November 20, 2018 • 38 mins
You know that heartbreak of the schoolyard – finders keepers, losers weepers? That’s actual law in a great many grown up places. Enter the murky legal world of finding something that belongs to someone else, from buried treasure to a misplaced ring.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
And this is stuff you should know. The Finders Keepers
(00:21):
Edition Losers Weepers. Yeah, I know, so, Chuck. This is like,
this is an actual thing. It's not just like a
child's fantasy. Like this is law in some places. And
while it doesn't actually state losers weepers, I think it's implied.
It's implicit in the law where the finders the keeper,
(00:42):
but you lost it, so you're legally obligated to weep
in public. Yeah. And it's funny reading through some of
these examples. It sounds like playground stuff. I'll say that
I'll get to some of these. Some of these examples, though,
I'm like, man, that's not your person, Like, come on,
(01:03):
give it up. Did you say that out loud to yourself?
I did a couple of these. I was like, man, seriously, man,
that's not yours, that's not yours. I'm just have a
big justice thing, you know, So yeah, me too. It's
when I see people acting like a big baby in
saying like this money I found in my wall is mine? Like, no,
it's not. Well, you would be a great arbitrator, Yeah,
(01:25):
get out of here, it's not. You'd be like, my
ruling is this man that's not yours? Give it up. Uh.
But no, let's start with John and Mary not their
real names. No, No, I guess that's worth pointing out.
These are anonymous, an anonymous husband and wife team from
(01:46):
nor caw Yeah, from Ryan, California. And they are anonymous
because they didn't want a lot of attention and they
are still anonymous. We'll call him John and Mary and
they are famous. Uh. Well, I guess they're not famous,
but their cases a little famous because they found ten
million dollars and our you know what could be ten
million dollars in rare gold coins buried on their property
(02:08):
that they own on a walk and it's known as
the saddle Ridge Horde. Uh. In February two thirteen, they
found this, uh, these gold coins that no one knows
who they belonged to, how they got buried there, but
they found them and took a long time sort of
coming out with this. They did about as smart as
(02:29):
you possibly can. Yeah, they didn't rush to the press
or anything and say, look what we found. Uh. They
took their time because I think they rightfully knew that
they were onto something pretty special. Yeah. So they were
out walking on on their property put that away for
later with their dog, and they noticed, I guess, the
side of a can coming out of the ground, and
(02:50):
they went and dug it out, and sure enough, there
was a bunch of gold coins in there. Whenever you
see a can coming out of the ground, I mean,
that's your hope and wish that it's going to be
filled with old coins or jewels or something, right, But
it never happens. And it actually happened to these people.
And and so they went back again and again and again,
(03:10):
and they ended up pulling eight cans filled with gold coins,
pure gold coins, out of the ground on their property.
And it became very apparent, based on the state of
preservation of the cans and the dates of the coins
in the cans, that somebody had buried this no more
recently than the very beginning of the twentieth century, and
(03:33):
probably sometime in the late nineteenth century. Yeah, and here's
a hint. If you ever happened to unearthed aid whatever
a can or a glass jar or something full of
money buried on your property. Just keep digging that maybe it,
but maybe not. Yeah, I wondered, like what kind of
excavation they undertook points once they were like, oh there's
(03:55):
more there. I'm quite sure they cleared that ground. It's
it's it's verified. There's no more cans. So if you're
talking actual money, the face value, it's about twenty seven grand.
But because these are rare fines in great, great condition,
most of most of these coins, um, they're thinking that
it could be worth as many as as much as
(04:16):
ten million bucks. So they're gonna sell it. Well, they
have been and donate some of this money. M and um,
you know that it's nice that they're they're donating some
of it, but it really sort of um opens up
this question of hey, what does the law say about
(04:37):
finding something period much less like on my property rights?
The finders keepers law basically is what you're talking about,
And that's really what it's called in case laws find
the finders finders keepers laws or rules. That's right. So, um,
there was a lot going on here. These guys, John
and Mary owned the land that these coins were found,
(05:00):
Dawn and that was a huge mark in their favorite um.
But there in the United States, it really depends on
what state you're in, what court you go to, what
judge you happen to pull the case lawn is so
all over the place and so piecemeal that it's it's
(05:20):
really almost the luck of the draw. And there are
more things that you can do to compound your case
to make it more likely that the the thing is
is yours. But really it comes down to who has
the best claim on whatever is found. Yeah, like somebody
could come forward still probably or could have come forward
(05:42):
with John and Mary and said, wait a minute, that
was my great great grand Pappy Clark's land, and I'm
sure he did not intend to clark you those gold coins, right, Uh, So,
like we actually should have a claim as his family,
um to to to take this stuff from you, and
like that could go that could very legitimately go to
(06:05):
court to be decided by a judge. And again, like
you said, it's who has the more legitimate claim. Um.
What really helps them is like you said, it was
on their land and that it's super old, right exactly,
So the fact that it's very very old means that
the person who buried them is probably dead may not
(06:26):
even have any living heirs any longer. Um that's one
thing that it's it's old. The second thing is that
it's old, but it's also not necessarily archaeological. It's it's money.
So it's the gold coins are the definition of treasure.
And what we've entured now is called treasure law. And
(06:47):
there's different types of things that we'll see, but there's
one one category of found property is called treasure. And
what they found was treasure. It was a gold coin,
it was very old, but it wasn't necessarily archaeological. Again,
it was on their property. And so had somebody come
along and said, my Grandpappy Clark buried those back when
(07:10):
my family owned this property, that's ours, they would have
a claim. And and pretty much anytime something valuable, especially
ten million dollars valuable, is found in the United States,
it is automatically going to get hammered out in court
because the laws are so vague, in piecemeal and arbitrary
that it's going to going to be hammered out in court.
(07:31):
Who has the bigger claim. But because John and Mary
found something that was old that was buried by someone,
no one knows who buried it, and that it was
found on their property. They have a pretty good claim. Now,
if you were going to come and say, my grandpappy
buried that, um, your claim would be that was that
belonged to my family at one point in time. We
(07:51):
think it still does. It just happened to be buried
and forgotten or left um on land that these people bought.
Now there's a pretty good chance that the court would say, yeah,
but they bought the land. And depending on what state
you're in, that's that if they own the land, they
owned everything on it. Yeah. Or bought the car with
money in the trunk, or the house with a super
(08:14):
valuable painting buried in the attic. It's sort of all
the same um and And this is modern times. This
has been going on since the dawn of time when
people would lose or bury something, and they've always had
I think back then it was a little more cut
and dried, like an ancient Rome. If you found something
like that, half of it went to the emperor. Just
(08:36):
sort of know if ands or butts uh. If. In
modern England, if you find something um old and rare, uh,
they say that belongs to the queen. Um. But here's
here's like a good fee for you now now hand
it over. And that's very very new, and that's kind
of that represents the the new thinking in treasure law
(08:59):
or found property law, which is, look, we can't just
let you keep this stuff that may have not just
like monetary value, but actually like cultural value as well,
like so we need to have something to do with this.
