Talk:SS Central America

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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)

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 [1]...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<font color="ff2020">hurikein #12</font color> <font color="ffffff">_(samtal)</font color> 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)

Very few references

In SS Central America#Search and discovery 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)