Carson City Morgan Dollar Insanity!!

bigcaddy64

Hero Member
Apr 20, 2013
818
1,173
Fullerton, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Carson City Morgan Dollar Insanity!! Long Story but Worth It

Hello there fellow treasure hunters,

This might not be the most orthodox "treasure find" but it was to me and i decided to share it with everybody on here. I'm a very new member on here and joined because i had an interest in getting a metal detector and combing the family lands back east.

I also happen to be an avid estate/garage sale frequenter and this is where my story starts.

Work had been a total bear and i was looking forward to my long weekend but work had other plans. They were trying to get me to come in on friday, which wasn't going to happen, because I work 10+ hour days and i use the Friday/Saturdays off to hunt at sales.

As i was enjoying my Friday off, with no particular sale to go to, i decided to swing by the UPS store and ship out something. On the way there, i noticed a house on a side street with a lot of old, yellowed cardboard boxes on the driveway. I said "what the hell" and turned around. The people in the garage said they were prepping for a one day sale on saturday. They drove in from out of state to stage and sell the entire contents of the home. Once the sale was over, they were out the door and not coming back. since they were lacking in the man-power department, they asked If i wanted to help out, and if i did, i could buy anything i found.:thumbsup:

Now i could not turn down an offer like that, especially since the lady obviously needed help with the heavy stuff so off i went. There must of been hundreds of boxes of stuff. There were tools, housewares, car stuff and tons of old radio items. I ended up buying a lot of radio stuff from the 1940s for my brother and i bought lots of tools. As i was looking for a box to load my junk in, i saw a box with a bunch of car manuals on the bottom. They were all 1960s GM vehicles so i dumped my stuff in there and loaded it up.

The next day was a busy one and i never got a chance to really sort though much of my buys. This isn't unusual, my garage is full of boxes dated from when they were purchased, awaiting sorting and being listed on ebay.

Late sunday evening i was able to finally check out my tools and car manuals. To my immediate dismay, the box only had 5 manuals on the bottom......or so i thought. Underneath the manuals, i saw a even layer of dark blue boxes. I fished one out and opened it up. Inside were another 5 individual boxes.

At this point, i'm starting to get really excited so i open the box. Inside of the small box is a presentation case with a sealed GSA Carson City Morgan Silver Dollar inside. :headbang:

Then i do the math. 5 per box, 9 boxes= 45 coins + another 20 individual mailers. You could buy the coins originally in a bulk pack of 5 or "premium" coins individually.

The worst part about finding them was there was nobody home to celebrate with. I don't think my cat will ever look at me the same after our celebration dance that afternoon.

Once the girlfriend got home, i told her and she was blown away. 65 uncirculated CC Morgan dollars, hidden in a box, in the back of a dirty old garage. IMG_0337.JPG IMG_0340.JPG IMG_0342.JPG
 

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DFW_THer

Bronze Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,184
1,493
Coinslaughtersville
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Primary Interest:
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No one just throws out or away $9,000 to $13,000 worth of coins! There must be a reason why they were left behind.

Sometimes there really isn't a reason... People put money away every day, and in the strangest places, and the only person that knows a single thing about the cache is the person that hides it. It belongs to the person that hides it and they have no intention of giving it to someone after they are gone, and most of the time it is simply forgotten about and thrown away. The finder here saved a huge pile of CC Morgans from heading to the landfill. Wow! Just wow!
 

OP
OP
B

bigcaddy64

Hero Member
Apr 20, 2013
818
1,173
Fullerton, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Sometimes there really isn't a reason... People put money away every day, and in the strangest places, and the only person that knows a single thing about the cache is the person that hides it. It belongs to the person that hides it and they have no intention of giving it to someone after they are gone, and most of the time it is simply forgotten about and thrown away. The finder here saved a huge pile of CC Morgans from heading to the landfill. Wow! Just wow!


I shudder at the thought of those coins going to a land fill but who knows what would of happened to them. This particular find isn't an everyday occurrence but i do find other types of "treasure" every weekend when i go out to sales and poke around in old garages/houses. The small finds are what keep you going but the big one did make me stop and think, "where would these of ended up had i not grabbed them?" How many other treasures are being tossed out on a daily basis, or simply waiting to be uncovered or purchased at tag/estate sale or flea market? That, my fellow treasure hunters, is what gets me up in the morning:thumbsup:
 

love2Dig!