So England just when, or i should say, the UK
just said everything you find that is valuable or antique
(09:20):
um and archaeological that belongs to the crown. But the
Crown is going to pay you market value, no questions asked,
right off the bat. So it's not finders keepers, but
it's finders. Here's here's a bunch of money you didn't
have before for finding this and bringing it into us.
And the point of this from the position of the
Crown or the UK government is that it encourages cooperation
(09:43):
with archaeological, archaeologists and historians to preserve cultural stuff rather
than just having it sold out onto them the commercial
market to private collectors because of finder keepers laws. And
that's how it was before six Yeah. I mean, if
if it's in the UK today and you find something
(10:06):
that is not an ancient gold coin. But if you
just find it, let's say, you know, ten thousand pounds
bundled together, buried in your in your attic or on
the street for that matter, I think you have to
file paperwork at a police station. Uh, the owners have
twenty eight days to claim it, and then it's yours.
In the United States, it varies from state to state
(10:27):
and uh sometimes even county to county, but generally it's
sort of the same thing, like reported to the police.
They need to advertise the lost property for a week
and then wait about ninety days, depending on where you are,
to see if anyone claims it, and then after that
they might say you can keep it. Yeah, but but
maybe it just depends on where you are. That's um,
(10:48):
that's like contemporary property that you found, right, yeah, yeah,
this is not like ancient gold coins. This is I
found a bundle of cold, hard cash. So let's let's
take a break and then we'll take a detour into
content porary property, because there are like a whole other
set of laws that are like are kind of important too,
All right, okay, Chuck, So, like we said, there's there's
(11:31):
some categories for for property found property. One of them
is the treasure where it's just straight up I found
eight cans of gold coins and it's treasure. Some in
the UK there's not really a distinction between that and say, um,
like uh, archaeological artifacts, they're virtually one and the same.
(11:55):
In the US, because the age of the country is
young enough, there's a distinction between an archaeological artifact and say,
like treasure that's found. But there's then there's contemporary property
where the person who owned it is probably still alive.
If not, they're the first generation after them is still
probably around UM and that that contemporary stuff is basically
(12:19):
broken out into three subcategories. There's lost, abandoned, and mislaid property,
and depending on the status of the property UM, the
finder may or may not get to keep it. And
even that then it depends on where you are. Yes,
so as far as those categories go. Abandoned property is
something that uh they say is forsaken by a previous
(12:42):
owner who doesn't have any intention of coming back for it,
so they've abandoned. They have abandoned it. Can you imagine
like how you would tell whether something's abandoned or not.
I don't know. I mean unless they literally leave a
note saying finders keepers, I don't want this anymore. Get
(13:04):
this away from me. You know what would it be
like a big bag of cocaine that somebody left there, Like,
I can't do anymore. This is really bad for me.
I don't want this. I don't know. Uh, I don't know.
That is that That is the one that is the
most confusing. The other two are much more straightforward. Lost
obviously is like the example they gave is you've lost
(13:26):
your engagement ring in the street, um, and clearly it's
something that you want back and maybe have tried to
come back and find um, but you have dropped it
or lost it somehow. And this mislaid is even more
interesting because uh, that is something that you intentionally put
somewhere but then kind of forgot it. And another good
(13:47):
example like you went to the bank and we're filling
out your your form and then oh my goodness, you
got a cell phone call and had to bolt real quick,
and you left that money on the counter that you
wanted to deposit in the bank. That is mislay, um,
because you clearly had an intention for it and we're
just way late or whatever, right, so it's not technically lost.
(14:08):
Because you put it somewhere on purpose, whereas lost, like
you dropped something in a parking lot. You may not
even know you're missing it at the time, right, or
you can't find it, right. Um. Mislaid is just like
you're no longer where you put that thing down, but
you intended to do something with it. There was intent
behind it, but you forgot or something or you got
(14:28):
called away. Yeah, and that that property mislaid property is
supposed to be guarded by whoever owns the property. So
in that case it would be the bank. Somebody from
the bank should go over there, collect that money and
just set it aside and be like that guy. I'll
be back for this, right. Which is it's funny because
you know the whole lost and Found box. You think
that's just like a good Samaritan thing. Well, really it's
(14:49):
everybody just covering their behinds lee speaking. I guess I
see it differently now, and I'm a little more bitter
because of it. So this Arizona case is one of
the ones where I got a little, uh little pod
I was a little bit. So this is a man died,
he hid half a million dollars in cans and ammo cans,
(15:10):
ammunition cans in the walls. And years later, the person
who owned that house, we're doing some renovations. Outcome these
cans and they were like, oh my god, it's a
half a million dollars. This is ours. So this man's
daughters they knew, like dad loved to do stuff like this.
He loved to hide things, He loved to hide things away. Uh.
(15:34):
They they searched before they sold the house. They even searched,
but obviously did not find these these cans stashed in
the walls. Uh. And when this came out, these daughters
came forward and we're like, you know, that's our money,
that's our our you know, should have gone to us
in a will, but my kookie dad stashed it in
the wall again. And uh, these people fought them for
(15:57):
that and said, no finders keepers in our wall. We
bought this house. Well, so I mean, I I can
understand your eye or in your anger, and that's what
I'm like. As soon as someone stepped forward, I would
have been like, oh, well, here's your money, then, like
this is your father's. It doesn't belong to me. But
what if you were like, actually, we've got a like
(16:19):
legitimate legal claim to this because depending on where they were,
and this is Arizona, but I mean depending on the state.
When you buy property from somebody, you buy the property,
and everything on that property, whether anyone knows it's there
or not, it belongs to you. Is the property owner.
For example, Texas is huge on that huge on private
(16:42):
property ownership, so much so that if you own property
in Texas and there's an archaeological site on your property,
that's yours, bub you can set it on fire, you
can turn it into a rec room, you can do
whatever you want with that stuff. That's your property. That's
how that's how Texas views uhum private property rights. Right.
(17:03):
So these people may have been like, well, we're from Texas,
that's just how we do it in Texas. They had
a legitimate claim to challenge. I get what you're saying.
