Japan lost items law

[JapanBeachMan]

Uh oh ... I had been steeling my heart for the expense of the Excalibur, where I'm pretty sure it could pay for itself quickly on a local beach.

In researching things, I just found out that any found item must be turned in to the police; if a party claims it and can prove ownership, it's sent to them and I am entitled to a reward of 5-20% of the value. If it's not claimed in 3 months I get it. If you lose cash you can report that as well and have it returned, although I don't think the police would mind if I kept the coins or small bills I found. However, anything that's not turned in is considered stolen property!

I'm going to try to find a connection with the local police to see if I can get the inside scoop on the laws. I'm also going to see if I can find places in the city that would buy unclaimed metal from me. I don't think I'd be comfortable sending things parcel post out of the country due to the laws. I assume I'll be getting a lower rate than in another country, but that may or may not be correct.

My other worry is that even if I do cart my nice finds down to the station each time, the po po themselves might not like the idea of giving it all back to me in 3 months. Some of it might get 'claimed' before I actually get it.

Argh!

 

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[Marchas45]

Hi! Japanbeachman, glad to see that you are concerned with the laws of the adopted country just as I would be with my adopted counties here in Maine.
If I was you I would be getting one of the local people search for you in trying to find a Metal Detecting club in the area where you are (Help with the lanquge and all) there has to be a club or someone that metal detects in the area where you are located, we Americans are not the only ones that metal detect. ( You will be surprised what you might find).
I would not be trusting local police even though they are nice ladies and gentlemen that work there, metal detectorists in the whole usually are up to speed with the laws of their area where they detect and probably will invite you on one of their hunts. Hope that helps.

P.S. Check on line and find out who sells Metal Detectors in your area and start there.

 

[JapanBeachMan]

Marchas, thanks for the ideas. I'll see if I can find any local detectorists.

Unfortunately there's probably no way around the police on this one except outright ignoring them. There's a national online form for anyone who lost something to report it lost, and it goes directly to the local police office of the thing that was lost--the same place we're required by law to turn in anything we find.

Looks like I have a friend with a connection in the department. Maybe I can get an informal meeting soon.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Unfortunately there's probably no way around the police on this one except outright ignoring them. There's a national online form for anyone who lost something to report it lost, and it goes directly to the local police office of the thing that was lost--the same place we're required by law to turn in anything we find.

Looks like I have a friend with a connection in the department. Maybe I can get an informal meeting soon.

"What rings? I haven't found any rings, all I find is junk......"

 

[Tom_in_CA]

JapanBeachMan, What was the value cutoff criteria of what is expected to be "turned in"? ie.: even silver rings of relatively no value? etc....

Let me ask you a question:

You have taken up this hobby, and researched the local laws where you live, to see what might be morphed to apply to you. You have come across a "lost & found" law, which your correctly surmise will be a pain in the b*tt to go down to the police station for every single coin, earing, watch, necklass, etc.... right? In fact, maybe such a nuisance to the police, that they might find it easier to say "no metal detecting", lest everyone be showing up at their station with coins, trinkets, etc.... , right?

Ok, this may come as a surprise to you, but those laws are exactly the same here in the USA, in all states, reaching down to cities and county lands, for both land. Yup. Not many md'rs realize this, but there is, in place, in any public place (of any entity) here, lost & found laws that require persons to turn in, to the police, items over a given value. For example, in California where I'm at, it something like $100 value or more, blah blah blah. The rationale is simple: without such laws, people could pocket a wad of bills that accidentally falls out of a Brinks armored car, right? Or a thief caught with stolen goods, could just claim "I found it", right? But is it really meant to apply to a gold ring you or I might find, that could have been lost years ago? Technically, yes. But realistically?

If USA beach hunters, had done what you've just done (ie.: go out and look real hard for laws that might apply to them), and then religiously follow it up by a literal reading of the law, I can gaurantee you that beach hunting would end in an instant. Because let's face it: How many beach hunters here do you think are running down the police station every time they find a gold ring here?

I think you are going down a scary rabbit trails. I mean, sure: If you saw a "lost ring" poster/sign, or if you were specifically searching for someone's lost ring on their behalf, then by all means, turn it in, give it back to them, etc.....

