Coin Donation Starts Treasure Hunt With Twist 

portlandtacoexpress.com

“Come down now and I'll pay $1,500 per ounce for gold. A rare directness from the gold dealer over the phone: "Pick up your cash!" His voice resembled Taxi's Danny DeVito from the 1970s.

I thanked him respectfully, hung up, and pictured him muttering something unpleasant as he pushed a smoking cigarette into a half-full ashtray. My first discovery of him was on the Royal Canadian Mint's dealer list. He lacked regal traits. 

I see amazing donations from our 225 parishes and archdiocesan charities as Archdiocese of Toronto Manager of Planned Giving and Personal Gifts. A parish requested my assistance with a dead parishioner's coins. I assumed possession of the coins and tried to value and sell them so the church could use the funds for outreach. The parish had no notion how to handle the donation. 

The coin collection appeared unimpressive. Coins from many countries were carefully packed into sleeves and not old. I imagined there might be souvenirs from all the donor's travels. 

An unbundled Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin in a little wooden box triggered my call to the vendor. From experience, I knew these Royal Canadian Mint coins are among the purest gold coins in the world at.9999.    

I called three more dealers from the Royal Canadian Mint's website, selected a professional GTA storefront, and took the collection there. Three staff stopped what they were doing and started sorting the coins when I arrived, so I realized the collection was unique. 

After two hours, I learned that practically the whole collection was gold and silver coins from international mints. South African Krugerrands, Mexican pesos, English sovereigns, French francs, liras, koronas, Saudi Arabian and Jamaican coins were all gold.

Merchants analyzed coins with spectrometers to determine gold content. The country's mint reported the coin's gold content, which they compared. As an example: Pure gold is 24-karat. Divide 22 by 24 to calculate 22-karat gold coin purity. A 22-karat gold coin is 0.9167 pure. The coin was real if it had no evident faults and matched the mint's purity promise.

Zodiac Signs Who Are More Fond of Jewellery and Accessories 

SEE ALSO

10 Things Wrong With Suits We All Choose To Ignore