Sorry to keep everyone hanging, for some reason I can't access Coin Talk at work anymore. Anyway, thanks for all the well-wishes regarding my wife's grandmother. The latest update is that the lawyer is in possession of the coins, and I hope he has them someplace secure! Everything I've heard about him is positive, that he's as honest as the day is long, and has been friends of the family for years. My father-in-law's (who found the suitcase) birthday party is Monday, and I'm going to ask him if we can set up an appointment with the lawyer to catalog the coins. Hobo, I guess the suitcase handle barely held up, my father-in-law,(who is a strong guy) said he could barely lift it. Finally, this is definitely NOT another 1916-D Mercury dime story. My access to CT is limited to the weekends now, but I'll post more news as soon as I can. Thanks again for the kind words.
I too really hope your grandmother completely recovers. Being a grandfather and a very old person that has had my share of illnesses I seriously hope the best for her. Now as to the coins. That was really dumb, if I must say so, on the part of anyone to give them to an attorney. Sure, everything you heard about him is possitive, honesst and a freind of the family. Everyone is something like that untill money is involved. I just don't understand why he just didn't give them to you to hold. A direct relative is not necessarily the greatest person on Earth to trust but compared to an outsider and an attorney is just not smart. For example is something should happen to your grandmother, he would be obligated by law to distribute those as part of an inheritance or he would face criminal charges himself, be sued by other family members, etc. This would mean regardless of who gets what they would be subjected to taxes, fights amonst relatives and just a not to good situation. To late now though. Sort of like saying to close the barn door after all the horses left.
The lawyer's actual obligations depend on the state. Without a will, the distribution of the estate varies from state to state. And even if there is a will, the rules to challenge it vary widely. The best suggestion would be to convince grandmother-in-law to give the coins as a gift now. As long as she's still of sound mind, the lawyer would turn them over, and would probably gladly do so, as coins aren't exactly an efficient use of the lawyer's safe or safety deposit box and it would help him avoid the legal situation you describe.
UPDARTE: There is no update, really. My father-in-law is going to Sanibel next Wednesday, so I'm going to have my wife nudge him a little to see if we can make an appointment with the lawyer to look in that suitcase. Stay tuned!
UPDATE: My wife's grandmother passed away a few weeks ago, and as I stated earlier, the suitcase full of coins is being kept at the lawyer's office. I believe the reading of the will is going to be this week, so at that point I can give everyone an update as to how the coins are going to be distributed. Keep you posted.
In this scenario, for your own sake and since it was not a stranger but a family member, I would have taken that suit case home and nobody would have ever known about it. I regret to hear that she has passed. Had she survived for the next 10 years, the assisted living home would have required all of her assets to be liquidated to pay for the stay. The coins would have been gone. Very rarely is a will written without legal holes in it. To give anything away as a gift, in my state anyway, the asset has to be given away 7 years in advance BEFORE the person goes to assisted living. Otherwise, those coins, her house and every asset is immediately the property of the state. Nobody has any right to it. I know your scenario sounds like the right thing to do but besides all this, I would never trust anyone else to hang on to them and/ or keep them safe. That's just my first impression of this. Congrats on the find though. Keep us posted.
UPDATE: Well, I finally got to take a look at the contents of the suitcase my father-in-law found in his mother's attic. While it's not exactly the "hoard" that I was hyperventilating over, it still was a pretty nice find. First , there were 43 Morgans. No key dates or CC's, but did include an '86-S and uncircultated 1884, 1899, 1900, and 1901. About 25 Peace dollars, again all commons. I'll need a little help with this one. A silver dollar-sized coin, "Republica Mexicana", 1877. 8 R. Do C.P. 10Ds. 20G. Any idea what this is? Also were Large Cents from 1818, 1826, 1848, and 1851. Scattered about were some SLQ's, Barber quarters, and 1861 Seated dime, Buffalo Nickels, War Nickels (complete set), Indian Head cents, including a replica 1877 that is about 1/3 actual size. Now, this is where the weight of the suitcase comes into play. There were mint sets and proof sets dating from the mid-sixties to the early eighties. My wife's grandfather also served in WWII, so that would explain the 12 proof Ikes in the big brown cases, and several rolls of circulated Ikes. There was about 40 OBW rolls of 1973-S cents. Another nice find was a 2 inch stack of $2 bills from the 50's and 60's. Although it wasn't the hoard I had advertised last year, it was still a lot of fun going through this little bit of family history with my father-in-law. Oh, I almost forgot the best part, he gave them all to me!!
I"m sorry about your grandmother. When I read the post above, it doesn't sound similar to your first post. What happened to the 1872 silver dollar? What happened to "bags of buffalo nickels" and "packed" with silver dollars? Are you sure you got back the same coins you left with the attorney?
Actually, I was going on hearsay alone when I first posted. The only explanation I have for the 1872 was the 1877 Mexican dollar I described (I was hoping that would have been my first trade dollar!). I asked my father-in-law about the bag of nickels, and he kind of looked at me a little sheepishly and said he couldn't tell a buffalo nickel from a buffalo. I had that same thought running through my mind too. This stash was basically out of our hands for almost a year, and anything can happen in that time. But, I've never met the attorney, and he's been friends of my wife's family for years. I'm going to look at it as a nice gift from a great guy. Funny story. My five-year old son loves coins as much as I do, and he came along with me to look at them last Friday night. He sat there with his big magnifying glass screaming out whenever he found a mint mark. Anyway, at the end of the evening, when my father-in-law told me he was giving me the coins, I had to tell him "Absolutely not, they belong to you, your father collected these", etc. He fired back, "You love coins and you're the reason I insisted on getting these!" We were going back and forth for a while, when I see Brendan, tears in his eyes, trying to lift the box off the chair saying, "If you don't want them Dad, I'll take them!"
Mexico 8 reales struck at the Durango mint The CP are the assayers initials Carlos Leon De La Pena. The 10D 20G is a weight designation. Catalog # is KM 377.4