But they also may have felt like, hey, we bought
this property and this came with the property, so this
is our sorry, that whole losers wheepers thing I think
is what they were invoking. Yeah, I mean that that's
clearly what they did. But what I'm saying is that
(17:26):
is not a that's not cool. No, it's that money
did not belong to them. They didn't work for it.
They didn't buy it because the house because they thought
there might be money in the walls. And if no
one came forward, then great. But as soon as these
daughters come forward, like that's their money to do the
right thing, that's what I say. I'm with you. Would
(17:49):
there's no way I would have challenged these daughters in court, right,
you would have been Finders, nice guys, losers here you go, Well,
I'd make sure, you know, I'd go through all the
legal process of making sure that they are who they
say they were and it all checked out. I wouldn't
like if they came knocking on my door, would just
go all right here, But I would. I would go
(18:10):
through that process and then say, well, okay, then it's
definitely your money. Would you like interview their cousins would
be like, what kind of daughters were they? Were they
good daughters? Or you know? Do they deserve this? And
at the very least, you're inviting a a heap of
bad luck and karma upon your head. Well, if you
believe that kind of stuff, sure it comes around. What
(18:31):
goes around comes around. That's my motto. Well that's another
Finders keepers, losersweepers, what goes around comes around? And then
the third one everything I needed to know I learned
in kindergarten. Or what about this guy in Georgia the
public defender talk about a jerk? Yes, there's no this
guy had no legal standing whatsoever, whether he was from
Texas or anywhere. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't look him
(18:54):
up to see what his name was. But in two
thousand thirteen, a public defender found, um uh a diamond
ring I guess, an engagement ring that was worth something
like ten dollars and just put it in their pocket
and walked away whistling, Man, what a I mean, especially
an engagement ring? Right, that's mine? You know? What a jerk? No,
(19:18):
I I agree, and um he got in trouble for it.
From what I understand, they when the person went back
and said I lost my engagement ring at the target
helped me. The target said, well, of course, we're gonna
help you. Calm down, Calm down, peace, brother, And they
pulled up their surveillance videos and saw the public defender
finding the ring and pocketing it, and they put a
(19:40):
warrant out for the public defenders arrest for I think
larceny actually, at the very least for not going to
lengths to find the person whose ring it was. Yeah,
not even links links, pick up a phone or go
into the target and be like, hey, I need to
speak to a manager. Well, it's funny, it says. One
(20:03):
of the things that you can and should do if
is like to do that and go like give that
diamond ring to the manager at target, and like, I
would never do that if it was something super valuable,
I wouldn't trust I wouldn't trust them. I would keep
it under my own control and go to the cops.
Just walk around with a gun drawn on everybody, like,
get back, get back. I found somebody's diamond ring. Get back.
(20:26):
It's my looking at And you're like, maybe I should
just go ahead and rob someplace. Now I got my
gun out and I'm protecting this diamond ring. And you
enter into a life of crime totally inadvertent. It's a
justice thing again, Like I don't want people should have
stuff that is rightfully there. It's not like up, well
I just happened to get lucky today, right who get
(20:47):
rich quick? Like that's what's wrong with this country? Yeah,
And I mean I know you're right about the five
grand in the behind the toaster oven. The diamond ring
is even more cut and dry to me for sure.
But um, that's yeah. This this isn't a parking lot
and it was just lost, you know. Um. So yeah,
(21:08):
there are certain things that you want to do if
you find lost property that is contemporary, that's obviously lost,
that's obviously new. Um. And one of the first things
you want to do is take it to the cops
and say, here, here's my name and number in case
somebody doesn't doesn't claim this, but I'm officially giving it
to you the cops for safe keeping, and then probably
(21:29):
take out an ad in the paper or on Craigslist
or both, and then kick back and wait for the
kudos and the praise for being a hero, yeah, or
for that thing to be returned to you if no
one claims it. Yep, depending on where you are, I
think it like you said, in the UK, it's something
like a month. In California, it's I saw a twenty days.
(21:51):
I've also seen ninety. Um. Yeah, if you do all
the right things and follow all the right steps, it
can be yours, free and clear. Not only free and clear,
You're not going to be arrested, freeing clear where the
person can come back and say, oh, you know I
I that was my ring. If you are a jerk,
you can say no, it's my ring now, and the
(22:11):
cops would be like, it's it's their ring now. They
followed all the right moves. Yeah. They also recommend if
it's something really really valuable, maybe like get an attorney
on on the thing, like maybe one who would find
a diamond ring and not return it right exactly. He's
a public defender too, That's what I don't get. Yeah, yeah, well,
(22:31):
I mean it was like an entertainment attorney. It would
make much more sense, it would, I guess, But a
public defenders like, well, I don't get paid, this is
a really thankless job, and I'm going to do something
for myself for once, and then they ended up in
jail for doing something for themselves and then needed a
public defender. Yes, ironically, should we take a break, Yeah,
(22:56):
we're gonna take a break, chuck, And then we are
going to go under the sea. Yeah, where things get
really confusing, all right, So this is where things get
(23:28):
super super convoluted when you're talking about uh, shipwrecks and
literal treasure from like you know, uh, an ancient galleon, um,
or maybe not ancient, but let's just say a galleon,
you know it could be yes, we'll say galleons. In
(23:50):
ancient times they had Oh you know, the oldest intact
shipwreck was recently found in the Black Seat. Did you
see it. It's an ancient ship Okay, so ancient Greek? Yeah,
Like that's how ancient. It's not even Greek, it's Greek. Yea,
it's so ancient. Um, it's the kind that Odysseus was
(24:10):
lashed two when they were going past the Sirens. It's
like that kind of ship. It's that old, right, and
um it's fully in techt just laying on its side
at the bottom of the Black Sea. It's just beautiful,
beautiful little shipwreck. And that would be an ancient galleon.
I guess you could call it. All right. So this
(24:31):
is where like I don't even know how to talk
about this almost because it's so convoluted, because it can
it can matter whose ship it originally was, it can
matter what was on that ship. It can matter where
the ship is now resting in whose waters or if
it's international waters or partially on one side or the other,
(24:52):
which is when it gets super confusing who the ship
was least from, who was least from, who was in
charge of because most of these aren't accidents and know
uh that it has pointed out that sometimes like a
scuba diver might find something like this, but usually it's
an expedition looking for this stuff specifically, so who runs
that or whose insurance companies have a claim and what
(25:12):
international agreements are made, and it's just it's almost like
it's so case by case there really is no rule. Yeah.
