This nearly forgotten piece of American history — the bounty from an 1857 ship wreck that caused a nationwide economic panic — was a hidden treasure of sorts last week at the NRA annual meeting in Dallas.

"Money is history in your hands," said Mike Fuljenz, a Beaumont resident and president of Universal Coin who brought the Ship of Gold exhibit to the National Rifle Association's biggest annual event.

"When I look at these bars and coins, I wonder, who handled these? It's years and years of history," he said.

More than 80,000 people attended the annual NRA meeting at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. As expected, much of the ballyhoo in the enormous exhibit hall was about assault rifles, revolvers and baseball capsfeaturing the emblems of numerous gun, knife and sporting goods manufacturers.

But tucked in the back of the exhibit hall was the Ship of Gold exhibit, where visitors gladly posed for photos with the bars, coins and gold dust on display behind glass.

Bob Evans, chief scientist aboard one of the missions to retrieve the gold, also was at the NRA meeting in Dallas. He said that even when searchers believed they had located the ship through mathematics, it took weeks toconfirm it.

Evans said he knew in his heart that the bounty had been found when a robot sent 7,000 feet under the sea returned to the surface with evidence on its metal parts.. "We found gold dust sediment lodged in the runnersof the robot," he said.

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Gold bars and coins worth millions from a ship wreck found at NRA meeting in Dallas(http://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article210358874.html)