I had an encounter with an interesting character yesterday afternoon. Somehow we started talking old pennies and he mentioned he found a good number of $3 gold coins while his septic tank was being dug up a couple years ago. The home was built in the mid 1800s and he is debating on selling these coins. My question is would a $3 coin that has been in the ground for 150 years have any collector value?
There's no real way to answer that ... it depends entirely on the condition of the coins! Dirty isn't really a problem, they can be cleared (safely) by someone who knows what they're doing; damaged is a different story ...
The lady is right, gotta see the coins. But gold is impervious to almost everything in the ground that could corrode it. Even gold coins recovered from saltwater and encrusted in coral after over a 100 years are often not harmed.
Almost all of the $3 gold pieces had dramatically low mintages. 1854 & 1878 are the common dates, but even these command a pretty high price by most folks' standards. Most other dates pretty much start at $800 though. If he would let you take a picture of the coins, I'm sure we'd all like to look them over and give you a better idea as to value. Sweet find!
