Talk about luck

The honorable rewards are many!

Well Stated!

I've found the rewards of honesty, caring, sharing, to be less often tangibly realized, but always psychologically pricelessly fulfilling. I hope that your brother realizes both, but regardless, I'm certain he'll be rewarded for his efforts.

JMHO :thumb:

 

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Personally, I would have taken them, put a note in a ziplock bag with a clad quarter where the silver one was poking out, and simply wrote a short statement about how I had found something here, and if you wish to claim ownership, contact me at (Cell number) and we will discuss proof of ownership and possible return of said item.

 

Question. Do you trust your brother's friend? I've got to be honest my first impression was that they were stolen.

 

Personally.. I'm tired of weird "theories" from those who stand on soap boxes.

Again... this isn't some silent movie.... where criminals dig holes in the ground to bury treasure. Who knows how or why it ended up there.... but they do. Any person who wants to do any basic research on burried hoards can find hundreds of examples of caches of coins burried... and later found.

Can anyone here point to any recent crime spree wherein the criminal thugs ran to the woods to bury their stolen goodies???? Why rush to some crack pot theory of theft.. because the bag was exposed? So what? Weather.. time... grass moving.. critters... all effect the ground.

Jeez... I'd hate to see the smoke coming out of your ears when you find a penny in a parking lot... I mean, holy christ... you must rush it to the local DNA CSI lab in order to find the original owner and return it to them, right???

 

OK point taken.

 

I'm not talking about heavyweight gang thugs, organized crime or even crackheads (I'm sure the latter wouldn't bury them). It was already stated that the woods were behind a school. For all anyone knows, they could have been taken by a school bully who had nothing better to do with his life.

I'm also not talking about calling the Prez and insisting we go to Defcon 5. I'm talking about doing the right thing which is what they did, and I respect them for it. That's more than I can say for some of those here.

Chris

 

I went to school with him and have known him to be an honest person and man of his word.

He'd give the shirt off his back to someone in need even if he couldn't afford it.

 

lmao!

 

+1

 

Could we stop the inuendo of calling "some" folks here somehow dishonest because they dont automatically agree with your particular view?

What schoolyard bully buries 8 rolls of quarters in a zip loc bag?

And if we want to get legal... someone who buries their property on public lands is in essence abandoning it. In my state, you can purchase county wide permits to search public lands for coins & such. If I found a hoard on public land, with no identifier, it's legally mine.


Doing the right thing requires a few small pieces to be in place to "make sense". If a name.. a drivers license number... or other some such identifier was on the coin rolls, by all means, look up the person. If it was a private property situation, doing the right thing means contacting the owner of the property. I didn't see anyone commenting on this thread that was saying anything remotely dishonest. We weren't dicussing a lost wallet.. a lost bank bag.. a lost deposit bag... but a coin hoard that could have been burried for many reasons.. least of all theft.

I just didn't agree to automatically assume its a case of stolen property. In metal detecting circles, this sort of thing is almost common place. Folks that came up during the depression hoarded their silver coins, and in many cases burried them. Finding hoards, caches, ect... is something that happens often actually.


And if we all want to be honest.... if you have ever bought anything at a flea market.. a show (gun show.. coin show), at a pawn shop.. a garage sale... from Flea-bay... ect.. ect... then there is a chance you bought stolen property. Its a sad fact that in our particular collecting circles... our property is easy to sell.

And about honesty, moral codes, ect... If, and when original owners can be found, I return property. I've spent my time, and looked up.. found.. and paid shipping to return rings to owners who lost them on various beaches (via metal detecting).

 

I don't see any reason for anybody to get upset over this really. I truly believe that ethically, I would consider myself to be on the "up and up". I've thought about what happened here and it doesn't bother me.

As I addressed in a previous post, there weren't any perfect solutions to this situation. It sounds to me like they've done all they could to try to identify an owner. This stash is anonymous. There's no identifying markings. I suppose you could always leave it there for someone else to find and take for themselves. On public property, it's fair game. Again, I blame the original person that buried it. If it wasn't stolen, it was a poor job of hiding their valuables on public property.

