
Who Owns Buried Treasure? - mud_dauber
https://www.topic.com/who-owns-buried-treasure
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jsmith99
In the UK, any hidden gold and silver more than 300 years old is generally
assumed to be treasure and belongs to the Crown (although the finder is
usually compensated). A lot of the ancient items in museums have been found by
amateurs and claimed by the state in this way.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove)

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est31
TBH this makes most sense. This way they are available to researchers and are
preserved for future generations. Otherwise those goods might disappear and be
melted or similar.

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Mirioron
It doesn't make sense at all, because this encourages people to destroy these
kinds of things whenever they find them on their land. If you find treasure on
your land and you report it then the government comes in and basically takes
over your land for a while. They want to let archaeologists investigate, but
you usually don't get much compensation. If you rely on that land to make ends
meet then it's a bad idea to report it.

I think the rewards need to be high enough that people want to report these.

Edit: there was that case in France where a farmer found a rare mastodon skull
and didn't want to bring attention to it because he didn't want amateur
paleontologists on his farm: [https://www.livescience.com/63060-farmer-finds-
mastodon-skul...](https://www.livescience.com/63060-farmer-finds-mastodon-
skull.html)

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jabberthemutt
"At all" is a very strong wording. Do you really not think that _appropriate_
compensation is all that's needed for this approach to make perfect sense?

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Mirioron
Sure, but we already have compensation that is supposed to be appropriate, but
people clearly don't think it's enough.

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lucb1e
Summary: in the USA, the person who found it absent whoever put it there. If
you can prove you put it there, you can have it back, but otherwise it seems
to be the finder's. There doesn't seem to be any law about it, just case law.

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atrilumen
Seriously, hope someone is willing to tackle this hypothetical scenario:

Land owners are unaware of a buried cache of gold that was robbed from an
armored car in the prohibition era...

And it has to be dug up.

The spot is marked with a stack of large rocks. The previous owners were
ostensibly always deterred by the threat of blasting caps being buried on top
of it.

What would you do about that? Anything?

Edit: Offer to split it with the land owners, and call the excavators? (and
the bomb squad?)

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zw123456
I have an uncle that is one of those "gold guys" who thinks economic collapse
is around the corner (shrug; who knows he may end up being right someday). He
says he has buried $500K in gold on his 200 acre place and says he is the only
one that knows where it is. I have told my Dad (it's his brother) we should go
out there at night with a metal locator. I sent the link to both of them :)

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trevyn
Can we do airborne ground-penetrating radar yet?

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jedberg
> The Danielson brothers’ claim to possession of buried treasure was also
> echoed in a 2013 case, when a couple walking their dog found $10 million in
> gold coins buried on their property in rural Northern California.

Anyone know more about this case? Who brought the suit if they found the money
on their own property? Was it the government so that they could get the tax
money?

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maxerickson
It's got an official website:

[http://saddleridgehoard.com/](http://saddleridgehoard.com/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_Ridge_Hoard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_Ridge_Hoard)

I think the blag might be using "case" to mean "incident" there rather than
referring to a lawsuit.

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sametmax
In france, I think if it's above 1m, it's yours, if it's below, it belong to
the state.

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benj111
That sounds backwards?

That broach (or just rubbish?) I found that's probably worthless I have to
hand over. The priceless historical/cultural artifact? The state isn't
interested.

The only benefit I can see is encouraging people to declare larger finds,
rather than splitting them up.

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freddie_mercury
m probably means meter here. It sounds like you are reading it as million.

But it is a great example of why using abbreviations is almost always a bad
idea on the Internet. It saves the one author a few tenths of a second but
wastes time for thousands of readers when ambiguity strikes.

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sametmax
Yep. I forgot NH is mostly american, and they don't use the metric system. 1m
in Europe would obviously be one metter, but 1M one million, and 1min one
minute.

I'll avoid saving a few keystrokes next time, it's not worth it.

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benj111
Ok thanks, I'm British for what its worth (so we have metres and miles!).

So if something is found buried deeper than a metre it belongs to the state?
That makes some sense.

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sametmax
Yes, if I recall well, it's not even about treasures, it's just that above 1m,
the land is private, and below, it's public.

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anticensor
Does this mean you are not allowed to construct underground floors at all?

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sametmax
You can, so I assume it's part of the permit you request from the city concil.

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skilled
All I can say is that this article is making me wonder how many times I buried
something as a kid and forgot about it.

I definitely remember burying a few things, but not all of them I can recall.

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slack3r
IMO : If it's on private property, whoever owns the property. If it's on
public property then the government.

