Hypothetical scenario

Years back I "followed a silver signal" to where it crossed over the road and onto a ranch property.
Now there were two signals that went there. One strong and one weak. I meet the owner of the property and asked if I could recover it and split it with them.
They said "yes".
As I followed the weak signal in, the owner started talking about the family that owned it before her family bought it.
The man had sold most of his cattle and brought the money home (silver dollars) and then went out of the house with a shovel and the coins. He came back without the coins.
He did not tell his wife where he buried the coins at that time. 3 days later he had a stroke and died.
Because she didn't have any "hard money", she lost the ranch and the current owner's father had bought the property.
She suddenly decided that it would not be right for her to have the money and all of it should go to the other family. I stopped right then and said, "O.K., I'll go home now".
Her husband was watching me as I was tracing the signal and never said a word.
BTW While they were both talking to a friend of mine, I stepped out of line of sight and traced the big one to a big area of ceder growth.
Ceder trees when the main trunk dies will still come up from the root ball for many, many years.
I believe that the money was buried in the middle of this group of ceder bushes/trees.
I did not tell them or show it to them. I never went back to try and recover it either.
An agreement was made and then broken, I hope her husband dug for a long time in the wrong place for the coins.<G>
 

Well, If you dig, you need someone watching your Back. Never Know if you've been seen, ever if you were to gain permission, There are those that will overtake you as you carry it out, who care less about whos who.
If you talk to them and they won't let you, then you know they will keep an eye out .... But You might explain to them that If something is there, SOMEONE ELSE may steal it soon, so they need to get with you and do the search.
 

Audigger,

None of us knows how a search will turn out, tell we are out there doing it.
Yours is a good case in point. I have yet to see a contract that a land owner
could'en brake. Sometimes the whole deal can turn on a dime.
You make a judgement call, and I think you made the right one.

CaptJohn,

You make some very good points, in what you say there.
 

ericwt said:
In eight states if you find something on your own property that is valuable you are violating the law if you do not turn it in to the proper authorities.

Anything older than 50 years is in violation of antiquities laws regardless on where you find it.
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Can you name the states and cite the laws that apply here? I've checked into this for states I have lived in and found the opposite to be true. If you find something on your own property, or private property with permission then all you are liable for is any tax on revenue derived from the find. The exception is if the site can be considered a burial site. Archaeologists often complain that antiquity laws don't apply to finds on private property.
 

In my area it is common for a land owner to rent or lease his property for the sole purpose of hunting for wildlife (deer, geese, quail, etc). Has anyone ever entered into this kind of agreement to treasure hunt or metal detect?

Rick
 

while i agree with most here about tresspassing, to a point,{i will ask before i tresspass} i tend to see it different on the theft issues....someone buys a peice of property in 2006...unknown to them is a cache buried in 1875 on this property...its not theirs, they know nothing about it, the cacher is long dead,,,,if they are so narrow minded to not let someone that knows about it dig then i do not see how it could be construed as theft..they bought the property, not the cache......case in point....a few years ago a fellow bought a nice sports car from a u.s. marshalls seized vehicle auction that had been taken from a drug runner...a couple weeks later he traveled to mexico for a vacation in the car...border guards found several kilos of narcotics stuffed into the body panels...he knew absolutely nothing about the drugs..yet he bought the car they were in...were they his then ? the judge didn't think so....were they the marshalls who sold him the car ? maybe, but the judge didn't see it that way either....in the end the fellow was not charged with any crime, the marshalls ended up with the kilos, probably to trade them off in some foriegn country for guns or something via oliver north...if you buy a property that later on a murder victim, or a murder weapon is found buried on, is it yours ? will you claim it ? i think not.........in several states if you buy a pond/lake, that has a feeder creek, anything found in the lake belongs to the government...how is that right ? because its in the waterway ? bull....another thing to consider is that if the property owners fail to keep up property, or if a highway is planned through area, the gov will condemn it, and possibly lay claim through imminent domain, so how is it really theirs ? truth be known most of the country was stolen to begin with, by the same crowd that writes these stupid laws, so does it belong to anybody ? possibly the american indian, but since they now have casinos to rob with then i doubt they need it either..............gldhntr
 

Humm well since i ain`t sitting on some pearly white throne i really can`t judge anyone. But lets look back though history, this country has been taken from legal owners since day one, either by purchases or force and we are not allowed to judge them so how can someone judge u in either direction u decide to proceed with.

