I wouldn’t mind finding something like this. It would suck to have to pay the feds their cut right off the top, but I’d do it so I wouldn’t have to be looking over my shoulder after I sold the first coin.
It always amazes me how shiny gold stays. That cache is worth a LOT of money. Crazy. Heck - even at the time it was buried it was quite a bit at face value.
Guessing about $1,500 face value. Looked up wages for 1860, a mason made 22.5 cents an hour, 60 hour weeks - $700 a year. Today, masons make about $60k in New York and California.
I was wondering when someone would get around to that.
Whoever buried that, it represented maybe a lifetime of savings, or sale of a business property, or something significant. Gold money was called “specie”. Real money, as compared with various state bank notes, which fluctuated in value relative to their perceived soundness.
A $1 was a lot of money in those days. I’m not sure how the Civil War affected monetary inflation but it was likely bad. The Union issued “Greenbacks” to try and pay for everything.
Does the IRS tax a windfall like that? Somebody alluded to that earlier in this thread. The first thing I would do, is count it at FACE VALUE, as it US legal tender. That should help a lot, for now.
Once he sells them, even one of the rare ones, well he’s in a new world.
Nice problem to have.