Saddle Ridge Gold Coin Hoard

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No, they were money and had no intrinsic value higher than their face value. More specifically, they were 90% Gold and 10% Copper.

 

Money/bullion, basically no difference in value, not at the time anyway.

 

Actually there was a big difference since paper bills were considered money.

 

You would never have gotten coins like these unless you knew the bank's president and he set them aside for you or if you had other inside connections.

 

or you brought your own gold dust in for coining, as was standard practice for the time

 

Let me spell it out for you. You said they were M...O...N...E...Y, then I said they were money, then you say that bills were money too, and you're correct. However, I was simply using the same word you used.

So, here's what the idea is: $20 gold coins = near bullion

 

Not a prospectors stash... a miner's stash, and a successful miner at that!! The California gold rush in the Sierra Nevada started in 1848, and that was the main reason these coins were minted in the first place (Double Eagles were authorized to be minted in 1849). British Columbia tried to issue $10 and $20 gold coins in 1862, due to the Cariboo gold rush, prior to confederation. The $5 and $10 coins for Canada (1912-1914) were also made due to the amount of raw gold prospectors and miners were exchanging with the banks at the time.

It would be interesting to try and cross-reference the former owners of the nearby mining claims from the later dates that are on the coins in the hoard... if someone really cared enough to really want to know... given how often claims were sold, or leased to others to work the claims, or lapsed claims reclaimed, I suspect the list is long...

 

So how did the "prospector" get the 66-s no motto along with all the gem plus $20 gold coins? McCarthy said many of them don't have a bag mark on them. He did not supply plausible scenarios how those $20 gold coins came from minting to those cans as gem like coins.

 

Gold veins,nuggets and dust also coins+Jewelry give us a fever once infected can harm.But always worth it's weight whatever the time always worth what market will pay!
1 more note
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/us/california-gold-discovery/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Coin World noted there was a 1852-O $20.00 in this hoard but was damaged Pcgs just tag it Genuine. If you ck out all posted links 1892-S is all they show has anyone got a link that shows the compete hoard???

 

Those coins, when collected by whoever put them in the ground were probably collected as Specie. Yes, they were money, yes they were gold, but more importantly they were hard currency. Remember that the paper dollar, as we know it federally didn't come about until the Civil War, with mass inflation on the paper. It was seen as soft currency, which was the reason that people hoarded specie. Most likely I would postulate that this person was a left over from that time and had grown to hoard specie, much like grandparents from the great depression continued to hoard little things they might need, "just in case."

 

Bingo!

 

Plus, banks couldn't be trusted and depending on when the coins were buried, our illustrious government demanded everyone turn in their gold.

 

These points still do little to address the high state of gem condition of these coins or any of the alternate theories that they were from a robbery.

 

Those theories provide little facts to support the coins are from those thefts.

 

if a gold miner stashed his haul of freshly minted coins on every trip back out to the claim and was then killed before he could reclaim them it should explain the high mint state

 

"Don Kagin, the Tiburon coin dealer and rare-coins author who is shepherding the sale of the hoard for the couple who discovered it in their Gold Country back yard, said the mint theory is just one of hundreds popping up – from people claiming their great-grandfathers buried it to stories of Black Bart or other bandits hiding their stash. Some say the coins were found in Jackson, among other cities – but Kagin said they are all wrong, and the couple are keeping their identity secret.

“'If anybody wants to send us a list of missing coins with some specifics, we’ll be happy to help them out,” Kagin said. “But not a single theory that has come to us indicates this hoard came from anything other than a single person who didn’t trust banks. The attorneys of the owners of the coins thoroughly searched property records and researched this, and the only thing they could determine is that whoever buried the coins might have been in the mining industry.'”http://blog.sfgate.com/stienstra/2014/03/04/gold-coin-update-heist-explanation-unlikely/#21188101=0

What do you think the chance that anyone could be successful in presenting a missing gold coin inventory list to Kagin's that he is going to say "Eurika! I think we have a winner!"?
Oh, and remember the large Australian gold nugget that Kagin tried to auction off as the largest California nugget ever found?
http://artdaily.com/news/48881/Dupe...ually-Australian-and-Worth-Less-#.UxsSivldU8Q

 

CoinWorld: Mint, researchers dispel Saddle Ridge RUMOR!

http://www.coinworld.com/insights/m...um=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=

 

“First of all, and most importantly, the vault from which Dimmick stole the $30,000 in double eagles was the Cashier’s working vault. This vault was used for daily business transactions and would have only contained all denominations of coin made during that fiscal year ending June 30th, 1901. That means that all of the coins within that vault would have been dated 1900 or 1901. If the mint still had older issue coin it would have been stored in the basement vaults, or would have been melted or recoined by that time. "
Has that been proven, what is the evidence in the archives/records? Remainder bags as well as other possibilities would explain the discrepancy. After the shortfall was discovered how did they do the thorough inventory work? Others believe it was not Dimmick but Cole who was the likely thief due to suspicious circumstances behind how Cole worked so hard to finger Dimmick.

“Secondly, Dimmick stole only double eagles, and the recent discovery contained several other denominations, and mints."
Absolutely proof of nothing, as other denoms. and mints could be explained in many ways. There were lots of cc mint gold in circulation at the time, the trip from SF to CC was not that great.

“Lastly, had Dimmick known where the coins were, he most likely would have gone and retrieved them after he was released from prison, and lived for many years after that time.”
Not if it had been his supervisor who had stolen them. Cole died soon after the conviction of Dimmick. And you can be sure that Dimmick had detectives shadowing him when he got out of San Quentin.

You can probably discount the possibility of Black Bart being the source; also Jesse James.

 

1 thing we will never know is 100% facts of Who or Whom What Where and When as it's sounds like Who or whom what where and when was taken his or her grave.
Maybe that grave is not to far from where found but no one looking for who as hard as why 1427 Gold coins were in ground maybe more yet to be found somewhere around the area.
*/* If the coins could talk what a story that would be.
All we can do is hunt records land deeds and news accounts of past and hope the answer is there.