blockade runner BLACK JOKER

[barney]

Pondering Civil War blockade running economics...
A runner could purchase cotton for around $0.06/pound and then sell it for around $0.40/pound in a foreign port. A steamer like the BLACK JOKER could probably conservatively carry around 400 bales of cotton (bale: ~500 pounds). That's roughly a $70,000 positive difference (~$1.7 million when extrapolated out to current value). Assuming half of that goes to coal and crew costs, and you are looking at a sweet chunk of change as profit. AND that's just one-half of the trip! Runners would then turn around and purchase all sorts of goods not available locally due to the war and blockade, including medicine, liquor, foodstuffs, munitions, and other luxury items to profit big on both ends of the trip. Some have estimated that luxury items (e.g., liquor, coffee) were more profitable than arms and munition. No wonder blockade running was such an attractive business! And because Confederate currency was problematic, a lot of these transactions were completed with gold. Makes me wonder what else may be found buried with the cargo of the BLACK JOKER! Can't wait to find out this summer...
Mike

 

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[ivan salis]

it is worthy of note that it was reported that often 50,000 in gold was kept aboard these blockade running vessels often in a iron chest bolted to the deck under the bed in the capt''s cabin --to bribe off local port officials so as to be allowed into port to trade and to buy "private trade goods" for high dollar resale back in good old Dixie --gold was often used as well as silver few if any people in the smuggling trade business would take confederate "shinplasters".,. paper money

 

[ECS]

...and the Confederate "cow cavalry" and the cracker cowmen, like Summerlin and Barber who worked with CSA Fort Meade only accepted gold specie for their cattle.

 

[ECS]

Pondering Civil War blockade running economics...
A runner could purchase cotton for around $0.06/pound and then sell it for around $0.40/pound in a foreign port. A steamer like the BLACK JOKER could probably conservatively carry around 400 bales of cotton (bale: ~500 pounds)... Runners would then turn around and purchase all sorts of goods not available locally due to the war and blockade, including medicine, liquor, foodstuffs, munitions, and other luxury items to profit big on both ends of the trip. Some have estimated that luxury items (e.g., liquor, coffee) were more profitable than arms and munition. No wonder blockade running was such an attractive business! And because Confederate currency was problematic, a lot of these transactions were completed with gold. Makes me wonder what else may be found buried with the cargo of the BLACK JOKER!..
Mike

Bottles from the CSA Black Joker blockade runner:
shipwreck bottle finds | Antique Bottles Forum
What was found on a wrecked CSA runner in the Bahamas:
Confederate Blockade Runner
Tampa Blockade runners:
Repair Facility
Additional CSA blockade information:
http://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1862uinningblockade.htm

 

[barney]

Bottles from the CSA Black Joker blockade runner:
shipwreck bottle finds | Antique Bottles Forum

Yes, that was me...

 

[ECS]

CSA Sec of State, Judah P Benjamin (cousin of David Levy Yulee) coordinated the CSA blockade running activities, and CSA Sec of the Navy, Stephen Russell Mallory (former US Senator from Florida) had many contacts with those who became blockade runners for the Confederacy.
Charlotte Harbor was one port for the blockade in Florida.
http://freepublic.com/focus/f-news/695747/posts

 

[ivan salis]

I HAVE A BOOK IN MY PRIVATE COLLECTION THAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST TO YOU * --THE BLOCKADE RUNNERS BY DAVE HORNER -- what you got to trade?

 

[Jolly Mon]

Yes, that was me...

Cool beans. I watched your video of the site and saw the recovered glassware. It seems like your ID is entirely possible. There is no telling what artifacts might have been aboard. I am sure you have seen the reports in the Official Records. I wonder if little Alma's parents survived in one of the boats and were later reunited with their daughter? I also wonder if the Captain and the rest of the crew survived, as apparently the ship was abandoned prior to sinking.

 

[barney]

I have done a fair bit of research on the vessel, from her construction to her service in the Carolinas, to her 3 1/2 (almost 4 had she not sunk) runs to/from Havana. Yes, I have all the correspondence from the OR, as well as several newspaper articles from NOLA papers and various other sources. Apparently everyone got off the vessel safely. It is kind of hard to decipher as when they were picked up a lot of the folks lied about their identities. The newspaper articles from NOLA were quite colorful at the time, claiming the USN were falsely imprisoning prominent area businessmen who were on a foreign flagged vessel traveling from one foreign port to another foreign port. Of course it was all a ruse and a big game.
Given when and where the crew/passengers were picked up, and from the info we have garnered from the wreck thus far, I think the BLACK JOKER is a very likely identity for this wreck....
We shall see....