Remember the California couple who found $10 million in gold coins on their property? They’re probably going to end up with NOTHING in the final analysis, as breaking news from San Francisco reveals that the source of the mystery gold has been discovered: 
 
 A story that describes a gold heist from the San Francisco Mint at the turn of the century could explain the source of the gold coins worth $10 million that were found last month in California’s Mother Lode country. The published news item was discovered in the Haithi Trust Digital Library and was provided by Northern California fishing guide Jack Trout, who doubles as a historian and collector of rare coins. 
 
 The details of the 1899 heist — $30,000 face value of uncirculated gold coins stolen from the San Francisco Mint in 1899 — matches every known fact about the gold coins found recently in the Sierra foothills, which were nearly $30,000 in face value of uncirculated mint condition coins mostly made at the San Francisco Mint in the late 1800s. 
 
 If, as is almost certainly the case, this explains the origin of the found coins, then the couple who found them will not merely have to pay taxes on them — they’ll have to turn them over entirely back to the federal government, since the coins’ status has changed from “treasure trove” to “stolen goods”: 
 
 Treasure trove is any gold or silver in coin, plate, or bullion that is hidden by an unknown owner in the earth or other private place for an extended period. The property is not considered treasure trove unless the identity of the owner cannot be determined. Under early common law, the finder of a treasure trove took title to it against everyone but the true owner. The U.S. law governing treasure trove has been merged, for the most part, into the law governing lost property. In the absence of a contrary statutory provision, the title to treasure trove belongs to the finder against all others with the exception of the true owner. 
 
 It was a nice story while it lasted. 
 
 UPDATE 
 
 Just to clarify: 
 
 The finders will EITHER have to hand over all the coins back to the government, OR pay taxes on them (on the off-chance they win the legal battle to retain ownership of the coins). Under no circumstance (of which I am aware) would they have to pay taxes AND return the coins. 
 
 UPDATE II 
 
 A few of the coins in the hoard were from different U.S. Mints and from earlier in the 19th century. It could be the case that the Federal Government might only be able to prove that the coins amongst the hoard which can be confirmed as coming from the San Francisco Mint in 1899 must be returned, while the finders could contest that the remaining coins were not part of that robbery and thus not necessarily stolen property. It’s entirely possible that the person who originally buried the hoard mixed in coins from more than one different sources (or crimes). In this case, the finders and the government would split ownership. 
 
 UPDATE III 
 
 According to the 1906 edition of the official Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, a mint clerk named W.N. Dimmick was caught and convicted of stealing $30,000 in gold coins from the San Francisco Mint — although in the description of the case no mention is made of whether Dimmick ever revealed the location of the stolen coins, or whether they were ever recovered. 
 
 Here is the full text of the relevant minutes from the House Hearings: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Note that there is a discrepancy in the date of the supposed crime: Was it 1899, or 1901? A few pages later in the same minutes is this passage revealing that there may have been many other thefts from the mint as well, due to a plague of dishonest mint employees: 
 
 Also note that one of the coins found in the hoard was an ultra-rare 1866 Liberty $20 gold piece missing the phrase “In God We Trust” — a coin which was never released to the public and which must have been produced and kept within the mint itself. 
 
 This link to an article in the July 9, 1901 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle has more details about the Dimmick theft. ||||| A California couple who found a stash of buried gold coins valued at $10 million may not be so lucky after all. The coins may have been stolen from the U.S. Mint in 1900 and thus be the property of the government, according to a published report. 
 
 The San Francisco Chronicle's website reported that a search of the Haithi Trust Digital Library provided by Northern California fishing guide Jack Trout, who is also a historian and collector of rare coins, turned up the news of the theft. 
 
 WATCH: $10M Gold Coins May Be Linked to Heist 
 
 Play 
 
 The California couple, who have not been identified, spotted the edge of an old can on a path they had hiked many times before several months ago. Poking at the can was the first step in uncovering a buried treasure of rare coins estimated to be worth $10 million. 
 
 "It was like finding a hot potato," the couple told coin expert Don Kagin from Kagin's, Inc. The couple hired the president of Kagin's, Inc. and Holabird-Kagin Americana, a western Americana dealer and auctioneer, to represent them. 
 
 The coins are mostly uncirculated and in mint condition, and they add up in face value to $27,000. "Those two facts are a match of the gold heist in 1900 from the San Francisco Mint," the newspaper reported. 
 
 Jack Trout told the paper that an 1866 Liberty $20 gold piece without the words "In God We Trust" was part of the buried stash, and the coin may fetch over $1 million at auction because it's so rare. 
 
