Salukifan Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 Dog Walkers find US$10 million in gold coins! A Northern California couple out walking their dog on their property stumbled across a modern-day bonanza: $US10 million ($11.09 million) in rare, mint-condition gold coins buried in the shadow of an old tree. Nearly all of the 1427 coins, dating from 1847 to 1894, are in uncirculated, mint condition, said David Hall, co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service of Santa Ana, which recently authenticated them. 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. "I don't like to say once-in-a-lifetime for anything, but you don't get an opportunity to handle this kind of material, a treasure like this, ever," said veteran numismatist Don Kagin, who is representing the finders. "It's like they found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow." $US10 million worth of coins were found by a couple walking their dog. Photo: AP Kagin, whose family has been in the rare-coin business for 81 years, would say little about the couple other than that they are husband and wife, are middle-aged and have lived for several years on the rural property in California's Gold Country, where the coins were found. They have no idea who put them there, he said. Advertisement The pair are choosing to remain anonymous, Kagin said, in part to avoid a renewed gold rush to their property by modern-day prospectors armed with metal detectors. They also don't want to be treated any differently, said David McCarthy, chief numismatist for Kagin Inc of Tiburon. "Their concern was this would change the way everyone else would look at them, and they're pretty happy with the lifestyle they have today," he said. They plan to put most of the coins up for sale through Amazon while holding onto a few keepsakes. They'll use the money to pay off bills and quietly donate to local charities, Kagin said. Before they sell them, they are loaning some to the American Numismatic Association for its National Money Show, which opens on Thursday in Atlanta. What makes their find particularly valuable, McCarthy said, is that almost all of the coins are in near-perfect condition. That means that whoever put them into the ground likely socked them away as soon as they were put into circulation. Because paper money was illegal in California until the 1870s, he added, it's extremely rare to find any coins from before that of such high quality. "It wasn't really until the 1880s that you start seeing coins struck in California that were kept in real high grades of preservation," he said. The coins, in $5, $10 and $20 denominations, were stored more or less in chronological order in six cans, McCarthy said, with the 1840s and 1850s pieces going into one can until it was filed, then new coins going into the next one and the next one after that. The dates and the method indicated that whoever put them there was using the ground as their personal bank and that they weren't swooped up all at once in a robbery. Although most of the coins were minted in San Francisco, one $5 gold piece came from as far away as Georgia. Kagin and McCarthy would say little about the couple's property or its ownership history, other than it's located in Gold Country, a sprawling, picturesque and still lightly populated section of north-central California that extends east of Sacramento to the Nevada line, running through the hills and valleys of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill set off the California Gold Rush of 1848. The coins had been buried by a path the couple had walked for years. On the day they found them last spring, the woman had bent over to examine an old rusty can that erosion had caused to pop slightly out of the ground. "Don't be above bending over to check on a rusty can," Kagin said she told him. They were located on a section of the property the couple nicknamed Saddle Ridge, and Kagin is calling the find the Saddle Ridge Hoard. He believes it could be the largest such discovery in US history. One of the largest previous finds of gold coins was $1 million worth uncovered by construction workers in Jackson, Tenn., in 1985. More than 400,000 silver dollars were found in the home of a man who died in 1974 and were later sold intact for $7.3 million. Gold coins and ingots said to be worth as much as $130 million were recovered in the 1980s from the wreck of the SS Central America. But historians knew roughly where that gold was because the ship went down off the coast of North Carolina during a hurricane in 1857. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/dog-walkers-find-us10m-worth-of-rare-gold-coins-20140226-hvdv3.html#ixzz2uORs5563 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirislin Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 Far out, wouldn't it be nice. I wonder if previous owners of the property will start coming out of the woodwork. I know they're trying to keep their identity a secret but I'll bet there'll be others trying to put in a claim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC Crazy Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 WOW !!! What a life changing find... Fantastic fortune. Congratulations to the extremely lucky folks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leah82 Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 I think my OH is more likely to find something like this when he's out with his metal detector rather than walking the dogs :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purdie Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 I bet all the Professional treasure hunters would be a bit put out.. Can't think of the name of that American show where the guy digs up properties to find old valuables for a living... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandiandwe Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 American Diggers? The only thing my gang find seems to be the poop not plucked up by others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HazyWal Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Geez and I was excited when I found a $2 coin the other day while picking up Stan's poo :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trinabean Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Geez and I was excited when I found a $2 coin the other day while picking up Stan's poo :laugh: Wow, what an amazing find! I'd be happy about a $2 coin too HazyWal. I've never found anything beyond a broken thong or a discarded ciggie around here. Occasionally Bruno hits the jackpot, and finds a cat poo before I can stop him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeckoTree Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 (edited) You know how dogs can be trained to find truffles and ancient bones, I wonder if gold has a scent? They must have, minerals have a taste. Edited February 27, 2014 by DaffyDuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leah82 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 You know how dogs can be trained to find truffles and ancient bones, I wonder if gold has a scent? They must have, minerals have a taste. I'm pretty sure the quantity needed to be detected by a dog would make it kinda pointless, you're better off with a $7000 metal detector and even then they have a hard time distinguishing gold from aluminum :p I really wish I didn't know this stuff, my hobby is the dogs, OH's is finding gold, old coins and gemstones. I'm just waiting for it to pay off in shiny jewellery for me :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Gifts Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 When I was a teenager walking my OESD I always thought I'd find a dead body. We lived on the outskirts of the suburbs and there were always lots of screams and scary noises in the dead of night on this big, half dug up area near our property.. By day I would go on the hunt but never found anything exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Podengo Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 When I was a teenager walking my OESD I always thought I'd find a dead body. We lived on the outskirts of the suburbs and there were always lots of screams and scary noises in the dead of night on this big, half dug up area near our property.. By day I would go on the hunt but never found anything exciting. I'm sure I will find a dead body one day. It seems that every time a body is found it's found by a dog walker around 6am!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redsonic Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 When I was a teenager walking my OESD I always thought I'd find a dead body. We lived on the outskirts of the suburbs and there were always lots of screams and scary noises in the dead of night on this big, half dug up area near our property.. By day I would go on the hunt but never found anything exciting. I'm sure I will find a dead body one day. It seems that every time a body is found it's found by a dog walker around 6am!! ^^^ Wow, so I am not the only one who thinks this! I often walk my dog through degraded bush near a highway and think that it is just the sort of place where "a local walking their dog found the body". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wildthing Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Seems the coins had been stolen from a bank in the early 1920's and consequently the finders get nothing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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