Russian Shipwreck Allegedly Carrying $130 Billion In Gold Has Been Rediscovered (popularmechanics.com) 256
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: A salvage company has located the remains of a Russian warship lost during the the Russo-Japanese War. The battle-damaged cruiser Dmitrii Donskoi was scuttled off the coast of Korea in 1905, reportedly carrying a cargo of gold worth an estimated $130 billion in today's dollars. An international consortium of companies plans to salvage the gold.
According to the Telegraph, the Donskoi was found less than a mile off the coast of Ulleung island, at a depth of 1,423 feet in the Sea of Japan. A submersible descended to the wreck and captured an image of the ship's name on the stern in the Cyrillic alphabet. The South Korean Shinil Group, which discovered the wreck, plans to recover the gold sometime later this year with help from companies in China, Canada, and the U.K. At the time of her sinking Donskoi was reportedly carrying 5,500 boxes of gold bars and 200 tons of gold coins with a street value today of $130 billion. That's more than twice Russia's 2017 defense budget, which was $61 billion. If the treasure does materialize, the Russian government will receive half of the recovered amount. The money that's not going to Russia will reportedly be invested in a railroad line linking North Korea, South Korea, and Russia. A small percentage (10%) will also be invested in tourism projects on Ulleungdo Island, including a museum dedicated to the vessel.
According to the Telegraph, the Donskoi was found less than a mile off the coast of Ulleung island, at a depth of 1,423 feet in the Sea of Japan. A submersible descended to the wreck and captured an image of the ship's name on the stern in the Cyrillic alphabet. The South Korean Shinil Group, which discovered the wreck, plans to recover the gold sometime later this year with help from companies in China, Canada, and the U.K. At the time of her sinking Donskoi was reportedly carrying 5,500 boxes of gold bars and 200 tons of gold coins with a street value today of $130 billion. That's more than twice Russia's 2017 defense budget, which was $61 billion. If the treasure does materialize, the Russian government will receive half of the recovered amount. The money that's not going to Russia will reportedly be invested in a railroad line linking North Korea, South Korea, and Russia. A small percentage (10%) will also be invested in tourism projects on Ulleungdo Island, including a museum dedicated to the vessel.
Why? (Score:2)
Why send a ship into battle carrying so much gold?
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No, but he’s adamant that his Happy Cake Oven is down on that ship.
Quinn explained that it’s impossible - the ship went down a hundred years before he lost the oven. But Murph is having none of that.
Price of gold? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the gold does exist and is recovered, what will so much gold coming onto the market do to the price of gold?
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It's not like today's Russian government has any relation to Russia in 1905 - the only thing in common is geography.
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Quite a few descendants as well.
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A better question is why should modern "Russia" get a cut of it? It's not like today's Russian government has any relation to Russia in 1905 - the only thing in common is geography.
I mean if the spanish can claim gold plundered from south america and lost at sea for centuries, why can't Russia make a claim on this gold? Probably easier to work out a deal with Russia for half than to have them take it to court.
Old claims against Russia / USSR to be addressed? (Score:2)
Given that the Soviets expropriated foreign owned property, rejected the claims of bond holders against the Imperial Russian government, and can be argued to owe the victims of their invasions in Eastern Europe billions, one can hope that it will be tied up in court indefinitely. Sadly I suspect this won't happen.
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Naive estimation to give you a starting point:
World's total mined gold is estimated at 150-200 kilotons (World Gold Council).
Ship's load is estimated at 200 tons (article).
Gold from ship would increase this by 0.1% (math).
Current gold price is about 1200$/ounce (KitCo).
Price decrease could be therefore in order of -10$/ounce (math).
0$ if we accept that gold in ship has already been accounted for in "total mined gold" number. Maybe a bit higher drop if you calculate proportion of gold in circulation, though
-1$/ounce (Score:2)
Math is hard, 0.1% of 1200$ is 1$, not 10$.
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Don't forget that the amount of paper gold is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of real gold. A quick google shows that around 3000 metric tons of gold are traded every day, which is about the amount in this ship. Of course, this is "virtual" gold, as none of these investors are interested in acquiring actual metal, but are merely speculating on rising/falling prices through financial instruments. In fact, there is about a hundred times more gold "in circulation" (on paper) than actually exists!
Sel
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Using the word tonne also denotes metric ton. And if anyone doesn't recognize that the source is British, they would assume that it's 2,000 lbs.