 "This was someone's private coin, created by the mint manager or someone with access to the inner workings of the Old Granite Lady (San Francisco Mint)," Trout told the newspaper. "It was likely created in revenge for the assassination of Lincoln the previous year (April 14, 1865). I don't believe that coin ever left The Mint until the robbery. For it to show up as part of the treasure find links it directly to that inside job at the turn of the century at the San Francisco Mint." 
 
 Mint spokesman Adam Stump issued this statement when contacted today by ABC News: "We do not have any information linking the Saddle Ridge Hoard coins to any thefts at any United States Mint facility. Surviving agency records from the San Francisco Mint have been retired to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), under Record Group 104. Access to the records is under NARA's jurisdiction: http://www.archives.gov/." 
 
 Last week, when news of the stash first broke, coin dealer Kagin spoke about the rarity of such a find. 
 
 "Since 1981, people have been coming to us with one or two coins they find worth a few thousand dollars, but this is the first time we get someone with a whole cache of buried coins... It is a million to one chance, even harder than winning the lottery," Kagin told ABCNews.com. 
 
 The couple is trying to remain anonymous after finding the five cans of coins last spring on their Tiburon property in northern California and conducted an interview with Kagin. 
 
 WATCH: $10M Gold-Coin Surprise Uncovered in Calif. 
 
 "I never would have thought we would have found something like this. However, in a weird way I feel like I have been preparing my whole life for it," the couple said. 
 
 "I saw an old can sticking out of the ground on a trail that we had walked almost every day for many, many years. I was looking down in the right spot and saw the side of the can. I bent over to scrape some moss off and noticed that it had both ends on it," they said. 
 
 It was the first of five cans to be unearthed, each packed with gold coins. 
 
 "Nearly all of the 1,427 coins, dating from 1847 to 1894, are in uncirculated, mint condition," said Kagin told ABCNews.com. 
 
 He said that the couple plan to sell most of the coins, but before they do, they are "loaning some to the American Numismatic Association for its National Money Show, which opens Thursday in Atlanta." 
 
 "Some of the rarest coins could fetch as much as $1 million apiece," said Kagin. He also said that they wish to sell 90 percent of the collection through Amazon.com and on the company's website. 
 
 "We'd like to help other people with some of this money. There are people in our community who are hungry and don't have enough to eat. We'll also donate to the arts and other overlooked causes. In a way it has been good to have time between finding the coins and being able to sell them in order to prepare and adjust. It's given us an opportunity to think about how to give back," said the couple. 
 
 Kagin and his colleague David McCarthy, senior numismatist and researcher at Kagin's, met with the couple last April, two months after the hoard was found. 
 
 When McCarthy and Kagin told the couple that their bonanza will be in the annals of numismatic stories for quite some time, the couple said, "It would have been quite a pity not to share the magnitude of our find. We want to keep the story of these coins intact for posterity."
– The only thing more mysterious than the identity of the couple who stumbled upon an estimated $10 million in US gold coins while walking their dog on their California property: Where did the gold come from? The San Francisco Chronicle floats a theory with all the intrigue and illegality you could hope for: Historian/coin collector/fishing guide Jack Trout provided the paper with a passage from the Bulletin of American Iron and Steel Association that references a $30,000 turn-of-the-century gold heist from the San Francisco Mint that he believes is linked to the coins. Lending credence to the theory: The unearthed 1,427 gold coins, dated 1847 to 1894, were mostly uncirculated and in chronological order, suggesting they hadn't entered the public realm. And though they are worth millions today, their face value is $27,000, which roughly syncs with what was taken from the mint. Trout also points to the buried stash's 1866 Liberty $20 gold piece not emblazoned with "In God We Trust"; he suspects it was a private coin created by a mint manager that never left the mint. "For it to show up as part of the treasure find links it directly" to the mint heist, he says. But the couple's coin broker is no fan of the mint robbery theory, telling the Chronicle he'd expect the haul would have included coins dated closer to the heist date. But a former SF Mint detective sees it as plausible: "Downstairs, we had vaults where we kept old coins that hadn't been put into circulation." PJMedia further digs up a 1906 congressional report that indicates mint clerk W.N. Dimmick was convicted of the mint theft, but the document doesn't state whether Dimmick revealed the coins' location, or if they had been recovered. ABC News notes that if the coins are indeed purloined government property, the couple may owe Uncle Sam more than a heck of a lot in taxes: They may have to turn over the entire haul, and get a finder's fee in return.