Thanks for all of the responses. I really appreciate it. We are indeed going to be selling some of it to put toward secondary education for grandchildren of the donor. I think I have enough information to at least be pointed in the right direction. I am going to have to try to locate any receipts possible for any of the purchases. If I can't locate them, I'll have to put some work toward looking at any dates on the coins/bars to determine their average value during when these things could've been minted. If I am unable to determine what he paid, or what something's age is to determine it's average value, I'm going to just have to assume what it was worth and the approximate timeframe he bought them.
Final question: since I've never dealt with buying/selling gold bars, explain to me like I'm 5 years old:
When we do sell in the near future, how would the IRS even know what we've sold and why would I need to report it?
