
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993                   TAG: 9311190165
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

JUDGE: SHIPWRECK FINDERS GET TO KEEP MOST TREASURE.

Most of the $21 million treasure from a ship that sank in 1857 was given Thursday to the salvagers who spent $30 million to find it.

"What a pity it did not amount to a billion dollars so that a proper award could have been given," U.S. District Judge Richard B. Kellam wrote in a decision giving 90 percent of the gold to the Columbus-America Discovery Group.

The bullion value of the gold found aboard the SS Central America is about $21 million, Kellam said.

In 1857, the paddlewheel steamer Central America sank in a hurricane off the South Carolina coast.

In 1987, the Ohio-based Columbus-America Discovery Group, an investment syndicate, began an expedition that found the wreck and began salvage operations. But the insurers of the 1857 voyage and their corporate heirs said they still owned the gold.

In 1990, Kellam awarded the entire treasure to Columbus-America under an ancient "finders, keepers" rule in maritime law. An appeals court had sent the case back to reconsider the insurance claims.

Kellam ordered both sides to come up with a sale plan and said the court would impose its own plan if no agreement was reached within 30 days.

by CNB