$1 billion in U.S. coins buried?

[bergie]

Figuring the U.S. is more than 9,000,000 square miles including water and accounting for wilderness and dense population, my guess is an average of face value in buried coins (not to mention other stuff) of $100 per square mile or about $1 billion in buried coins. Of course, much of it under water, cement buildings and otherwise not accessible. Any thoughts on this estimate?

 

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[southern gent]

I have a spot that I'm trying to get permission to dredge that contains , best we can figure, about three thousand dollars worth of coins. The dates range from early thirties to present. Of course it is'nt about the values IT'S ABOUT THE TREASURE> So I think you may even be a bit low on that assesment. I figure the first values I would count would be from robberies that were not recovered. Then figure from the 1800's to the late 60's people did'nt trust banks. Many who burried their loot died before recovering it. Then you have the just plain lost coinage and of course jewlery. I can't remember what show it was (on discovery channel I think) but the government made a guess at how much lost/ damaged money there is out there. I think they estimated somewhere in the 1.5 billion dollar range. Thats a lot of lost money!.
C ya.

 

[lab rat]

The U.S. Mint has published estimates of unaccounted silver presumed lost as coins. I think it was in the ballpark of $15 million in face value. I forget where I saw the U.S. Mint report, but I know there is one.

 

[dfxdude]

I've heard there is more coins in or under the ground than there is in circulation. Makes sense as I have been MD'ing for a little over 2 years(28 months) and have picked up 8,500 coins from the earth. Multiply that by over 200 Million people in USA and that comes up to 17 Billion in coins without designation as to value. I'm sure many of you oldtimers have quite a few more in your overall take.

 

[Lowbatts]

I am making every effort to be the Mickey D's of clad:

Over 40 billion found!

Need to borrow some knees, backs and lifetimes first...