Baldwin Brothers and the stolen $10 Mormon Gold Coins

[WheatbackDigger]

I think I have the facts correct and now for the story....In 1849, Salt Lake City, under Brigham Young's supervision, the Mormon community began minting gold coinage. They were to mint $2.50, $5.00, $10.00 and $20.00 denominations. There first run was to be the $10.00 gold coin. Shorty after the mint opened, a wagon train stopped for a night's stay in the city. The mormons, being trusting people, willingly gave tours of there new mint. Two brothers ( Dave and Reg Baldwin), were part of this wagon train and were very anxious to tour the mint. The mint was left unguarded after operating hours and the Baldwin Brothers blew town with over 200 $10 gold coins. It wasn't realized for a couple days that the coins were missing. At this time, the Mormons sent a posse out to catch the wagon train, but the Baldwin Boys had split off and went there own way, never to be seen or heard of again, nor did any of the coins ever show up in circulation. It is assumed that they didn't have the supplies to live off the land and died in the Sevier Desert, somewhere south of Salt Lake City.

Mormon coins are extremely rare and very few are known to exist. Uncirculated $10 Gold pieces are estimated in the $100,000/coin range. This would potentially make this a $20,000,000 find.

Just wondering if anyone has ever persued this? I just happened to stumble across the story, researching an old Mormon settlement (1830-1870) in Illinois that I'll be metal detecting this spring. To far away for me and I am sure I would die in the desert.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[truckinbutch]

If the theft story is true I would bet that them dying in the desert was true .
Unrecovered gold I would doubt .
Them Bishops weren't above robbing the dead .