Northern California Couple Finds $10M in Buried Gold Coins
For one Northern California couple, the road to riches didn’t lead to the local convenience store in search of this week’s winning lottery combination. Indeed, it merely required walking their family dog around their property when they uncovered a hidden treasure trove valued at $10 million dollars.
Buried treasure, dating back to the opening decade of California’s Gold Rush, was found on the couple’s Northern California property buried in eight old cans beneath a tree that stands guard along their property line. Needless to say, this was hardly the first time the couple had taken their four-legged family member on his daily constitutional past that tree, but it was the first time they noticed the edge of a rusty can peeking out from under the moss of their Gold Country property.
There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills…
When the couple cracked open the lid of the first can, 19th-century gold coins spilled out right in front of them. The couple, known only as John and Mary, wishes to remain anonymous for fear of sparking a 21st-century Gold Rush with the specter of modern day treasure hunters descending on their property in search for more buried booty.
All told, the eight cans held 1,400 near mint condition $20 gold coins, fifty $10 coins, and four $5 gold pieces. From all outward appearances, the coins were put into the ground almost immediately after being minted, and the intervening fourteen-decades of sitting in the California dirt did little to damage their condition.
Largest Treasure Find in American History…
Until this recent haul, the largest reported found treasure was discovered by a Jackson, Tennessee construction worker in 1985 when he located a treasure with a face value of $4,500. That collection eventually sold for approximately $1 million.
Kagin’s Inc. is a numismatic company that specializes in U.S. gold coins, and they are representing the couple in an upcoming sale of the coins on Amazon.com. Portions of the treasure may begin hitting the auction block as early as April or May.
“We’ve seen shipwrecks in the past where thousands of gold coins were found in very high grade, but a buried treasure of this sort is unheard of,” said Kagin’s senior coin expert David McCarthy. “I’ve never seen this face value in North America, and you never see coins in the condition we have here.”
Nicer Than the Smithsonian…
At prevailing gold prices, if it were melted down the treasure trove would be worth at least $2 million by itself however; among the collection is a single coin that is perhaps the finest known of its type. It is an 1866 San Francisco minted $20 gold coin that was made without the “In God We Trust” motto that was begun in that year. The 1866 S No Motto coin is estimated to fetch upwards of a million dollars at auction and is in considerably better condition than the specimen that currently resides in the Smithsonian Museum. Indeed, at least thirteen of the coins from the “Saddle Ridge Hoard,” named after the area in which it was found, are believed to be the finest of their kind in existence.