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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Grey Ghost, post: 900327, member: 22094&quot;]A couple of short points.&nbsp; Generally speaking lost property does not belong to the finder.&nbsp; It belongs to the person that lost the property and most states have laws that so state.&nbsp; So if I drop a coin, and you find it, technically speaking your obligation is to turn it over to the appropriate authority in your state.&nbsp; This is true for any type of personal property, for example, if my Grandma buried her money on the south 40, forgot about it, and then died, the buyer of the real estate does not own the money.&nbsp; There may be some exceptions, but this happens all the time, mostly banks and insurance companies that owe money but cannot find the rightful owner.&nbsp; Some states have web sites set up to help locate the owner of lost propery.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you cant find who it belongs to it goes to the state.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>At sea, the similar rule for ship wrecks is salvage.&nbsp; There are very complex rules for deteriming who the owner of a shipwreck is and whether and under what conditions a salvagor is entitled to compensation. This is nothing new, salavage operations and who gets what from or for the salvage (a shipwreck)&nbsp; are grist for the legal mill in shipping areas.&nbsp; Usually it is only a ship carcas that is in dispute, however, not gold. THese same rules apply for the most part here. The Black Swan incident would be much more clear if Odyssey would fess up on where the wreck is, and what the wreck is, I cant see that they have done that yet.&nbsp; Countries are funny about taking cash and valuables out of the country, including the US, Spain is not any different than any other country in that regard.&nbsp; And they are more sensitive about antiques.&nbsp; Look at the posts on the foreign coins for other countries that are trying to protect their historical objects.&nbsp; Point being that yeah, the salvagor should be compensated for locating the wreck and providing the information to appropriate authorities, and then if the appropriate authorities agree, to pursue salvage operations.&nbsp; Risky?&nbsp; yep.&nbsp; But we have rules for a reason, they are pretty much established, and mostly to protect established economic interests like shipping companies.&nbsp; for an example,&nbsp; on the post above with the link to wikipedia about Mel Fisher, go to Wikipedia and find and click on the US Supreme Court decision for a taste of how complicated this issue gets to be. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;Odyssey knew exactly what they were doing and tried to skirt the rules and got busted.&nbsp;&nbsp; My bet is that they do ok at the end of the day.&nbsp; Maybe not as much as they would like, but I bet they make a tidy profit.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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