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Posted on 02/26/2014 9:32:34 PM PST by Uncle Chip
Treasure hunting enthusiasts weigh in on origins of couple's $10 million find
The mysterious haul of gold coins discovered by a Northern California couple while out walking their dog and valued at $10 million may well be a previously undiscovered bounty that an employee of the San Francisco Mint was convicted of stealing in 1901.
The couple, who havent been named, stumbled across the haul of 1,427 rare, mint-condition gold coins, nearly all dating from 1847 to 1894, buried in the shadow of an old tree on their Gold Country property in February 2013. The face value of the Saddle Ridge Hoard, as theyve called it, added up to about $27,000, but some of the coins are so rare that experts say they could fetch nearly $1million apiece.
The couple went public with their amazing discovery on Tuesday, and treasure enthusiasts have been quick to suggest that the coins could be the same ones stolen by Walter Dimmick, an employee of the San Francisco Mint in the late 1800′s, reports Altered Dimensions.
Dimmick began working at the mint in 1898 and by 1901 was trusted with the keys to the vaults until an audit revealed a $30,000 shortage in $20 Double Eagle coins, six bags in all.
He quickly became the prime suspect as he was the last person to see the missing gold coins and had already been caught practicing how to forge the Superintendents name. After a month-long trial, Dimmick was convicted of stealing the coins and sentenced to nine years at the San Quentin prison in California.....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Here we go....
Agreed.
But there’s a few problems with this SF Mint “theft” theory:
1. The coins would all have to have “S” mint marks, which
is not the case here.
2. The dates on these coins are all decades older than
the time period in which the putative thief worked
at the mint.
3. The dates would likely have all been duplicates from
just a few years, which is not the case with the
discovered cache.
Should have taken a few to the auction house, and sold them. You aren’t required to say where you got a coin.
Your theory does seem likely.
Sounds like someone saved the coins over a period of years, not a grab of double eagles from the same mint at the same time.
Nice try, but I think these folks are entitled to their find.
$30,000 in $20 coins is 1500 coins, not 500. 1500 minus 1427 = 73 unaccounted for.
I smell government sniffing for lost gold with no claim.
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