Page 13 - Treasure, World & U.S. Coin Auction 17

DFS: Can you think of anything else you want to add, any other stories?
LU: Coins are the history of mankind. Every South and Central American cob tells an interesting story of our early history. It’s been a
very interesting adventure, more than most people get to do. I was lucky. I met Kip…we had a lot of fun diving on the wrecks. Back
in those days…when Kip and the others were involved…made it very pleasant. For four of five years we just enjoyed our weekends
diving. Our wives put up with a lot. My parents lived down in Sebastian. We’d drop my wife off with two kids…then we went diving,
and we’d come back and they’d have supper all ready for us.
DFS: Did your children ever have any interest in diving?
LU: Not really. It’s interesting, my daughter says “wish I’d have been interested,” she’s interested now! One other story I’ll tell you: National
Geographic came to us to do an article, and we pulled about a million dollars’ worth of stuff out of the bank. And Helen’s [Lou’s
wife] brother, Jimmy, visited us, and we put him the spare bedroom and we didn’t tell him that underneath the bed we put a million
dollars’ worth of gold and silver. The next morning when he woke we said, “was the bed lumpy?” “A little bit.” I said, “well, it was all
the gold bars and silver coins….” He still talks about that!
DFS: A new twist to the Princess and the Pea!
LU: He couldn’t believe we had all this gold and silver stuck around the house.
DFS: Yeah. It’s hard for people to conceive, sometimes, the staggering value of the material that has come up over the years.
LU: Another time, at Dan’s [Thompson] house, we found about 1500 gold coins one day, and it was too late to put them in the bank…
so Dan got out a card table in his and his wife’s bedroom, piled all the coins on the bed and on the card table. I told him “let’s go to
my home and get some supper,” I was hungry. Went home, ate supper. Jane, Dan’s wife, went into the bedroom, turned on the light,
and a pile of gold was glistening at her! She couldn’t understand how I could go home and eat supper and leave all the gold coins
lying around.
DFS: Well, that is kind of risky! What have you done for security over the years?
LU: Keep quiet.
DFS: Keep quiet and low profile?
LU: Yes.
DFS: And big dogs, I guess [laughing].
LU: True. [Lou and his wife have two big German shepherds, who mingled with us throughout the interview.]
DFS: I have an associate who told me his method of security is that he lives with his family only at the top of a mountain in Oregon and
they have large dogs and that’s all they’ve ever needed for security.
LU: I keep everything in the bank.
DFS: Yeah, that’s the best thing.
LU: Enjoyed talking to you.
DFS: I’ve enjoyed having the pleasure of the interview. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

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