Maybe not so intelligent after all. They are Californians..... ;-)

I think that sounds like very sage advice. I would have NEVER told anybody.

Yep. They should have kept their yaps shut! Now they'll probably lose it all and even have to pay...

I went to CoinTalk.com, one of my favorite sites, and found a long discussion since last Tuesday. One fact is that one of the coins was struck at Dahlonega, which closed at the start of the Civil War, long before Walter Dimmick worked at the SF Mint: "There was a $5 Dahlonega coin in the hoard as well. Dimmick started work at the mint in 1898."

This SFGate story has better details.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Go...

Kagan is the only person to have earned a Ph.D. in numismatics from an American university. About 15 years ago, his father was arrested in Kansas City, coming home from Turkey, with "beads" that the Turkish government claimed were its "cultural patrimony." That is a whole other issue.

Thanks for the link MM. The pictures were amazing.

Thievery, the only word appropriate.

The difference between me and them is this getting to the press. I love non- disclosure agreements. Also, I would have only ever shown off a small handful of them to the coin guy after he agreed to keep his mouth shut.

$5Gold would have divided it into small lots and reburied it across the United States. Then posted a treasure hunt map anonymously on the Internet.

It is interesting that adverse possession only requires 20 years. If the gold was lost long enough, then it should be treated like someone finding a gold nugget. But the government is too GREEDY to let that happen.