Calling All Con Artists ... How Would You Play It?

[Armchair detective]

For fun, and assuming that it really was a scam at the very beginning, how did you palm aside the money, and when?
Who are you? How did this go down?

Indulge your criminal and Sherlock selves.

 

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[pepperj]

For fun, and assuming that it really was a scam at the very beginning, how did you palm aside the money, and when?
Who are you? How did this go down?

Indulge your criminal and Sherlock selves.

There's no assuming it's a scam. Palming the $$$?
Who are you!
You'll to be accountable for such blasphemy.
Lead has flown for such trash talk.
But you might see a rope even.

 

[jeff of pa]

imo the Scam is going on now to keep the advertising money
coming in.

Though in a Way I guess That Proves it Is a Money Pit !
They are Getting very Rich ! just not from old treasure

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

First and last it's a TV show, the treasure is in the ratings and sponsors advertising.

 

[DizzyDigger]

A repost....

 

[Armchair detective]

Apologies, pepper.
Please change the word DID to the word WOULD, as in how WOULD you pull such a scam off? Such a difference a single word makes.
To my mind, IF there was a scam it started around 1795. The Colonel Robert in charge of the Onslow Co seemed to be the family patriarch, well off financially, well established in his community (and a judge?). This does not seem like a person who would risk his reputation for a deliberate hoax, so he was a believer (at least in the possibility).
So...IF there was a scam, it began upstream with the original three, or Simeon Lynds, or a guy who sold the three a map?
Scams are usually concocted to make money, so questions remain - who got the money, and how was it done?

 

[BennyV]

I mean these guys running the hunt don’t seem to follow through on much of anything. They run from theory to theory. Test to test. I was watching them open core samples without waving a pin pointer on them.

Seems like they are doing good enough without our help.

 

[Limitool]

I mean these guys running the hunt don’t seem to follow through on much of anything. They run from theory to theory. Test to test. I was watching them open core samples without waving a pin pointer on them.

Seems like they are doing good enough without our help.

Yea I noticed that also. No MD or pinpointer action on a single sample ever. Go figure.

 

[TruthbeTold]

Yea I noticed that also. No MD or pinpointer action on a single sample ever. Go figure.

Yet more proof of the long running hoax.

 

[Oregon Viking]

First and last it's a TV show, the treasure is in the ratings and sponsors advertising.

Treasure!!!

The cast members make around $100,000 per episode. With an average of 20 episodes per season, that would mean that the brothers are paid about $2 million each season.
They also are all producers so they get paid every time it re-runs or goes into syndication

 

[SSR]

Who lured who to OI in the first place? How did relations of Anthony Vaughn's wife become aware of an abandoned and lost hole with such an interesting (and recognizable ?) story attached to it? Let's say they were lured there convincingly to be tapped. Wouldn't they be interested in having as free look as possible, just like the Laginas have been? We know they didn't sink a dime of their money in the search. That tells you right there that they were not convinced. Had they been convinced, they had the means to do all of that without raising money and dividing the spoils. The Archibalds were well off. Some of their peers living in Halifax at the time did not think that the premise at OI made much sense. I would also argue that the Archibalds would also have had enough common sense to be very suspicious. I don't think they went there to have a look unless there is something they saw as an actual possibility. The British colonial government does not dig a hole and dress it up in details of a Hebrew myth. You can be damn sure the Archibalds recognized that if they did not have a hand in creating the backstory. The very nature of the story eliminates practically anyone but Freemasons. No one else would give you those details and a solution suggested by a geometric presentation.

Why do you scam? You scam to spread the cost away from you. That has never changed. When Restall was searching he was working someone else's lease. That someone else was relying on someone's else's money and effort, because he did not have enough belief to bother on his own. Faking a treasure hole allows leases to exist. The money raised can then be paid out to the people leasing the land. There are incentives everywhere for people to embellish for people to keep peddling the story to the masses.

 

[Blackfoot58]

There are many scams perpetrated around the edge of legitimate hunts.
Look at Dr. Zahi Hawass in Egypt.
He started out looking out for Egypt’s best interest in regards to their antiquities. He became a minor US tv personality. Suddenly everything goes through him. Payola and tv time (he’s a publicity dog IMO).
There are very real treasures still to be found in the Valley of the Kings area. It won’t be found without commercialization and DR. Hawass.
He reminds me of Idi Amin. He wrote the rules. Follow them if you want to play. Oak Island is similar. Probably some “truth”, but confused by people getting rich at our expense.

 

[Armchair detective]

Can anyone determine how old John Smith was when he bought lot 18 (the MP) in 1795 from Casper W? Doesn't seem like he was a teen.
For that matter what is known about the life and times of Daniel McInnis and Anthony Vaughn?

Just rounding up the usual suspects.

 

[ToddsPoint]

There are many scams perpetrated around the edge of legitimate hunts.
Look at Dr. Zahi Hawass in Egypt.
He started out looking out for Egypt’s best interest in regards to their antiquities. He became a minor US tv personality. Suddenly everything goes through him. Payola and tv time (he’s a publicity dog IMO).
There are very real treasures still to be found in the Valley of the Kings area. It won’t be found without commercialization and DR. Hawass.
He reminds me of Idi Amin. He wrote the rules. Follow them if you want to play. Oak Island is similar. Probably some “truth”, but confused by people getting rich at our expense.

Hawass hasn’t been the antiquities minister for quite a while.

 

[SSR]

Can anyone determine how old John Smith was when he bought lot 18 (the MP) in 1795 from Casper W? Doesn't seem like he was a teen.
For that matter what is known about the life and times of Daniel McInnis and Anthony Vaughn?

Just rounding up the usual suspects.

He was born in 1775. What we know is that these three were not boys who went to a jaunt to an uninhabited island. Smith lived 3 or 4 lots over with his mother and her second husband for many years prior to 1795 , and he probably worked on the land in question for Wollenhaupt before he bought it from him.

However, the "template" for three youths taking a storied leisurely jaunt to an island does appear in a famous poem called "All in the Golden Afternoon" that prefaces Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865. It would be interesting to know exactly when the similar fabricated details of the OI origin story was first unleashed. I don't think it was at any time prior to the Halifax newspaper articles of ca. 1863 that still don't give that at that time. The OI origin story is one that is fabricated one bit at a time, as far as we can tell. A lot of it appears to have seen the light of day around the time John Smith died in ca. 1858. Around 1860 is when a lot creative license appears to have been taken by those who are popularizing the OI story.

 

[Armchair detective]

Okay so Smith was 20 in 1795.

How old was Anthony Vaughn when he bought Lot 4 in 1793?
How old was Daniel McGinnis when he bought Lot 1 in 1794?

Trying to get a picture here.

 

[n2mini]

By the time John Smith died in 1858 there had already been him and his 2 buddies, Onslow Company and Truro Company ( actually was on island atleast 2 different times to dig ) in there digging. So word was out about it even if just by word of mouth. The locals on the main land would have seen boats coming and going to the island carrying equipment and people for the dig. I doubt back then that the owners of the lots we making any money from it, but were probably going to get a percentage of anything found.. Why it took the local newspaper another 5-7 years to write a story about it, is anyone's guess.. I think all digging had been stopped for some years and was years later before anyone else came in to dig.. Though could have been some smaller scale searching going on, as at that point a lot of people knew about it even without the newpaper article just from everyone who had searched on the island and told their friends/family, local bar patrons etc...