I might have bought stolen property this morning

[LuckyTheDog]

I was at the gas station and the guy in front of me in line paid for his gas with some really old dollar coins. They were seven Liberty Head silver dollars dating between 1896 and 1924. There also was a commemorative 1986 coin -- which is not real currency, but which I think was sold to help raise money to restore the Statue of Liberty. It might be silver. In any event, it's probably worth at least $1.

The guy behind the counter did not want the coins, even though I told them they were probably valuable. He said "you want them?" I said "sure" and handed him $8 for what he had.

Walking out, it occurred to me that the coins probably were stolen -- though I have no way of knowing that for sure.

Now I don't know what to do. Thoughts?

[Deep13]

1. Ask the police if anyone reported them stolen. nt

[struggle4progress]

2. ^^^^^ What Deep13 said ^^^^^

[madinmaryland]

3. So he paid for $7 worth of gas with 7 one dollar coins?

If the guy stole them, then he a real idiot for using them as regular cash.

Sounds odd.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Ask the police.

It sounds like you have good reason to believe that they're worth more than a dollar each and your moral compass is pointing you to suspect that you would be benefiting from someone else's loss.
If that's the case, you owe it to yourself to make at least a minimal effort to determine if they've been reported as stolen.

The person may have raided a family member's coin collection without a theft being reported. In that case there's not much you could do to remedy it.

OTOH, the person may have been spending his own coins. Old coins don't necessarily have much more worth than the face value.

[hunter]

5. I'd call the police on that one for sure.

The guy's either a moron who doesn't know what that treasure his grandma left him is worth, or maybe he's just the moron who stole it.

[AmyDeLune]

6. Reminds me of a story a friend told me...

about a newlywed couple he knew. The husband had a valuable coin collection and made the mistake of assuming his new wife (not a coin collector) understood what exactly he wanted her to do...He told her to take the coins to the bank, assuming that she would put them in their safety deposit box. She thought he meant deposit them...Oops...Their marriage survived, but he never let her forget about his lost coin collection.

[BlueJazz]

7. They're not worth THAT much....maybe $60-$100 for all of them.