A couple walking their dog found $10 million worth of rare coins
It’s straight out of a dream or a TV show: a married couple walks their dog and discovers buried treasure worth $10 million. But it actually happened, in 2013.
The treasure is the Saddle Ridge Hoard, the largest hoard of gold coins ever found in the United States. The couple, nicknamed John and Mary in the press, took care to hide their identity and the exact location where they live to prevent potential treasure hunters from showing up on their property. What we know was primarily told to the press by David McCarthy, senior numismatist and researcher at Kagin, who helped the couple appraise and ultimately sell the hoard.
“One day while they were on this path, for some reason one of them looked down and there was this possibility,” McCarthy said in a 2014 interview. “They used to find cans, nails, bullets and other strange objects from the 19th century on the property, and they used to dig up things like that because they love history.”
The couple tried to open the box with a stick, were unsuccessful, and attempted to take it home. “They went back to the house and tore the roof off and there, nestled in the dirt, was a single gold coin…the edge of a single $20 gold coin was sticking out.”
Excited, the couple went back to look for more cans and found one. So they kept looking for more.
“For about two weeks, they kept coming back to the site and finding more and more things,” McCarthy said. “They found eight cans after scouring the area with a metal detector.”
The total was 1,411 coins with a face value of approximately $28,000. The modern value was much higher, partly because of inflation, but also because many of the coins were virgin coins highly sought after by collectors. The couple, unsure of what to do after finding such a large stash of coins, eventually contacted Kagin’s, a company that appraises and helps sell rare coins and is also McCarthy’s employer.
Where do the parts come from?
There is no definitive story on where the pieces came from, but there are some clues according to McCarthy. First, the cans are in varying states of disrepair and the coins themselves were minted in years ranging from the 1860s to the 1890s. This suggests that someone was burying coins in the same location at different times. The location, less than 200 miles from the California Gold Rush, is another potential clue.
According to McCarthy, gold burying was common in Northern California in the 1800s, mainly because many people lived hundreds of miles from anything resembling a bank. “If you had $10, $20, $30,000 worth of gold that you acquired over time, you’re not going to leave it at home,” he said. “If you don’t have a bank to put it in, the only logical choice is to bury it in the ground. That’s pretty typical human behavior.”
The idea is that the person hiding the coins died before they could spend them, but also did not inform their next of kin about the hiding place. The details, however, are strange. Most of the coins were in mint condition, implying that they were never in circulation. And some were struck thousands of miles away in Georgia, implying their origin had little to do with the Gold Rush.
The truth is that there has never been a definitive explanation. We may never know who buried the coins, or why.
Where did the pieces end up?
John and Mary decided to sell the majority of the pieces. Many of them were available on Amazon, marking the first time a major coin find had been sold through the online retailer. The money was used to pay off debts and donated to charity. Two pieces were donated to the Smithsonian. And the couple kept a few pieces for themselves – they want them to become a family heirloom.
Has anyone discovered buried treasure since then?
McCarthy, in 2014, speculated that there might be other coin hordes. “There could be dozens more such discoveries,” he said. “Someone at the right time and place might find one. I hope so.”
One such discovery occurred in 2023, when 700 gold coins were found in a Kentucky cornfield. The collection was nicknamed “The Great Kentucky Hoard.” The oldest piece in the hoard dates from 1863, at the height of the American Civil War. This implies that the collection may have been buried to prevent the pieces from being seized by the invading Confederate army. But again, we may never know the exact reason why the coins were buried.
What we can see is how the pieces were found. There’s a YouTube video showing the exact moment, in case you want to feel the joy of discovering a second-hand treasure. Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover the next hiding place yourself.
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