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The Civil War was a four-year affair that required the armies on both sides of the conflict to shell out a ton of cash in their quest for victory before the Union ultimately prevailed over the Confederacy.
In the waning days of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis and his cronies supposedly fled Richmond, Virginia with millions of dollars worth of silver and gold coins in tow.
However, that stash was nowhere to be found when they were tracked down by opposing troops, and treasure hunters have spent more than 150 years attempting to track it (and other similarly large fortunes that supposedly went missing) down.
In 2018, some of those treasure hunters contacted the FBI after discovering evidence that led them to believe they’d found gold that was hidden by the Union that was believed to be worth around $55 million (things took an interesting turn last year when they accused the agency of making off with the cache and staging a cover-up).
Now, a Kentucky man is significantly richer than he was before he came across a massive collection of gold coins in a cornfield in a discovery that’s been dubbed “The Great Kentucky Hoard.”
According to The New York Times, the unidentified beneficiary of the treasure managed to unearth a grand total of 700 “genuine $1, $10 and $20 gold coins minted before and during the Civil War,” which includes Liberty double eagles that can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on their condition.
It’s not entirely clear why the coins were buried there in the first place (one expert believes they could’ve been hidden ahead of a Confederate raid that was conducted in the summer of 1863).
What is clear, however, is that the guy who found them made some serious bank, as the coins were fetching some pretty impressive prices at an auction the outlet estimates could net him upwards of $1 million when everything is said and done.
Must be nice.