U want to go honest, if u know how much is there get some investors and buy the property make ur discovery then resale the property, what u found was on your property but then taxes and all will steal the majority of ur find. And heaven forbid if it`s older then 50 years old then u stand the chance of all it being "Taken" supposedly legit antiquities rule.

If u really think about it with all the rules in this country, there is not a single person innocent, rules u may not of even heard of, but are on the books, want me to get technical, in some states there is a law about spitting on the sidewalk, or how bout if u get cought in a jam and have to go, yep u can be arrested for an act of nature even in a remote area, in one military town there was a sign and law that read "NO Dogs or Sailors on the grass" this was actually on a postcard from years past...

What i`m trying to say here is simple, we each as human beings must decide where each of us walk the line, and that decision is ours and ours alone to make.
 

gldhntr said:
while i agree with most here about tresspassing, to a point,{i will ask before i tresspass} i tend to see it different on the theft issues....someone buys a peice of property in 2006...unknown to them is a cache buried in 1875 on this property...its not theirs, they know nothing about it, the cacher is long dead,,,,if they are so narrow minded to not let someone that knows about it dig then i do not see how it could be construed as theft..they bought the property, not the cache
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There are a lot of stupid laws you can choose to obey or disobey while accepting the consequences either way. But in this case you're not thumbing your nose at an out of control or oppressive government. You're thumbing your nose at the property rights of the person who bought the property. My position would be that they bought the property, therefore they bought the cache and everything else on the property (minus mineral rights which are covered by their own set of laws). What if instead of a cache on the property we were talking about a brand new Ferrari or John Deere tractor? Would it matter if the new property owner didn't know that the Ferrari or tractor were on the property? What if the Ferrari or tractor were in a barn, and the new owner purchased the property at a tax auction and had never even seen the property? Does that give you the right to enter the property and take whatever you want before the new owner arrives and lays specific claim to the items on the property? On the flip side, how would you feel if you were the new owner and someone entered your property and dug up a $50,000,000 cache after you had denied permission to them to search for one, or snuck in their the day you were signing the papers and found it? I think that property law covers this already in favor of the property owner. But just as important is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
 

gldhntr...I agree with you it is the right thing to do ( asking permission before tresspassing )


TheSleeper, didn't you know there are a lot of people out there without sin ( I Didn't, now I do )
Cause I have had a lot of stones trown at me.
gldhntr, for those that think the right thing should be done. You've made a very good point.
This land that most of us live on now was taken "stole" from the Indians. And I know that
those good fokes are going to give the land they own back to the Indians, cause it's only right.

I have been contacted and call a thief, and many other things. some I can't even say on here.
But, the one I like best is :honest crook?

Roadquest
 

okay middenmonster, don't take this as arguement as its not,,,, you buy a property and later find an underground room filled with dead people chained to the walls...you find a bloody knife buried in a plastic bag,,, you find several handguns with the serial numbers ground off in the basement,,,you find a box in the barn labled ''anthrax''.....whos is it ? you gonna claim it ? you find barrels of hazardous waste, you want it ? no..not yours, no way, right ? it was here when you bought the place and you know nothing about it and want nothing to do with it...... yet if its something of value, that can't be proven as stolen, well thats a different story...its all yours as its on your property right ? you bought it, from someone else that bought it, on down the line a couple hundred years back to where it was stolen/taken by force from who it originally belonged to but this doesn't matter right ? so who is the rightful owner....if stolen guns had to belong to the previous owner instead of you then why not a gold cache ? and no one in their right mind would claim stolen guns, so they would revert all the way back to the original owner with no one claiming them...why should a gold/silver cache be veiwed any different ? because its worth something only........and i do do unto others as i would have them do unto me...i have let everyone that knocked on my door detect my place, even though i have only detected about 30 square feet of it...and they are all told they can have what they find as long as i get to see it before they leave......and a couple found many artifacts/relics dating back to the rev war..........gldhntr
 

