The Wreak of the Republic

[capsoda]

I just saw on the American Shopping.com tv show, the wife perouses them, a common aqua pepper sauce bottle for sale that was recovered from the Republic. Now this nice but common pepper sauce comes with a CD and a pedistle to put it on for display and they are only asking $999.99. Thats right only $999.99.

Now I don,t know about the average collector of this type of artifact but I aint payin $999.99 for a $50 pepper sauce bottle unless it is full of gold.

Could someone please give me an explaination as to why these are so special. The Republic was a common cargo ship,no famous Captian, not carring anyone famous or any percious cargo. Of cource the guy trying to peddle them says that pepper sauce was percious.

Could the CD be platinum?

To me this is the kind of outragious crap that gets bottle diggers into trouble with the public. We will become theives stealing their percious relics worth millions.[][][]

 

[Miles]

Maybe they figure someone will go
"Aww that's so cute..and it's a collectable!"

Or else they honestly believe that it's worth that much..

 

[huffmnd]

If you are referring to the SS Republic there is the history behind the ship it was originally christened the SS Tennessee in 1853. It served in both the union and confederate navies during the civil war (if you can call any war civil) it sunk several months after the war with about $400,000 in cargo and coins on board.
This is the story that the media plays upon and there are certain individuals that have access to the contents that have been salvaged and try to squeeze the last dime out of anyone's pocket so that someone can say that they own a piece of history. HOGWASH!!!!!
The coins are overpriced past the point of robbery and it seems that the other items are too. In the coin world you will never pay a high price on a coin that has been cleaned it will decrease the value of it by more than half, but according to the highway robbery specialists at the shopping networks this is completely OK. They then charge ten times the going rate and there are people out there paying.
I know that I am on my soapbox but there is a limit to anyone's ability to put up with price gouging on anything. So to sum it up...I agree.

 

[capsoda]

There are alot of ships that distinguished them selfs in war that went on to haul cargo but just because it was there doesn't make it all that special.

Now if it were the Merimack or the Constitution, maybe, but the Republic with it's cargo of mostly pepper sauce?

Most ships of the day carried a cash box full of gold coins to by cargo. The coins are no dout sought after but pepper sauce bottles worth $999.99.

It's hard enough trying to find places to dig with out this kind of crap by people who are hunting treasure for fame and fortune. Most bottle diggers are in it for the fun and the bottles and I don't know alot of bottle collectors that are getting rich and famous from digging.

 

[Andyf]

Well guys, I'm going to go against the flow here....

At the end of the day, a bottle is a bit of glass worth nothing, except to those that place a value on it. Be it $50, or $1000, it's still just a bit of glass.

If someone pays that price, well, they can probably afford it, so it's fair do's.

Lets face it, if they create a market for selling pepper bottles for $1000, who wouldn't be sellin' tommorrow! []

A few years ago they were selling porcelain from the Nan King, they were going for a few hundred dollars for an 18th century plate. Slightly better value, but there were a lot of them....

 

[capsoda]

Hey Andy, I don't have a problem with them sell their finds but when they price them thousands of times greater than the actual worth and offer them to the public, it's just wrong.

I don't know about other parts of the US and the world but here in the south we have an abundance of people who live here that are from some where else. They seem to think that southern bottle hunters are a bunch of rednecks looking to make a few bucks so we can get drunk.

This kind of rip off will have lasting effects here and they won't be good. Florida and Alabama already have rediculously over protective laws that almost prohibit you from looking down. You can technicly be arested for digging bottles if they want to push it.

When people see this crap the will think that every bottle thats dug is worth hundreds instead of the reality that very few are worth more than $50.

It is very decieving and just plain wrong.

 

[Andyf]

Hi Capsoda

Wow, I had no idea you could be arrested for digging.... We don't really have that sort of problem except for (for instance) metal detecting on protected sites.

I guess that in that sort of climate then something like this sale could easily cloud peoples views further.

I suppose it could lead to everyone thinking bottles=cash and going around digging up everywhere and getting everyone a bad name. Fair enough, I'll conceed the point..

Mind you, I still wish I could sell a bottle for $1000....[]

Andyf

 

[capsoda]

Yeah, It really sucks when certian people make things out to be more than they are. It confuses John Q Public into thinking everything is treasure.

The same people will dig up the bottles and spirit them away for personal gain under the guise of archyology and historical findings but you can't go to the museiums they represent and see anything but pot shards, oyster shells, parched beans and other crap with no monitary value.

Makes me sick when I think about it.

 

[huffmnd]

The price of these items does make it hard on any collector, when I read this post it reminded me of a lot of conversations that I have had with people on certain items not just bottles. One fellow that I talked to was getting ready to invest in several items that were nothing but reproductions/commemoratives, thinking that he was getting the deal of a lifetime. I had to in a round about way, trying not to burst his bubble, let him know that he would lose his shirt if he did. He eventually listened and later on thanked me for it. People that do not know, a lot of times take the word of the ones that are selling these things and trust in what they say. Honesty means a lot to people, and they assume that what these people are saying is the truth. In actuality the way that they word the items and the FINE print in the sales are what means anything that would hold up to be true. I feel that the only thing that matters to these people is the bottom dollar made on their sales and would do whatever it takes within legal means to achieve it.

 

[baltbottles]

Yeah these people got my phone number from my website and kept calling me and trying to convince me to buy some of there bottles. I mean there wasn't a bottle that they were selling that i haven't dug atleast one and two they were way over priced. I finally just stoped answering my phone and they finally stopped calling.

Chris