Sounds like a story I heard a few years back. Fellow purchased ten acres down in the gold fields area of Calif, near highway 49.
Started digging out what was to be the basement of his new house.
Bumped into about 24 ozs of gold at the time.
Rented a backhoe, went to work tearing up the rest of his ten acres, and never found a nickle's worth more of gold.
Ha ! What a bummer...but if you didn't try you would always wonder...