Another "hypothetical" find... Gold coins

[: Michael-Robert.]

I would find a private buyer. There are many that would be interested to buy something like that. You can google and find the honest very popular buyers online. If you are not computer savy just go to one of the many coin auction and meet the many buyers (try not to get talk into auctioning them).

QUESTION: If you found an old weathered leather bag (2) with 100+ gold coins in them on somebody else's property in a very rural area with NOTHING around... what would you do? Change the "truth" ... melting them sucks ... selling them leads to questions or could. I'm just curious what some of you think.

 

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[: Michael-Robert.]

I would keep it. Possession is 9/10th of the law. Unless it was familt or a friends land then i would share.

What if somebody only asked to drive their ATV, or MD, and/or hunt wild game upon their property with no agreement and was then granted permission? Then you discovered something of great value that they had NO IDEA was even there for the past 140+ years? What would you do? I'm not asking what is the RIGHT thing to do.... what should somebody do?

 

[: Michael-Robert.]

Tell them they have been in the family for years. Selling do to economy and for your retirement.

Been retired since 06' and I believe the majority of you would do as I would and just go home with the coins. But it would be so hard (as someone mentioned above) to not post pics and tell the world. And then trouble begins. I guess my feelings are that if the coins haven't been moved for 100+ years then it's open season. But I bet every time you call up a dealer or a collector you always get asked.... "How did you come across them"? And to tell them that you just found them sounds stupid. I guess you'd get your "story" straight after selling them one at a time and telling your "story" 100+ times. Unclebuck is right.... enuff said!!!!!!!!!

 

[: Michael-Robert.]

You have nothing but time. You are retired now. I bet they aren't looking for historic reasons. You should check the history. I BET SOMETHING BIG is going on there. If it is your property start digging.

Makes ya wonder why this guy picked my driveway to pull up into and inquire. And yes I have an undocumented cave, unmapped and I believe another entrance is possibly around to this one. But I totally believe there's another cave close by that was landslide shut long ago. I know exactly where it is... but damn it's gonna be a job to hand dig out. No machinery possible... ALL HAND WORK.

 

[Dave Rishar]

You do make some very good points. The main thing though is no matter what anyone says about their morals. They really wouldn't know until in that situation. Your right about rationalizing it. morally yes, Legally? Our laws can be debated. Situation is the big deciding factor. Here's kind of a different type question for you to show what I'm trying to say. Say, a hoard was stolen a 100 yrs ago and buried. even though it's on their land it doesn't belong to them either. So, what is moral here? your basically stealing a stolen hoard! Not picking on you. Just late and I'm bored! lol

I delved into that a few pages back. Right, for me (and probably most people here), would be to tell the land owner. If I woke up tomorrow to find that my house had burned down, someone had stolen my car, and I'd lost my job, "right" would become a very different thing for me. "Right" would mean putting a roof over my head and food on my plate. "Right" would essentially mean survival, and that widens the playing field by a good margin. Still, I'd like to think that further on down the line, if I found myself in a position to make amends, I would do so. I still have to live with myself when it's all said and done.

As for your hypothetical situation, I'd be more than willing to walk you through my actions and why I'd take them, but you'll have to be much more specific with such a scenario. Every detail matters. Do I know that a horde was stolen? Do I know who it belongs to? Can I find out who it belongs to? How can I be sure that this horde is that horde? What's my situation? What's the landowner's situation? If I can find out who has a rightful claim on the horde (if anyone), what's their situation? And just how big is this horde anyway? (Because let's be honest...when enough wealth is involved, even ethical people struggle, and sometimes with the best intentions.*)

Right is not necessarily the same as lawful. I try to do what's lawful, but ultimately I'm going to do what I think is right. Generally that's lawful, but not always. It all depends on the circumstances, and every situation is different.

* Imagine that you were offered $50 million to allow a child to starve to death. You were not required to take any action (in fact, you were required to take no action at all), but simply to observe. In the absence of money, it's easy to say, "Screw that, I'm feeding that kid. That's not right." Now consider how many starving children you could feed for even a fraction of that, and the question becomes, "For $1 per day, I could feed 5,000 starving children for three years." Now, twist this around to, "I could feed 4,500 starving children for three years, and I could pocket $5 million for myself in the process because I'm feeding so many starving children." Who is the bad guy?

One guy fed one kid and let 5,000 starve.

One guy let a kid die and fed 5,000 other children for three years with the proceeds.

One guy let a kid die and pocketed a large sum of money, although he went on to save 4,500 children from starvation for three years.