Jr. Member
Sep 23, 2013
32
23
Port Isabel
Detector(s) used
Teknetics T2 SE
Garrett AT Pro
The guy bought a box and what was in it is now his. Period. There is no need to contact a soul. Are you kidding me? Really? I've returned numerous rings to owners I found but this is entirely different. Should the person who purchased a storage unit feel obligated to return something because he spent $50 on the locker and yielded $10,000. Of course not. Estates are managed when there are deaths and property is sold. What was theirs is now his. This isn't like finding a class ring or wedding band at all. Keep the coins make some money and enough said.
 

JeromeAz

Sr. Member
May 31, 2013
455
97
Nope, the owner gave up possession of the items in storage when he stopped paying. Different story.
 

jeff of pa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Dec 19, 2003
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The guy bought a box and what was in it is now his. Period. There is no need to contact a soul. Are you kidding me? Really? I've returned numerous rings to owners I found but this is entirely different. Should the person who purchased a storage unit feel obligated to return something because he spent $50 on the locker and yielded $10,000. Of course not. Estates are managed when there are deaths and property is sold. What was theirs is now his. This isn't like finding a class ring or wedding band at all. Keep the coins make some money and enough said.

when it comes to storage lockers, unless I found evidence the former owner of the locker was a close friend or relative,
Only thing I would feel obligated to return, would be personal pictures & papers,
Home movies/videos etc. the type of things money of any amount can't reproduce

in this case he said

i noticed a house on a side street with a lot of old, yellowed cardboard boxes on the driveway. I said "what the hell" and turned around. The people in the garage said they were prepping for a one day sale on saturday. They drove in from out of state to stage and sell the entire contents of the home. Once the sale was over, they were out the door and not coming back.since they were lacking in the man-power department, they asked If i wanted to help out, and if i did, i could buy anything i found.

Case closed, Bought & paid for
 

lastleg

Silver Member
Feb 3, 2008
2,876
658
Some spouses want to remove every thought of the other and toss all his/her belongings in
the trash when they die. This happened just down the street and the ungrieving widow filled four
dumpsters with perfectly good items. It took me 6 months to classify and save the best. My neighbor
asked her didn't it bother her to get rid of his stuff and her response was 'not in the least.' To my
surprise he left some gold testing kits and lots of interesting gauges and other weird tools. It sure
beat the tot lots. Lesson: cash in before you cash out.
 

blademaker

Jr. Member
Jul 29, 2013
40
12
Santa Fe
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Sometimes people sell things and don't care what they are worth or will sell things in a group or lot and just put a price on them. Whose to say that if the people that were having the sale found the coins that they wouldn't have sold them to the OP for a few bucks each.

I went to an estate sale of a man who made tool prototypes for companys like sears and montgomery wards. There was a box of files for $1 each, I looked through them and found 10 checkering files and bought them happy as could be because those files are $30 each and they were all new. Did I feel bad for getting them cheap, NO. The sale was run by a professional estate sale company so if they didn't know the value it wasn't my fault. I love estate sales beacuse there are usually good deals if you are on the lookout and have an idea of the value of things.
 

H-2 CHARLIE

Bronze Member
Dec 1, 2012
1,204
507
on the rocks - so cal county line
Detector(s) used
Gold bug pro / Minelab GM 1000
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a yard sale down my street had sheet music from the 1800s and old books galore , I bought the first edition of the titanic for a dollar .
 

JeromeAz

Sr. Member
May 31, 2013
455
97
Sometimes people sell things and don't care what they are worth or will sell things in a group or lot and just put a price on them. Whose to say that if the people that were having the sale found the coins that they wouldn't have sold them to the OP for a few bucks each.

I went to an estate sale of a man who made tool prototypes for companys like sears and montgomery wards. There was a box of files for $1 each, I looked through them and found 10 checkering files and bought them happy as could be because those files are $30 each and they were all new. Did I feel bad for getting them cheap, NO. The sale was run by a professional estate sale company so if they didn't know the value it wasn't my fault. I love estate sales beacuse there are usually good deals if you are on the lookout and have an idea of the value of things.

Feel bad? They wanted $1 and you gave them $1. Why feel bad? It's not like they didn't know what they had and you talked them down to nothing by saying These aren't worth anything so I'll give you a dollar for all of them, knowing they're worth a lot more. That's just my opinion. Oops, I forgot, I'm not allowed to give my opinion on here.
 

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