Posted on 03/25/2021 9:00:16 AM PDT by PAUL09
A California Couple Found $10 Million In Gold Coins In Their Backyard
A California couple who discovered a $10 million cache of hidden gold coins might not be so lucky after all.
According to a published article, the coins may have been stolen from the United States Mint in 1900 and are thus government property. This image provided by the Saddle Ridge Hoard discoverers via Kagin’s, Inc., shows one of the six decaying metal canisters filled with 1800s-era U.S. gold coins unearthed in California by two people who want to remain anonymous.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website–a search of the Haithi Trust Digital Library provided by Northern California fishing guide Jack Trout, who is also a historian and collector of rare coins, turned up news of the theft.
The California couple, who have not been identified, spotted the edge of an old can on a path they had hiked many times before several months ago. Poking at the can was the first step in uncovering a buried treasure of rare coins estimated to be worth $10 million.
“It was like finding a hot potato,” the couple told coin expert Don Kagin from Kagin’s, Inc. The couple hired the president of Kagin’s, Inc. and Holabird-Kagin Americana, a western Americana dealer and auctioneer, to represent them.
That’s why I was asking whether 10 million was the value the melt or the collector’s value of the coins.
“the coins may have been stolen from the United States Mint in 1900 and are thus government property”
Yeah, I’m gonna have to cite the precedent of Finders Keepers v. Losers Weepers, 1797 to dispute that.
I’m curious about that too, but it makes sense that the actual Coins are worth much more than their weight in Gold.
Assuming that each Coin weighed an Ounce, Ten Million Dollars in Value would mean there were 5,555 Coins, which there weren’t.
1427 oz at $2k per oz spot would be about $2.8 mil.
Some years ago I had a summer job doing demolition and harvesting bricks from old buildings. On one job I found someone’s hoard of coins. They were promptly deposited into the trunk of my car. Some of the hoard I sold over the years. I still have the rest of it - about 85 pounds total.
Never, not once, did I discuss this with any idiot who’d be inclined to call the government.
Lol - I did the same calculation and came to the same number. Whatever the melt is worth it’s more than zero.
“They should have melted them down and then sold it.”
Yep.
Or surreptitiously sold them a few at a time.
If you ever find anything like that, liquidate it ASAP and KEEP QUIET!
WWTBD = What would Tony Beets do? LOL
Most American sheeple are totally clueless!
The S-S-S doctrine should have been modified to D-S-S and their future, during the now inevitable apocalypse, would be a lot more secure...
They should have never told a soul. Maybe sold a few, one by one as numismatics. Nobody would have been the wiser. Melt and sell the rest. Go a step further. When you melt it, drop the molten into a bath of mud and water. Create “nuggets” that you will then discover over many years.
“According to a published article, the coins may have been stolen from the United States Mint in 1900 and are thus government property.”
The US Mint and Treasury debunked this in 2014 and said they could offer no proof of this. And furthermore added that it was unlikely due to the variety of coins.
Nuggets aren’t that pure are they?
The FIB will take over and ........Gold? What gold?
I am never amazed at the new levels of Stupidity we create here in California, Always a leader in Taking Stupid seriously
Gold is easily smelted into bars.
Dumbasses. Or greedy (perhaps both).
Exactly! I’d just melt the coins into small bricks and one day see what they would be worth.
Melting them down, as many here suggest, is about as dumb as it gets.
The problem is at least twofold. One, some of these coins are very rare and desirable to collectors, and also - in practically “mint” condition. This puts their value far in excess of their value in terms of gold. Common date $20 gold coins in average condition trade at or near fhe “spot” price of gold. So they would be taking coins worth $100,000, $300,000 (or more) and rendering them down to an unrecognizeable lump technically worth about $1,500.
Except, that isn’t how it works.
If you show up to a bullion dealer with an unrecognizeable lump, he doesn’t pay anywhere near what it’s really worth. He knows its gold, and has a good idea on purity, but unlike recognized coins and bars it needs to be assayed. Might get $500 or so. Stupid!
Good problem to have. Even selling a few at a time, would eventually invite suspicion. “Where are you getting these!?” LOL. These coins were very well preserved, and there just aren’t many of these high dollar rarities floating around in the wild.
Morons! Cash the coins 1 at a time in a new RV that allows you to travel across the country to different cities. Either that or learn how to make a metal forge and melt it down. Then trade the glob of metal into bitcoin. Piss on the government!
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