This year, a Kentucky farmer experienced a momentous find when he dug up a hoard of uncommon coins from the Civil War period, with the bulk of them being gold.
A remarkable discovery, labeled the “Great Kentucky Hoard,” may be worth millions. An anonymous person who made the find documented it on video, displaying the various types of gold coins. The place where it was uncovered has not been made public.
The man exclaimed, “This is the most insane thing ever!” in the video, pointing out the $1 gold coins, $20 gold coins, and $10 gold coins he had dug out. He was still continuing to uncover more.
GovMint, a coin dealer, has reported that the Great Kentucky Hoard contains eighteen 1863-P $20 Gold Liberty coins, which is the rarest year for that particular kind of coin. These rare coins, estimated to be from the years between 1840 and 1863, are said to usually have a price tag of six figures.
The Numismatic Guaranty Company, a coin grading service, reported that the discovery of “hundreds” of American gold dollars from 1850 to 1862 was made. A rather large portion of the hoard – nearly 95% – consists of gold dollars, and a few silver coins were also found.
The source of the hoard is intriguing, as reports often indicate that wealthy Kentuckians buried a great deal of their wealth to stop it from being stolen by bootleggers and criminals, as noted by the Daily Mail. Ryan McNutt, an archaeologist from Georgia Southern University, explained to Live Science that “it is feasible that this was buried before Confederate John Hunt Morgan’s raid in June-July 1863, due to the time-frame and place in Kentucky, which was neutral at the time.”
Just one month after the onset of the Civil War with the firing at Fort Sumter in 1861, Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin declared the state neutral, making it one of four slave states that did not secede from the Union. This was despite the divided loyalties of the citizens. Two years later, Morgan and his army set out from Tennessee and marched into Kentucky. This attack extended into Indiana and Ohio, resulting in destruction of both military and civilian property amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, as reported by the American Battlefield Trust.
McNutt suggested to Live Science that because the coins discovered in the hoard were federal currency, it would be a sensible idea to keep them hidden from Confederate raiders. He further remarked that in that era, many people had the knowledge of how to conceal their goods and valuables.
