$10,000,000 in Gold Coins!!

SEmer1969 said:

Now I know that everyone is speculating on where this treasure evolved from (original source who would hide 27,000 dollars face value in Gold Coins), so let me tell you about a little treasure tale that has been circulating in these parts for many many years.

I grew up in Napa, and started Metal Detecting at about 7 years old when I attended a coin show and bought a Garrett Metal Detector. 3 or four hours later that afternoon, I was hooked 40 years later still going strong in my love pf the hobby.

About 2 hours from me is a town called Placerville. Now I'm not saying this hoard was found there, but that it was found in that region and well Placerville (or Hang Town as it was originally called), was a pivotal place during the gold rush days.

The story I had heard and read was about a successful doctor who had a large expanse of property in Placerville (in other words, lots of wooded acres) who with his distrust in banks, would take the money he earned from his practice and would convert it to gold coins then bury it on his property. Being he had a long and solid career in Placerville, he was considered to be a very wealthy man. When he died (around the turn of the century), his relatives were surprised to find none of his wealth in his home. Rumor had it that it was buried over his property and the lucky finder would be literally be "swimming in gold coins".

Many times I've been to Placerville and actually detected there a few times in some of the hills. There's even a really nice little hardware store there that still sells gold panning supplies as well as metal detectors.

Just food for thought

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NMsilver said:

These stories claim this is "the biggest cache ever found in the US", but you know we rarely hear about these big finds because a lot of finders are wiser than this couple.

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capsule said:

i read that about a dozen of the coins are 'best known' or tied for best known examples which means the sky's the limit in terms of their value. As a member on a precious metals forum I frequent pointed out, their best bet would have been to simply sell the coins privately and not make such a big story out of it as now, they face at best taxation, at worst loss of the entire horde as its technically stolen property. Maybe, maybe not..

In any case, any gold double eagle is worth at least what about an ounce of gold is worth, which currently is about $1337 at this time (3/4/2014). I believe at least 1300 of the coins were liberty head double eagles. Other then the uber-rare ones no one would have any way to distinguish or identify them as anything stolen etc (unless you tell the world you have a cache that happens to fit the exact description of a stolen lot of coins with a couple rare examples that almost assures the coins are from the stolen lot..). If they were all run of the mill liberty double eagles it would be hard for the govt to prove they were stolen. But, since they include that one issue that was never publicly released, now they have issues..

So, some quick math, 1300 * 1337 is an easy 1.7 million dollars. Now, since most were high grades, they could be certified as such and sell for a healthy premium above 1337$. Provident metals will pay anyone $1350 (today) for any liberty double eagle grading at AU or better. Realistically, the exceptionally graded coins might net a lot more then 1300$ a piece. This could have all been done discretely and without fanfare but now its kind of too late.. One of the first rules of treasure finding club is to not talk about (major) treasures you find..

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dirt weasel said:

The 1866S no motto was a released coin, rare yes but thousand were released. Not at all like the 1861 Paquet reverse or 1861S Paquet rev...very few of them made it out.

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