Mel Fisher faced this for 20 years

[2cmorau]

EXCLUSIVE: Couple who found $10m hoard of gold coins while walking dog could have broken law by not telling the police | Mail Online

 

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[Aghead]

No laws broken

They have not violated any laws, civil or criminal. There is no need or requirement to report the find to the police. What they found was neither lost nor abandoned, it was part of their private property, they just did not know it. As far as taxes go, this is not income it should be booked as a capital gain, so the taxes will be minimal in the big scheme of things~ 20%, less if you sell them off slowly, you pay the taxes when you make the gain and there is no way they can be taxed on the find itself. Your much better off claiming the gains on your taxes as it is pretty hard to hide 8 or 9 million dollars from the IRS. The only mistake they made was letting the story go public.

 

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[Aghead]

No laws broken

They have not violated any laws, civil or criminal. There is no need or requirement to report the find to the police. What they found was neither lost nor abandoned, it was part of their private property, they just did not know it. As far as taxes go, this is not income it should be booked as a capital gain, so the taxes will be minimal in the big scheme of things~ 20%, less if you sell them off slowly, you pay the taxes when you make the gain and there is no way they can be taxed on the find itself. Your much better off claiming the gains on your taxes as it is pretty hard to hide 8 or 9 million dollars from the IRS. The only mistake they made was letting the story go public.

 

[Clay Diggins]

You'll get no argument from me. however the no motto coin in question is a double eagle not a half eagle... "​Jack Trout told the paper that an 1866 Liberty $20 gold piece without the words "In God We Trust" was part of the buried stash, and the coin may fetch over $1 million at auction because it's so rare."This was someone's private coin, created by the mint manager or someone with access to the inner workings of the Old Granite Lady (San Francisco Mint)," Trout told the newspaper. "It was likely created in revenge for the assassination of Lincoln the previous year (April 14, 1865). I don't believe that coin ever left The Mint until the robbery. For it to show up as part of the treasure find links it directly to that inside job at the turn of the century at the San Francisco Mint."

Hey diggummup you are right! I was thinking all the coins were 1/2 Eagles.

I'm not an expert on coins and I know Mr Jack Trout claims to be one but I'm thinking Jack might just be overstating his case just a wee little bit.

I can look stuff up on the internet and there they seem to agree that the double Eagle S mint "no motto" isn't particularly rare at all. There is obviously no commonly agreed mintage but I've never even heard the theory that

"This was someone's private coin, created by the mint manager or someone with access to the inner workings of the Old Granite Lady (San Francisco Mint)

,"
as Mister Trout said.

From the NGC grading service:

While the 1866-S No Motto double eagle is clearly the more elusive of the two issues, its mintage and distribution remain enigmatic. While many sources, including the Guide Book and Doug Winter and Adam Crum?s An Insider?s Guide to Collecting Type I Double Eagles, claim a mintage of just 12,000 pieces, Garrett and Guth, in their 2006 volume Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coins, state an estimate of 120,000 coins. This latter figure is in agreement with research conducted by R.W. Julian, and the value is logical, with the With Motto reverse dies not arriving at San Francisco until March, that Mint had an ample window for a six-figure production, even if striking only took place in February, as stated by Winter and Crum. The mintage for the later With Motto pieces, in excess of 840,000 pieces, offers further circumstantial evidence.

Somewhere between 12,000 coins and 120,000 were minted. The rest is all sales pitch.