Originally Published by and Written for TorchMedia.org
Remember when you were a kid and would find something, you
would yell out “Finders Keepers!” Yeah, that doesn't work anymore.
A family in California is finding this out the hard way. The
couple found a stash of 8 cans filled with gold coins while on a walk on their
property in what is known to Californians as “Gold Country”. For the couple the
location truly lives up to its name. The cans contain a total of 1,427 coins
dating from the mid to late 19th century, with face value of
$27,000. What is being called The Saddle Ridge Hoard could possibly be “one
of the greatest buried treasures ever unearthed in the United States”.
But the story isn't likely to bring tears of joy for very
long, as tax experts are claiming the couple could have to claim
their finding to the IRS. Another story coming out of this is that these
coins may have been part of a series of bank
robberies and heists in the California area in the late 1800’s, while a
Mint Spokesman, Alan Stump has stated, “We do not have any information linking
the Saddle Ridge Hoard coins to any thefts at any United States Mint facility”.
He went on to say that all the surviving records from the agency have been
retired to the National Archives and Records Administration. This will likely
be a long drawn out affair between the couple and the Federal Government
This brings to mind a similar case involving lost gold coins
and the government dictating what should be done with them.
In 2003 Joan
Langbord and her two grandsons took 10 coins they had found in an inherited
safety deposit box to the Philadelphia Mint for authentication. The Mint seized
the coins and refused to return them to the Langbord family. The Mint claimed
that these coins were removed from their possession illegally. The coins in question
are 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagles and were originally valued at $20 each.
After the US abandoned the gold standard, Executive Order 6102 signed by
President Roosevelt, a majority of the 445,000 double eagles were melted into
gold bars by the Treasury. How they came to be in the possession of the
Langbord family is by Joan’s father Israel Swift who had received them from a
Mint cashier after the Executive Order was signed and the cashier, not
identified, knew they would be destroyed. Israel Swift was a coin collector and
dealer in the Philadelphia area.
Skip ahead to 2011, where a
jury decided that the coins belonged to the government as they were
illegally removed, the family decided to appeal this decision. Hearing the
appeal Judge Legrome Davis of the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania,
affirmed the jury’s decision and reasoning.
“This is a case that raises many novel legal questions,
including the limits on the government’s power to confiscate property” Says the
family’s attorney Barry Berke.
Personally speaking, I see the reasoning of the jury to
determine that the coins were removed in a manner not in accordance to law;
theft is still theft and should still be treated as such. Though I have my own
question, not to harken a certain politician but at this point what difference
does it make if the family possesses these coins. Has the government been hurt
by this for 70 years now? Have they searched for them or were they just waiting
for them to turn up in time?
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