$10,000,000 Saddle Ridge Hoard (Official Topic)

Denco, thank you for the information.

That was an interesting read, now only time will tell.

I would have done this completely different. I would have kept quiet about it and sent maybe 3 to 5 coins at a time to be graded and conserved if need be. I'm not sure if I would sell any or all, though. That's a tough call without actually being in the situation.

The more I think about this, perhaps there were more coins and they "just" reported this many. Who's to say.

Journalists are always looking for some "angle". In my opinion the whole premise of the "they could face arrest" part of this article is ridiculous. You do not "lose" something by deliberately burying it in the ground. Clearly these coins were intentionally abandoned, and are not lost property. Half the article is a waste of time.

I also hate it when articles try to make a case and then get the facts wrong. "500 coins were stolen by Dimmick - only 73 coins less than the 1,427 discovered at Saddle Ridge" - 1373 Saddle Ridge coins were double eagles, and Dimmick stole 1500 not 500, so the difference is 127 coins. Did Dimmick really spend $2540 in stolen loot (a huge amount in 1901) while under intense scrutiny from an army of agents, and not have it show up in court as evidence? I'm still not buying the Dimmick theory.

Of course people are going to be crawling out of the woodwork claiming it was great-grandpa Billy Joe Bob, so we'll be reading about this for years I think.

For those coins to be in such excellent condition they had to have been spirited out of the mint, one or two at a time, over many, many years. I suspect it was a long time trusted employee who had unfettered access who was just padding his retirement. Most likely he died shortly after the last coins (1894?) were canned. He started this in the mid-1850's and kept it up over 40 years. It is not unreasonable that he could have done this without raising a flag. A couple of coins a week for 40 years would be just about right for the quantity recovered.

If he had been going to a local banking house and buying gold coins every week during that period his mix would have been more diverse and the conditions would have been even more broad.

A little bit of research into former long time mint employees who lived in that area, or owned property in that area, might eventually unravel this mystery.

If they can be traced back to a former mint employee then this could get real interesting.

I'm with dave700x. But, I'd slowly sell them one by one.

Jeez. I'm getting myself a nice metal detector. And moving out west.