Goldfinder: The True Story of $100 Million In Lost Russian Gold -- and One Man's Lifelong Quest to Recover It [Hardcover]

Keith Jessop (Author), Neil Hanson (Author), Neil Jessop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2001

The True Story of $100 Million in Lost Russian Gold -and One Man's Lifelong Quest to Recover It
Keith Jessop and Neil Hanson

"Outstanding, inspiring, and beautifully told. No true tale of the sea makes better reading."-Clive Cussler

Here is the true tale of a small-time salvage diver, the crushing depths of the sea, and the richest prize ever found-$100 million in pure gold. Follow salvage diver Keith Jessop as he battles nature, governments, traitors, salvage monopolies, and, of course, lawyers to claim the grand prize of wrecks-the HMS Edinburgh. Filled with ten tons of Russian gold, the ship had been sought by many, but never found. Through unyielding determination, extraordinary physical prowess, and keen intelligence, Keith Jessop risks all to reach his final destination, and keeps readers on the edge of their seats.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a young boy, Keith Jessop dreamed of leaving the Yorkshire, England, mill town of Keighley behind to sail the seas in search of treasure. Four decades later, he found his chest of gold: 431 gold bars, to be exact, from the HMS Edinburgh, 800 feet down in the Arctic Sea. Jessop tells his rags-to-riches story in Goldfinder.

From his first snorkel dives as a Royal Marine commando and his first scuba dive--when he could very easily have died--Jessop was hooked. He began collecting equipment and spending every nonworking moment either in the water or heading to and from it. He quit his job--much to the consternation of his long-suffering wife, Mildred--and began working as a salvage diver going after nonferrous metal fittings from shipwrecks. Working his first wreck, the SS. Pollux II, "brought back memories of my childhood fantasies to me, but this was the real thing, almost as good as diving on a galleon full of pieces of eight." Later, he and his partners recovered over 200 tons of copper from the Johanna Thorden, earning themselves the nickname "The Copper Kings" in the process. Between wrecks Jessop turned to saturation diving (where divers stay in a pressurized environment for days on end) on offshore oil platforms.

Time not spent in the water was spent doing research, using both alcohol ("the research often involved nothing more than buying the local lobstermen a pint. They'd point out sites where they'd lost lobster pots, a good indicator of something unusual on the sea-bed") and archives. His research revealed plenty of surprises--such as the day he was left alone in a room with what turned out to be the cargo manifest of the Lusitania. Despite the claims of the British government, the document indicated that the Lusitania was indeed carrying a large cargo of armaments. "I was unsure if I was being leaked a story the official wished to see published or being tested on my ability to keep a secret.... I've kept my silence until now."

Having gained decades of experience, Jessop assembled the team to go after the Edinburgh, which was sunk in 1942 while carrying 10 tons of Soviet gold. Miles of red tape later, on September 16, 1981, his dreams came true. "I cradled the bar in my hands, holding it as tenderly as a baby--a very heavy one." Recovering the gold was just the beginning, however, and Jessop recounts his later troubles in (sometimes tedious) detail. Co-written by Neil Hanson (whose book The Custom of the Sea was a 2000 Amazon.com Editor's Choice), Goldfinder makes great reading for divers and dreamers alike. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly

Jessop's energetic rags to riches to rags saga more resembles a Dickens novel than the introspective, spiritual or ironic efforts that glut the adventure-book market. Born to a poor Yorkshire mill girl and a Depression-era "spotty youth," Jessop, with coauthor Hanson (The Custom of the Sea), describes his happenstantial discovery of the pleasures of the sea and his early job salvaging scrap metal from shipwrecks. He goes from English harbors to various parts of the world during a more than 40-year career as a self-styled deep-sea diving expert ("The more I understood about the physics of diving, the more horrified I was by some of the risks I had already taken"). After he begins his own salvage company, which he often supplements with dangerous work drilling oil in the North Sea, Jessop's biggest opportunity arises when he obtains rights to salvage for more than $100 million in gold in the sunken British war vessel HMS Edinburgh. In the ensuing adventure, Jessop has to work with shady governmental types in a British-based consortium to salvage the wreck. He discovers the gold, then spends two years defending himself against groundless charges of conspiracy to defraud the same sleazy types who gave him trouble getting the operation started. The book ends with Jessop out of work, not very wealthy and separated from his wife. But his determination "that the bastards were not going to grind me down" serves as his mantra and as stitching between the various parts of this enjoyable book. 15 photos.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047140733X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471407331
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible story of perseverance and daring!, September 20, 2001

