Treasure Trove on public land

[cedrusdeodara]

I'm a complete green-horn that hopes to learn and experience alot in this hobby. I have this question. If you are detecting a site that is on public lands and you come across a treasure trove, a buried box of coins, jewelery, etc. What should you do? I literally have never done any metal detecting, I just ordered my first detector, so this does not apply to me personally. I guess my question is whether a detector would be better to 1. keep the findings and say nothing, 2. share the information on sites like this (and maybe be approached by the townships/county/state where the cache was found. 3. Bury the findings back in the hole and walk away (ha ha ha, joke). My guess is that a Major find in this hobby probably goes unreported. If an average Joe happened upon a Blackbeard burial of a chest of gold coins, should that guy take his story public and be on Cnn, Fox, NBC, Google, etc... or just keep his mouth shut and slowly work the findings back into the economy.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

The technical answer to your question is: You must alert the public entity on whose land you found it on. Eg.: city, county, state, or federal, etc... Now is that the answer you wanted, or did you want the realistic answer?

Such was the case of a fellow who was exploring caves (DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH METAL DETECTING!) in Death valley area, along the emigrant trails. He supposedly found some items that had been stashed there, like a travel trunk, with some clothes, personal diary, personal effects, etc... Like a steamer-trunk kind of thing, that someone had off-loaded in the mid-1800s, and hidden. Like to lighten their load, thinking perhaps they'd come back for it later. The fellow brought the items from down out of the mountains, and gleefully turned them over to the authorities. I guess he figured this was a nobel thing to do, so these things could be in a museum where they belong. The hiker/explorer was actually a history buff, so it was a double-pleasure for him, I suppose. But imagine his surprise when he was berated, and given the "3rd degree" because he had "disturbed" the "context" of things he'd found. I suppose he'd violated "collecting" clauses, "cultural heritage" clauses, etc... They told him he should not have touched anything, and gone and gotten authorities, etc... Now of COURSE if they gave him all that grief, you can BET he was not going to have been allowed to have kept any of that, right?

Or, imagine this: You are detecting in the public park in your town. You get a deep signal at the base of a 100 yr. old tree. You dig up a mason jar full of gold coins, obviously buried there from the days when the town was in infancy, and perhaps a house had been where the park now is. You gleefully go to city hall, and say

"Hi, I found this in *your* park. Can I keep it for my own fun and enjoyment? Or does it belong to the city, or the city museum, for all to see and enjoy?".

Heck, to be honest with you, even THEY can't say "go ahead and keep it". Because:

There are state-level lost & found laws, that state that items worth over $100 (or whatever threshold your particular state happens to have) must be turned in to the local police dept. for proper lost & found procedures. Notice that the law makes no distinction for when YOU think the item was lost, or buried. Ie.: 1 month ago vs 100 yrs. ago. I mean, let's face it, it is *entirely* possible that someone buried that jar of gold coins yesterday, afterall. Ie.: "how do you know?". So the law doesn't allow people to rationalize by saying "gee, it's been here for years, so no one will ever claim it, etc...". Afterall, insurance companies fight over things (like shipwrecks that get found) that are hundreds of years old. So there is no statute of limitations, and the lost & found laws, therefore, make no distinction. And they also do not say how an item is valued. Ie.: if a gold ring has $90 intrinsic melt value of gold, yet sells for $200 when new in the jewelry store, it's not up to YOU to decide "gee, I think it's under the $100 cut-off. Because otherwise, people would "find" other people's I'pods, etc... and say "but it only had $3.72 worth of instrinsic plastic, silicone, wires, etc... and thus I was under no obligation to go through lost & found laws".

 

[cedrusdeodara]

Tom, great points. I watched a youtube video about a guy who found a rare silver coin worth 20k in New York last year. My immediate thoughts were, 1. Did he have to pay an income tax on that $20k, and 2. Is the state going after him for ownership of the coin. I hope neither was the case.

 

[golddigger65]

I have that story of the found articles in Death Valley, it's from an LA area paper. I think the reality is that most things getting turned in have a way of becoming "lost, misplaced or just disappear".
I know of some folks that are in the process of recovering a large cache of gold coins, if word got out some local gov would certainly take away the find.