Again, who is the bad guy here? Is there one? Going strictly by the numbers, the guy that stepped in to save the starving kid was the bad guy, as he could have saved many, many more by not doing so. The second guy let a kid die but saved many more in the process. The third guy did more good than most people will do during their lives, but he potentially starved 5,001 children in the process of saving 45,000 that would have otherwise died. I can't really fault the first guy for simply being a human being, even though he made the least logical decision of the bunch. I can't fault the second guy because he sacrificed one child for 50,000 others. I can't even fault the third guy, as he fed 45,000 children, but I can choose not to like him for giving up the other 5,000. But can I hate him? How many children have I fed? How many have you fed? He's done more good than most people, but one might argue that he's done more evil as well...but those kids would have starved without his intervention, so he did good in the end. It depends on how you look at it.

It's not cut and dried. It's not right for me to steal now, but if my situation changed, and the landowner's situation changed, it might very well be right for me to steal. It still wouldn't be lawful or ethical, but I'd be doing what I had to do.

Does that make sense?

 

[Limitool]

Thanks for the thoughts Dave... You and others are right (I believe) that it does/would all depend on the detailed circumstances. But its just a rural wooded area, NOTHING around (trees, valleys, gullies and a lot of critters). Landowner lives a long ways away and uses woods to hunt only in the fall. And he's retired also (late 60's mid 70's in age).

Nitric says..."So, what is moral here? your basically stealing a stolen hoard!" .... Maybe. Stealing is a strong word... finding sounds better. When I'm out exploring and looking under rocks, MD'ing, and crawling in small holes in a cave my mindset is the possibility of "finding" something of value or of historical importance. Could it be a stolen hoard...? yea, maybe... but it could be hidden payroll also. The person would never know?

 

[Boatlode]

If the property owner had no idea it existed, finders keepers. Like I said, its not like you found his lost wallet.

Would it make you feel better if you bought the piece of property from the owner before you recovered the treasure? Then it would be on your property.

Like Hillary said, "What difference does it make?"

 

[Escape]

I would divide the coins in half. Take half, show it to the land owner and say, " Look what I found!" He could do what he wants. Not sure what I would do. Depends how I size up the land owner. ( is he willing to share it.) Not greedy by nature. I dont think i would keep it all and be quite.

 

[cazisme]

Marry land ownwers daughter.

 

[Dave Rishar]

Thanks for the thoughts Dave... You and others are right (I believe) that it does/would all depend on the detailed circumstances. But its just a rural wooded area, NOTHING around (trees, valleys, gullies and a lot of critters). Landowner lives a long ways away and uses woods to hunt only in the fall. And he's retired also (late 60's mid 70's in age).

How is the location important? If a cache is out in the back forty, does this make it more acceptable to take it and say nothing than if it was, say, in the back yard or the basement? This question is not meant to be an accusation, but merely another thing to consider.

The man that we're talking about owns a lot of land and is retired. This suggests to me that his needs are being met, so he probably doesn't need any treasure...but does he want it? Legally it's his, after all. Do any of his family members need it? What would he do with it if he knew about it? These are things to consider.

A useful thought experiment for those that subscribe to the "finders keepers" philosophy is imagining a role reversal. Pretend that you gave me permission to search your land and I found something, but I didn't tell you about it. If this happened in real life you'd never know, but for the purpose of this experiment you do - it's merely hypothetical, after all. How does this make you feel? I know how I'd feel if it happened to me.

Also, remember that there are more options here than simply coming foward with it all or running off with it. Some good suggestions have been made earlier in this thread. If my situation was worse than it is, I might turn over half and not mention the other half. (This could make for a potentially awkward encounter if the land owner, in a fit of honesty, offered half of it as a reward. What do I do then?) I might reveal just a bit of it and use his reaction to figure out if I can show him the rest. There are multiple ways to handle this. But for me, right now and without knowing more, I don't think that I could simply disappear with all of it.

 

[BC1969]

How do you know the guy does not know its there ?
I doubt somebody would tell somebody else, that say a family member or family friend long ago put something somewhere here.
This really cannot be addressed by anybody other than the person that discovered it, nobody else's opinions matter, its a choice between right and wrong IMHO, and one only the finder can make.

Mike

 

[Limitool]

How do you know the guy does not know its there ?
I doubt somebody would tell somebody else, that say a family member or family friend long ago put something somewhere here.
This really cannot be addressed by anybody other than the person that discovered it, nobody else's opinions matter, its a choice between right and wrong IMHO, and one only the finder can make. Mike

The property has changed hands many times since the 1860's. And in todays world I'm guessing nobody would hide such a horde in such a isolated dark, hard to reach, balls to the wall spot. I can assure you NOT... if you saw what I'm hypothetically talking about. A California repeat will NOT happen here if this ever occurred.

