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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I went to CoinTalk.com, one of my favorite sites, and found a long discussion since last Tuesday. One fact is that one of the coins was struck at Dahlonega, which closed at the start of the Civil War, long before Walter Dimmick worked at the SF Mint: "There was a $5 Dahlonega coin in the hoard as well. Dimmick started work at the mint in 1898."

This SFGate story has better details.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Go...

Kagan is the only person to have earned a Ph.D. in numismatics from an American university. About 15 years ago, his father was arrested in Kansas City, coming home from Turkey, with "beads" that the Turkish government claimed were its "cultural patrimony." That is a whole other issue.

$5Gold would have divided it into small lots and reburied it across the United States. Then posted a treasure hunt map anonymously on the Internet.

It is interesting that adverse possession only requires 20 years. If the gold was lost long enough, then it should be treated like someone finding a gold nugget. But the government is too GREEDY to let that happen.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Finders keepers, losers weepers.

great thinking genemcdonough, I am in your court

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.

Nope. Should have immediately opened a Swiss bank account.

Thievery, the only word appropriate.

The difference between me and them is this getting to the press. I love non- disclosure agreements. Also, I would have only ever shown off a small handful of them to the coin guy after he agreed to keep his mouth shut.

These fools 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...

They should have kept their mouths shut!