LOOSE CHANGE: AUGUST 11, 2024

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 32, August 11 2024, Article 24

Here are some additional items in the media this week that may be of interest. -Editor

CBS News reported this week that Colombia's government released new video of artifacts have been found on the wreck of the legendary Spanish galleon San Jose. -Editor

New artifacts have been found on the legendary Spanish galleon San Jose, Colombia's government announced Thursday, after the first robotic exploration of the three-century-old shipwreck.

Dubbed the "holy grail" of shipwrecks, the San Jose was owned by the Spanish crown when it was sunk by the British navy near Cartagena in 1708.

It said a robot surveyed the wreck, whose exact location has been kept secret since its discovery in 2015, between May 23 and June 1, covering an area "equivalent to more than 40 professional soccer fields."

The images reported had shown, among other things, cast iron cannons, porcelain pieces, pottery and objects apparently made of gold.

The ship had been heading back from the New World to the court of King Philip V of Spain, laden with treasures such as chests of emeralds and some 200 tons of gold coins.

I was excited this morning to read a headline that "$5,800 of airplane hijacker D. B. Cooper's ransom money is found," only to learn that the August 6, 2024 article is an essay on HistoryLink.org, "the continually evolving online encyclopedia of Washington state history." But it's an excellent account of the famous 1971 hijacking and what is known today. Here's an excerpt - see the complete article online. -Editor

On February 10, 1980, 8-year-old Brian Ingram (b. 1969) is smoothing sand for a campfire on the Washington side of the Columbia River when he comes across three deteriorating packs of $20 bills still bound by rubber bands. The bills were last seen on November 24, 1971, the night they were given to the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper, who demanded $200,000 and four parachutes on a flight from Portland to Sea-Tac International Airport. After getting the cash in Seattle, Cooper demanded the plane fly to Mexico, and shortly after 8 p.m. he jumped from the plane's back stairs somewhere over Southwestern Washington. Cooper's case is the world's only unsolved airplane hijacking, and the FBI says Ingram's find is their first clue since Cooper jumped. More than a half century later, it's arguably still their best.

The three crumbling bill packets were turned over to the FBI, and the agency identified the bills by the serial numbers that had been supplied the night of the hijacking by Seattle First National Bank (in a bag weighing 19 pounds, with the contents measuring 11 inches by 12 inches by 6.5 inches). The serial numbers were recorded on microfilm before Cooper received the money.

When the bills were found, some were so badly deteriorated they were described as unreadable. Others were described as the size of a business card, and some were black. The family estimated only about 30 of the bills were still in good condition. Still, the assistant special agent in charge of the Portland FBI office, Bill Baker, said it was the first clue the FBI had since the night of the hijacking – and banner headlines were splashed above the fold of Seattle newspapers. The Ingrams went to the FBI the day after their discovery and made international news after their February 12 news conference at the FBI's Portland office. The FBI confirmed the money was from ransom packets given to Cooper: two packets of 100 $20 bills and a third packet of 90, arranged in the same order as delivered in 1971. An FBI case agent said part of why they gave small bills was an attempt to weigh Cooper down.

For bibliophiles, here's a Wall Street Journal review of the new book on the history of the American bookstore. -Editor

For all the talk of a renaissance in this arena, the author's data show that in 1993 America had three times as many bookstores per capita as it did in 2021. Barnes & Noble, once portrayed as a ravenous monster, is now a teetering giant inspiring book-trade pity, not to mention terror lest it collapse. Taking its place as the business's Great Satan is of course Amazon, whose massive sales and book-industry power seem to inspire dependence and loathing in equal measure.

Mr. Friss, a historian at James Madison University, has made the shrewd decision to tell the story of American bookselling through the lives of its most interesting and colorful practitioners, from Ben Franklin in colonial Philadelphia through Ann Patchett, the novelist who for many years has had a bookstore in Nashville, Tenn. More typical, perhaps, is Frances Steloff, whose bohemian devotion to books and the arts sustained New York's Gotham Book Mart for so long.

Of course, there is nothing new under the sun: Bookstores have always found it a struggle to get by on books alone and even long ago sold tchotchkes and delicacies to help make ends meet. Along with his stock of books, Ben Franklin proffered not just very good Chocolate but sometimes coffee, wine and even protractors.