 

[huntsman53]

Brad,

If you are feeling guilty after our adventure on the old wagon road, then give the property owner some of the Oxen shoes and Horse shoes we found. He might need to shoe something! Just be careful that it is not your' head.


Frank

 

[Dave Rishar]

Dave , Nothing personal was meant by my comment,Hope it wasn't taken that way!

Not at all. No offense was meant by anything that I said either. Electronic communication is imprecise by nature.

This really cannot be addressed by anybody other than the person that discovered it, nobody else's opinions matter, its a choice between right and wrong IMHO, and one only the finder can make.

I very much agree with the last two points made in this statement. However, he did ask for opinions earlier on.

Limitool? The answer to your hypothetical question depends very much on how you think of yourself, and how you'd like to continue to think of yourself. What's right for one person may be wrong for another, and vice versa. It's very much a matter of context. Let me be very clear about this, though...were I to find myself in this situation, I would most likely go ahead and tell the land owner with the understanding that in doing so, I probably wouldn't see a dime of it. I'm okay with that. It sucks, but it's legal and I can walk away knowing that I did the right thing, even if they didn't. If this is a deal-breaker (and it is to some), that's another thing to consider. I hold myself to higher ethical standards than I'd expect most people to adhere to, even the ones that I consider to be good. Taking the money and running would not be legal and probably isn't fair, but I wouldn't condemn someone as a monster for doing so - a good portion of us would do the same thing, I think. I'd simply want that person to understand what they were hypothetically doing, why they were doing it, and possibly thinking about how this might weigh on their mind in the future. I've found through experience that regret is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Limitool]

Brad,

If you are feeling guilty after our adventure on the old wagon road, then give the property owner some of the Oxen shoes and Horse shoes we found. He might need to shoe something! Just be careful that it is not your' head. Frank

Boy I got enough shoes to give the owner... Frank (Huntsman53) and I went "out back" onto this property Sat. and Sun. exploring and MD'ing. On the way back out we turned on machines to MD the old wagon trail for awhile. We only went about 25-30 yards and quickly recovered 6-7 oxen and horseshoes. It's a lot of work digging them out of the hard solid chert soil. Non of the shoes were solid gold.

 

[KEYSHUNTER]

ive got to ring in,all the "treasure" found in oceans are now subject to many,many laws,no more finders keepers...alot has been laying around 300 years give or take.to me it would be a breath of fresh air to see something in the middle of the hills...as for splitting it,if he was not well off i would send check or buy his property and he can live their for the rest of his days bill free

 

[Keppy]

It was a general "we". I don't particularly care what others think about me personally, but I'll bet that they don't think of me as a thief or a liar. Much more importantly, I don't think of myself as a thief or a liar.

If you took someone's property (even if they didn't know that they had it), then yes, they probably should know that. Rationalize it all that you'd like, but don't attempt to convince anyone that this is ethical. It's theft. Just because they don't know about it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. The real question is, how do you justify this act? "Then they are happy and so am I," doesn't work for me personally.

Well then i guess that all those ...Pro Treasure Hunters…. should give all there great finds back to the owners .. But when some one finds out they have found it .. Those Pro hunters will go to court to try to keep there finds…….. They must all have no moral's or conscience ….. Come on now we do not spend this money on equipment and our time to give it away … You guys have to be the most self righteous bunch i have ever seen …. I hope you all did not break your arms patting your selves on the back...

 

[littleneckhalfshell]

Bigfoot1 sort of started to say what I was thinking, Boatload also mentions it in passing, but I'll set this before you.

[h=3]Matthew 13:44[/h]New International Version (NIV)

[h=3]The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl[/h]44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."


Now this sort of conflicts with the golden rule - 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' but people all the time in garage sales buy items for cents on the dollar and sometimes DO buy TREASURE. So if I were to be on the landowner side of the issue, I would hope the one who found it would let me know, but...... from the finder point of view, was I not already in the wrong for trespassing, taking the treasure is just slipping further down that slippery slope to outright theft in my opinion. At least the guy in the parable tried to do it in a legal sort of way.

 

[Frankn]

Hay let's look at it sensibly! You found two old leather saddle bags on a cache hunt. Now let's look at the ownership question. Just because someone placed the bags on this property does not necessarily mean that the bags belong to the owner of the property. They could have belonged to anyone or they could have been stolen way back, original owners unknown.

Now if say this is public land, well say no more, I am part of the public and this is my share. If it's on private land I would more likely have an agreement that I would honor.

As far as dispensing with the cache, check out my earlier post on this thread #3.

Frank...-

 

[Trent67]

Keeping them. Thats why I am out there. To find treasure.