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Tom is correct......I have had the local police stop while I was on the beach hunting and talk to me, asking me how my hunting was going, and then tell me to be safe and wished me good luck with my hunt when they left...

If someone can identify a ring I found by engravings or markings I will give it to them, have done so several times, but I am not going to take it to the local lost and found at the police station just to have it "misplaced" when no one claims it.......

 

[JapanBeachMan]

Around here ... yes, it's pretty realistic. If you lose your wallet and there's good ID in there, you can be fairly assured that you'll get all your cash back with your wallet. When it comes to items--clothing, jewelry, etc.--you can be nearly completely assured of getting your stuff back if it's possible to get it back to you.

On top of that, with the amount of construction that goes on around here you may not be very likely to find things that have been lost years ago. I would expect that between bulldozers and typhoons, the vast majority of what's there is either near the surface of the beach (recent) or in underwater pockets (recent or not).

When I was in high school I left a tube with a couple very nice, brand new expensive posters on an airplane. I called the airlines and tried to track them down but there was just no system in place for it. A few years back I left an old fleece on a train in Japan, called an office the next day, was promptly transferred to a person who knew exactly which fleece was mine. That's just how it works around here. Good for most, bad for a few. Gonna go talk to the police in person to see exactly what they expect.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Around here ... yes, it's pretty realistic. If you lose your wallet and there's good ID in there, you can be fairly assured that you'll get all your cash back with your wallet. When it comes to items--clothing, jewelry, etc.--you can be nearly completely assured of getting your stuff back if it's possible to get it back to you.

On top of that, with the amount of construction that goes on around here you may not be very likely to find things that have been lost years ago. I would expect that between bulldozers and typhoons, the vast majority of what's there is either near the surface of the beach (recent) or in underwater pockets (recent or not).

When I was in high school I left a tube with a couple very nice, brand new expensive posters on an airplane. I called the airlines and tried to track them down but there was just no system in place for it. A few years back I left an old fleece on a train in Japan, called an office the next day, was promptly transferred to a person who knew exactly which fleece was mine. That's just how it works around here. Good for most, bad for a few. Gonna go talk to the police in person to see exactly what they expect.

Your wrong as far as the beach goes.... Unless your beaches has rock only a couple inches below the surface of the sand, gold and silver sinks there just like it does every where else......Rings are lost once they hit the sand unless and until someone comes along with a detector, they are going to sink below the surface, they are not going to stay on the surface for very long at all.......

Someone loses a size 10 18K gold wedding band and goes to claim it at a local police station, unless it is engraved, or has identifiable scratch or mark how do they claim their true ring? They don't, they take one that looks like theirs and fits them even though it isn't the actual ring they lost.... It looks like theirs, it is the same size and Kt weight BUT it isn't the ring they lost.....

Turning in a wallet, or other lost item is one thing, but jewelry lost on a beach where 10's of thousands of people play and lose 100's of pieces of jewelry every day is something else......

Either way, good luck and good hunting.......

 

[Dano Sverige]

1/ Police stop you on the beach with your goodies? You're still on the beach..Can't hand stuff in until you actually go there later, "can i officer?"

2/ Japanese "lost & found" is going to be pretty busy for a while i think. Too busy for some clad and a gold earring or two.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

JapanBeachMan, the way you paint the picture of the culture there in Japan, I can see the "dis-connect" between your question, and how an american would see it.

Because here in the USA (where, as I've pointed out, the exact same lost-&-found laws exist), it's simply never culturally been applied, to trinkets, or ...... gasp, even rings from the beach, etc.... I mean, sure, if you ASKED, and some lawyer type were to morph deeply enough, then sure, they'd tell you that technically you must go to the police station for every item worth over $100. And then you enter into endless semantics of how an item is valued, etc... (ie.: when new in the store counter? or the melt value NOW? etc....).

