We have had several discussions here about hiding coins around the house. Below is an article about coins that were hidden by a collector in Joplin, MO who hid coins throughout his house and has since died. His family discovered some of his hidden coins but they missed a lot of coins. When the recent tornado struck Joplin some of his hidden cache fell from the garage ceiling. I wonder how many other of his coins still have not been found. Collector’s coins rained down when tornado dropped ceiling Let your family know where you have stashed your coins.
I read about this on another forum Hobo. Gotta admire Pastor Phill for his honesty and not claiming divine intervention. Still, the house is a shambles. I'm really sorry for those folks in Joplin.....what they've gone through, the tragedy they've experianced. The town resembles Hiroshima after the (atom) bomb was dropped. Something good coming out of something bad though. The coins were re-united with the daughter of the original owner (collector). Let your Family members know where you keep your "stash" guys......
Kudos to the pastor. The old man may have had too many hiding places. As we get older it would be very easy to forget where some of our stashes are unless we had a map of where everything is.
Great story. Maybe if you're going to hide coins around your property you should write down where they all are and then store the instructions in a safe deposit box. That way, even if your heirs can't find the key to the box they can get a court order to have it drilled and then the coins will be found.
+1 Also, give them a realistic idea about selling a collection to a coin dealer. Better yet, include some business cards of reputable dealers who you wouldn't mind them seeing should they choose to not keep the coins.
Shoot, I'm leaving it in my will that they can't be sold. My future heirs might hate me but I'm gonna do my part to preserve some history.
Man, talk about a surprise, I think I'm gonna climb up in my attic and look for a hidden cache of coins.... I think I'll donate mine to a YN (like has happened to myself) when I'm old and dying....
Unfortunately, even though you write that in your will it doesn't mean it's going to happen. If the heirs don't want them, they will be sold. ...bummer.
Certified recovery expert Sooner or later someone will try to get a piece of the action here as a certified recovery expert, maybe NGC already has a branch of its business offering this service...
Let that be a lesson to all of us, to pass on our collection properly before we pass on. A related story; we had a young man contact us at our shop yesterday and tell us that he was from Joplin and lost everything, his house, his job, etc. He said he was relocating to our area and needed to sell his entire collection, in order to make ends meet. Long story short we offered him a job, doing what he loves instead and we added a knowledgeable young man to our staff and get to feel good about ourselves. So there are sometimes silver linings in these terrible clouds.
The Golden Rule in operation. The alternative is a person/company making a low lump sum offer for all coins without an itemized list of all coins with corresponding prices. That is called taking advantage.
I would say check out his ID to make sure he is really from Joplin, that he lost what he said he lost (with all the federal bucks available for this disaster, a lot of people would just wait in Joplin for the re-building).
A couple things. We did indeed check his ID, as well as going through our standard hiring procedures, which include contacting references, running a background check and a lot of other things more extensive then his ID. Not because we were particularly concerned about him, but because we do that with everyone. Also, we are not in Long Island, we are in Michigan and even more curiously, we are not a regular brick and mortar shop, so we almost never have walk ins. We buy all our inventory in bulk orders through other dealers and then we only sell over the internet, so the odds of this happening are even more remote. We just happened to be hanging out in the office on a lazy Sunday afternoon with nothing better to do and thought we might be able to help the guy by giving him a good honest valuation and offer, because the nearest regular shop is an hour or two away. As for whether or not we are a good place to work and a reputable dealer... I like to think so, but would love to hear what you esteemed Coin Talkers think of your dealings with us: Daves Collectible Coins (most people here would probably know us from eBay).
It was no problem at all. I appreciated your points and I think they were very valid. I should also mention that because he has a job now, he did not have to part with his collection, which obviously would have been heartbreaking on top of losing everything else. We are however going to sell a 1916 D Mercury Dime for him, all the proceeds of which will go directly to him. I just feel lucky that we could help in some small way.
I do FEMA disaster inspections and I am somewhat familiar with this topic. The "federal bucks" are not what you may think. Many people with significant damages are denied federal assistance or receive very little.
