60 Minutes: Loads of Emeralds

Dark Chameleon · Apr 22, 2012

So some ex real estate dealer has found thousands of emeralds just off the coast of key west and its in a kind of limbo right now.

This brings up the case of what would you do if you found something that you know telling anyone will put you in this limbo and potentially cost you more then the value of what you find against just grab and run.

We like the history and in america now there are rules that if you find a relic of significant age it can be siezed by the state or government even above the owner of the land, whilst if you find oil it cant be siezed.

You own what you find until it becomes a relic then it can be the governments and not yours.

The man in the 60 minutes show is in a wierd position in that if hed sold them on the black market he could have been sued by his investors and by the government for looting.

If you found a horde of relics or things that would put you in the cross hairs of government what would you do?

In england they have the law that helps detectorists in that the government can take the things of you but they give you an independantly set value for them, or they can record and give them back, it seems to work for the detectorists as the recorded finds have ballooned and helped the history books find new sites or new information on existing sites.

Here its too difficult to actually find and record and state exactly where the find was made for fear of having them siezed especially if it was localed near an off limit site.

So what would you do?

Zofchak · Apr 22, 2012

Loads of untraceable emeralds? I'd keep my mouth shut and spend the next few decades slowly selling them off.

If the finder has investors then that's obviously an issue. If it's just a small group I think I would have an agreement written up to divide the finds among the investors and let each individual deal with the legal ramifications on their own. It would be a lot more difficult for the someone to go after multiple parties.

Terry Soloman · Apr 22, 2012

Strange

It will be interesting when the real story comes out. That guy struck me as less than together.. :cool:

Irons · Apr 22, 2012

What emeralds? I have no idea what you're talking about! ~ :no:

Dark Chameleon · Apr 22, 2012

But would you grab and run?

Its not as easy a choice as some would like, having your name next to a great find like mel fisher (i visited his museum in key west and its not a bad place let alone making a small fortune each year from visitors).

I have an item i found put in a museum in england without my name on it so i can see why we'd love to have our name listed, live on kind of thing but a world of hurt seems too much to deal with, it can push legal minded hobbyists into the gray area of the hobby.

Imagine a 1000 coin horde of some 18th century coins and you open your mouth and they are gone as quick as you found them.

This is of course theoretically not that i found anything more serious then a wheatie right now but it could happen and then you are left with the moral quandry....tell or sell, do the right thing and what is the right thing? :?:

Esteban · Apr 23, 2012

Here is the story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_1...le-with-treasure/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

Hotrod Tom · Apr 23, 2012

I would be compelled to do the right thing.....Sell them off one at a time to different buyers and pocket the money. The US makes it almost impossible to do the right thing. As for the story it looks fishy to me. As soon as they showed them swim to the bottom where emeralds are just laying all over the bottom you have to think it's too good to be true. I can't wait for the followup story.

Irons · Apr 23, 2012

A woman who was a waitress for 23 years got a $12,000 tip so she told the police.

The police took the money.

When are people going to learn?

jtindover · Apr 23, 2012

He has some heavy hitters working with him. Sounds like he is going to end up broke when all is said and done. I think it would be to hard to move that many unnoticed. I am sure there is a better way to go about salvage and recovery than the path he has taken.

Beach Bum · Apr 23, 2012

"You might not believe it, but I was digging in my backyard to plant some flowers, and there they were"

"Yes, your honor, right in my yard"

"No sir, no other jewelry or noticable marks on them, just un traceable stones, I mean, just stones"

"I tried to look for any marks that might say they belonged to someone else, but seeing I found none, I am guessing they are mine...ALL MINE!"

"Maybe some weird geological condition just happened in my backyard that appeared nowhere else on Earth"

KingTotsalot · Apr 23, 2012

Question of if I would grab it and run.....it all depends...how traceable are the items....and am I already known for having such things? If it is something other folks know I have, lets say mineral specimens or silver half dollars, then if I find them I would get em and go.

But this guy's problems are not that simple....He's not a gemologist, he's a real estate salesman...all kinds of questions about how he got what he has now. And he has investors...and paid out big bucks...so more woes....financial and perhaps legal.

The example of the perfect find occurred in Florida several years back and it made the newspapers only one time. A young boy was walking the railroad tracks in his town and he found a leather bag....carried it home and when his folks opened it, it was full of cut stones...diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls, opals, etc...all loose. The parents thought it was fake stones but took a few to a local reputable jeweler. They tested real!

