A new gold rush is coming to California. For the third year, San Francisco’s Witter Coin will host a treasure hunt across the city collectively worth over $50,000. The grand prize? An incredibly rare, $50 gold piece from 1851 valued at around $25,000.
“This city was built around the pursuit of gold,”Witter Gold CEO and owner Seth Chandler told KTVU. “We wanted to create something that brings that spirit back. Something real, tangible, and rooted in San Francisco’s history.”
Humans have lived in the region now known as San Francisco for over 5,000 years. European colonization of the area began when the Spanish during the late-18th century, who eventually ceded the territory to Mexico in 1821. Following the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed all of present-day California and Nevada, as well as portions of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Although millions of people live in San Francisco today, less than 470 residents called it home on the eve of the California gold rush in 1847. By 1849, that number had exploded to over 25,000 newly settled treasure seekers.
The grand prize offered by Witter Coin is a rare example of what’s known as an 1851 Humbert “Slug.” The octagonal piece is technically not U.S. currency, but an ingot minted by the official United States Assay Office of Gold and its assayer Augustus Humbert. Emblazoned with a bald eagle standing on top of a boulder, the $50 slug contained 2.5 ounces of gold, making it one of the largest currencies of its kind.
In an Instagram post, Chandler explained that the store will release hourly clues on Saturday April 25 to help scavenger hunters pinpoint the location of the 1851 Humbert Slug as well as nine other historic collectible currency pieces. Each treasure will be hidden in “iconic San Francisco neighborhoods” with no “digging or trespassing” required to access them.
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