gldhntr said:
okay middenmonster, don't take this as arguement as its not,,,, you buy a property and later find an underground room filled with dead people chained to the walls...you find a bloody knife buried in a plastic bag,,, you find several handguns with the serial numbers ground off in the basement,,,you find a box in the barn labled ''anthrax''.....whos is it ? you gonna claim it ?
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Except for the fact that it is evidence of a crime, I would. If it were just the handguns I would keep them and keep quiet. But the presence of bodies chained to the wall means it is a crime scene, and I would be required by law to report it. The chains, knife, guns and box labeled anthrax are evidence at that point, and would be collected by the fuzz.

you find barrels of hazardous waste, you want it ? no..not yours, no way, right ? it was here when you bought the place and you know nothing about it and want nothing to do with it......
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And yet as owner of the property I would be the one who is financially and legally responsible for disposing of it. I could file a civil lawsuit against the person who sold me the property if I thought they had concealed that fact from me, but I'd be on the hook for it otherwise.

tright ? so who is the rightful owner....if stolen guns had to belong to the previous owner instead of you then why not a gold cache ? and no one in their right mind would claim stolen guns, so they would revert all the way back to the original owner with no one claiming them...why should a gold/silver cache be veiwed any different ?
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The difference is that as you described the scenario, the guns are known to be stolen. If I didn't know they were stolen I would keep them. If I knew they were stolen it would be my responsibility to turn them over to the police or risk prosecution for receiving stolen property. If I bought a piece of property and found a gold and silver cache with information that identifies a specific previous owner I would attempt to find that owner or their descendants and return the find to them. If I found bank bags full of money and my research showed that the money likely came from a bank robbery 100 years ago I would turn it over to the police and notify the bank (because I don't trust the police to return it). If I found gold, silver, cash or other valuables that had no identifying information and presented no evidence of a crime I would keep it. If I found something valuable that could be connected with a culture or civilization, and not an individual I would keep it.

because its worth something only........and i do do unto others as i would have them do unto me...i have let everyone that knocked on my door detect my place, even though i have only detected about 30 square feet of it...and they are all told they can have what they find as long as i get to see it before they leave......and a couple found many artifacts/relics dating back to the rev war
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And that's an admirable thing to do. But property owners are not required to be as accomodating as you. In a free country people have the right to be a total #$@hole.
 

Gentlemen, This is totally about each of us what and who we are inside, as i tried saying earlier "What i`m trying to say here is simple, we each as human beings must decide where each of us walk the line, and that decision is ours and ours alone to make."

Our actions describe who and what each of us are, this world we live in has changed so much it no longer is heaven on earth.

Who is to say maybe if Road did this and found a nice fortune, then left more then enuf on those peoples doorstep to see them the rest of there life comfortably, had enuf to make his life more fuller, and still enuf to help some poor slob living on a street corner live again, would that be wrong? Yes this is just a scenerio but what if it happened, would that not justify his actions, being able to help 3 people or more instead of just leaving something laying buried beneath the soil?

What if u bought a piece of property, and a former owner had oil and minerial rights to it but it was not disclosed to u, or say the gov had those rights, one day ur digging a new garden and hit a (what ever u wish to put in here) only to have it totally stripped away from u by the person or gov with the rights, leaving u with nothing.

What if u were a homeowner down on ur luck close to loosing everything and one day u wake up and on your doorstep is a package and a note, dear homeowner, i dug a lost treasure buried on your property, one u would never have been able to find, i took the chance to give us both a better life so in closing i split it with u, and inside u will find xxxxxxxx amount of dollars.

There are so many what if scenerios basically what it boils down to is U and only U can decide where U walk that line.
 

