Ca-ching! Florida workers find 2,000 silver coins during home demolition
'It was like a treasure hunt — the more you dug the more you found,' city official says
Police in Florida have seized 60 pounds of silver coins that had been stashed for decades inside the walls of a recently demolished home.
According to officials in St. Cloud, Fla., glass pickle jars holding more than 2,000 coins shattered while city workers were leveling a 1915 bungalow, turning the demolition into a momentary slot machine.
"It was like a treasure hunt — the more you dug the more you found," one of those workers, Melissa Howes, told the Orlando Sentinel. "We thought we might be able to keep it like finders keepers, but it was city property."
The most recent owner of the 776-square-foot house, Lamarr LoMax Lowe, a former Walt Disney World employee, abandoned it after racking up $511,500 in code-enforcement liens, the paper reported.
The seizure included 861 half-dollars, 1,016 quarters, 202 dimes and three nickels, police records show. Some of the oldest coins were dated 1917, officials said.
"We're going to have them appraised to see if they're worth more by weight or as collectible coins," St. Cloud Police Chief Pete Gauntlett told reporters last week.
Gauntlett believes the coins may have been hidden inside the walls by a former owner during the Great Depression.
