Mike, not saying there's no treasures down there, nor that none have been found. Sure, treasures have been found thre. They've also been found here in the USA too - with a lot less trash and superstition to wade through. I'm just saying that most every Mexican has stories of "for sure" treausures, that surely abound in every back yard and cave. Stories get embellished and passed around, and before you know it, it's just taken as fact.
I break the Mexican treasure lore into 2 categories: The ones you can dismiss right away, because they are based on stuff like: a) visions or dreams b) glowing lights or flames coming from a spot in the hills (that the guy saw after drinking too much tequila probably
) c) sparkles coming from a spot in the ground they passed while on a hike d) anyone where someone told some who told someone who told someone, etc.... e) anything to do with Pancho Villa or any of the many revolutions in Mexico's past.
But then there's the class of stories which involve things that are supposedly NOT superstition/rumor based. Things like a) a corrupt official who died, with an unaccounted for amount of money missing from their estate (which surely, therefore, they must've buried for safe-keeping, since old Mexico had no banks), b) a rich store owner who all the neighbor's knew had $$, yet died unepexted, before he could inform his next of kin where he'd stashed $$, c) loose coins washed out of a cliffside after a storm, which probably came from a broken cache, and the motherload is just waiting to be found.
And them some cross-over semi-rumor types, where someone , who when they were 4 yrs. old, (now middle-aged) saw the neighbor digging a hole in the middle of the night, so they were probably burying a treasure. Or things like loose coins found under a floor while prepping for tile work, so certainly more must be there, since detectors are superior to the ones accidentally eye-balled by workers. My response to all of these, is that when you press the story-teller for his basis for these "facts", (which,
who can dispute the story of rich store owner at turn of the century?) is that, invariably, this is something that the person telling, was told themselves, by someone who surely would know. There is no "proof" other than the story you are being told. So whereas it evades the obvious superstition category, it is only something they are being told, or is something that maybe they themselves were supposedly witness to, yet so long ago, and under so much cultural bias, that they simply start to believe it
must be connected to a treasure.
As for the coin pix, and the story of the boy whose bike hit the wall, and out popped the bag of coins: I too had similar stories. In each case, I would ask to see the coins, but then the story morphs into how they were seen, but they were currently in someone else's hands, who also doesn't have them anymore. Then it morphs into "well, this is what I was
told, even though both me and them didn't actually
see the coins. You have overcome that hurdle by actually handling the coin you have. Bravo! to get this far is rare. But I would answer that with this: If you were to actually talk to the boy (hypothetically), my hunch is that the story would change. He got it, like you say, as a replica, and the story was born that it was found hidden in a wall. Or, it was actually his friend down the street, who found in the wall, and ... since they are friends, it's fair to say that "they" found it, and so on and so forth, and before you know it, no one really knows whose bike it was, what wall it was, etc.... I'm not saying they "lie", but that they (or the person telling you the bike story) just begin to accept things as fact. It's just the culture down there. Why do you think that LRL's sell like hotcakes down there? Because they're scientific? Of course not, it's because they believe anything they read, when it has to do with treasure.
Sorry, but I still don't think any pearl ship transcripts exist. Your friend may have started to look at something (he couldn't photo it, handle it, and even didn't have time to transcribe it - durnit), and, based on the results you told him to look for (evidence of the pearl coverup thingy), he naturally morphs any secrecy into "aha, they are HIDING something", lest the public learn of the secret treasure! This mentality is so evident in the UFO craze. No matter how compelling the evidence is to explain something mysterious, UFO advocates will rely on any info they CAN'T find, as certain proof that the govt. is hiding info. Or if the paperwork info WAS seen by someone, it was lost, or was taken away from them before they could duplicate it, or they lost it, etc...
I mean, how is this transcript in Mexico City stuff, any different than all the stories of starving indians or miners who crawl into town, tell the story of fabulous riches, and then die before being able to give the final clue? Or the cowboy who sees a ship, or treasure, or whatever, goes back to civilization with the intent of launching the recovery effort. But then "wouldn't you know it!", he goes back, but can't find the canyon (durnit), or a storm or earthquake covered the entrance, and now it's unrecognizable indistinct form the entire mountain range (durnit). C'mon, eventually you have to sort out facts, and fanciful legends.
, but I remember the area where it was taken. 
