"Apparently losing gold is becoming endemic" Topic

For folks who have come up empty-handed trying to find Napoleon's lost gold on the Russian retreat, here is yet another opportunity. Good luck!

link

You know, that would make a good poll question. "How many lost gold hordes do you know about?"

I know about the Confederate gold.

There is also the Little Big Horn battle treasure. There was even a map to it hidden in a manila envelope in a vault in a monument on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

The vault was broken into and the map was stolen.

Tom

Of course, if anyone found these treasures they would be unlikely to announce it.

I keep thinking the Staffordshire Hoard is actually a grave robber's stash, collected from an otherwise unknown local grave field, that was never collected because the robber died.

If you find a treasure do you yell it to the world and get it confiscated or do you quietly take it away and be rich. Make a toast to the quiet rich man who kept his/her mouth shut.

Yes, a governmental policy of "we own everything you find, and you get a finder's fee. Maybe. Later. After taxes" is unlikely to encourage turn-ins.
That said, look for people prone to portable wealth and sudden death--bandits, pirates and suchlike--and periods not given to paper money.

Also look for areas where people might bury wealth and be too exiled (or too dead) to come back for it. I'm told rumors of buried treasure are endemic in modern Poland, and it makes sense. If you told me to pick an area where people might have hidden gems and precious metals and been unable to retrieve them later, I'd say from the present western border of Poland to the 1938 eastern border, and throw in Kaliningrad for good measure.

Of course, mostly you'd find chests of 1939 Zlotys and 1944 Reichsmarks.