So then they took them to the local police and turned them in as a lost item, detailing the circumstances of the find and what they had done to have them evaluated. Got a receipt and were told if no one claimed them in 180 days then the boy got to keep them. The police were pretty certain they amounted to purchases made with illegal drug monies, so they really wanted someone to claim them...advertized in the local and state papers about a find and required a description of what was found for proper identification. No one came forward, so 6 months later the kid got the leather bag and cut stones back. The parents then had a jeweler divide the stones into 10 lots and sold off one lot by auction....sale value of over $1 million bucks! Kid gets his college education paid for, and money for new car, and some investments and the other 9/10s of the stones are stored somewhere in a safety deposit box. No taxes due until the stones are sold!

That was all documented in a news story....but this guy's finds...very different circumstances!

DougF · Apr 23, 2012

Irons said:
A woman who was a waitress for 23 years got a $12,000 tip so she told the police.

The police took the money.

When are people going to learn?

You might have missed the follow-up, but the town had second thoughts and let her keep the money. The police had pulled the old "it's drug money" scam, but they must have got some negative feedback when the story was posted on Drudge, and let her keep it. I don't have a link (too lazy) but you can probably google it.

Irons · Apr 23, 2012

DougF said:
You might have missed the follow-up, but the town had second thoughts and let her keep the money. The police had pulled the old "it's drug money" scam, but they must have got some negative feedback when the story was posted on Drudge, and let her keep it. I don't have a link (too lazy) but you can probably google it.

Glad it ended well for her.

BottlecapBill · Apr 23, 2012

jewels

I think If I found a horde I'd hire a ship and one guy to hold it out over some deep part of the ocean without telling anyone where. If things didn't go my way "bye bye". Drop it back in..........lol.

Dark Chameleon · May 15, 2012

If the guy hadnt got shareholders/investors hed be rolling in it but as he has even if he wins he'll probably end up bankrupt as the cost will outweigh the benefits...look at the spanish thing, it took years to get spain to win the case of the gold found and still gibralta has a hold of some saying its theirs....its a lot easier to grab and run but although it may be immoral and stealing history if your going to end up in courts and losing everything as the politics get involved its almost pointless looking.

They wonder why people dont declare finds then they do this when they are going to be called thieves, when countries dont bother looking themselves then say its theirs all along, there should be a law that if a country or company fails to look for their 'goods' then they are effectivly giving up on them and now no longer have a claim on them.

sonoman06 · May 16, 2012

No brainer!!
I always think these people that turn in bank bag, etc. are pretty lame. I just dont get thier logic!

Dark Chameleon · Jun 3, 2012

sonoman06 said:
No brainer!!
I always think these people that turn in bank bag, etc. are pretty lame. I just dont get thier logic!

When you dont 'turn in the bank bag' your guilty of theft aka bank robbery, the question then would be would you rob a bank of that much money and then spend the rest of your days on the run with that amount of money.

The other problem then becomes with going to the dark side is people can rob you, try and kill you and you cant goto the police or 'goto jail, go directly to jail...'.

I prefer legality to incarceration 100 times out of 100

bling bling · Jun 3, 2012

Hitler was the government... Think about it... I thought we had a gov by the people "for the people"... How stupid of me to think so..
Dark Chameleon, is a gov that robs the people the dark side or the bright side??

emfederin · Jun 3, 2012

Dark Chameleon said:
When you dont 'turn in the bank bag' your guilty of theft aka bank robbery

More likely it would be more like "theft by deception" or "illegal conversion", either of which are less serious than "robbery", since robbery is a confrontational act and therefore considered "violent".

But classification should be merely academic; the number one reason I should give a bank bag back is because it's not mine.

Milhaus · Jun 3, 2012

Wait, if they are rough emeralds and have not been tooled into a product then how is this any different under the law than finding an ordinary piece of gravel from a quarry? Just because it is valuable is irrelevant.

Lets say a coal ship from the Great Lakes was travelling to New York 50 years ago and sank in a storm and coal washed up on shore. Illegal to pick it up under the same law?

I would follow the law. it separates us from the animals. If they refused to give me a fair cut then I would sue for decades. Aside from that, do you have any idea how hard it would be to unload raw emeralds without getting involved with criminals? You would not want to go down that road.

60 Minutes: Loads of Emeralds

Dark Chameleon

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Zofchak

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Terry Soloman

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Irons

Dark Chameleon

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Esteban

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Hotrod Tom

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Irons

jtindover

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Beach Bum

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KingTotsalot

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DougF

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Irons

BottlecapBill

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Dark Chameleon

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sonoman06

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Dark Chameleon

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bling bling

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emfederin

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Milhaus

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