Hidden Treasures - More Examples
Are there that many hidden treasures out there? If you read
the page, Hidden Treasure - Two
Examples, which had my own true stories, you probably have
come to suspect that they are far more common than most people
think. We humans like to hide things.
In fact, since writing that page, I remembered that I also
once hid money in a space inside a wall for two years. It was
accessed from inside a closet, and the hole was hidden behind
a false-wall that slid out above the door. Again I am left to
wonder how many years would have passed before discovery if I
had died without telling anyone about it. There was $300 or so
in there.
Now that I am thinking about, I recall a margarine tub we
buried as children, as a sort of "time capsule" full
of our little treasures. We tried to dig it up a couple years
later, but never did find it. That was over thirty years ago.
It's under the old willow tree behind the house on Mercer Street
in Okemos, Michigan, in case you are wondering. Perhaps someday
someone will find our plastic figurines and a few coins from
our coin collections.
Where To Find Hidden Treasures
Perhaps you read the page where I detailed how I hid 100 ounces
of silver under my parent's home as a young man. Well, in that
same crawl space I found a chest with foreign notes and coins.
It had apparently been forgotten by a previous owner of the home.
Those two experiences and common sense tell me that crawl spaces
might be a good place to search for hidden treasures. Where else?
Sometimes you might suspect that there is a hidden stash of
cash or valuables on a property. You may have heard rumors or
you just knew well the person who used to live there and has
passed on. In that case, look for sagging asphalt. People like
to bury things under the edge of sidewalks and driveways. Cement
usually stays firm, but the loosened soil will allow asphalt
to sag, so dig under there and see what you find.
It used to be that some treasure hunters found valuable old
coins by kicking old gas tanks to listen for the rattling of
coins in them? How did they get there? Back during the Great
Depression people threw coins in their car gas tanks for safekeeping.
Tanks back then were easy to remove for later recovery, and gas
doesn't hurt coins.
I suspect that almost all the old gas tanks have been kicked
and emptied by now, but it does get me to thinking about where
else people might put coins. As children, my brothers and I used
to throw pennies into a hole in the kitchen floor from time-to-time
(but I honestly don't remember why). We never did know where
they went, but into the ceiling space in the basement is a likely
guess.
Now there might only be a couple dozen pennies there, and
this was in the 1970s, so it isn't likely that this hidden treasure
is worth much. But what if kids did something like that in the
1920s, with pennies dating back up to twenty years? Those coins
would have some value to collectors. It's enough to make you
look at the odd spaces in old homes differently.
I mentioned on another pages that hotel visitors tuck money
in the bedside bible, and forget to take it out again. Well,
hotel owners report that businessmen on out of town trips also
take off and hide their wedding rings in hotel rooms. Unfortunately
this is probably a prelude to going out to the bar to meet women.
Fortunately for those seeking hidden treasures, they sometimes
forget about them until they are home. The next time you are
in hotel room, notice all the places someone might hide a ring.
Look in them. You never know.
Some more of the places people hide valuables and cash:
Abandoned buildings
Above ceiling tiles
In wall spaces
Under floor boards
In heating oil tanks
Under sinks
In old cars
In walls behind electrical outlets
In pump houses
There may be hidden treasures within yards of you right now.
For more on this, see the page:
Buried Treasure - Where To Find
It
Treasure
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