California Couple Finds $10 Million in Gold Coins in Back Yard

A couple in California stumbled across the most valuable buried treasure find in U.S. history, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, when they discovered rusting cans on their property that contained 19th-century gold coins with a face value of over $28,000 and a market value of more than $10 million. 

The coins include several rare finds, including an “1866-S No Motto Double Eagle,” which the Times‘ Ruben Vives reports is worth more than $1 million.

The find was announced Tuesday by Kagin’s, Inc., which deals in rare coins:

While taking their dog on his daily walk across their property, a couple noticed a partially buried can jutting out of the ground.

Using a stick, they were able to dislodge the can and decided to carry it back to their house.  The can was unusually heavy, but nothing could have prepared them for what they would find when they pried the lid open: mixed in with dirt and stones, they could see the edges of numerous U.S. $20 gold pieces–a literal pot of gold!

They returned to the site and immediately located the remains of another can, buried a bit deeper and about a foot to the left of the first can.  Rust had consumed about half of the can’s sides, exposing another cache of gold coins.  Repeated trips to the site (and the help of a metal detector) eventually uncovered a total of eight cans filled with over 1,400 rare U.S. gold coins.

This turned out to be just the beginning of their good luck – somehow, despite being buried for over a hundred years, many of the coins were preserved in pristine condition; some being finer than anything seen to date.

Stumbling across buried treasure is an apt metaphor for the financial planning of California’s politicians, who seem to hope that sheer luck will rescue them from staggering debts and unfunded liabilities. 

There is, in fact, wealth buried underground in California, but the state’s environmental lobby is too busy whipping up hysteria over non-problems like fracking in Los Angeles to consider the actual scientific evidence on safe oil drilling, onshore and offshore.