Bank notes recovered from sunken treasure now on sale
By Michael Brady
Bank notes recovered from the wreck of the Bodø, a Norwegian
coastal express ship that sank in the winter of 1943, have now been
placed on sale in Norway and in the USA.
"It's a first, as far as I know," explains Gunnar Thesen
of Oslo Mynthandel, the exclusive dealer for the paper money treasure
from the Bodø. "Coins recovered from wrecks are frequently
put up for sale, but I believe that this is the first time that a
viable sunken treasure has consisted of bank notes."
The Bodø, Thesen explains, was part of the essential communications
along the Norwegian west coast, one of the most rugged in the world.
In 1943, there were few roads, and the country was occupied during
the Second World War, so there were no commercial air services. Anything
that traveled along the coast - people, freight, mail - went by sea.
So the Bodø carried is quota of freight and mail, in addition
to passengers.
Part of the mail shipment consisted of strongboxes containing new
bank notes, destined for the post offices in the northern part of
the country. In all, there were some 10,500 ten-kroner bills and 300
one-thousand-kroner bills, all printed in 1942.
In 1961, the wreck of the Bodø was located, and all recoverable
goods, including the mail and the strongboxes, were recovered by the
Høvding diving company. But by then, the 1942 bank notes had
been taken out of circulation, so the Høvding diving company
reckoned that they were not even worth face value.
"Fortunately, they were stored, not discarded" Thesen observes.
"When we learned about them a few years ago, we decided to see
if they were in good enough condition to be collectible. Most were."
That good fortune, he explains, was due to the Norwegian custom of
counting and stacking bank notes. Unlike many other countries, where
bank notes are counted in tens and held in piles of multiple tens
by rubber bands, Norwegians count and stack nine bills, and then fold
a tenth bill in its middle around the stack of nine. So the inner
bills of a stack are held tightly together over most of their length.
Consequently, nearly half the bills brought up are in good condition.
The "Bodø Sunken Treasure Bank Notes" are being
sold in purpose-made frames of three types: one with two thousand
and two ten kroner bills, one with one thousand and two ten kroner
bills, and one with two ten kroner bills. For further details and
a brochure in Norwegian and English, contact Oslo Mynthandel, tel:
(47) 23100000, fax: (47) 23100025 or Kent Froseth of Minneapolis,
Minn, tel: (612) 831-9550.