By 

Steve Lloyd "steveklloyd" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Goldfinder: The True Story of $100 Million In Lost Russian Gold -- and One Man's Lifelong Quest to Recover It (Hardcover)

Keith Jessop's achievement in successfully salvaging the treasure of the HMS Edinburgh parallels that of Tommy Thompson, who found and salvaged the gold from the 1857 wreck of the SS Central America. Jessop's book GOLDFINDER compares favorably to Gary Kinder's book SHIP OF GOLD; both books tell the full story of how the vessels (Edinburgh and Central America, respectively) came to grief, and both excel in their descriptions of the background and personal details of the men who would ultimately bring their treasures to the surface.

Jessop's accomplishment is particularly remarkable in that his expedition did not utilize ROVs, but instead relied upon surface-supplied divers who descended more than 800 feet to the bottom of the frigid Barents Sea to penetrate the armored bomb room of the sunken Edinburgh, retrieving her cargo of gold bars while enduring the danger and privations of saturation diving.

Fast-moving and charmingly told, the author brings his unique sense of humor and adventurous spirit to life on every page, resulting in a book that is engaging and fascinating. If you enjoy a grand adventure, and especially if you find interest in tales of shipwreck, diving and marine salvage, don't miss GOLDFINDER!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Rags To Riches Story - A Fantastic Read!, July 9, 2000

By 

"andrewclarkson2" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Goldfinder (Hardcover)

Keith Jessop, the self titled 'ragged-arse scrapman from Keighley', is the man who would eventually recover almost five tons of gold bullion from the British Cruiser HMS Edinburgh, started out his salvage career by removing bronze propellors from various wrecks around the UK coast. He would purchase a wreck, remove the non-ferrous metals, and purchase another wreck with the proceeds. And when the money dried up, he would work on the North Sea oil rigs as a diver, all the while still dreaming of gold, much to the amusement of his colleagues.

By successfully making returns on wrecks previously considered unworkable, he proved himself to the Salvage Association, the body that overseas the awarding of salvage contracts, and eventually found himself in the position of being awarded the contract to recover ten tons of Russian gold from the sunken cruiser Edinburgh.

The highs and lows of this book are awesome, and the final twist(s!) are something that no writer of fiction could have created.

Brilliant, even if sunken warships don't interest you!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and captivating all the way through, December 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Goldfinder: The True Story of $100 Million in Lost Russian Gold And One Man's Lifelong Quest to Recover It (Paperback)

I'm always fascinated with stories of shipwrecks and lost treasure and this book definitely quenches my thirst for both. An amazing story of Keith Jessop's plight in recovering ten tons of Russion gold that went down in the belly of the HMS Edinburg during WWII in the cold Arctic Sea. I especially liked the early part of the book where Keith spends some time giving you the background on how he got started in underwater salvage. I especially enjoyed his insight into some of the legal issues involved in running a salvage operation. Keith takes you through every step of his long journey in planning for and putting together a team of experts to execute and oversee the actual recovery of the gold. The book is full of suspense, as you don't know what will happen next, which inevitably keeps you glued to each turning page. At some times Keith goes into a lot of detail, but this was necessary for the reader to get an appreciation for the levels of frustration he most likely experienced while dealing with the bureaucracy. He also pays tribute to the lost sailors aboard the HMS Edinburg through his heartfelt synopsis of the events that led up to its tragic demise and how his team of professionals handled their uncovered remains. If you like stories of sunken treasure, no matter how big or small, this book has got you covered. You won't be dissapointed. Keith's way of depicting the events was so clear and vivid that at times I swear I could smell salt in the air.