[T.B. Yoits]

So a coin worth $1 million is turned into maybe $1000 bucks? Stupid!

The coins weren't worth $1, $1k, or $1m to those that found them once they had to turn them over. They were worth $0.

As the article said, the “Saddle Ridge Hoard” had a gold value of $2.5 million and $10 million of numismatic value to the government.

As for a "blob" of unrecognizable gold, you must never have dealt with gold "eggs" that are common in foreign countries but are also traded amongst U.S. gold merchants. They pay well for untraceable gold.

[Freedom4US]

If they had been confiscated I suppose you might have a point. Except, the weren’t. The gubbmint said “Nope, not ours”.

Nobody pays well for a blob of metal that might (or might not) be gold. That isn’t how this works. That isn’t how any of this works.

They don’t want “untraceable” gold. They want recognizable gold of known quantity, purity, and fineness. Anything else is discounted heavily.

While I can agree it would be “nice” to find a large buried treasure and keep silent, in practice it is extremely difficult to pull off.

[Freedom4US]

As the article said, the “Saddle Ridge Hoard” had a gold value of $2.5 million and $10 million of numismatic value to the government.

No, that's not true either - the numismatic value would be the price above and beyond the intrinsic gold value paid by collectors and individuals. The government would not pay ANYTHING, not even the face value, if they determined they had title. This is all moot anyway, they kept the stash they found.

Maybe there are some strategies that will work out for the YOLO treasure finders, but melting down ultra-rare high value coins down into a hunk of metal, that shouldn't be one of them. That's all I'm saying.