Seems unlikely (Score:5, Informative)
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A Communist revolution made that difficult. Consider the history of the Amber Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
WWII and the looter mentality of Nazi Germany is what made the Amber room disappear, not the Communist Revolution.
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If the ship was actually carrying that much gold, it would have been discovered years ago. I'm pretty sure Russia would like to have it back and would have started searching in 1905.
Why would it have been discovered? There's a lot of ocean out there, it's hard enough to find something when we know where to look, let alone something that disapeared before the age of GPS.
I'm pretty sure Russia would have been searching for it too. Do you have any evidence that they didn't?
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It wasn't salvaged until three years ago [telegraph.co.uk] (and contrary to the implication in the report, it's still being salvaged), and about $50 million has been recovered. Mind you, the City Of Cairo was about ten times deeper than this Russian ship.
Of course, that's just half the story; once you've raised the metal from the seabed, you then have to find a way to ship it to a port where it's
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Why does Slashdot link to Popular Mechanics? (Score:2)
They have among the most outrageous ad policies. You can't browse their site with an ad blocker, at all.
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With Firefox Quantum and uBlock Origin add-on I am able to view https://www.popularmechanics.c... [popularmechanics.com], including the linked article, without seeing any ads. What browser and adblocker are you using?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
Re:Why does Slashdot link to Popular Mechanics? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I couldn't read their site. Here [radionz.co.nz] is another article (or, for all I know, the same one).
Important points from that article: That the ship was carrying so much gold is debated. Allegedly there are some oddities about the company that says it found the ship.
Another article [nationalpost.com]. This one says they intend to raise the ship, which seems decidedly odd, compared to just trying to raise the gold. I'm wondering if there was a translation error.
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Further to the above: The National Post article says "the stern was found at a depth of 380 metres and the bow at a depth of 430 metres" (i.e. difference of 50m). Wikipedia says the ship's length was 93.4m. This means it is either at an angle of about 32 degrees off horizontal (pretty darn steep, but not impossible) or it has broken up.
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Why does everyone want money?
Dude, I am not against ads if they're non-intrusive.
So (Score:2)
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they realize they can fuel Cold War 2.0 with it
I'd go with 2.1 at this time.
Ulleung island - $13 billion (Score:2)
Goldfinger (Score:2)
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It's time ... (Score:2)
*Actually, we can't, as it was sold to the Chinese.
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If he's posted it several times he is clearly trying to promote it, not refute it.
Oh, my sweet summer child...
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Besides the 200 tons of gold coins, there were 5,500 boxes of gold. If each box is a cube with a side of 1 foot, it comes out to about $130 billion
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Besides the 200 tons of gold coins, there were 5,500 boxes of gold bars. I have no idea how much that comes out to.
A "standard" gold bar weighs in at 12.4kg or 27.3lbs. Not sure how many are in a box but at minimum it's a few hundred shittons of gold.
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Actually, it was a Korean firm that released the 200 ton number, so it was likely 200 metric tons.
http://www.ajudaily.com/view/2... [ajudaily.com]
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The reason why so much coal was needed, the reason why the distances got longer.
"with difficulty obtaining coal for refuelling – as the warships could not legally enter the ports of neutral nations"
"The Russians needed 500,000 short tons (450,000 t) of coal and 30 to 40 re-coaling sessions to reach Cam Ranh Bay."
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That left the few nations able to support the Russian fleet with a way to "set" the price.
Russian could not wait and look for a better price. Russian needed a lot of coal. Russia had to pay.
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Gold is not immune to inflation. The price of gold has been going down under inflationary pressure lately. Gold, silver and platinum have been dipping since the GOP tax cut bill went into effect. And judging by the volatility, nobody's looking to start buying any time soon.
Gold is basically 19th century Bitcoin.
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It's pretty straightforward to make gold from sea water. According to Nature, it currently costs about 5x the market value of the gold. On the other hand, you could likely get a bunch of other valuable things at the same time, so that might bring costs down a bit.
Gold's value is it's rarity. It has a bit of intrinsic value for certain industrial uses, but mostly it's because it's shiny.
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Other than shininess, those properties are the "certain industrial uses." But industrial use doesn't drive the price of gold currently. If people got tired of the shiny, then the price would fall to a level that was driven by actual intrinsic value.
Diamond is a good example of this, because you can't just melt down small crappy diamonds to make big nice ones. Industrial diamonds are pretty cheap, while big gem quality diamonds are orders of magnitude more expensive.