If you thought land property was convoluted, under undersea archaeology
property treasure property is just totally off the charts. So
with UM, that was one of the nerdiest sentences I've
(25:34):
ever uttered. Yeah. I wrote an article years ago about
undersea archaeology and I did a lot of that research then,
and it is just really like basically what happens is
is once something is found, then everyone just lawyers up
and starts fighting. Yeah, exactly exactly. And I think the
reason why UM it's it's particularly convoluted in in um
(25:56):
contentious for the undersea um treasure is that the treasures
that they're finding are just so eye poppingly valuable that
it's worth, you know, going to court for fifteen twenty
years over billions of dollars in some cases. Yeah, there
was a wreck called the San Jose that was discovered
and it was announced in two thousand fifteen. I'm not
(26:18):
quite sure when Columbia discovered it, but it's off the
coast of Cartagena and its fifteen. The Colombian government came
forward and said, we found the San Jose. It was
a galleon. It was sunk by the British three hundred
years ago. No, no, it was. It was Spanish, but
(26:40):
it was transporting gold, silver gems from Peru back to
Spain to to finance a war. It was loaded with
with valuables. And they think that this wreck today the
valuables aboard are worth between one and twelve billion dollars. Yeah,
(27:02):
this is not something that any one of these parties
or countries is gonna give up on now. It's the
kind of shipwreck. It's the kind of treasure that can
actually affect world markets, like the value of goods on
world markets above on land, because this stuff has been
under the sea and out of the market for so long.
When it comes onto the market. It could actually depress
(27:24):
the value of the of like gold, because there's so
much of it suddenly coming on the market. That's how
rich this treasure is. Yeah, and it's funny here this
article you sent. Um, there is a UNESCO convention in
two thousand one on underwater cultural heritage findings that have
best practices. They're not actually like you know, laws and
(27:46):
they're they're like, we'd be happy to help out with this,
but nobody's called this. That's so you and yeah, they
they don't want them involved. Basically, they're just like, now
we're going to work it out with the lawyers. They're like, hey, thanks,
thanks a lot. Just go sit over there until call
your pretty much. Um. So the San Jose has a
lot of people arguing over it. For example, Spain is saying, well,
(28:11):
it's a Spanish galleon, give us our give us our
money back. Colombia is like, yeah, it's in our coastal waters,
that's our territorial waters that belongs to us. Peru says, yeah,
you guys came and extracted that from our indigenous population
back when we were Spanish calling. And that's one that
doesn't come up very often. But you think it should,
especially in the New World stuff, right, Yeah, like that
(28:32):
that was our original stuff to begin with, even so
we should have never been on that boat. Ironically, they
probably have the least claim to it, sadly, and but
um there's I wonder though if they'll get a portion
of it, though, I think if they said no, this
is this is a thing, this is legitimate, they could
conceivably get caught in. But they're not going to get
(28:53):
the whole thing. I don't think anybody's going to get
the whole thing, preting clear. So there's all these different
groups arguing over it, and it's big of a mess
as it is, it's actually not the biggest mess of
a treasure found a board a shipwreck. There's a ship
called the Notre Dame de Delivrance. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah,
(29:13):
that was um that sank forty miles off of Florida
in seventeen fifty five. I mean, one of just hundreds
and hundreds of ships to crash off the coast of Florida,
and a U. S. Salvage company found it in two
thousand two. And this is the one that I was
talking about. It's partially in international waters, partially as part
(29:35):
of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The Spaniards lease
the ship from the French West Indies Company, and so
they all have a claim. And then complicating this is
the fact that in the United States we passed the
abandoned shipwreck deck, which means all shipwrecks within US waters
(29:59):
uh uh, which is what like three miles off of
any of our coastlines. Um our US properties? Is that right? Yep?
So it's super convoluted. And that's actually the territorial waters
thing has kind of been the toughest one or the
um the best claim that any country can lay on
(30:21):
a ship is now it's in our territorial waters. Customarily
that means that's yours, that's yours to deal with. But
when the ship is in international waters, are partially in
international waters, that's just a whole different ball game. And
even when something's in territorial waters, like Spain's not gonna
go away. You know, when two to three billion dollars
(30:42):
is on the table, they're gonna say no, We're gonna
use our diplomats to press you know, at least getting
a portion of this. France will do the same thing,
and the salvers are like, well, hey, wait a minute,
this is this is ours, And actually, at first the
Florida Um Florida judge said, yep, it's yours. Being clear,
two to three billion dollar booty is yours. Take it,
(31:04):
put on this eye patch in this cool hat, and
go get it. Well, but you have to get Spain's
permission to go get it, right exactly, so Spain's gonna
say no, we want to have something to do with this.
But that Shipwrecked Act, the whole, the whole reason why
the United States is even involved is from that Shipwrecked Act.
It's very similar to that UK Act where it basically says, nope,
(31:27):
it belongs to us. Where the United States, it's in
our territorial waters, it belongs to us. But here's a
significant portion of it usually like of it. And the
point of that is to keep um salvers and treasure
hunters interested enough that they're actually going out and salvaging
these archaeological sites. But they're doing it under the jurisdiction
(31:49):
of the state or federal government, which says you've got
to keep daily logs. You have to break the reck
site into strings of square meters, you have to catalog everything.
You have to have a certified archaeology, a marine archaeologist
on board throughout the entire voyage overseeing this whole thing.
You gotta do it right, and we'll give you of
(32:11):
what we can get for it, which is substantial in
some some cases. But it's not like treasure hunting is
like a cheap activity. It's a very expensive undertaking. Yeah,
it's seriously expensive. And like they don't just like these
treasure hunting companies don't just go in there and say, hey,
I think there's something there, let's go grab it. I mean,
they do all their research because it is so expensive,
(32:32):
two ensure as much as possible that they will have
a claim to it in the end. You know, they
don't just go in there willy nilly and hopes that
the courts will decide with them. No, no, for sure,
But I mean I think that's the probably of significant
portion of the operating costs of a treasure hunting outfit
is the court costs and fees um to to get
(32:54):
the to to get the rights to the treasure. I
would guess, yeah, and in this case too, I'm sure
of France was like Florida judge, like, I don't care
what you say. But Florida judges have a big say
in this. They're about as professional as you could get
as far as as um passing judgment on treasure claims
(33:14):
for sunken ships. Because Florida has the most sunken ships
of any state in the Union, something like six thousand
to ten thousand estimated shipwrecks from piracy, hurricanes, all this stuff. Um,
Florida's got it. Also, if you're gonna if you're looking
for a judge who has experience on ruling on a
case like this, Florida is probably your best bet. Don't
(33:35):
go to Oklahoma. That would be my my suggestion. That's
just good advice all around. And it can also so
um if you're a treasure hunter, not only can the
court costs be killer, you might be put in jail.
