This Rare-Coin Scavenger Hunt in San Francisco Offers Participants the Chance to Relive the California Gold Rush

A local coin dealer will hide historic currency worth a total of $50,000 in its third annual citywide challenge on April 25

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

April 22, 2026

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

You know what they say: If you find a gold octagonal $50 slug from 1851, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck.

This weekend, people in San Francisco will have the rare opportunity to find such a coin—worth about $25,000—during Witter Coin’s annual scavenger hunt. The local numismatic dealer will hide 10 coins across the city, valued together at more than $50,000.

The hunt is a nod to San Francisco’s prospecting legacy. The city’s history is inextricably tied to the California Gold Rush, the mining craze that followed the 1848 discovery of gold in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains.

“This city was built around the pursuit of gold,” Seth Chandler, owner and CEO of Witter Coin, says in a statement. “We wanted to create something that brings that spirit back. Something real, tangible and rooted in San Francisco’s history. These aren’t replicas. These are genuine, high-value coins.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐈𝐍 🇺🇸 Seth Chandler (@wittercoin)

The hunt kicks off at 7 a.m. on April 25—the last day of National Coin Week—when Witter Coin releases its first clue on Instagram. More clues will follow each hour, says Chandler in a video posted to social media. He affirms that the coins will be hidden in safe, public locations, and that participants won’t need to dig for them. And, most important, finders keepers.

One hidden item will be a commemorative 1915 $1 gold coin, minted in San Francisco to honor the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. The city hosted this world’s fair to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and its own recovery from a devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.

The star of the hunt, though, is the 1851 $50 piece. Nicknamed the “slug,” this coin was minted in San Francisco as a direct product of the Gold Rush.

The gold that started it all was found by James Marshall at Sutter’s Mill, near Sacramento, in January 1848. As soon as word got out, the men of California took up prospecting, and some 90,000 migrants—the “forty-niners”—joined them the next year.

U.S. officials decided to establish a mint in San Francisco, according to the National Museum of American History, rather than ship California gold across the country to the U.S. Mint at Philadelphia. The leader of the new U.S. Assay Office in San Francisco, Augustus Humbert, had a group of coins made from California gold. Engraved by Charles C. Wright, the eight-cornered coins featured a spread-winged eagle.

For the next two years, Humbert’s $50 slugs were California’s principal currency. They’re now rare collectibles. “Holding an 1851 Humbert slug today feels like holding a piece of frontier life,” according to coin dealer Blanchard and Company. “It is a relic of human ambition—the kind that sends people into mountains, rivers and unknown territory chasing the promise of a better life.” In 2022, one of the slugs sold at auction for more than $36,000.

Witter Coin’s annual hunts have climbed in value. In 2024, the loot was valued at $10,000. In 2025, it was worth $25,000 and included coins, a gold nugget and a rare $5 bill, reported KTVU’s Amber Lee.

Chandler tells the San Francisco Chronicle’s Zara Irshad that he’s aiming for a challenging and worthwhile 2026 coin hunt, and that the Witter Coin staff has had “a lot of fun with the clues.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Chandler says. It’s “a really strange feeling to walk away from, like, all that money that you just hid under a park bench.”

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a daily correspondent for Smithsonian magazine who covers art, archaeology and culture, from newly discovered artifacts to the latest art heists.