What is the biggest hoard/accumulation of coins you have heard of?

I have been contacted by a representative of a modern collector wanting to sell thousands of pounds of moderns in vaults in his home. he's had to have contractors jack up his floor and reinforce it twice.

My first thought was Binion too.

I vote for Virgil Brand.

As far as value---S S Central America---AKA "Ship of Gold".

46,000 pounds of silver, valued at over $7,000,000 in 1998. The SS Central America was not a hoard.. it was a shipwreck. Cheers, RickO

Virgil Brand, if you are talking about coins with true numismatic value. I seem to recall his total at the time of his death in the 1920's was over 300,000.

When he died there were more than a month worth of unopened packages from various coin dealers at his home.

<< <i> The SS Central America was not a hoard.. it was a shipwreck. Cheers, RickO >>



The title question asked about "hoard/accumulation". While the Central American coins aren't a hoard, there are sure one hell of an accumulation.

This link has some pretty ineresting hoards listed :
Scroll down to 1998 The Midwest Mega-Hoard

1.7million indian cents, liberty nickels and buffalo nickels. All hidden in the walls of a collector's house. Weighed 7.6 tons and was apparently stored in canvas bags and 55 gallon drums. My only question is how did they get 55 gallon drums to fit in the walls?

PerryHall... Ya got a point there judge.... Cheers, RickO

When I was a kid in the 60"s we lived in a apartment project in Chillum Heights MD,

This was a large complex of garden type apartments (3 story buildings,approx.2000 apartments total)
For over 30 years there was a little store built in the ground floor of one of the buildings, it took up the space of (3) 2 bedroom apartments,great place fresh veggie's, meat, lunch meat etc.

I worked there off and on for 3-4 years (age 10-14) anyway a couple years before the silver coins stopped flowing in "64" the
owners starting hoarding them and putting them (all denominations) in those big 2-21/2 gal. pickle jars and hiding them behind and under the grocery store shelves,

The only reason I knew this is because i worked there and remained friends with these folks until they passed.

The last time I was there was in about 1973 (!was 18 years old) All of the jars and many more were still there hidden in and under the shelving, to give you an idea of how many there were.......

......the store was approx. 40 ft x 60 ft, all (4) outside interior walls had these jars side by side (4) deep under the bottom shelves, also the 3 isles in the center of the store were filled under the bottom shelves,

I can't even guess what the total amount at face was.........I assume it was given to there grown children when they passed, Just to let everyone know,

these were very down to earth kind and generous folks......I can remember several days when I worked there, where the owner SID LETVIN would tell me get a cart and follow me,

I walked the entire store with him saying put 2 of those and 3 of these and so on until the shopping cart could not hold anymore, then we bagged all the meats,dairy and canned groceries up and would put them in his car,

then he would drive to one of the apt. buildings and say to me (for example) take these bags up to apt. # so and so, knock once and get back down here we got work to do ! He knew when folks were in need ............and always wanted to help.............A little OT but important............thanks for reading...........

Educational Coin used to advertise that they had 100,000,000+ coins in stock and I'd believe them. I once sold them 1,000,000+ coins weighing several tons that just went on the pile. I know that they were looking for a buyer for the lot a few years back but don't know what, if anything, has happened with that hoard.

@tcollects said:

@291fifth said:
Virgil Brand, if you are talking about coins with true numismatic value. I seem to recall his total at the time of his death in the 1920's was over 300,000.

When he died there were more than a month worth of unopened packages from various coin dealers at his home.

I stumbled on this old thread and was thinking about the few collections nowadays with 300,000 significant coins. I'm not sure this type of collector exists nowadays.

I just saw this thread lol. Thought it was a modern one for a bit...

@Fletcher said:
200 1794 half dollars in buggy condition.

What does "buggy condition" mean?

By number, by weight or by value?

I was always amazed by the Sunset collection that sold over and over in multiple (hundreds of) parts on Great collections. It still seems to be going….