In the 5 years it has been since this article was published, I wonder how many people have hunted for the coins? Chris
That's awfully, awfully tempting. I wonder, though, just how dangerous the terrain is, if they haven't been recovered yet. I've got some mountain-goat blood, but also a very strong drive for self-preservation. Edit: saw some photos of the terrain. Never mind. Maybe in a decade or two with a drone, if they don't ban recreational telepresence drones...
Picture 4-6 kegs of 112 year old silver coins smashed on the rocks below the cliff, bent, gouged, scratched, tarnished, weather beaten, washed downstream and buried in rubble - even if some lucky metal detectorist unearthed a few of them, they wouldn't have a great deal of collector value, just historical oddities to be donated to a museum or sold on eBay for big bucks as 'story coins' Another possibility - most were scooped up and recovered shortly after the mishap by those in the know ? Maybe an inside job - the wagon drivers removed most of the coins and pushed the wagons over the cliff?
Been there done that. I go hunting around that area above Blue Mesa Reservoir. We are talking rough country. And the Black Canyon is nothing but sheer cliffs and drop offs. If there are dimes there, they are at the bottom of that river, which is all white rapids and very inaccessible. My parents however are from Montrose CO. They went to school there. Let me tell you, if anymore coins were found by any local farmers or Native Americans, you'd never know anything was found. If anyone is interested, go read about Blue Mesa. Beautiful country. The reservoir itself is the highest elevated reservoir in the world. It is ridiculously deep as it used to be a big canyon with a town that the river flowed through. My dad used to fish in the river as a kid before they flooded the town to make the reservoir. Wood from the buildings sometimes floats up to the surface and stories of lossed coffins from the town's graveyard have also been found floating on the surface. Very interesting history in that area.
Au and AG said he made a trip to search for the coins years ago. You can find his comments below. https://forums.collectors.com/discu...ost-wagon-of-1907-d-barber-dimes-and-quarters
Like I said above, it is rough country. If the cliffs don't kill you the elevation and lack of air, if you arent used to it, will. Oh and go in the summer. Gunnison is usually one of the coldest places in Colorado during winter. The town itself sits in a valley and the cold air just sits right there on it.
I remember reading a very similar story back in the late 60's or early 70's in one of the Treasure Magazines. A wagon or maybe 2 wagons with something like 4 kegs of dimes coming from a mint but disappears. This was earlier, some time in the 1880's or so. They find the wagons burned and it was figured that Indians had attacked the wagons. The theory was, that since the Indians didn't have any need for the dimes, threw the kegs off the ledge where they were tore apart by the fall. When the wagons were found, some time later, only a few black dimes were found.
Can you imagine running your detector around there and getting a screaming signal all off a sudden. Then you get down in a crevace and find handfuls of uncirculated Barber dimes.
I read about that story a month or two ago. Is that the same hoard they say Jesse James hid? By the way, Furham. When were you with the Screaming Eagles? I was in the 3rd and 4th Brigade of the 82nd 68-70.
I hunted and became friends with a man up on the Oglala Sioux Reservation in SD many years ago. He said that his grandfather was part of a raid on a stagecoach in the area and that after they burnt the coach and killed the crew and passengers, they threw a sack of gold into a hole in a tree nearby. They didn't have a use for gold, and they didn't want Wašícu to have it as they knew white people coveted it. This is in the Bad Lands and the trees are few and far between. Always wanted to go search for it as he knew the general area but never did. It's very dry up there and wood lasts for years.
