Recently Discovered The "great Kentucky Hoard" Of Civil War Era Gold Coins

[Badger-NH]

 

[markinswpa]

On 6/14/2023 at 9:53 PM, Gold Seeker said:

According to the article, the identity of the finder will not be revealed, also all the coins were sent to NGC to be cleaned and graded, then the coins went be sold by GovMint which is one the biggest and best rare coin dealers in the country, so I'm sure all the bases are covered.

I would guess the finder either owns the land the coins were found on or he made a deal with the land owner.

Ok so Gov.mint is not a government agency. When I first saw that I thought maybe the coins were confiscated. Wouldn't be a surprise, really. I wonder if it was the landowner that found it. I would be happy with just one gold coin, any gold coin.

[GB_Amateur]

Two months later and we're finding out a bit more.  (I have read that the finder *was* the land owner.  Not sure if a metal detector was used.)

Oh, and AFAIK the fascist feds some claim will swoop down and confiscate/incarcerate have yet to appear.

As usual there seems to be at least a small bit of hyperbole in the news reports.  For example (paraphased) "1863 mint state 20 dollar gold pieces (aka "Double Eagles") have sold for six figures in the past."  Not true as far as my reserach is concerned.  If this hoard actually does include "finest known" (part of the hype at this point but time will tell) then six figures is almost guaranteed.  But we're not there yet.

Someone (probably picked up by other news agencies as well) has made a big deal out of Kentucky being particularly ripe for lost hordes.  I kinda doubt it is all that unusual.  I suspect a large percentage of population in history have hidden cash (count me among them ) and no particular location has the exclusive rights to those.  They are everywhere but not easily found (to state the obvious).

800 gold coins is pretty amazing given that most of us will never find a single one in our lifetimes.  But, hey, as I write this both of the big USA lotteries are over $500 million, and finding a gold coin is many orders of magnitude more likely than winning one of those.   "So you're telling me there's a chance..."

 

[blackjack]

Yes I agree with George Kinsey and Doc Bach, if the find was on public land keep it to yourself, obviously if it's on someone else's land they need to get a share. With out doing a fact check, but from what I've been told the government changed the 'ownership laws' in the 1970's when people started finding shipwrecks on the West Australian coast, mostly Dutch ships on their way to the 'Spice Islands'. It was at a time when longitude was hard to calculate and many ships following the westerly winds didn't turn 'left' in time and ended up wrecked on the W.A. coast. Strangely since the laws have been changed few shipwrecks have been discovered !