TheSleeper said:
What if u bought a piece of property, and a former owner had oil and minerial rights to it but it was not disclosed to u, or say the gov had those rights, one day ur digging a new garden and hit a (what ever u wish to put in here) only to have it totally stripped away from u by the person or gov with the rights, leaving u with nothing.
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I'd be really bummed out about it. But if a person (or government) legally had those rights I wouldn't have a leg to stand on, would I? The points where I would fight to keep the find would be if someone just came out of the woodwork and made a claim for the find, or if I felt the government was just asserting a right out of thin air to the find. This is where your statement about who we are inside comes into play. I don't buy into the idea that a person who owned a piece of property for 5 years in the 1980s has any right to a gold cache buried in the 1800s. Nor do I accept the idea that the government has some inherrent right to a find just because it is valuable or belongs to some ancient culture and therefore has historical value. But if I find something valuable and can identify a real owner I have no problem in returning it to them or their descendants. If the descendants don't want it, or want to give me a reward for returning it to them that's great. But if they don't then that's the way the ball bounces. With all that said, if I find 1000lbs. of gold with nothing to identify its origin or ownership I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to come up with an owner or publicizing the find just so I can return it to someone for the sake of returning it. I do believe in the "finders keepers" rule to a large extent.

What if u were a homeowner down on ur luck close to loosing everything and one day u wake up and on your doorstep is a package and a note, dear homeowner, i dug a lost treasure buried on your property, one u would never have been able to find, i took the chance to give us both a better life so in closing i split it with u, and inside u will find xxxxxxxx amount of dollars.
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I'd keep the cash and be happy for it, while being pissed off at the person who invaded my property without permission. If I knew who the person was I would pursue some kind of legal action against them. If they came to me and told me that they had reason to believe there was a valuable cache on my property I would let them hunt for it and if they found it we would split it 50-50. BTW, I've let metal detectors hunt on my property in the past, and told them they could keep whatever they found as long as they filled in the holes. After weeks of hunting they found junk and a few pennies and dimes.
 

It's always right to ask for permission from the land owner. And before you do any recovery, have an agreement on paper. Things change once something comes out the ground!
 

Hi Road: There are some questions I would ask myself in this hypothetical Cache,
1. Do you know who hid the Cache?
2. was it one of the property owners relatives?
3. Where did the hypothetical cache come from?
4. Would this person that Cached it want you to have this hypothetical Cache? This question may be impossible to answer of course!!

5. Was the hypothetical Cache hidden by your Relative? If So I would go for it Tonight!!!, It was one of your relatives money right!! your money now!! Grandpaw hid it gave you the directions to find it!!!! ;D ;D,,Prove otherwise?
6. Does the property owner even know the Cache exists?

Even the goverment describes treasure trove Cache as money,bullion, jewells which were hidden for (recovery at a later date.) Sometimes the person that Caches money can't return to recover,If the Cache is natural Ore in a mine,,that is a different issue all together,But if it was hidden for recovery at a later date,Id say someone needs to recover it,,,If you are lucky enough to know where this hypothetical Cache is & it has nothing to do with the current Property Owner,Why is it wrong for you to be the recovery Person,,other than trespass, Someone hid the Cache to be recovered later,,they were on the Preperty to do this,,,,I wouldn't think a person would go to jail long for that!!,if at all,,it would not be like taking thier car,or 4-wheeler, I would say Do whatever you think is right!
It's Nice of you to be willing to Share 50/50 after spending your time researching the hypothetical Cache!!
IF the Property owner knows about the hypothetical Cache & is wanting to try & recover it thierself,, I would stay away from it!!
 

Any time this or a similar subject comes up there will always seems to be those that feel that they are above the rights of the landowner regardless if the owner is a private homeowner, business or government.

Where are the morals and ethics?

Basically, if its not yours, learn to keep your sticky fingers in your own pockets...otherwise you may learn a lesson the hard way.
 

The way I look at this. Is if it is on my property it is mine. And if I find you trying to take it. i hope your ins is payed up.
 

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