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Other than shininess
resistance to oxidation
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That's like saying if the Earth was made of cheese, then the price of food would fall to a level that was driven by actual intrinsic value.
A multi-millenia track record indicates that people aren't going to get tired of the shiny. Jewelry value isn't going to go away and leave only "industrial use" value.
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Nah, jewelry cleaners are pretty inexpensive. I think the owners of expensive jewelry actually enjoy cleaning it from time to time anyway.
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I don't recall saying that it would. The operative word in my sentence, which you quoted, is *if*.
However, the fact that the value of gold is extrinsic does mean that it might not respond to supply and demand as might be expected. If some space mining company dropped a megaton of gold on the market the value would drop, but gold's rarity would also be severely reduced. Everyone could walk around wearing as much gold as they wanted. The price might fall more than otherwise expected due to the loss of cache
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Also note that a "multi-millenia track record" doesn't mean much in the face of new technology or supplies. Glass was once extremely highly valued (for jewelry). Once we figured out how to make it nobody valued it very much for it's shiny decorative properties. Likewise, aluminum was far more valuable than gold and used for jewelry, but now that we can make as much as we want nobody wears it much.
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Also note that a "multi-millenia track record" doesn't mean much in the face of new technology or supplies.
And my point was that "assume a spherical cow" is a terrible argument when discussing behavioral economics. Adding more spherical cows does not improve it.
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Spherical cows and cheese... maybe you have some local diary product brand with gold in the name? I don't think we're talking about the same thing.
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I just tested your hypothesis and tried to buy a MacBook Pro with gold bars. They laughed me out of the Apple Store.
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Good point. You would need 5,500 boxes of gold and 200 tons of gold coins to pay for all of that coal.
Obviously the coal sellers were using surge pricing :-)
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Why would a single warship be carrying that much gold?
I don't know, maybe to deny the enemy its use in the event of invasion, or to pay someone for materiel? The UK moved huge amounts of gold and other valuables to Canada in warships during World War 2, e.g. Operation Fish [wikipedia.org]. None were sunk but if attacked would have fought.
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And the wiki page claims: "In another Operation Fish convoy on 5 July 1940 five ships loaded with $1.7 billion (US$ 29.70 billion in 2018), the largest movement of wealth in history." So a convoy of ships moving $30 billion is the "largest movement of wealth in history" but the Russians load more than four times that amount onto a random coaler headed into a war zone? Just doesn't seem plausible.
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Russia is somewhat larger than the UK. If they wanted to stop invaders from getting something simply moving it to the other end of the country would be more than adequate.
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Why would a single warship be carrying that much gold?
The "gold" is actually just a cover story.
Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino are actually looking for the secret stash of byzanium that is rumoured to be on board.
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Typical cargo tonnage of most warships at any point in history is close to bugger all. You cram every inch that isn't guns or engines with ammo and fuel. Fortunately half the crew are working at any given time because there isn't room for them all to even sit down at once, let alone sleep.
According to TFA this here Donuts Donaldski was a cruiser. Given that WW2 cruisers were typically under 10,000 tons the thing p
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The "war" did not work out the way Russian planed for and it had many reasons to "scuttle".
Re: BS (Score:2)
Spraypaint's not for "recreational use," dude.
Re:BS (Score:5, Insightful)
To not be Spain. Better to get something on good terms than go full Spain in a court over a transfer of the treasure.
Any salvage company, other nations will then be happy to work with Russian on any new project in the future.
Should Russian need something around the other side of the world in the future a skilled salvage company will remember events like this.
A salvage company will contrast that with what Spain can do.
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In Soviet Russia they'll fry your nipples and send you to the gulag?
*rimshot*
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Re 'What I don't see is why Russia would let others keep half?"
To not be Spain. Better to get something on good terms than go full Spain in a court over a transfer of the treasure.
Any salvage company, other nations will then be happy to work with Russian on any new project in the future.
Should Russian need something around the other side of the world in the future a skilled salvage company will remember events like this.
No. That is definitely not the reason. You are making the classic mistake of applying western reasoning to a government that does not view the world in those terms. I can assure you that Putin and his government have no real long term vision beyond maybe a couple of years, so that's definitely not it.
Much more likely reasons are:
1) Russia knows the odds are really good that the gold isn't there any more (it may have been secretly salvaged by somebody a long time ago) or maybe never was, so they
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I can assure you that Putin and his government have no real long term vision beyond maybe a couple of years, so that's definitely not it.
