A brand new gold rush is coming to California. For the third yr, San Francisco’s Witter Coin will host a treasure hunt throughout the town collectively value over $50,000. The grand prize? An extremely uncommon, $50 gold piece from 1851 valued at round $25,000.
“This metropolis was constructed across the pursuit of gold,”Witter Gold CEO and proprietor Seth Chandler advised KTVU. “We wished to create one thing that brings that spirit again. One thing actual, tangible, and rooted in San Francisco’s historical past.”
People have lived within the area now generally known as San Francisco for over 5,000 years. European colonization of the realm started when the Spanish throughout the late-18th century, who ultimately ceded the territory to Mexico in 1821. Following the Mexican-American Warfare, the USA annexed all of present-day California and Nevada, in addition to parts of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Though thousands and thousands of individuals stay in San Francisco immediately, lower than 470 residents referred to as it dwelling on the eve of the California gold rush in 1847. By 1849, that quantity had exploded to over 25,000 newly settled treasure seekers.
The grand prize provided by Witter Coin is a uncommon instance of what’s generally known as an 1851 Humbert “Slug.” The octagonal piece is technically not U.S. foreign money, however an ingot minted by the official United States Assay Workplace of Gold and its assayer Augustus Humbert. Emblazoned with a bald eagle standing on prime of a boulder, the $50 slug contained 2.5 ounces of gold, making it one of many largest currencies of its form.
In an Instagram put up, Chandler defined that the shop will launch hourly clues on Saturday April 25 to assist scavenger hunters pinpoint the placement of the 1851 Humbert Slug in addition to 9 different historic collectible foreign money items. Every treasure can be hidden in “iconic San Francisco neighborhoods” with no “digging or trespassing” required to entry them.
