When "Finders Keepers" became the law of the land

February 24, 2019 7:31 AM

Who owns buried treasure? In 1904, two boys in Oregon found a can of gold coins in a trash heap. Swindled by two greedy landowners, they stewed in bitterness until they were old enough to bring suit.
posted by ChrisR (9 comments total)

This reminds me of Roald Dahl's story The Mildenhall Treasure, except the landowner convinced his farmworker that the silver was worthless.

Butcher had no idea that “had he been allowed to take the treasure home originally, he would have almost certainly have revealed its existence and would thus have become eligible to receive one hundred percent of its value, which could have been anything between half a million and a million pounds.”
posted by bendy at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

My own little "finders-keepers" treasure story... Sigh, I really wanted that gun. (As if the police would give a found handgun to a kid, if no one claimed it... but, y'know... "kid logic"...)
posted by jkaczor at 2:52 PM on February 24, 2019

Fascinating. Great plot for a Coen brothers film.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:13 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

“I’m a finders keepers guy,” Professor Orth says. “If the finder isn’t trespassing and isn’t employed with instructions to turn over any finds, I’m very much inclined to let the finder keep it until somebody with a better claim comes along.”

I can't quite follow this. Wouldn't everyone -- always -- have an implied interest in knowing about treasure found on their property, especially if it comes via means of excavation? Does it really become the property of the finder because the owner of the land did not say this explicitly? It seems to me if the only thing keeping rights from going to the property owners is saying, "let me know if you find anything good," then the distinction isn't very compelling, and this implied interest should easily be written into the law to avoid the unnecessary step. Because everyone would say this out loud if they knew what could potentially be lost.
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:31 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

"Down down down!
go go go!
It's mine mine mine!,
"I can't help it, I'm a greedy slob—it's my hobby."

and "I'm rich—
I'm a happy miser!

-daffy duck
posted by clavdivs at 5:38 PM on February 24, 2019

Not quite the same thing, but if one finds a (large-ish?) sum of cash that someone else dropped, and they keep it, I think that's considered theft.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 5:55 PM on February 24, 2019

Does it really become the property of the finder because the owner of the land did not say this explicitly? It seems to me if the only thing keeping rights from going to the property owners is saying, "let me know if you find anything good," then the distinction isn't very compelling, and this implied interest should easily be written into the law to avoid the unnecessary step.

The theory is that we have an interest as a society to provide incentives to search for lost valuables even if the landowner is oblivious or indifferent. What is the searcher's incentive if everything found belongs to the landowner? If the searcher is being employed by the landowner, then presumably they will also have hammered out allocation of any finds. Otherwise...
posted by praemunire at 8:14 PM on February 24, 2019

Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
Keeping your mouth shut is the other 1/10th.
posted by ryanrs at 9:53 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

bendy: "This reminds me of Roald Dahl's story The Mildenhall Treasure, except the landowner convinced his farmworker that the silver was worthless. "

Just to be clear, Dahl's piece is non-fiction - the Mildenhall Treasure is a real thing.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:08 PM on February 26, 2019