Realcent.org

I dont mean in a drawer that you forgot about, I mean while metal detecting, or cleaning out an estate, or in a box lot at an auction.. or while digging in the garden. I think with the amount of silver and gold rounds and bars etc being produced nowadays, they should start being lost, only to be found later....

My son has got gold and silver out of coin counters.
Gold--http://realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22642&hilit=+gold
Silver--http://realcent.org/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=silver&t=8274&sf=msgonly&ch=-1

Usually, I'm pretty pleased to snag a wild silver dime or 40% half. I was talking with the owner of my LCS and he had an amazing customer come into his shop for an appraisal.

Two guys in their 50s came in with a bag of gold coins. Their elderly Mother had just passed away several weeks prior. Apparently, she always put up a major fuss when they wanted to buy her a new dining room table. She always told them it had "sentimental" value, but there was much more than that.

There were some unusual markings underneath the table and an arrow pointing to one of the table legs. Long story short, there were one hundred $5 Liberty and Indian gold pieces in a hollowed out table leg. These were all circulated and most were common dates, but gold is gold, after all.

I guess the lesson here is to always keep looking. My LCS owner couldn't afford to buy them (as they wanted to sell the entire lot and not let someone cherrypick the best ones), but referred them to a couple of reputable dealers who could buy them without hesitation.

So, after my grandparents died, I got a box of junk. Some of it was stuff that I was supposed to get (military stuff and the like) and some was a portion of his coin collection....well marked and documented, so not a surprise there. So as I went through the box of junk, I found a coin covered with some nasty brown syrup looking gunk. It was in a a foam and plastic holder and it said it was a commemorative coin from the 1976 Olympics. Well, not being a coin guy at the time. I just chucked it back into the box and put it into the attic. Obviously I forgot about it until one day I was cleaning crap out of the attic and came across the box. By now, I had grown to appreciate coins. As I went through the box, I stumbled across the 1976 Montreal Olympic Commemorative....still all gunky. Well, it looked like silver, so I got on the net and learned that it was silver and if I remember correctly, it was a 10 dollar coin. So I cleaned it knowing that there was no numi value in its condition and put it in a holder, and still have it to this day.

Not a huge find, but it was buried treasure. Yeah, I buried it out of ignorance, but I could have thrown it away! Score me.....

I have found 90% and gold and silver jewelry while metal detecting but the best find was from the coin counter. The machine screwed up and the gal opened it up to fix it and pulled out 3 large coins and said " these must be yours" I said no they were not because my coins were all pennies at which time she handed them to me and said well they're yours now. One of them was a 1 ounce sunshine mint round, beat all to hell but I was stoked.