There's a guy named Tommy Thompson who's a very famous
treasure hunter who found the wreck of the Fitzgerald. No, although, man,
(33:59):
there are a few wreck that fascinate me more than
the M. M. Fitzgerald. I can just sit there and
look at those eerie pictures of it all day long.
I can I just sing that song over and over. Um,
you shouldn't do that. He'll drive you insane. No, he
found the wreck of the s S. Central America, which
was a steamer that went down in a hurricane off
the coast of South Carolina in eighteen fifty seven with
(34:21):
four hundred and twenty five souls aboard and three tons
of gold and um. He found it, and he went
and sold a bunch of stuff and didn't pay his investors,
and a judge put him in jail in Ohio, where
he's been sitting since I think two thousand fifteen, because
he refuses to say where five hundred gold coins from
the wreck went. He just won't say. He said that
(34:43):
he gave him to somebody and believes, but he can't
remember who they are. That's really that's what his That's
what his lawyer had to tell the Washington Post. That funny. Yeah,
I'd just be like that to somebody and he can't
remember who. Yeah. I mean, I wish we could have
been a little bit more like black and white about
the shipwreck thing. But it's just it's just so depends
(35:06):
on the case. Yeah, you know, there is no solid rule.
There's a couple of solid rules. There's one above ground
where if you are caught digging on federal land. That's
a felony um and any stone tool found in the
United States belonged to the federal government automatically, I would guess,
(35:27):
unless it's in Texas, in which case the Texas authorities
and the federal authorities would fight with one another over
your right to own that stone tool. That's a good point.
So I think that's about it for finders Keepers. Good one. Yeah,
I thought so too. Uh. If you want to know
more about finders Keepers, go find something and say finders
Keepers and see what happens, and then let us know.
(35:48):
And in the meantime, we're gonna sit here and do
listener mail. I'm gonna call this Stanford Prison prison experiment
follow up angry Fallow. Yeah you read this one. Hey, guys,
just want to say thank you for your episode on Zimbardo.
I'm a cognitive psychologist and have been teaching for years,
and it makes me angry in a way I have
(36:10):
never been angry before. You do your best to fact
check and show that you're giving the student and she's
not talking about our show, by the way, not Zimbardo.
You do your best to fact check and show you're
giving the students reliable information, but then someone pulls crap
like this again Zimbardo, and causes serious problems for us
(36:30):
as teachers. How did I handle this chapter this year? Well?
Number one, I taught it as normal as the text
takes forever to be updated. And number two I showed
them the video ghost of Abu Grabe? Is it Abbi grade?
Abbi Grade? And had to had them right about how
Zimbardo's study predicted this would happen. And then three had
(36:52):
them all listen to your podcast. Now they're all as
angry as I am, partially at me for doing that,
but I wanted them to feel the effort they put
into it go to waste. But I had a very
interesting observation in one class, the publicity and popularity off
this study. Could it have actually created the dystopian prison
environment and part at Abi Grabe through expectation? Oh, I
(37:17):
see like a self fulfilling prophecy, I guess. So. Basically,
was Zimbardo the actual lucifer in his book having an
effect not only in society as a whole and what
we believe about humanity, but how we act we now
live in his hell? Then she says, thanks again. Uh
and that is from Alison Demming from Try County Tech
(37:39):
Temporarily insane with rage. It's right, I don't blame her. Yeah,
that was That was a good episode, dude, one of
the best. Yeah. Thanks Alison, Yeah, thanks a lot, Alison.
Thanks for writing in with the support. We agree with
you wholeheartedly. It's passion. It's not anger, that's right, man,
Or maybe it's anger. I don't want to tell you
how may feel, man, Chuck, you're killing at the stays.
(38:01):
So if you want to get in touch with us,
you can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
and check out our social links. I'm at the Josh
Clarkway dot com and world via email at stuff podcast
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
(38:22):
dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
And this is stuff you should know. The Finders Keepers
(00:21):
Edition Losers Weepers. Yeah, I know, so, Chuck. This is like,
this is an actual thing. It's not just like a
child's fantasy. Like this is law in some places. And
while it doesn't actually state losers weepers, I think it's implied.
It's implicit in the law where the finders the keeper,
(00:42):
but you lost it, so you're legally obligated to weep
in public. Yeah. And it's funny reading through some of
these examples. It sounds like playground stuff. I'll say that
I'll get to some of these. Some of these examples, though,
I'm like, man, that's not your person, Like, come on,
(01:03):
give it up. Did you say that out loud to yourself?
I did a couple of these. I was like, man, seriously, man,
that's not yours, that's not yours. I'm just have a
big justice thing, you know, So yeah, me too. It's
when I see people acting like a big baby in
saying like this money I found in my wall is mine? Like, no,
it's not. Well, you would be a great arbitrator, Yeah,
(01:25):
get out of here, it's not. You'd be like, my
ruling is this man that's not yours? Give it up. Uh.
But no, let's start with John and Mary not their
real names. No, No, I guess that's worth pointing out.
These are anonymous, an anonymous husband and wife team from
(01:46):
nor caw Yeah, from Ryan, California. And they are anonymous
because they didn't want a lot of attention and they
are still anonymous. We'll call him John and Mary and
they are famous. Uh. Well, I guess they're not famous,
but their cases a little famous because they found ten
million dollars and our you know what could be ten
million dollars in rare gold coins buried on their property
(02:08):
that they own on a walk and it's known as
the saddle Ridge Horde. Uh. In February two thirteen, they
found this, uh, these gold coins that no one knows
who they belonged to, how they got buried there, but
they found them and took a long time sort of
coming out with this. They did about as smart as
(02:29):
you possibly can. Yeah, they didn't rush to the press
or anything and say, look what we found. Uh. They
took their time because I think they rightfully knew that
they were onto something pretty special. Yeah. So they were
out walking on on their property put that away for
later with their dog, and they noticed, I guess, the
side of a can coming out of the ground, and
(02:50):
they went and dug it out, and sure enough, there
was a bunch of gold coins in there. Whenever you
see a can coming out of the ground, I mean,
that's your hope and wish that it's going to be
filled with old coins or jewels or something, right, But
it never happens. And it actually happened to these people.
And and so they went back again and again and again,
(03:10):
and they ended up pulling eight cans filled with gold coins,
pure gold coins, out of the ground on their property.
And it became very apparent, based on the state of
preservation of the cans and the dates of the coins
in the cans, that somebody had buried this no more
recently than the very beginning of the twentieth century, and
(03:33):
probably sometime in the late nineteenth century. Yeah, and here's
a hint. If you ever happened to unearthed aid whatever
a can or a glass jar or something full of
money buried on your property. Just keep digging that maybe it,
but maybe not. Yeah, I wondered, like what kind of
excavation they undertook points once they were like, oh there's
(03:55):
more there. I'm quite sure they cleared that ground. It's
it's it's verified. There's no more cans. So if you're
talking actual money, the face value, it's about twenty seven grand.
