This story reminds me of my Uncle, who is one of those end of the world preper type people who has been convinced for the last 30 years that we are on the brink of some sort of collapse. So he bought a bunch of gold and buried somewhere it out on the farm where he lives. He has not told anyone where including his own kids because he doesn't trust anyone. I am guessing his heirs will be out there with metal locators when he passes because I don't think he will ever tell anyone where it is. He is mum about how much gold but the speculation by the family is that it has to be pretty significant just based on his net worth. If they don't find it, maybe someday archeologists will dig up a big box full of krugerrands.

Nice. And this is how little treasure maps / quests are born :-). In 2013 a couple found a bunch of gold coins in California from the late 1800s[1], they had a 'face value' of $27,980. Had the unknown owner of these coins instead given them to a firm who would buy and equivalent amount of the brand new Dow Jones Industrial average stocks (first conceived in 1896) with its nominal value of 62.76. They would have gone through many ups and downs and be worth just under $10M, but as collectibles they are worth over $11M, so remember that when people say your Uncle is crazy :-). If you wait long enough, even crazy stuff seems reasonable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_Ridge_Hoard

Aren't you forgetting the dividends? According to [1], if you reinvested the dividends in the DJIA, you would end up with $3 billion instead of $10 million.

[1] https://dqydj.com/dow-jones-return-calculator/

My uncle is crazy, but not stupid (he has a PHD in physics) so, who knows :) Chuckle.

Getting a PhD means you went to a lot of school. You can still be stupid.

One more sort of funny thing about uncle Bernie, he worked for a very highly respected aerospace company for 40 years developing all kinds of crazy things. When he retired, he was the only one who knew how to make a very specific type of klystron tube. The DoD still orders about one or two of them a year which keeps him quite well off since each tube is well into the six figure territory! He bought all the equipment when he retired and makes about 2 or 3 tubes a year on a quonset hut on the farm. Kind cool really. Even though I think he is a nut, I still sorta have to give him all due respect.

No disrespect to your uncle, but book smarts and common sense can absolutely be mutually exclusive.

That is sort of funny because my grandpa used to say, there are two types of "learnin" book learnin and the other type of learnin (droping the g's is how he spoke). Just funny, but probably true, but on the other hand ole uncle Bernie may still have the last laugh on all of us, who knows.

Yep, but I suppose much of the growth of the coins' value is a bump at the end, whereas the stock grows quietly ?

That is probably correct, I don't have any way of evaluating their collectible value as a time series. My response was half serious and half joke, when people discover large caches of currency, someone often pipes up "Gee but if they had put it into the stock market ..." which over long enough times is often (as in this case) no better than simply the intrinsic collectible value of the currency. Of course some currency has no "value" at all, I've got some East German Marks for example which you certainly can't take to your local currency exchange booth and get local currency for them. But I did have an offer from a coin collector which was more than their face value in equivalent Euros.

For the same reason I think a gold coin makes an excellent college graduation gift. For me it embodies the essence of the value of a college degree, on the one hand it has a 'face value', on the other it has a 'value in trade', and on the third hand it has value as an industrial ingredient in various products. It really captures the economic notion of value versus cost. And I see a college degree in the same way.

And the final bit, there was a comedian who once joked that as a kid they put all their money in a savings account to save for the future, but now realized that if they had just kept their toys in good shape I could have resold them in their golden years for a fortune!

+1 for the great story

What's your uncle's address? You just published that he has a hoard on the Internet so perhaps treasure seekers will start searching before his demise?

I know right, how fun would that be to watch all the people coming out with there metal detectors. But Ole uncle Bernie is pretty cantankerous, he might take a shot at people so best we keep that location quiet for the safety of all involved. Let's just say I grew up in a pretty rural place!

>archaeologists suspect the Middle Bronze Age tomb, perhaps on what was then a hill, was used in the 5th century as a handy place marker for the hoard.

This is like a mix of that scene in Fargo (movie version) and the season finale of Breaking Bad where the drug dealer is about to bribe Walter with the location of the remaining cash. Fascinating.

Curious what these coins are worth and if the finders were compensated.

>The modern finders of the gold coins and the landowner have given the solidi on permanent loan to the Museum Valkhof in Nijmegen, which contains the largest collection of Roman finds in the Netherlands, where they are now on display, together again for the first time in decades, maybe even centuries.<

its really interesting the things you find, even in open fields. usually useless iron and sometimes old guns.

once i found what looks a Smith & Wesson Model 1 - its mostly rust so hard to tell. it was in the cocked position, so I couldnt help but wonder if there was a story behind it.

Unfortunately, no gold coins =( that'd be an ultimate find

Off topic but curious, who makes good metal detectors today? I haven't used one since I was a small kid. But I might look at one. I just don't even know who makes good ones these days.

The Tesoro Compadre[0] is pretty great and very affordable.

Best in higher end might be Nokta[1] and its sister company Makro[2].

Anything from any of those three companies will be good and high value.

[0]http://www.tesoro.com/product/detectors/compadre/index.html

[1]http://noktadetectors.com/

[2]http://makrodetector.com/

Whites is brand that has been around since the 1950's

https://www.whiteselectronics.com/product-category/metal-det...

On the WW1 front lines farmers still turn out old artillery shells fairly regularly. They still find old Wehrmacht gear in the Belorussian swamps

Swamps my arse, we still find German bombs in undesirable suburbs of London:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/03/second-world...

Of course, it's a mutual thing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39828327

But, as usual, it's the French who practice this at its highest level:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge