Breaking News: Couple Finds $10 Million in Gold Coins In Their Yard
UPDATE: These Saddle Ridge gold coins are now up for sale @ Amazon!
Imagine this: You’re walking your dog around your OWN yard, and it doggy digs a hole right into a pot of gold! Full of double eagles over 150 years old!! WOWW!!!
Okay, well I don’t exactly how much the dog was involved with this story, but a California couple DID indeed just stumble across a ton of cans full of uncirculated gold coins on their own property. While taking their dog on a walk (maybe the husband was doing the doggy digging? ;))
According to NBC News, here’s exactly what they found:
“Nearly all of the 1,427 coins, dating from 1847 to 1894, are in uncirculated, mint condition… Although the face value of the gold pieces only adds up to about $27,000, some of them are so rare that coin experts say they could fetch nearly $1 million apiece.”
Halfway poking out of the ground too near a tree – I can’t even imagine… Except maybe while dreaming. But usually in those you try and pocket as much as you can knowing full-well you’re about to wake up and won’t be able to take them with you! Haha… (Don’t you hate it when that happens btw? Like, you KNOW you’re in a dream so you try and hide them into a “secret” place that you can find when you wake up, only it’s never there when you do? Or is that just me?).
Anyways, hat tip to my boy John from FrugalRules.com for tweeting this to me tonight…
I wonder if this new hoard will mess up values on all the others going forward? I mean, if a few of those coins are “so rare” they’ll fetch close to a million dollars, wouldn’t that mean those others out there wouldn’t be *as* rare now? Like, maybe they were worth $3 Million but now only $1 Million cuz of these new guys in the game? I’m no expert, but I feel like 1,500 new gold coins in circulation – and, GOOD quality ones – could tip the tables a bit. Not that I have any (yet) to be worried about ;)
Here’s the vid – it’s pretty wild:
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About The Author
Jay
I love coins, beer, and my kids. Not particularly in that order :) You can check out all of my online projects here: jmoney.biz.
I saw this on the news the other day too. I couldn’t believe it. I wonder how someone just forgets a bunch of old gold coins in the ground. Most likely I’d guess it be because of a sudden death and he told no one. What do you think Jay?
You know what’s funny? I was JUST reading about coin hoards and all the different types of them that archeologists use as labels, and then BAM – this story hits! I can’t for the life of me find the article now, but if I recall correctly these were the four types:
1) Emergency — People fleeing and needing to hide their valuables.
2) Forgotten — People hide/store/save stuff and then never come back to retrieve (maybe they died, or maybe they can’t remember where exactly it was hidden?)
3) Accidental — Valuables dropped, hidden somewhere by accident (like falling in the river)
4) Merchant — Companies storing them for whatever reason.
I’m probably butchering those, but I know I’ve got at least half of them right ;) This one here, to me, feels like “Forgotten” as you mentioned.
I say this because:
A) They’re all super high quality coins
B) Mainly of the same denomination/type
C) Obviously stored with purpose in the cans
If there were other denominations or scattered valuables along with it, it could be a contender for “Emergency” which is a trademark, but there wasn’t (that I know of anyways?). And since they’re all in cans and in the same spot, I doubt it would be “Accidental.” Especially being next to a big ol’ tree like that which was probably a marking spot for remembering :) Which leads us left with “Merchant.” the category I can’t remember all the way, haha… It could possibly fall into this one too since the coins are high grade (hoards can be in different categories I believe), but I’m gonna put my money on “Forgotten” – no pun intended.
Now WHY they were forgotten is a whole other story… Could have been a number of things like death and not recording it/telling anyone, etc. Perhaps they were even haunted and forgotten on PURPOSE! Haha… (that’s a sub-category of the “type” btw – I do remember that one :))
Hopefully they research it more and come up with some good specific theories! The whole thing is incredibly fascinating, and rarely do you ever find the REAL truth too… but the fun is in the adventure!