There’s been excitement in the numismatic world this week with thrilling news of the coming sale of a rediscovered coin collection.
The so-called Traveller’s Collection, like so many hidden hoards, carried echoes of instability, tragedy and war.
It was hidden as the Nazis rampaged across Europe.
Rotterdam after its bombing in 1940. War destroys, and people take desperate measures to keep things safe, including burying them.
And now it’s reckoned to be worth over $100 million.
Some important coin collections were buried or hidden to avoid tragedies like World War II.
Others disappear from the numismatic record for other reasons.
However they vanish, when they resurface they attract plenty of attention.
Here are 10 great rediscovered hoards or collections:
The Saddle Ridge Hoard
Some of the coins as they were found. Image by Kagin's Inc.
This is believed to be the most valuable US hoard, and it might be stolen gold.
Saddle Ridge is in northern California, north of San Francisco. One day in 2013 a couple discovered a buried can on their 200-acre property. John and Mary, who subsequently split up, had chanced upon one of the biggest gold finds in history.
Inside the container were coins with a face value of nearly $28,000. That figure was dwarfed by the value of a treasure of rare US coins.
With several million-dollar coins including a slew of S-marked (for San Francisco mint) Double Eagles in incredible condition the collection is believed to be worth over $10 million.
Speculation that the coins were the loot from a 1901 robbery of the San Francisco mint has been dismissed, and further theories about outlaws and secret Civil War societies are also unlikely to be proved definitively true or false.
The Kentucky Hoard
The Battle of Perryville in 1862 was just one of the encounters to worry Kentuckians on the front line of the Civil War.
As the Civil War raged through America, Kentucky tried to tread a careful line by declaring its neutrality.
It didn’t last long, and the state, on the border between Union and Confederacy, saw terrible fighting.
As a result, rich folk started digging. And the result of some of that digging was almost certainly discovered sometime in the 2020s on a Kentucky property.
The anonymous finder unearthed 700 gold coins that is likely to be worth several million dollars. The gold coins were all dated before 1863 when Morgan’s Raid through the state was one of the biggest military operations in the state.
The coins include Liberty Head Eagles, Double Eagles, and lots and lots of gold dollars.
Confederate Gold is an abiding theme in US folklore, with hoards featuring regularly in fiction and the search for the South's hidden treasury funds inspiring diggers to this day.
The Chew Valley Hoard
The death of King Harold at Hastings, a sign of regime change, and perhaps an opportune moment to secure your fortune underground.
Metal detectors dream of the sort of day Lisa Grace and and Adam Staples (and five friends) had back in January 2019.
It took until last year for the find to be sold, and when it was it was bought for £4.3 million.
The coins were silver pennies from the cusp of the Norman Conquest, dated to around 1066 to 1068. Fascinatingly, around half the coins show the final Saxon king of England, the other half, William I, the first Norman king.
Like many such finds, the Chew Valley Hoard was covered by legislation that protects “treasure” for public ownership and it is now in a museum collection.
The Baltimore Hoard
A rare and valuable Double Eagle of the type that made up much of the mysterious Baltimore Hoard.
Perhaps the best - and saddest - story here is this tale of intrepid kids in depression America.
Two boys were digging in a tenement basement in Eden Street Baltimore in the summer of 1934. They dug up a huge hoard of gold coins.
Its face value alone was $11,425.50.
And it was attractive to numismatists too, with excellent quality Double Eagles, Eagles and more.
The boys - Theodore Jones and Henry Grob - were immediately on the wrong side of the law because of the infamous Executive Order 6102, which had outlawed most private ownership of gold.
However, a judge found in their favour and they enjoyed nearly $20,000 from the auction sale of their find.
They even went back and found more coins in the same property, and, after an abortive attempt to hide them were allowed to sell those too.
Sadly, Grob died of pneumonia in 1937.
The Binion Hoard
A poker table from Binion's, the family are well-known Las Vegas operators. Image by Bobak Ha'Eri.
Casinos. Las Vegas. Maybe a murder.
What a story.
Ted Binion’s family owned a major Vegas gambling spot and hotel.
Ted put a load of his money into bullion coins, largely Morgan dollars and Peace dollars, two of the most famous issues of the US mint.
In 1998 he died.
Two day’s later his daughter’s boyfriend was discovered digging up the secret vault in which the coins were stored.
A series of trials convicted the pair of trying to take the silver, but not of killing Ted, whose huge coin collection was auctioned for $3.3 million.
The Redfield Hoard
Redfield made money in oil and property and kept it as close to him as he possibly could.
Another tycoon with a secret stash!
LeVere Redfield didn’t trust banks. Brought up in poverty he held on to what he made - on one occasion reportedly taking a serious beating from a robber in order to hang onto a bag of gambling winnings. At least once, police forced him to deposit enormous sums of silver kept in his home in banks.
But he still kept a huge collection of Morgan dollars at home. Behind false walls in his basement.
Along with a substantial - but confusing estate - Redfied’s heirs came into the silver hoard when he died in 1974.
It weighed 12 tons and was sold for $7.3 million (over $40 million today), all 407,000 coins of it.
The Black Swan
Just some of the coins from the so-called Black Swan discovery. A legal minefield. Image by Benjamín Núñez González.
We wanted to include a shipwreck because… well, people love shipwrecks.
So, here’s the largest one ever found.
Now, if this were the 18th century we’d have a lovely, simple story of swashbuckling piracy.
But this is the 21st century, so it’s a tale of legal battles.
The hoard was found on the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes.
Its value? Over £300 million.
The ship was sunk by the Royal Navy in 1804, and it was discovered and salvaged in a somewhat mysterious private operation that took years and cost millions of dollars to finance.
In 2007, the find was made public and the legal action began. These include British, Spanish and American court cases over the rights of ownership and future of an enormous hoard of colonial-era Spanish bullion coins.
It’s an extremely complicated story.
And it might not be over.
At the moment, you can go and see a good number of the coins in Spanish museums and watch a documentary about the discovery - and subsequent disputes - online.
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