In 2018, when five jars of coins, brimming with the heft of gold and chime of silver, were dug from the dirt of an old Tennessee farmhouse, the discovery spoke volumes: Buried treasure still exists.
What else is hidden beneath farmland or tucked in rafters of forgotten barns? Plenty and then some, according to recent history: Saddle Ridge Hoard, Baltimore Hoard, Great Kentucky Hoard, Vermont Yankee Hoard, Montana Hoard, and more.
“Forgotten or hidden caches really are out there,” says Kyle Dunbar, a well-respected coin and precious metals dealer in Nashville. “People don’t realize it, but burying wealth is not just a practice of the past. It’s happening now.”
Concealed beneath a fieldstone wall, the five jars of coins in the Tennessee hoard ranged from the late 1800s to the early 1900s and included an abundance of pre-1933 gold. Their discovery, made by the most improbable alignment of erosion, sun, and vantage point, was a formula of coincidence. Or was it? Does a treasure pick its own time to talk?
“I could see almost right away the coins were real,” recalls Dunbar, who purchased the hoard. “The smell and patina matched the origin story. A true rarity: Buried treasure.”
Rare is Rare
Seated in his office at Nashville Gold & Coin in early 2018, owner Kyle Dunbar answered a blind phone call, anticipating a collector’s request or an investor’s inquiry. Instead, he listened as a middle-aged couple, John and Jane Doe, dropped opaque hints: old, gold, silver, coins.
Highly esteemed in the industry as a straight shooter, Dunbar remained guarded, attempting to piece together a puzzle. In earlier days, his enthusiasm would have won the moment. However, after decades of experience, he leaned on caution.
“When I first got into the business professionally, it wasn’t uncommon to get a call from someone who’d be super-excited. I’d get excited with them. But then later, I might have to break everybody’s heart when they showed me the items they had. And it wasn’t necessarily that anyone was dishonest, but rather they simply didn’t have what they thought, or maybe they’d gotten stuck with a reproduction.”
“A lot of times in this business, there’s a whole lot on the line concerning value. Therefore, being cautious and transparent is crucial. When your gut tells you something is not quite right, it’s probably not. Rare things are rare for a reason.”
Dunbar poked for detail. What types of coins do you think you have? Gold? Silver? Both? American? Foreign? Denomination? Years?
Coins unseen, he believed the couple was truthful and he suspected their trove was the real McCoy. But he had to tread lightly. “I always assume other dealers have been or will be called. That’s entirely understandable and reasonable. So, sometimes you just wait and leave the ball in their court.”
Several weeks later, the couple phoned again: Would you want to see a few of the coins?
Out Came the Story
Rubber met road. Weeks later, skeptical and a touch jumpy, John and Jane walked into Dunbar’s office. At first, they peppered him with questions, trying to gauge his integrity.
Ten minutes later, out spilled two handfuls of coins. From the jump, Dunbar knew the coins were authentic. “Oh yeah. Most of it was pre-1933 gold. Much of it was over 100 years old, with a lot of Morgan and Peace dollars mixed in.”
Significantly, the coins had a peculiar appearance and feel. “I could tell where they’d likely come from: underground or stored in a damp environment. They had patina and smelled musty.”
Legitimacy established, Dunbar moved to origin. “Everything has to be aboveboard. I have to make sure I’m not buying anything stolen. I have to do my due diligence. At first, like most people who make remarkable finds, these people understandably were reluctant to trust me. And then out came the story of the mason jar hoard.”
Casseroles and Congealed Salads
No metal detector. No map. Just a moment in time.
John and Jane bought a farmhouse in southern Middle Tennessee, from an elderly man with no heirs. The home sat by itself, surrounded by significant acreage. Months beyond purchase, following the former owner’s death, the couple hired a worker to clean gutters.
Perched atop a ladder while removing debris, the hired man glanced across the back yard toward a perimeter wall of stacked fieldstone. His eyes caught a peculiar reflection of sunlight at the wall’s base. He descended the ladder, walked to the wall, and saw the exposed source of the shimmer: metallic lids. Rain runoff had eroded soil, exposing the tops of several jars.
He alerted John and Jane, and the trio dug up five quart-sized mason jars, each packed with precious metal. Uncertain of value, they telephoned Dunbar, provided a few samples, and slowly built a rapport. Months after the initial discovery, John and Jane invited Dunbar to their local bank to view the entire cache in the secure confines of a conference room.
Dunbar walked into the small-town bank on Customer Appreciation Day, literally passing a potluck of casseroles and congealed salads before accessing the gold and silver in a rear conference room.
On a central table, Dunbar examined the hoard. “It was all as described. Hundreds of coins.”
“There’s no way to be certain, but my opinion is the coins were buried by the old man,” Dunbar contends. “That’s not for sure. However, from the appearance of the coins, my best guess is that they’d been buried for several decades. Therefore, I’d put him down as the man who hid them.”
