Durango – The gold glittering in the bottom of the Salvation Army kettle was the real deal, a U.S. minted 24-karat gold American buffalo coin stamped with $50 but worth something between $662 and $875.
It’s not chump change.
When the coin was anonymously slipped through the slot of a kettle outside Albertsons supermarket last week, the members of the Masonic Lodge manning the stand alerted their kettle captain, Deanna Devereaux.
“It’s beautiful. We knew it was something special,” she said.
But she recently learned just how special.
“Wow.”
Last struck almost 70 years ago, a coin with the American Indian and buffalo images is back in 2006 on the mint’s first-ever 24-karat gold coin. International Coin and Stamp Inc. in Grand Junction estimated the 1-ounce coin’s value at $750.
About 700 volunteers in Durango ring away in six locations around town for about five weeks – a ritual repeated throughout the state every December.
Last year the Durango bell ringers collected more than $62,000 for the Community Emergency Action Coalition, which pays for everything from rent and heating fuel to wheelchairs and prescription medicines for people down on their luck. Denver-area kettles yielded $832,000 in 2005.
The Salvation Army’s tradition of the red kettles and bell ringers dates back to 1891.
“Sure, sometimes we find lint and other pocket detritus in the kettles,” says Durango Salvation Army coordinator John Gamble. “I can’t say we never see wads of chewing gum. But people are generous. This isn’t our first gold coin. A few years ago there was an anonymous donation of a coin worth about $550. We also get quite a few large checks.”
And the generosity isn’t limited by geography.
For four years in a row, an anonymous donor has dropped Krugerrands – gold coins minted in South Africa – into kettles in the Denver metro area.