But because these are rare fines in great, great condition,
most of most of these coins, um, they're thinking that
it could be worth as many as as much as
(04:16):
ten million bucks. So they're gonna sell it. Well, they
have been and donate some of this money. M and um,
you know that it's nice that they're they're donating some
of it, but it really sort of um opens up
this question of hey, what does the law say about
(04:37):
finding something period much less like on my property rights?
The finders keepers law basically is what you're talking about,
And that's really what it's called in case laws find
the finders finders keepers laws or rules. That's right. So, um,
there was a lot going on here. These guys, John
and Mary owned the land that these coins were found,
(05:00):
Dawn and that was a huge mark in their favorite um.
But there in the United States, it really depends on
what state you're in, what court you go to, what
judge you happen to pull the case lawn is so
all over the place and so piecemeal that it's it's
(05:20):
really almost the luck of the draw. And there are
more things that you can do to compound your case
to make it more likely that the the thing is
is yours. But really it comes down to who has
the best claim on whatever is found. Yeah, like somebody
could come forward still probably or could have come forward
(05:42):
with John and Mary and said, wait a minute, that
was my great great grand Pappy Clark's land, and I'm
sure he did not intend to clark you those gold coins, right, Uh, So,
like we actually should have a claim as his family,
um to to to take this stuff from you, and
like that could go that could very legitimately go to
(06:05):
court to be decided by a judge. And again, like
you said, it's who has the more legitimate claim. Um.
What really helps them is like you said, it was
on their land and that it's super old, right exactly,
So the fact that it's very very old means that
the person who buried them is probably dead may not
(06:26):
even have any living heirs any longer. Um that's one
thing that it's it's old. The second thing is that
it's old, but it's also not necessarily archaeological. It's it's money.
So it's the gold coins are the definition of treasure.
And what we've entured now is called treasure law. And
(06:47):
there's different types of things that we'll see, but there's
one one category of found property is called treasure. And
what they found was treasure. It was a gold coin,
it was very old, but it wasn't necessarily archaeological. Again,
it was on their property. And so had somebody come
along and said, my Grandpappy Clark buried those back when
(07:10):
my family owned this property, that's ours, they would have
a claim. And and pretty much anytime something valuable, especially
ten million dollars valuable, is found in the United States,
it is automatically going to get hammered out in court
because the laws are so vague, in piecemeal and arbitrary
that it's going to going to be hammered out in court.
(07:31):
Who has the bigger claim. But because John and Mary
found something that was old that was buried by someone,
no one knows who buried it, and that it was
found on their property. They have a pretty good claim. Now,
if you were going to come and say, my grandpappy
buried that, um, your claim would be that was that
belonged to my family at one point in time. We
(07:51):
think it still does. It just happened to be buried
and forgotten or left um on land that these people bought.
Now there's a pretty good chance that the court would say, yeah,
but they bought the land. And depending on what state
you're in, that's that if they own the land, they
owned everything on it. Yeah. Or bought the car with
money in the trunk, or the house with a super
(08:14):
valuable painting buried in the attic. It's sort of all
the same um and And this is modern times. This
has been going on since the dawn of time when
people would lose or bury something, and they've always had
I think back then it was a little more cut
and dried, like an ancient Rome. If you found something
like that, half of it went to the emperor. Just
(08:36):
sort of know if ands or butts uh. If. In
modern England, if you find something um old and rare, uh,
they say that belongs to the queen. Um. But here's
here's like a good fee for you now now hand
it over. And that's very very new, and that's kind
of that represents the the new thinking in treasure law
(08:59):
or found property law, which is, look, we can't just
let you keep this stuff that may have not just
like monetary value, but actually like cultural value as well,
like so we need to have something to do with this.
So England just when, or i should say, the UK
just said everything you find that is valuable or antique
(09:20):
um and archaeological that belongs to the crown. But the
Crown is going to pay you market value, no questions asked,
right off the bat. So it's not finders keepers, but
it's finders. Here's here's a bunch of money you didn't
have before for finding this and bringing it into us.
And the point of this from the position of the
Crown or the UK government is that it encourages cooperation
(09:43):
with archaeological, archaeologists and historians to preserve cultural stuff rather
than just having it sold out onto them the commercial
market to private collectors because of finder keepers laws. And
that's how it was before six Yeah. I mean, if
if it's in the UK today and you find something
(10:06):
that is not an ancient gold coin. But if you
just find it, let's say, you know, ten thousand pounds
bundled together, buried in your in your attic or on
the street for that matter, I think you have to
file paperwork at a police station. Uh, the owners have
twenty eight days to claim it, and then it's yours.
In the United States, it varies from state to state
(10:27):
and uh sometimes even county to county, but generally it's
sort of the same thing, like reported to the police.
They need to advertise the lost property for a week
and then wait about ninety days, depending on where you are,
to see if anyone claims it, and then after that
they might say you can keep it. Yeah, but but
maybe it just depends on where you are. That's um,
(10:48):
that's like contemporary property that you found, right, yeah, yeah,
this is not like ancient gold coins. This is I
found a bundle of cold, hard cash. So let's let's
take a break and then we'll take a detour into
content porary property, because there are like a whole other
set of laws that are like are kind of important too,
All right, okay, Chuck, So, like we said, there's there's
(11:31):
some categories for for property found property. One of them
is the treasure where it's just straight up I found
eight cans of gold coins and it's treasure. Some in
the UK there's not really a distinction between that and say, um,
like uh, archaeological artifacts, they're virtually one and the same.
(11:55):
In the US, because the age of the country is
young enough, there's a distinction between an archaeological artifact and say,
like treasure that's found. But there's then there's contemporary property
where the person who owned it is probably still alive.
If not, they're the first generation after them is still
probably around UM and that that contemporary stuff is basically
(12:19):
broken out into three subcategories. There's lost, abandoned, and mislaid property,
and depending on the status of the property UM, the
finder may or may not get to keep it. And
even that then it depends on where you are. Yes,
so as far as those categories go. Abandoned property is
something that uh they say is forsaken by a previous
(12:42):
owner who doesn't have any intention of coming back for it,
so they've abandoned. They have abandoned it. Can you imagine
like how you would tell whether something's abandoned or not.
I don't know. I mean unless they literally leave a
note saying finders keepers, I don't want this anymore. Get
(13:04):
this away from me. You know what would it be
like a big bag of cocaine that somebody left there, Like,
I can't do anymore. This is really bad for me.
