I'll email him right now...if he doesn't respond his evening, I have his phone number as well...

Edit: email sent...

The Titanic cash was recovered during the recovery operation of bodies, luggage and such within days of the sinking.

200 years...
 

El Cazador sat at the bottom of the drink for over two centuries, then on August 2nd 1993, the fishing trawler Mistake; whose home port is Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Captained by Jerry Murphy was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico fifty miles south of New Orleans. As it fished, Mistake's net hung on a snag. Once hoisted on deck, the fishing net appeared weighted down with rock and debris. Upon closer inspection, some of those rocks were actually piles of silver coins, which had fused together while underwater. When the crew hoisted the net and dumped the contents on the deck, they found the net was filled with silver coins. The coins bore markings from the Spanish mint in Mexico, along with the date 1783 revealing it to be a rare and highly valuable “mint” shipment of uncirculated currency.

All testing is valuable....

I agree.

I propose each of us with an idea that will test currency post your idea here and create a Go Fund Me account to cover costs. Minimal costs - like purchasing a sturdy crab trap, rubber bands and $100 in singles and covering them in river muck at the bottom of the Columbia. I'll bet everyone here and on Bruce's site gives money to them if they get posted one at a time. Maybe TK would even help with some of the experiments if we funded it right.

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Money is not paper, or pulp..it will survive easily in the water for several years to a decade..NMIwrecks is a diver who dives ship wrecks..he believes the cold water will also help the money..he believes there is no doubt the money can last a long time under water and has seen cases that have...

Then why is it that the money rotted to the degree it had considering it was in a less hostile sand environment?

I have a hard time accepting that the money and rubber bands would survive for years largely preserved on the bottom of the Columbia River--which also has a fair amount of industrial waste in it and is the reason dredge spoils are no longer put on the beach--yet after six years buried in sand, without oxygen, it would rot to the degree it had. These bills, and rubber bands, are not infallible.

I think an experiment such as this would tell us a lot.

Hi guys,
I've seen a few things that have been preserved in water due to low temperature and lack of oxygen.  The attached photo is of corn that has been in a ships hold on the bottom of Lake Huron since 1893.  Its pretty well preserved.  I've also seen paper and linen from the Civil War era that was very well preserved.  The key is protecting the items from water movement.  Items in a steam trunk or safe may be preserved for a couple centuries.  I suspect that dollar bills tightly packed and protected by a nap sack may survive on the river bottom for years, maybe decades.

Of interest to me, and noteworthy as a Sheridan believer, the money find spot was near the base of a smaller tree...in his book, Sheridan talks about discarding the items he jumped with near the base of a tree. One of many similarities to the Cooper case and episodes in Sheridan's book.

The Ingram find is not near any tree. Two agents were asked questions today.

Interview Dorwin and Steve – 9/20/2018

(1)  The tide line at the beach was not in line with the Ingram find but lower than the Ingram find. All money fragments were not found along the tide line as per the Fazio doctrine mythology.

(2)  The lines we marked in the sand were about 20ft apart, stepped off by me.

(3) There were no obstructions at the Ingram find location. No trees there or nearby. There was a thicket and bushes to the left of the find location maybe eight feet away, but they didn’t interfere with digging at the find site. The trees at the Tina Bar location were some distance behind the Ingram find further up the incline. The Ingram find wasn’t below or near any tree.

(4) The 20ft segments were laid out to about 60 yards and the 60 yard line had nothing to do with finding or not finding fragments – it was an arbitrary distance marked for convenience. Later Palmer used that distance and location to dig his second comparison trench but digging activity in that area had nothing to do with finding fragments there. I don't recall that any fragments were found in that 60 yard grid. People did dig there but nothing I know of was found there.

(5) Were frags found only in an area within ten feet of the Ingram find: "Hell no! That's not true at all." My guess is most of the fragments were found in a large area starting above the Ingram find then 30-40ft either side of the Ingram find  almost down to the water’s edge. Everywhere we dug around the Ingram find we found fragments either near the surface or down to one or 2.5 feet. I think that’s where Himms gets his ‘fragments found at three feet deep’, from. Each agent was assigned a digging area and didn’t stray from his or her assigned area.

(6) Was there a pattern that emerged for the fragments being found?. Not really except for the large area Ive described - 30-40 feet each side of the Ingram find down almost to the water's edge. Fragments were being found with our raking just below the surface and deeper in the trenches we dug. We didnt map or record every fragment being found as an archaeologist would - we probably should have done that if we had had more time. One thing we did look for was a trail of fragments leading up to the Ingram find itself, but we didn't find a narrow trail of that kind. Clear out at the 60 yard zone I dont recall that the guys found any fragments at all. Its just my impression but I think we found more fragments on the downstream side of the Ingram find than on the right side of it. But, I can guarantee you that all of the fragments did not come from a 10 foot radius around the Ingram find. That's not true.       

(6) Could fragments have been moved on people’s shoes or blown into holes being dug? "NO! That’s crazy". People were assigned digging areas and didn’t stray out of their assigned areas. Reporters weren’t free to roam around. It was a fairly large space – we weren’t working shoulder to shoulder with a lot of traffic with people moving around at will. We were very sensitive to trying not to contaminate the area. That is “somebody’s imagination run amuck”.

(7) Did you encounter any cow manure: No.

Other questions were asked but …  will be posted at a later time.

 
 

Excellent, G. Thanks.

I have a wild idea. I wonder if the dredging people could have moved their pipe perhaps to the left of the No.2 spoil pile, and given the beach one last blast of sediment material _ maybe to clear their pipe of any remaining material, so to speak.  And that became the Ingram find area years later. As I said its a wild idea - no basis in known facts at all. Dorwin and I were bouncing ideas around today and that one popped out of my head ... Dorwin liked the idea!