The great treasure was in his buried backyard.
A middle-aged husband and wife have found a real pot of gold while walking their dog in the backyard. The first time they saw a side of the rusty can it barely showed, so they took it out with a stick, took it home and opened it. Inside was what looked like a batch of discs covered with dirt.
It turned out that they were not just records, but almost perfectly preserved gold coins. The 1,427 gold coins were put in rusty cans, the largest accumulation of gold coins ever discovered in the United States.
Most were minted in San Francisco between 1847 and 1894, and had an estimated value of $ 10 million in the current market. About a third of the coins were in perfect condition and had never circulated to be spent.
“It was a very surreal moment. At the beginning it was very hard to believe, ”said the man in an interview recorded by the rare currency trader who finally consulted to make sense of the finding. “I thought that at any moment an old miner with a mule would appear.”
The couple is keeping their identities and location secret for many reasons, the main one is to prevent treasure hunters from destroying their lands with backhoes.
But two months after the treasure was unearthed, they allowed coin seller Don Kagin, who helped evaluate some of the greatest sunken treasure finds in history, to offer the collection for sale.
The couple plans to keep some coins and use the rest money to pay bills and donate to local charities. On the other hand, the accumulated money from the auctions will benefit the effort to convert the Old Mint (mint in San Francisco), into a museum.
