Nope. Should have immediately opened a Swiss bank account.

I've no idea of the international legal fineries involved, but in the same position, I would have set up a private banking account in one of the nations that specializes in same, to include a safe deposit box. Then mail one or a few of the coins to said bank every few weeks with instructions to deposit them. Once all of the coins are out of the country....cash in the last one for plane tickets and spending money and follow them. This is a good time for someone with a large amount of money to become an expatriate.

Why should they have called police? Doesn't one call police when one is being robbed or attacked?

If indeed the coins may be (and I cannot imagine that can ever be proven) from a group stolen by a mint employee between 1898-1901, can the Treasury Department still have a claim? Do not abandoned property laws apply to them as well as to anyone else? When did they stop looking for the stolen coins? I would bet that it was at least a century ago. Certainly longer than any reasonable statute of limitations.

Sell them off a little at a time, but not in THIS country.

great thinking genemcdonough, I am in your court

Finders keepers, losers weepers.

To me , the story here is that $30,000 in gold in 1901 is worth $10,000.000 today. No wonder the Fed and the government replaced gold with worthless paper.

They should have kept their mouths shut!

They were either supposed to contact the police or nobody at all. They chose a half measure, talking to the press. That worked out well for them...

Think about what you do if you put physical gold into an I.R.A.

If it had been me, I would have told no-one and quietly went to another city and sold a few. My property, my coins. period.

So Taggart Transcontinental was James Taggart's by right? ;P (In the books, James clearly had primogeniture)

$5 stands corrected. Excellent idea!

Not sure, but I believe this law only applies to objects found on public property. Not on property that is privately owned and is found by the owners of the property.

I am aware that adverse possession applied to real estate - it was an analogy.

Yes the government believes it owns everything. My point is the gold is no different than a gold nugget lying on the ground if it has been lost that long.

A true entrepreneur would secretly bury that gold all over, and sold a coded treasure map at a $1000 a pop.
But, that might be considered money laundering.

Keep in mind that adverse possession applies to real property (real estate) not personal property. All that "finder's keepers" stuff I learned as a a child has been superseded by statutes which benefit the State, not me.

and now-they will likely have nothing but legal bills-
how sad. they were just walking their property

After the lawyers, government, and every other crackpot stake a claim, there will be nothing left except maybe a lawsuit to seize their property and home. Finding those coins may turn out to be the worst thing to ever happen to this couple.

Why would any intelligent person turn the discovery into the government?

Of course the government wants them to turn over the money - after all, the government believes they own everything within its borders (including its citizenry) so they have no right to keep what they found - it rightly belongs to some moocher who draws a dotgov paycheck.

Contact the police? Were it me, never. Quietly hang onto the hoard. Sell a coin occasionally if I need the money for something else, but never tell anyone how much you have and never report it as a find. If anyone at a coin store asks where you got the coin you are selling, tell them it was a gift from you grandfather when you were a kid. And don't sell any more at that store. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but that's what our government if forcing decent people into becoming.

I entirely agree. Spread it around, even sell them at pawn shops if need be. The proceeds would be less, but they'd end up keeping it all. As it is, I will not be at all surprised if this turns into a nightmare lasting a decade or more (see what various treasure hunters, notably Mel Fisher, went through to be allowed to keep a percentage of the results of decades of work). And when all is said and done, the only people who are sure to profit from this are lawyers who were not necessary in the first place.