It was 3 p.m. Chicago time on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1999, when Dwight Manley unexpectedly phoned. He was already a numismatics superstar who I’d only met once or twice before that unforgettable call.
Dwight swore me to secrecy and revealed he and his partners at California Gold Marketing Group had quietly acquired all the available recovered sunken treasure from the fabled “Ship of Gold,” the S.S. Central America. The legendary ship, carrying tons of California Gold Rush coins and ingots, sank with a loss of 425 lives off the North Carolina coast in 1857.