Via QVC and the Nuestra Senora De Atocha

Friends,

I know we have all made purchases in the numismatic realm that we later regretted and I hope my sad tale makes you feel much better about your particular anguish.

Sometime during the late 80's, while my collecting was mostly focused on NCLT foreign coins, I was watching those wonderful hucksters on QVC and became very interested when they started marketing an actual silver ingot from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha treasure ship. This ship had been found by Mel Fisher and company back in 1985 and had gotten a tremendous amount of press at the time.

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, I wanted that silver ingot (in deluxe treasure chest box with accompany plaque and COA) but I held off due to the high cost and patiently waited until the ineviteble QVC sale when the little beauty went for a little over 100.00.

Suffice it to say, I was very pleased at the time and was only mildly disapointed when the silver ingot proved to be pretty durned small (about an ounce I think). But, it was still TREASURE and it was MinE. Later, after the thrill of victory subsided, I realized it was not really an ingot from the Atocha, instead it was a faux ingot cast from the reamains of a bigger ingot. I should have known better, I betcha they even mentioned that factoid during their spiel, but I missed that detail and ended up with a bitter understanding of TV marketing.

I still have her today, she sits in her box, in my closet, as a constant reminder of why overeagerness to buy plus selective hearing can lead to great tragedy (well that's a little melodramtic but you know what I mean).

Later,

Malcolm

PS-she's always for sale, who wants to give me 50.00 plus postage.

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