marysville is only 41 miles from Sacramento and the American River, the main digging grounds for prospectors during the Gold Rush. San Francisco was 87 miles from the gold fields, While that distance may seem insignificant today, given the poor roads in the 1850s, Marysville was considerably easier for miners to reach, so much so that Justh & Hunter as well as Harris, Marchand both set up assay businesses in Marysville, and both firms thrived.
Marysville was an interesting Western town, even before the advent of assayers and gold miners. In the 1840s it was a ranch that was owned by Captain John Sutter (of Sutter's Mill fame), then it became a trading post owned by Charles Covillaud, whose wife, Mary, the newly formed town was named after. Mary was also one of the surviving members of the Donner Party -- but that's another story for another time. By 1853 the tent city began to be replaced by brick buildings, some of which still stand. The new buildings included mills, iron works, factories, machine shops, schools, churches, two daily newspapers, and the Silver Dollar Saloon, which conveniently had a brothel on the second floor.
Justh & Hunter
The firm of Justh & Hunter was a firm that is well represented among the ingots recovered from the S.S. Central America. In fact, it is second only to the firm of Kellogg & Humbert with 87 ingots recovered. Yet, Justh & Hunter ingots are six times rarer than their Kellogg & Humbert counterparts. Four out of the five largest ingots recovered from the S.S. Central America are from this firm. To put the significance of Justh & Hunter in its proper context, the total number of ingots recovered from both expeditions (late 1980s and 2014) totals 533 bars. Of that total number Kellogg & Humbert ingots represent 64%. Both offices of Justh & Hunter represent 16% of the total, and if we further extend these percentages the Marysville office (9000 serial number series) represents only 5% of the gold bars recovered - rarer than Blake & Co., Harris Marchand, and Henry Hentsch. This last extension underscores the absolute rarity of Marysville ingots within the totality of the ingots recovered. There is one outlier, a single ingot that was recovered, also from Marysville but from the firm of Harris, Marchand. That outlier is essentially uncollectible; thus making the Marysville Justh & Hunter ingots the "key" to the five firms and their variants found on the Central America. Among the Marysville office ingots recovered this is easily the largest one known.
Justh & Hunter was a partnership formed by two colorful individuals. Emanuel Justh was a former San Francisco branch mint employee, who formed an assaying partnership with Solomon Hunter in San Francisco in May 1855. Justh was formerly employed at the branch mint and received a public endorsement from Mint Superintendent Louis Birdsall and Mint Assayer Augustin Haraszthy. The firm prospered and the following year the Marysville branch office. To distinguish between the two offices the ingots assayed and poured in San Francisco have a serial number in the 4000s, while those from the Marysville office bear serial numbers in the 9000s. Only 27 Marysville ingots (under the direction of Solomon Hunter) were recovered, compared to the 58 bars from the San Francisco facility (managed by Emanuel Justh). The Marysville gold bars are even scarcer than the Blake ingots, of which only 33 were recovered from the Central America (all on the first recovery effort). This particular ingot, classed as an Extremely Large Size Ingot, is the largest Justh & Hunter bar from the Marysville branch assay office.
Final Voyage of the S.S. Central America
The final voyage of the S.S. Central America began in San Francisco on August 20, 1857 - not on the Central America but on the S.S. Sonora. The Sonora arrived in Panama two weeks later, the passengers were transported across the isthmus by a small gauge railroad, and then they re-embarked on the S.S. Central America on September 8. The journey to New York was to take nine days; however, three days at sea the ship encountered a Category Two hurricane. The crew and passengers battled the hurricane for two days and by the time the hurricane passed on the 12th and the skies cleared, the ship had sustained major damage including a leak at one of the side-wheel shaft gaskets and other leaks, which flooded the hull with sea water, wetting the coal, shutting down the steam engines and bilge pumps, and sealing the fate of the ship. All the female passengers and all but one of the children were rescued by small ships in the area, while the men remained and fought to save the sinking ship and its fortune in gold. The ship sank at 8:00 am, with the loss of 425 lives and an estimated $1.2 million in gold. About 87% of the face value of the gold consisted of assayers' ingots. When news of the ship's sinking was confirmed in New York, the monetary loss deepened the Financial Panic of 1857, a recession that financially crippled the nation through the start of the Civil War.
Recovery of the Central America Treasure
The recovery of the lost gold was organized by ocean engineer Tommy Thompson. Beginning in 1988 and continuing for the next four summer seasons Thompson and his crew recovered two tons of the lost gold. Then in 2014 a second recovery team retrieved an additional 3,100 gold coins. This particular ingot was retrieved in the first recovery effort. The recovery of several hundred gold ingots and several thousand gold coins, including thousands of 1856-S and 1857-S twenties, is an unprecedented event in U.S. numismatics. While other ship recoveries have been accomplished over the past 30 years, none have been as significant as the contents of the S.S. Central America. It is a touchstone event and relevant to both numismatics and the study of Gold Rush California.
Physical Description
The surfaces are bright yellow-gold, as one would expect from an ingot of .912 fineness. Characteristic of the Marysville ingots this Extremely Large Size Ingot has two company hallmarks, left and right, on the horizontally laid-out top side. The identifying imprints are all on the top side: NO.9521 / J&H hallmark, a second J&H hallmark / 464.65 OZS. 912 FINE. / $8759.90. The ingot was poured into Mold J&Hm-08, meaning it measures 72mm x 216mm, and is 51mm thick. One interesting feature that is common to the Marysville ingots is the presence of a tiny J&H stamp on both of the corners where the assay chips were cut.
This is the largest 9000 series Marysville ingot known to exist. This ingot and its rarity and importance to the study of Gold Rush California is impossible to overstate.
Auction Info
2022 May 4 - 8 Central States US Coins Signature® Auction #1344 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
May, 2022
4th-8th
Wednesday-Sunday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 47
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 4,836
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
20% of the successful bid per lot.
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