I wonder how many Walter Samaszko's are out there that you don't know about -
Leroy
Posts: 186 ✭✭✭
Walter Samaszko Jr., 69, died alone inside his modest, three-bedroom house in May 2012. His wealth was a well-kept secret until a cleaning crew discovered a stash of neatly packaged coins and gold bullion in the garage.
An early auction netted $3.5 million in February. On Tuesday, auctioneers sold the second half of the collection — more than 2,600 coins, mostly gold heirlooms — in six lots, Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover told the Daily News.
The sole heir is Samaszko’s first cousin Arlene Magdanz, a substitute teacher living in San Rafael, Calif. Carson City officials tracked her down using a funeral program found in Samaszko’s home, dating back to his father’s death in the 1960s in Chicago. Samaszko didn’t leave a will.
Samaszko lived the quiet life of a hoarder, rarely leaving his nondescript house in a nondescript subdivision.
"It looked like every other house on that block, except it had a dead lawn," Glover said.
Inside, there were boxes everywhere, the majority of them crowded around a 1968 Ford Mustang Samaszko bought new and kept in the garage. Most boxes were marked "Books," but the real contents were coins of all kinds. The realtor and Glover found gold coins inside an aging washing machine, rolls of coins tucked between silverware settings and ammunition boxes overloaded with coins. They thought they had them all until workers discovered more in a crawl space.
The house itself seemed untouched since the 1970s, Glover said — "Orange shag carpet, green tiles. That sort of thing."
Comments
Yep....just look for the orange shag carpet.
Common behavior.
I wonder how often this happens and the cleaning crew keeps their mouth shut.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
I remember this story.
I've been extra nice to all my cousins since I first read it.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Many years ago while I was still working for Harlan Berk in Chicago I got called out to do an appraisal for some coins that had been found in a trash-filled house where an old recluse had died alone. No working stove or refrigerator. Fortunately he did have a will, and when the attorney's office sent somebody out to clean out the property they had the sense to check to see why an old juice box covered in duct tape felt so heavy. It had 50 gold sovereigns in it, and they immediately stopped throwing stuff out. Eventually they came up with 4,400 Sovereigns and an interesting collection of Colombian Expo memorabilia. One of the biggest checks I ever wrote.
I suppose a few just STFU and hope nobody claims it.
I hope that is me someday.
I am sure that that happens. Bowers treasure finds book only lists the hoards where somebody blabbed!
I imagine the rightful heirs would keep quiet much of the time as well, at least with hoards.
Any of the very rare sovereigns? That would be big check!
Who had time to check dates and Mint marks?
I'd make time - unless they were all very low grade and only good for bullion. A few of rarer soverigns sell for big bucks. I went through a couple hundred a while ago - can't imagine 4400. Had to be a few special ones in the bunch. Could be my summer. Vacation.
That's over 1,000 ounces of gold. Do you want to take market risk (i.e., the risk that gold goes down before you sell it) on over 1,000 ounces of gold?
We had made a very competitive offer based upon whatever the spot price of gold was at 1 PM on a certain day. The heirs accepted. For security reasons two of us met the lawyer at the bank. I checked the count again by weight, wrote the check and we left with the coins. In the car we called a bullion dealer we do a lot of business with and sold the deal. By 3 PM we had the deal packaged up waiting for FEDEX to sign for it. That's the way big deals work.
By 3 PM we had the deal packaged up waiting for FEDEX to sign for it
Just curious, what did you write in the blank that says "Contents"? Maybe machine parts?
Wow.... that is incredible @CaptHenway .... I would have become mind boggled just looking at such a trove of gold... I guess that is why I am not...and should never be... a coin dealer...
Cheers, RickO
Hmmmm, Lazy are we? Wouldn't take that long to go through 4400 if you had a keen eye and knowledge of the series!
Not lazy at all.
They made their offer knowing spot, and what their buyer paid
Lets say
1000 ounces
Spot was $600
they paid 94% $564,000
Their buyer pays 96% $576,000
$12,000 no fuss no muss.
This happens every day in business deals. I have done it myself.
This is true. And it is unlikely to find a rare date because, well, they're rare.
That said, one could lock in the price with the buyer and still take a couple hours to look through them.
Personally, I probably wouldn't. I don't sort bags of 90, bags of wheats, bags of nickels, or Indian cents. The total amount of time spent would not justify the occasional find.
Funny story: I once found a 3 legged buffalo in a bulk lot. But the only reason I found it, since I rarely sort such things is that it was reverse up on the top. Lol
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
Date -- the night that Silver crashed during the Hunt Brothers fiasco.
my boss has told me this on a few occasions because I like the story. Silver was around $50/ozt. and dealers were paying around 32X on Coin Silver. he sold a $1,000 face bag to the "next man up" and when he awoke the next morning Silver had plummeted. that $32k bag was now worth only $16k.
what's the saying, Pigs get fat and Hogs get slaughtered?? just sayin, Exbrit.
I have a similar but not quite the same example. A while back I bought a 60,000 wheat penny deal. Most were teens, twenties, and thirtie's and most were rolled by date. The only dates that were not there were the 4 keys. I believe there was only 1 date that did not have at least a full roll. I started to just blow it out. Ah, let's have a look at this roll of 10-S's. Dang, what's this AU doing in here. So, yup, I had to go through all but the 1/2 bag of Unc 54's. They were probably red but the bag was not stored properly and they were all Brown with hints of Red. In the end it turned out there was a complete XF-AU set of Lincoln's scattered through the deal that pretty much paid for the deal!
I've picked quite a few better grade semi keys out of silver deals also.
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who understand the gold market, and those that do not.
March, 2008
Business-wise and to make a profit, I totally agree, buy it and sell it - have a steak dinner. But from a collector's mindset - curiosity is tempting. Especially if the market is fairly stable at the time. During the $50 an ounce silver boom - that isn't the time for curiosity. But if the market is stable - I'd go through them.