I don't want this. I don't know. Uh, I don't know.
That is that That is the one that is the
most confusing. The other two are much more straightforward. Lost
obviously is like the example they gave is you've lost
(13:26):
your engagement ring in the street, um, and clearly it's
something that you want back and maybe have tried to
come back and find um, but you have dropped it
or lost it somehow. And this mislaid is even more
interesting because uh, that is something that you intentionally put
somewhere but then kind of forgot it. And another good
(13:47):
example like you went to the bank and we're filling
out your your form and then oh my goodness, you
got a cell phone call and had to bolt real quick,
and you left that money on the counter that you
wanted to deposit in the bank. That is mislay, um,
because you clearly had an intention for it and we're
just way late or whatever, right, so it's not technically lost.
(14:08):
Because you put it somewhere on purpose, whereas lost, like
you dropped something in a parking lot. You may not
even know you're missing it at the time, right, or
you can't find it, right. Um. Mislaid is just like
you're no longer where you put that thing down, but
you intended to do something with it. There was intent
behind it, but you forgot or something or you got
(14:28):
called away. Yeah, and that that property mislaid property is
supposed to be guarded by whoever owns the property. So
in that case it would be the bank. Somebody from
the bank should go over there, collect that money and
just set it aside and be like that guy. I'll
be back for this, right. Which is it's funny because
you know the whole lost and Found box. You think
that's just like a good Samaritan thing. Well, really it's
(14:49):
everybody just covering their behinds lee speaking. I guess I
see it differently now, and I'm a little more bitter
because of it. So this Arizona case is one of
the ones where I got a little, uh little pod
I was a little bit. So this is a man died,
he hid half a million dollars in cans and ammo cans,
(15:10):
ammunition cans in the walls. And years later, the person
who owned that house, we're doing some renovations. Outcome these
cans and they were like, oh my god, it's a
half a million dollars. This is ours. So this man's
daughters they knew, like dad loved to do stuff like this.
He loved to hide things, He loved to hide things away. Uh.
(15:34):
They they searched before they sold the house. They even searched,
but obviously did not find these these cans stashed in
the walls. Uh. And when this came out, these daughters
came forward and we're like, you know, that's our money,
that's our our you know, should have gone to us
in a will, but my kookie dad stashed it in
the wall again. And uh, these people fought them for
(15:57):
that and said, no finders keepers in our wall. We
bought this house. Well, so I mean, I I can
understand your eye or in your anger, and that's what
I'm like. As soon as someone stepped forward, I would
have been like, oh, well, here's your money, then, like
this is your father's. It doesn't belong to me. But
what if you were like, actually, we've got a like
(16:19):
legitimate legal claim to this because depending on where they were,
and this is Arizona, but I mean depending on the state.
When you buy property from somebody, you buy the property,
and everything on that property, whether anyone knows it's there
or not, it belongs to you. Is the property owner.
For example, Texas is huge on that huge on private
(16:42):
property ownership, so much so that if you own property
in Texas and there's an archaeological site on your property,
that's yours, bub you can set it on fire, you
can turn it into a rec room, you can do
whatever you want with that stuff. That's your property. That's
how that's how Texas views uhum private property rights. Right.
(17:03):
So these people may have been like, well, we're from Texas,
that's just how we do it in Texas. They had
a legitimate claim to challenge. I get what you're saying.
But they also may have felt like, hey, we bought
this property and this came with the property, so this
is our sorry, that whole losers wheepers thing I think
is what they were invoking. Yeah, I mean that that's
clearly what they did. But what I'm saying is that
(17:26):
is not a that's not cool. No, it's that money
did not belong to them. They didn't work for it.
They didn't buy it because the house because they thought
there might be money in the walls. And if no
one came forward, then great. But as soon as these
daughters come forward, like that's their money to do the
right thing, that's what I say. I'm with you. Would
(17:49):
there's no way I would have challenged these daughters in court, right,
you would have been Finders, nice guys, losers here you go, Well,
I'd make sure, you know, I'd go through all the
legal process of making sure that they are who they
say they were and it all checked out. I wouldn't
like if they came knocking on my door, would just
go all right here, But I would. I would go
(18:10):
through that process and then say, well, okay, then it's
definitely your money. Would you like interview their cousins would
be like, what kind of daughters were they? Were they
good daughters? Or you know? Do they deserve this? And
at the very least, you're inviting a a heap of
bad luck and karma upon your head. Well, if you
believe that kind of stuff, sure it comes around. What
(18:31):
goes around comes around. That's my motto. Well that's another
Finders keepers, losersweepers, what goes around comes around? And then
the third one everything I needed to know I learned
in kindergarten. Or what about this guy in Georgia the
public defender talk about a jerk? Yes, there's no this
guy had no legal standing whatsoever, whether he was from
Texas or anywhere. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't look him
(18:54):
up to see what his name was. But in two
thousand thirteen, a public defender found, um uh a diamond
ring I guess, an engagement ring that was worth something
like ten dollars and just put it in their pocket
and walked away whistling, Man, what a I mean, especially
an engagement ring? Right, that's mine? You know? What a jerk? No,
(19:18):
I I agree, and um he got in trouble for it.
From what I understand, they when the person went back
and said I lost my engagement ring at the target
helped me. The target said, well, of course, we're gonna
help you. Calm down, Calm down, peace, brother, And they
pulled up their surveillance videos and saw the public defender
finding the ring and pocketing it, and they put a
(19:40):
warrant out for the public defenders arrest for I think
larceny actually, at the very least for not going to
lengths to find the person whose ring it was. Yeah,
not even links links, pick up a phone or go
into the target and be like, hey, I need to
speak to a manager. Well, it's funny, it says. One
(20:03):
of the things that you can and should do if
is like to do that and go like give that
diamond ring to the manager at target, and like, I
would never do that if it was something super valuable,
I wouldn't trust I wouldn't trust them. I would keep
it under my own control and go to the cops.
Just walk around with a gun drawn on everybody, like,
get back, get back. I found somebody's diamond ring. Get back.
(20:26):
It's my looking at And you're like, maybe I should
just go ahead and rob someplace. Now I got my
gun out and I'm protecting this diamond ring. And you
enter into a life of crime totally inadvertent. It's a
justice thing again, Like I don't want people should have
stuff that is rightfully there. It's not like up, well
I just happened to get lucky today, right who get
(20:47):
rich quick? Like that's what's wrong with this country? Yeah,
And I mean I know you're right about the five
grand in the behind the toaster oven. The diamond ring
is even more cut and dry to me for sure.
