Valuable Artifacts from Gold Rush Era Shipwreck Auctioned Off, Possible Levi Strauss Jeans Sold for $95K

Valuable artifacts from a shipwreck linked to the California Gold Rush era were auctioned off in Reno, Nevada, on Saturday for the first time ever.

Among the goods offered by the Holabird Western Americana Collections were gold nuggets, gold rings, treasure boxes, stock notes, pistols, documents, passenger receipts, and valuable clothing items, including a pair of possible Levi Strauss Jeans believed to be among the first ever made.

The items are linked to the S.S. Central America, referred to as the “Ship of Gold,” that set off from the Panama Canal for New York City in September 1857. The ship contained over $1.6 million in gold, such as thousands of freshly minted 1857-S Double Eagles, some earlier $20 coins, and multiple other gold artifacts.

The ship’s passengers, mostly from San Francisco, had taken another ship to Panama before traveling 48 miles by rail to board the S.S. Central America on the Atlantic Ocean.

However, while en route, the ship got caught in a Hurricane, which resulted in approximately 425 perishing and 153 people being rescued. The ship and its valuable goods aboard sank 7,200 feet below the Atlantic Ocean and remained for over 130 years until they were located in 1988 by treasure hunter Tommy Thompson.

After several recovery trips were made in the 1980s and 2014, the California Gold Marketing Group acquired most of the artifacts en mass. Dwight Manely, managing director of the group, claims that the items being offered are unprecedented.

“These are all first-time offerings … unreserved and surely never to be duplicated as there are no missing gold rush ships out there,” Manley told the Associated Press.

The most expensive items bought on Saturday include brass master keys from the gold room sold for $86,000, a Wells Fargo & Co. engraved treasure box for $83,000, an 1849 Colt pocket pistol for $25,000, gold watch covers for $22,000, and many more items.

Moreover, the most valuable item sold was a pair of likely Levi Strauss Jeans for $95,000. According to Holabird, the jeans were miners’ work pants that were recovered in a trunk among the ruins of the shipwreck. The pants were believed to have been purchased in San Francisco before the ship set sail.

The five-button fly is believed to be nearly identical to Levi’s items sold today, and the auction group is convinced that this is not a coincidence.

A Levi’s spokesman told the AP that while the artifacts are of interest to the company, the pair of 19th-century pants is mere “speculation.”

You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.