I disagree with this assessment. I argue that countries like China, Russia, and North Korea tend to look more long term then our representatives, who seem to only care about the time between now and the next election cycle. Here in the U.S. we do have the Supreme Court Justices who I believe do consider the long term ramifications but you're selling these other countries short to assume they only care about the short term.
If you have not seen it, I recommend watching "Rules for Rulers" by CGPGray. https://w [youtube.com]
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What I don't see is why Russia would let others keep half?
I mean, for one billion they could send navy ships there and say "no" and then what?
I think it may have something to do with international waters and salvage rights. It may also be an act of diplomacy on the part of the Koreans if the ship was in their waters. Despite having full salvage rights this way they still get a pay day and not piss Russia off, plus a railway, plus a way to ease relations with the other half of their country.
Sounds to me like a win for everyone - good on them.
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Whatever the outcome of this ship salvage, I really hope that railway project gets built. The one peaceful way to demolish North Korea and unify the peninsula would be wide-open free trade. Once the NK common folk see what they have been missing all these years, North Korea will dissolve faster than East Germany.
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And clearly the lack of a railway is what's preventing that. They like totally want to do a customs union and all that, but it just can't possibly work with roads & trucks.
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Because of risk. Salvagers were looking for the ship because it was reported to be carrying a large sum of gold. It may have been. it may have been carrying a lesser sum of gold. It may not have been carrying any gold. The salvagers have only found the wreck of the warship, and by maritime law, couldn't act on it without Russia's permission. Additionally, because of the reported gold on board it's highly probable that the individuals who located the wreck did not give Russia the location of the wreck but ju
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And then the salvage specialists say "Fuck you" and sail away and the treasure stays on the bottom.
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It's more likely that you'll die chained to a wall in one of the secret dungeons being constructed at taxpayer expense at Mar-a-Lago. Don't worry, you be in excellent company with Steven Colbert, John Stewart, and Bobby DeNiro. I hear Dick Cheney will be in charge of "enhanced interrogation"...
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Are you suggesting Donald Trump should be in treatment for his pee problem?
I'm not really sure what "media protocol" has to do with a foreign government having compromising dirt on a US president for the purpose of blackmail.
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Maybe they're waiting for the Russian shipwreck full of platinum?
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He said far far away from Russian. He left out the actual thing. A Russian hat, perhaps?
Or perhaps he meant a Russian. Pretty unlikely, I'd expect there to be at least one in the crew.
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Exactly. If the gold did exist and it was on the ship then it's a safe bet that it wasn't on the ship when it was scuttled. Maybe it was a cunning plan to distribute the gold among fleet officers. They report back that the ship was lost and unrecoverable and go on to quietly enjoy their windfall.
Now a century later the wreck has been discovered. Lots of people jump in with a claim on the gold and when none is found, who do they blame?
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To get an idea of just how big a pile of BS this story is, the Donskoi was a pre-dreadnaught armoured cruiser, with one tenth the displacement of an actual battleship (Iowa class), and less than a modern (Arleigh Burke) destroyer. The amount of gold in Fort Knox is about the same order of magnitude as what's claimed in the story (depending on how much you believe is in there and what it's currently worth per ounce and what the story is actually claming was on the Donskoi, handwaving a bit here to avoid a h
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I agree (Score:2)
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Look at it another way. HMS Dreadnought was launched soon after and was the biggest baddest battleship in the world at that point. Normal load, 18,120 tons, 20,730 long tons at deep load giving 2,610 to play with.
I can't find a definition of normal load but let's assume it includes optional little luxuries like fuel, booze, crew, ammunition and more booze. You'd still need two of the buggers to carry that much.
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If an oil tanker has a sack of letters on it does that make it a mail boat?
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Heist (2001) starring gene Hackman (Score:2)
It could if only [takes off shoes & socks] 2100 tons of the ship was iron & steel.
This would also explain why it sank.
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Not if they're the Cybermen from Doctor Who; they're allergic to it.
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Re "abandoning ship" was not as simple as it sounds. Russia sent all its fleet. Nobody wanted to suggest just sending quality. The Russian navy had to do what it was told and had to send more old and slow ships.
New ships could do 18 knots others 15 knots.
A real mixture of Russian ships then confronted an advanced and ready Japan.
The Dmitrii Donskoi had to support other crews and try and escape
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Yep. And I bet a lot of people would like to set his feet in concrete and send him to the bottom of the ocean also.
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