A Northern California couple found $10 million worth of rare coins dating back to the 1800’s San Francisco Mint Coin

A box with rare gold coins discovered by a couple of Californians walking their dog goes on sale with a $15,000 coin. Coins were priced at $11 million and were dated from 1847 to 1894. Several coins were auctioned at the Old San Francisco Mint and one of them — an 1874 $20 double eagle that is usually worth $4,250 — sold for $15,000.

Don Kagin, whose firm is handling the sale, says most of the remaining 1,400 coins had gone on sale on Amazon.com and Kagins.com after the auction.

The couple, whom Kagin declined to identify, found them last year buried under the shadow of a tree on their rural Northern California property.

Here are five things to know about the coins and their origin:

Why are they so Valuable?

Experts say paper money was illegal in California until the 1870s, so it’s extremely rare to find any coins from before that period.

Additionally, most of the coins are in mint condition, having been stashed away seemingly immediately after they were minted. They were valued by Don Kagin, a numismatist who is handling the sale and marketing of the coins.

Who Found them?

Kagin says the couple — a middle-aged husband and wife — does not want to be identified in part to avoid a gold rush on their rural Northern California property by modern-day prospectors.

They discovered the coins in eight cans buried in the shadow of an old tree on the property.

They plan to keep a few of the coins themselves and use the money from the rest to pay off bills and donate to local charities. Money from Tuesday’s auction will benefit the effort to turn the Old Mint into a museum.

Where did the coins Come From?

Most of the coins were minted at the San Francisco Mint, according to Kagin. It’s not clear, however, who put them in the ground or how they were obtained, though theories have abounded.

Kagin says people have linked the coins to stagecoach bandit Black Bart, outlaw Jesse James and theft at the San Francisco Mint, but none of the theories has panned out.

What is in the Collection?

The treasure consists of four $5 gold pieces, fifty $10 gold pieces, and 1,373 $20 double eagles. Among the coins that will be on display in the crown jewel of the collection — an 1866-S No Motto $20 gold piece valued at more than $1 million.

How Does this Discovery Compare to Other Coin Find?

Kagin calls this coin to find the largest such discovery in U.S. history. One of the largest previous finds of gold coins was uncovered by construction workers in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1985 and valued at $1 million.

More than 400,000 silver dollars were found in the home of a Reno, Nevada, man who died in 1974 and were later sold intact for $7.3 million.

Gold coins and ingots said to be worth as much as $130 million were recovered in the 1980s from the wreck of the SS Central America.

But historians knew roughly where that gold was because the ship went down off the coast of North Carolina during a hurricane in 1857.

Long-lost Native American Fort of the Norwalk Discovered in Connecticut

In the United States in Connecticut, there has been a remarkable discovery that might shift our attitude toward the Native North American Community. A fort believed to have been built by a tribe in the seventeenth century has been unearthed.

The find was made during a construction project and it is regarded as one of the most important discoveries in the north-east in recent years. It is believed that the fort will throw new light on Native American’s first encounters with Europeans and the mysterious Norwalk Indians.

Long-lost Native American Fort

This area of Connecticut was inhabited by an elusive tribe known as the Norwalk Indians. It is believed that they had a fort at the site during the early to the mid-seventeenth century and it was used for defence and trade.

The Norwalk appeared to have had some contact with the Dutch, who seemed to have trade arrangements with the tribe. The tribe later sold land to some English colonists and then they seemed to have disappeared from the pages of history.

In the 19th century, the ruins of an Indian stronghold were described in the area by a local antiquarian and it is believed that the discovery is this long-lost fort.

Locating the Fort

The discovery of the fort occurred near some busy railroad tracks near the Norwalk River.

The fort was located during an investigation by archaeologists of the area before work began on replacing the 19th century Walker Bridge. This bridge which spans the Norwalk River had become unstable and had caused some trains to be delayed recently.

At present, the fort is being excavated by ‘the Archaeological & Historical Services Inc., a Storrs, Connecticut-based firm’, according to CNY Central. One of the company’s archaeologists, Ross Harper, and other experts are removing artefacts from the site which are being sent to museums for further examination.

AP News reports that the experts believe that the ‘’fort had wooden walls because what appeared to be post holes were found where vertical wood pieces were placed’’.

The walls would have been made of long wooden posts or stakes tightly tied together and may have been reinforced with structures such as galleries or even a watchtower, which are typical in other Native American forts.

While little remains of the actual fort, because it was constructed from wood, the company has found a treasure trove of artifacts. They have found spear tips, arrows, hatchets, knives, pottery, and wampum. What is intriguing the experts is that they have found items that date up to 3000 years old and they indicate that the site was inhabited for many generations. So far no graves or human remains have been unearthed.

According to VOA News, one of the experts working on the site declared that ‘it’s definitely one of the more important sites, not just for the area but New England in general.”

What makes this fort so unique is that there are so few sites from the Native Americans’ encounters with Europeans in the North Eastern seaboard. For this reason, the discovery of the fort has created great excitement among the archaeological and anthropological communities in the US.

Recently a group of experts has toured the site and they are eagerly awaiting the Archaeological & Historical Services Inc report on the site.

The company overseeing the work is collaborating with the ‘Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans — the two federally recognized tribes in the state’’ report’s  AP News.

In the past Native American tribes have objected to the removal of artefacts from archaeological sites but not on this occasion. The tribes, who may or may not be descended from the Norwalk people called for great sensitivity to be displayed during the excavations of the fort. It is reported by Phys.org that members of the tribe have ‘’actively been working with people on the ground there for over a year to offer their expertise.”

Importance of the fort

The fort in itself is an important find and will allow experts to better understand the nature of Native American settlements during the first encounters with Native Americans. It can also provide some light on how they used goods such as iron and knives which had been unknown prior to the coming of the Europeans.

The site may also provide insights into the enigmatic Norwalk people, their history and why they simply appeared to have vanished from this part of Connecticut.