To Keep Or Not To Keep?

[yodi]

KEEP!!!!!!

 

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[digger460]

Hey guys,
Been doing some reading on MD'ing and have become interested. One question though is,depending on the venue, when you dig something up is it yours to keep or not? This is a bit of a gray area that has me perplexed. Any feedback is always appreciated!
Thanks,
RUSH

What would Neil, Alex, and Geddy do? Rock ON!!!

 

[ScubaDetector]

This is a question only YOU can answer. Follow your heart and your conscious. I return all I can. I have friends that keep all they find. Who is right? NOBODY. I stay friends with them because I don't judge them and they don't judge me.

I will tell you one thing. Because of my returns and exposure on the Detroit news three times and in 7 different newspapers, I have received many many rewards for finds and have been able to get into places others can only dream about.

 

[Honest Samuel]

Obey all laws, or off to jail you will go.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Obey all laws, or off to jail you will go.

How about spitting on sidewalks in NY ? Anyone gone off-to-jail for that ?

Honest Samuel, while no one here is advocating "breaking laws", yet .... let me ask you: If you look up the laws for your state, you will no doubt find out they have lost & found laws. Usually a benchmark of $100 or whatever value-cutoff. Such that if you find any item on public property that exceeds that value (no matter WHEN you *think* the item was lost) , be turned over the police for lost & found. And notice this doesn't exclude valuable collectible coins. And notice the law doesn't say *how* the item is to be valued at.

You can't really say "intrinsic" (melt) value, and here's why: What's to stop you from keeping the $600 I-phone you just "found" in the restroom or park bench, because you figure it's only got .15c "intrinsic" value ? (some silicone, some copper, some plastic, etc...).

So while I sympathize with your post, it's a slippery slope for md'rs. What do you do with a ring you find on the beach (one that has zero inscriptions) ? Or what if you find a 1916 D merc ? No, you can't say the merc is .10c value.

 

[Honest Samuel]

I agree with # 6. I am older then 50 years, but, I not worth even worth one hundred dollars.

 

[cudamark]

What does "abandoned" mean? I finally got a good definition from one of the city's Parks and Rec services... it was on my most valuable find to date, btw. The parks department specifically stated that if an object is UNDERGROUND, it's considered to have been abandoned. They even specifically used the phrase, "You can consider it treasure!" (Which, interestingly enough, has some legal binding connotation.) If the owner had wanted to conduct a search of their own, they would have done it long before. And if they DID do it and didn't find it, and then gave up on it, it's technically still considered abandoned. As a result, if you have permission to MD and dig, and you find something underground, you most likely (and it's ALWAYS "most likely") have claim on the object as "abandoned," and are under no further obligation to find the owner and attempt a return.

That just goes to show you that asking Park and Rec personnel anything is a waste of time. His definition sounds pretty lame to me, and likely has no legal basis. Under his definition, if someone dropped a ring in the sand and it immediately was covered, it would be deemed "abandoned", even though the person may be returning with a metal detector, sieve, rake, etc. at any minute. Or he may have hired someone to find it and is going to meet such a person the next day or next week. Just because the item can't be found at the time it was lost (due to any number of reasonable circumstances) doesn't mean it was abandoned. If you find it in the mean time, you don't know those circumstances under which it was lost or the intentions of the person who lost it, so, trying to find that person is the only proper thing to do IMO, regardless of the item's value.

 

[dts52]

From personal experience, I can tell you that Budweiser, Coors and all the other major breweries do NOT want their flip tabs returned. I have quite a collection going. In 250 years it might be worth something! Seriously - If I get permission for private property, I always offer finds to the property owner before I start hunting (no one has taken me up on that one... guess they don't want their flip tabs back). Public property - Unless I can ID the owner, I keep it - hence the large collection of flip tabs. I did find an aluminum KIA bracelet of a soldier killed in Iraq. He was from here in CT and I made efforts to return it to his family. Called a number of military organizations as well as attempting to contact the soldier's parents. The military kept telling me that they'd get back to me (which they never did, I always had to call them) and I never heard back from his family. It is tucked away in my finds and everytime I come across it, I say a prayer for him and all our men and women in the armed forces. Maybe that's why it was meant for me to find it and keep it. Finding that was a very sobering reminder of what our military does to protect our freedom. God bless them all!
HH
dts

 

[Tom_in_CA]

cuda-mark, there was a true case near me, where a 4th grade kid (a loaner nerd type) took his dad's coin collection to school, without his dad's permission, to show it at show & tell day in his 4th grade class.

Then at recess, the kid began to pass out the coins to fellow class-mates, to "make friends". And naturally, the fellow kids who'd never seen or held bust halves, silver dollars, seated quarters, etc.... must've figured it was like play money. Because a bunch of the coins ended up in the sand box, and elsewhere around the school yard.

Imagine a lucky md'rs surprise, a few months later, when he was plying the sand box at this 1940's school yard. He gets a couple of choice seated and bust coins! So he assumes "tokens" or "fakes". But a coin-collector buddy of his assures him they are real. So the two of them decide to go back and ply the sand for more. And they found a few more over the next couple of attempts. All told, they had perhaps 7 or 8 of these choice early american coins from the sand box.

So they devised an explanation that made sense: Since this school is just a few miles from the ocean/beach, then logically this sand must've been brought in with the last sand in-fill rotation (d/t they replace the sand every few years with new clean sand). Hence the coins must've been brought in from the beach ! How lucky , eh?

That theory worked ok, till one of the two men ventured outside the sandbox, to some nearby tall grass. Gets a signal , parts the grass, and there.... just barely below the roots, is ANOTHER choice early american coin! So the two men branched out the all the surrounding grass, and hoover-vacc'd that too. Now they were up to about a dozen choice early american coins. But their "sandbox fill" theory was un-ravelling, since some of coins now, were clearly in the grass.

But that was ok, because they got a new theory to deal with that: Since this school is just a fraction of a mile off the north-south road/trails (the el camino real) of yesteryear, then perhaps this school yard site had been the location of an emigrant/traveller stopping/camping spot. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Then FINALLY, one day, when 1 of the 2 men was out there alone, a janitor eyeballed through the window . The janitor came out and says to the md'r: "hey, do me a favor: If you find any old coins.... And I mean OLD coins, let me know". The md'r, w/o letting out any clues, asks "why? what's up?" . And the janitor told the man the story of the 4th grade kid. Once the dad got wind of what happened to his collection, he marched his son down to the principle's office by the ear. And the principle marched the 2 of them into the class-room. All the students had to stand to attention, while the teacher and the principal announced to the class that all the students were to return any coins to Mr. Smith, that they'd been handed the week before.

But, of course, the man got very few of his coins back. The other classmates denied having gotten any. Or said they lost them, blah blah.

You can imagine what's going through the md'rs mind as he hears out the janitor, right ? He immediately figures out where their coins had been coming from.

Ok, you tell me: Since those coins had been covered (albeit shallow, albeit in sand, etc...), by your definition, are they abandoned and their finders-keepers ?

If you were the man who had lost all his coins, would you figure that you had no right to ask for your coins back ? Wouldn't you feel like they are still yours, if you got wind of the fact that someone had found them ?