Here is an interesting observation about these vault treasures, there are many TV shows on ancient treasure storages such as the Oak Island treasure the SJ cache in South america etc. however you never see a tv show about anything being dug up over 100 years old right here in the united states, I wonder why that is?
We have the Dutchman Treasure and the Caballo's as well as many other famous caches here in the US, so why not any tv shows on these?
I'm guessing most likely because it would be seized immediately, & go through the courts.
I watched an old Pawn Stars re-run recently; Episode: 249 Original Air Date: 06-14-10.
A guy had a gold bar that he said was from his Grandmother's estate. They never
stated the weight, & the most visible markings they showed were 2- XX , which
their expert they called in said was the maker's declaration of 20 karat purity,
while they said it appeared more like 24K . Anyway, it was supposedly from
a 16th century Spanish fleet shipwreck, apparently off the coast of Texas.
There was some small area in creases that appeared to be coral, & so it
was accepted as treasure recovered from the 1554 Spanish shipwreck.
It was appraised as 2X melt value (which was 48K), & the pawn shop
after negotiating, bought for 35K cash, (current gold price was 1,117).
So I wonder how the laws vary for gold recovered from the ocean. It
seems there wasn't any issue with them buying, & it being televised.