But in Japan, if people turn in sweaters, beach blankets, posters in tubes, wallets complete with the $$ still in there, then you're right: perhaps in that culture, it's a given that it included (realistically speaking) even trinkets, clothing, beach balls, etc... And in that culture, it certainly sounds like you can count on honesty of the police dept, to dutifully turn those rings back over to you, when/if they are not claimed. But here in the USA, I have my doubts you'd get them back (despite legalese to the contrary). Odds are, the guy at the counter would call his brother in law after work, and tell him "hey Joe, want a nice rolex watch? come down to the police station tomorrow, and describe a watch with the following characteristics, and presto, you'll have yourself a nice rolex". Now I know that sounds horrible, but in the mind of the desk person, you only FOUND it. It's not yours either. You fully expect that it might be claimed, and since it wasn't yours, to begin with, how have you been hurt? And there's other problems with the system here too: When the item goes over a certain dollar threshold ($300 or $500 or whatever), then not only do the police simply hold it to see if anyone claims it, but they also run a "found" ad in a local newspaper, as required by law, for proper "publishing" notice. If, after a week or whatever, still no one comes in to claim it, THEN you, the finder, can keep it. But here's the rub: guess who pays for the cost of publication in the newspaper?? You do

A lot of us beach hunters simply rationalize that finding an owner is simply impossible, and that the owner is 99% certain to have given up on it, and long forgotten about it, (unless it was lost within the last few weeks or months perhaps). Because, heck, it could have been there for years. Do you really think the person continues to make weekly trips to the police station years and decades later?

Japan may have been hit by typhoons, and may have had construction booms, but still, stuff found on the beach can be years old. Heck, the typhoon may bring up stuff 100 yrs. old.

 

[JapanBeachMan]

Thanks all for the responses. I think, even though many are different, they're all on track at the same time.

I found this paper that explains the historical context and the modern requirements of the Japanese law, pretty interesting, at least I thought so:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...2talEJXQUA640YJ-zw/edit?hl=en&authkey=CJnWgUk

It would seem that I could take all coins home, which might not be too bad considering we have $1 and $5 coins here! (this is not legal per se, but common sense since you can't prove ownership) The law says to turn in all of the jewelry to the police, then either collect a reward of 10% of the value from the owner, or pick it up 3 months later if the owner doesn't claim it. The police must advertise the finds to a certain extent, and there is also an online database that you can search to see what has been turned in at a given site, with fairly specific categories. So if someone loses a $1000 gold ring you can assume they'll search the database. Oh well--I'd get a $100 reward for it. As for the lesser jewelry, which would probably not get turned in, well, it might pile up eventually.

I also found out that when I go to sell any precious metals, the buying shops don't check with the police. So some 'padding' may be possible, but I think I'd probably prefer to only pad with the things that probably weren't lost w/in the last 3 months. If most people respect the law, it would look pretty bad if one who doesn't were a crazy foreigner.

One more facet to this is whether a bunch of new finds every weekend would be a pain for the local police, as a few people said. If so then I'll certainly be the benefactor if I figure it out quick enough.

My final thought today is that people around here really don't seem to MD. Options for purchasing are incredibly limited unless you know where to look, which is strange given the ubiquity of sites like amazon.jp and its corollaries here. Check out the Minelab outlet site's front page: there's a white guy holding a detector by his hip while he stares across wheat fields with binoculars. http://mec-md.com/default.htm Oh well, advertising is advertising. The point being, if I actually start to do this on the beach here I'll attract attention, both the badged kind and the bikinied kind.

 

[Dano Sverige]

There is a guy in Japan, American i think, who does pretty well detecting the beaches. He's on my other forum though.

 

[soniya]

Back then, lost goods, animals and, mysteriously, servants had to be handed over to a government official within five days of being found. After a year, the government took over the belongings, though the owner could still reclaim them. The code stipulated that people had no right to keep lumber found adrift in a flood

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

The point being, if I actually start to do this on the beach here I'll attract attention, both the badged kind and the bikinied kind.

How long does the law state you have to turn in found jewelry?...

Personally I would not worry about the badge type, your not breaking the law, and being married to a beautiful oriential woman myself, I would enjoy the bikinied kind.... .....

No matter where you hunt, Japan or Daytona Beach your going to attact attention, it is normal and just part of the hobby.... Your walking along a beach with a large electronic device, large headphones, shoes and a huge metal scoop, if your shy about attracting attention you will never make it as a beach hunter......