But my point was that often bags of new coins will sit for years in mints and banks. It is possible that happened here. Don’t forget some were from other mints.
Oh, understood, but it is very unlikely that -S mint coins would be stored in California in that time period with the ability to write contracts specifying method of payment. A lot, particularly higher denomination gold and later the Morgan dollars, did sit in banks and the mints later as they were the facilitation of the “will pay to the bearer on demand” that the paper notes displayed.
It may be that the east coast minted coin[s] came out with the man, or an associate. It would be interesting to see from the archival perspective who came out in that period that possessed the capital and drive to be able to set aside that kind of money then. I’d be willing to bet that between the location (currently secret) and the wealth, that the stasher was relatively well known and has some kind of historical “footprint”.