 

[releventchair]

Cedrus, i vote a look around,then choice #1. Be sure to fill in your hole. If you want to brag choose one coin,or low value nice piece of whatever and mention none other,heck you earned that! Just my opinion. P.s.,have a way to cover and transport a cache at point of find,of course being prepared could lower the odds.........
I carry a sturdy cloth bag,going to sew a couple denim cut off pant legs closed on one end too and add ties. Just in case.

 

[GMD52]

Cedrus,

Income tax would only have to be paid after you converted the find to cash. At that time it becomes income, but who's to say how much you got for it!

 

[olfacere]

In reality, you will usually lose the find. [The following does not constitute financial nor legal advice.] If you want to liquidate a find from any property other than your own, then the selling price will be taxable as income (the way that screws you the hardest). So, basically, if you didn't find it on your own land (meaning that it already belonged to you prior to discovery), then everybody is going to think that they deserve a piece of it. Some might think that the only reason the find didn't lay undisturbed forever is the discoverer and so he should be the one who benefits, not everyone else who would have never benefited without him. It's a good thing to help your community, but the way public finds are handled can be nigh unto thievery.

Honestly, I've never found anything worth hiding, so I can't say for sure what I would do. I suppose it would depend on the find. If the find is of great historic or cultural value to someone, whether it is of great monetary value or not, then it should be donated or whatever is appropriate. If the value is purely monetary, then the state already has way more money than I do! So, I would follow my moral compass. There might be some situation in which I find something on "my land a long time ago," but I would rather just be honest about it if possible.

 

[cudamark]

In this country with it's goofy laws about what is historical, I wouldn't say a word to anyone. If you just can't keep it to yourself, say you got the coins in change and the relics at a yard sale.

 

[Dixiegal]

Dig and scoot. A closed mouth garner's no Fibbies.

 

[grg3d]

First rule of Fight Club.....Is not to talk about Fight Club........

 

[majolle]

I have a friend who said one time to me that he had found a cache. 20 years later, I still don't know where it is and I have never pushed the matter with him. I do know that every 3 or 4 years he needs a new pickup and he leaves for 3 days, when he comes back I go with him into town and he pays cash for a new truck that he drives home. Curious, sure. But I have my own cache and nobody knows where it is either. Remember, there will only be fleeting glory in the moment you declare that you have found Montezumas Treasure. I learned that from my Dad 50 years ago, but you do what you want.

 

[Peyton Manning]

good try, but I'm not gonna bite. I know nothing, nothing...

P.S. if any of you find such a cache, send it to me for safekeeping. Trust me I'm a doctor

 

[Mayan Hunter]

Loose Lips, Sink Ships.

 

[nvradar]

YEP! SHUT THE %$@#! UP!!! No doubt opening your mouth and bragging will bring you BAD days! BTW I am curious to know how a treasure hunter would sell such gold and jewels? All at once or as needed, and to whom?

Take the Fenn TROVE as he calls it. What are the legal issues or are there any?

NO IM NOT A COP !!! just a silly avitar..

 

[stevejackson]

First rule of Fight Club.....Is not to talk about Fight Club........

dont worry you will find something valuable soon.till then keep diging.

 

[Gold Maven]

I'm no tax expert, but the way I understand it, if you do not receive a 10-99 from the buyer of your treasure, the government will have no record of the transaction. It is up to you whether you report it as taxable income.

Personally if I found a cache of gold coins, I would sit on them and sell a few very discretely as needed. I believe you could get a greater over all value compared to selling the entire cache at once.

Problems that most of us will never face, but you never know..........GL.

 

[bevo]

say nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rawhide]

What do you do if you find a treasure even larger than the treasure in the movie, "National Treasure" It is so large you can not recover by yourself. The government won't spend one dollar to help but they will tell you they will send 50 US Marshals as soon as you dig anything up? What is the route on something like that?

You slowley replace it with lead bars painted with gold paint is what you do lol. Wait a minute, did I say that out loud?

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

there are thousands of treasure trove sites on public land in the southwest...
they are called pre-historic ruins.
many cultural groups, no longer around this area created the ruins.
there are some ruins I can enter, and dig up pottery worth several thousands of dollars each.
I don't. it is rude, selfish, and against many state, federal, reservation laws.
I have no conception about the thought process, when an object has sat in the same spot for over a thousand years, is mine cause i saw it.
i just don't get it...sure treasure hunting is fun...fine in urban areas where progress has paved over and destroyed the context an provenance...
but...