Nowhere in the story does is say the coins were “rare, collectible”...gold coins are not in fact rare. I DO however agree that melting them down makes no sense. The spokesperson said something about melting them down if the coin’s grader is not known to them. STILL makes no sense to me...either it’s gold or not.
To my above post...some older gold coins are obviously rare and very collectible, but the story doesn’t say what they were.