March 19, 2017
There's no better truism to hope for than that you'll find yourself in the right place at the right time, especially when it involves unwitting kindness and a big payday.
That's what happened for Coatesville's Danny Johnson, a faithful driver for the transportation service ROVER. Johnson had been providing grocery rides and other assistance for an 87-year-old man when one day he walked in to find the man face down on the floor. He had been deceased for nearly 40 hours.
An otherwise sad and disturbing discovery soon took a serendipitous turn for Johnson, however. The victim's relatives, living in New York City, quickly came to Coatesville to retrieve of all of the man's belongings, leaving behind whatever they didn't want for Johnson, the Daily Local reports.
It would be reasonable to assume the leftovers in such cases would be a combination of antiquated machinery and cumbersome, unwanted furniture. Sure enough, Johnson took a sewing machine and a china cabinet to a local consignment store, fetching what he could for them.
But a third item he meant to take there gave him pause. When Johnson lifted up a cherry wood table, he noticed that the legs were a little bit loose. As he inspected it, turning it upside down, he kept hearing a "clunk" that he couldn't immediately identify.
"I pulled the drawers out. Back behind the drawer that I pulled all the way out was this wax paper-type bag taped to the back of a drawer," Johnson told the newspaper.
Inside that wax paper was an 1854 Arrows Liberty Seated Quarter, once minted Philadelphia during the Antebellum years. The coin was produced for just two years and there are only about a dozen in existence today.
That one coin, according to a national collector's site, is worth about $17,250.
Johnson, who said he's glad he flipped the table, isn't yet sure whether he'll sell the coin or hold onto it.