How to determine value?
“You’ve got to consider multiple factors,” Dunbar explains. “Certainly, the bulk of value in this collection was in the underlying metal. However, other factors include rarity. Different mints produced a certain amount of coins each year, and some were very low in production. You factor in how few of them were made and how few of them survived. Also, a lot of U.S. coins made prior to 1933 were taken by the government when FDR confiscated all the gold and made private ownership of gold illegal. Those coins were melted into bars, further increasing scarcity.”
Condition is also relevant. John and Jane Doe’s hoard had significant weathering, Dunbar continues. “Their coins were exposed to the elements, so condition affects value. One thing I’ll always advise is don’t clean a coin, because that’ll hurt the value. Only clean if it’s a genuine restoration project where it’s done under a microscope by professionals who know what they’re doing. That’s not something that even I can do and certainly not something the public can do. Otherwise, leave coins in the found condition.”
Dunbar bought the Tennessee hoard at a pretty price. “It was a very substantial sum of money,” he notes. “I’m not sure what they paid for the entire property, but those coins gave back a sizable chunk of what they paid for the whole place.”
Nooks and Crannies
How many times in the past century have coin hoards surfaced on farmland or in old houses? Beaucoup.
1934: Baltimore Hoard. While digging in the basement of a three-story house, two Maryland teens, Theodore Jones, 16, and Henry Grob, 15, found two copper pots containing 3,558 U.S. gold coins from the 1830s-1850s, face value of $11,420.50. In 1935, at the same house, the boys dug another hoard of gold coins, face value of $10,000. The origin of the coins, all gold, remains unknown.
1974: Redfield Hoard. Eccentric self-made millionaire LaVere Redfield didn’t trust banks or paper money. He trusted silver. Redfield accumulated over 407,000 uncirculated silver dollars, hiding them in the nooks, crannies, and walls of his Reno, Nevada home. Upon his death from a heart attack at 76, the silver hoard, weighing over 10 tons, was discovered. In today’s market, Redfield’s coin trove is valued in the tens of millions of dollars.
1996: Vermont-Yankee Hoard. Alexander and Imogene Miller looked poor as sawmill rats. Instead, their rags were riches. After their deaths (Alexander at 87 in 1993; Imogene at 79 in 1996), a $3 million treasure was found on their East Orange, Vermont farm. It included gold coins, gold bars, and silver bars tucked into crawl spaces. At least $1 million in gold bullion was stashed in a wood pile and beneath floorboards of an old schoolhouse on the farm property. They had no heirs.
1998: Midwest Mega-Hoard. Upon the death of an unnamed Midwest grocery store owner, 1.7 million (7.6 tons) uncirculated Indian Head cents, Liberty nickels, and Buffalo nickels were discovered secreted in the walls and under the floorboards of his house.
1998: Montana Hoard. On his deathbed, George Bouvier revealed a colossal secret: 8,000 coins in coffee cans hidden or buried around his house and shop. The cans contained 17,000 silver dollars. The sale value was kept under wraps.
2013: Saddle Ridge Hoard. In the Sierra Nevada foothills, a California couple, known only as John and Mary, found a rusty can sticking out of the dirt on their 200-acre private property. They dug out a chain of eight canisters containing 1,427 U.S. gold coins from the 1800s (in near mint condition) with a face value of $27,980, worth at least $10 million.
2023: Great Kentucky Hoard. An unnamed row crop farmer found over 700 U.S. gold and silver coins buried in a freshly plowed cornfield. Reportedly, the hoard sold for $3 million.
Blood Runs Hot
How many hoards, buried in dirt or tucked in false walls, are yet to be found?
“I don’t believe everyone should start digging up their backyard, but the fact is hidden hoards are out there,” Dunbar says. “I can’t speculate on quantity, but considering frequent concealment across centuries and decades, these hoards will continue to present themselves.”
Buried gold makes the blood run hot. It carries a thrill related to money, history, and secrecy.
“The idea of finding a forgotten hoard of buried treasure has fascinating appeal because on top of the instant accumulation of wealth, you’re also digging up a story and someone’s lost motivations.”
“Generational wealth, passed from one generation to the next, rests on three pillars,” Dunbar adds. “First, land. Nobody is making more. Second, artwork. Paintings and sculptures have enduring value over time. Third, precious metal. If you know nothing about art, and you know you can’t typically cash out land in a hurry, then gold and silver are the surefire means for many people to preserve wealth.”
“We’re now in the digital age, and we’re experiencing technological changes almost by the day.Guess what? People are still wanting to get their hands on old-school gold and silver,” Dunbar concludes. “More than likely, someone is hiding gold coins in a mason jar or some other kind of vessel on their property or farmland right now.”
Indeed. Always have; always will.
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