This is no different than finding a $100 bill blowing down the street. Who's is it? If nobody's around and nobody's chasing it, it belongs to the first person that picks it up. No way to prove who it belongs to. The owner should have been more careful. Is anybody here going to let it blow away and hope the original owner finds it again?

Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. If he's worried about karma, give a roll away to a YN in a contest here. You would make a kid's year. What would it matter? There could have been one less roll in the bag anyway. It's all free money.

 

I'll give ya innuendo. If it was me who found it I wouldn't have told a soul. You guys wouldn't be readin' it here or anywhere for that matter........:devil:

And that ain't the bourbon (hic) talkin'........

 

Wow Chris wow.

Way to turn things around to try and make everyone look like a terrible person unless they only see things through your eyes.

I commend BUs brother for going that extra mile to try and find the owner. I would not hold it against the man had he not though. It is above and beyond and as quite a few pointed out in this post the money will often find its way into the wrong hands and not the previous owners.


Here is a quote from myself on my first post in this discussion. I stick behind the view and find it sad that you cannot distinguish the difference between a mentality similar to mine and a crook or a criminal.

"If someone drops some money as they walk by I pick it up and run them down to give it back. If someone loses their wallet and it has their ID inside I go to their house and give it back (or call them if i find their number). But if I find a random bag of quarters, unmarked in a random field that nobody has been to for as far as i can tell a long time, well, I am keeping it."

You have strong views on theft as do I. You could even find different posts on this forum of me saying that I feel thieves are worse then rapists or murderers (yes I feel that way and yes there is a forum post on it somewhere on cointalk lol) and that some thefts should be punished by death.

But you not being able to distinguish between a thief and a man who finds some money yet can not return it to the original owner boggles my mind.

 

I dont see why anyone would worry about Karma in this situation (if you are a person who believes in such things to begin with). BUs brother is going above and beyond what is honest and morally just.

Just because Chris thinks everyone is an axe murderer worshiping satan unless you place an ad in 15 newspapers and call every police station in a 100 mile radius to try and find the original owner, does not make it so.

BU strikes me as a good guy and judging from that I would surmise that his brother is also a pretty good guy. I am glad he found some silver, congrats on it... that is all.

 

Its amazing what people leave behind great find!

 

I was watching Doomsday Preppers last night, and a couple said that they had buried approximately $30,000 in 90% silver on and around their property. Maybe this was somebody's when the SHTF stash. . TC

 

It wasn't a zip loc, it was a plain plastic bag.

 

Ok... so what bully at school buries 8 rolls of quarters in a plastic bag?

Oh wait.. nevermind...

 

"I did all my homework last night, teacher. Honest! But, as I was walking to school this morning, I was attacked by an axe murderer, and he stole my knapsack with all the papers in it."

What excuse will you think of next?

Chris

 

Okay the thread is getting off track here so let's end the arguing and innuendos.

There are many possibilities that exist as to how and why these coins were buried where they were.

Could they have been stolen? Yes it is possible they were, perhaps a long time ago, but definitely after 1964 since there were numerous 64 quarters in the bunch.

Could they have been stashed? Yes, that is also possible, and for reasons that may never be known.

Anything is possible.

Regardless of what many feel on what the finder should do, the fact remains that in most states, and N.Y. is one of them, there is an obligation for the finder of property, which these coins are and were at one time, to make an effort to locate the rightful owner and if after a said effort is made, and a certain amount of time has passed since finding the items, N.Y. says 30 days, then ownership can be claimed by the finder. An ad has been placed that the items have been found, and yes the ad is vague for obvious reasons, in order to insure that anyone claiming ownership truly is the rightful owner, by describing not only what coins, and where they were found.

It wasn't my intent to began a major debate over right or wrong, but only that my brother and his buddy stumbled across these coins, and how lucky they were.

So let's get back on topic of the find, and end the debate and insults over doing the right thing, and what the right thing to do would be.