A California couple had stumbled upon gold coins while walking their dog in their property and now reports suggest that the rare coins could be a part of the loot from a U.S. mint in 1901.
In the spring of 2013, the anonymous couple spotted an old tin can on a path they usually hiked. The tin can contained 1,427 gold coins, dating from 1847 to 1894. According to the Professional Coin Grading Service of Santa Ana, which recently authenticated the coins, most of the gold coins were in mint condition and had never been circulated.
Kagin Inc's Donald Kagin, a Ph. D in numismatics who also represents the couple, say that the coins have a face value of $27,000 but are now worth $10 million.
"Since 1981, people have been coming to us with one or two coins they find worth a few thousand dollars, but this is the first time we get someone with a whole cache of buried coins... It is a million to one chance, even harder than winning the lottery," Kagin told ABCNews.com.
Jack Trout, a historian and coin collector, suggests that the rare gold coins may have been robbed from a San Francisco Mint. Trout also adds that a San Francisco Mint employee named Walter Dimmick, was also convicted for stealing $30,000 worth of gold coins from the mint's vault over a long period of time. The gold coins may be a part of that robbery.
"This was someone's private coin, created by the mint manager or someone with access to the inner workings of the Old Granite Lady (San Francisco Mint)," said Trout. "It was likely created in revenge for the assassination of Lincoln the previous year (April 14, 1865). I don't believe that coin ever left The Mint until the robbery. For it to show up as part of the treasure find links it directly to that inside job at the turn of the century at the San Francisco Mint."
Trout feels very strongly that the gold coins were stolen from the San Francisco Mint; however, one of the $5 gold coins seems to have come from a mint in Georgia and not San Francisco.
A spokesman for the U.S. Mint says that the U.S. government does not have any claims on the gold coins.