But um, that's yeah. This this isn't a parking lot
and it was just lost, you know. Um. So yeah,
(21:08):
there are certain things that you want to do if
you find lost property that is contemporary, that's obviously lost,
that's obviously new. Um. And one of the first things
you want to do is take it to the cops
and say, here, here's my name and number in case
somebody doesn't doesn't claim this, but I'm officially giving it
to you the cops for safe keeping, and then probably
(21:29):
take out an ad in the paper or on Craigslist
or both, and then kick back and wait for the
kudos and the praise for being a hero, yeah, or
for that thing to be returned to you if no
one claims it. Yep, depending on where you are, I
think it like you said, in the UK, it's something
like a month. In California, it's I saw a twenty days.
(21:51):
I've also seen ninety. Um. Yeah, if you do all
the right things and follow all the right steps, it
can be yours, free and clear. Not only free and clear,
You're not going to be arrested, freeing clear where the
person can come back and say, oh, you know I
I that was my ring. If you are a jerk,
you can say no, it's my ring now, and the
(22:11):
cops would be like, it's it's their ring now. They
followed all the right moves. Yeah. They also recommend if
it's something really really valuable, maybe like get an attorney
on on the thing, like maybe one who would find
a diamond ring and not return it right exactly. He's
a public defender too, That's what I don't get. Yeah, yeah, well,
(22:31):
I mean it was like an entertainment attorney. It would
make much more sense, it would, I guess, But a
public defenders like, well, I don't get paid, this is
a really thankless job, and I'm going to do something
for myself for once, and then they ended up in
jail for doing something for themselves and then needed a
public defender. Yes, ironically, should we take a break, Yeah,
(22:56):
we're gonna take a break, chuck, And then we are
going to go under the sea. Yeah, where things get
really confusing, all right, So this is where things get
(23:28):
super super convoluted when you're talking about uh, shipwrecks and
literal treasure from like you know, uh, an ancient galleon, um,
or maybe not ancient, but let's just say a galleon,
you know it could be yes, we'll say galleons. In
(23:50):
ancient times they had Oh you know, the oldest intact
shipwreck was recently found in the Black Seat. Did you
see it. It's an ancient ship Okay, so ancient Greek? Yeah,
Like that's how ancient. It's not even Greek, it's Greek. Yea,
it's so ancient. Um, it's the kind that Odysseus was
(24:10):
lashed two when they were going past the Sirens. It's
like that kind of ship. It's that old, right, and
um it's fully in techt just laying on its side
at the bottom of the Black Sea. It's just beautiful,
beautiful little shipwreck. And that would be an ancient galleon.
I guess you could call it. All right. So this
(24:31):
is where like I don't even know how to talk
about this almost because it's so convoluted, because it can
it can matter whose ship it originally was, it can
matter what was on that ship. It can matter where
the ship is now resting in whose waters or if
it's international waters or partially on one side or the other,
(24:52):
which is when it gets super confusing who the ship
was least from, who was least from, who was in
charge of because most of these aren't accidents and know
uh that it has pointed out that sometimes like a
scuba diver might find something like this, but usually it's
an expedition looking for this stuff specifically, so who runs
that or whose insurance companies have a claim and what
(25:12):
international agreements are made, and it's just it's almost like
it's so case by case there really is no rule. Yeah.
If you thought land property was convoluted, under undersea archaeology
property treasure property is just totally off the charts. So
with UM, that was one of the nerdiest sentences I've
(25:34):
ever uttered. Yeah. I wrote an article years ago about
undersea archaeology and I did a lot of that research then,
and it is just really like basically what happens is
is once something is found, then everyone just lawyers up
and starts fighting. Yeah, exactly exactly. And I think the
reason why UM it's it's particularly convoluted in in um
(25:56):
contentious for the undersea um treasure is that the treasures
that they're finding are just so eye poppingly valuable that
it's worth, you know, going to court for fifteen twenty
years over billions of dollars in some cases. Yeah, there
was a wreck called the San Jose that was discovered
and it was announced in two thousand fifteen. I'm not
(26:18):
quite sure when Columbia discovered it, but it's off the
coast of Cartagena and its fifteen. The Colombian government came
forward and said, we found the San Jose. It was
a galleon. It was sunk by the British three hundred
years ago. No, no, it was. It was Spanish, but
(26:40):
it was transporting gold, silver gems from Peru back to
Spain to to finance a war. It was loaded with
with valuables. And they think that this wreck today the
valuables aboard are worth between one and twelve billion dollars. Yeah,
(27:02):
this is not something that any one of these parties
or countries is gonna give up on now. It's the
kind of shipwreck. It's the kind of treasure that can
actually affect world markets, like the value of goods on
world markets above on land, because this stuff has been
under the sea and out of the market for so long.
When it comes onto the market. It could actually depress
(27:24):
the value of the of like gold, because there's so
much of it suddenly coming on the market. That's how
rich this treasure is. Yeah, and it's funny here this
article you sent. Um, there is a UNESCO convention in
two thousand one on underwater cultural heritage findings that have
best practices. They're not actually like you know, laws and
(27:46):
they're they're like, we'd be happy to help out with this,
but nobody's called this. That's so you and yeah, they
they don't want them involved. Basically, they're just like, now
we're going to work it out with the lawyers. They're like, hey, thanks,
thanks a lot. Just go sit over there until call
your pretty much. Um. So the San Jose has a
lot of people arguing over it. For example, Spain is saying, well,
(28:11):
it's a Spanish galleon, give us our give us our
money back. Colombia is like, yeah, it's in our coastal waters,
that's our territorial waters that belongs to us. Peru says, yeah,
you guys came and extracted that from our indigenous population
back when we were Spanish calling. And that's one that
doesn't come up very often. But you think it should,
especially in the New World stuff, right, Yeah, like that
(28:32):
that was our original stuff to begin with, even so
we should have never been on that boat. Ironically, they
probably have the least claim to it, sadly, and but
um there's I wonder though if they'll get a portion
of it, though, I think if they said no, this
is this is a thing, this is legitimate, they could
conceivably get caught in. But they're not going to get
(28:53):
the whole thing. I don't think anybody's going to get
the whole thing, preting clear. So there's all these different
groups arguing over it, and it's big of a mess
as it is, it's actually not the biggest mess of
a treasure found a board a shipwreck. There's a ship
called the Notre Dame de Delivrance. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah,
(29:13):
that was um that sank forty miles off of Florida
in seventeen fifty five. I mean, one of just hundreds
and hundreds of ships to crash off the coast of Florida,
and a U. S. Salvage company found it in two
thousand two. And this is the one that I was
talking about. It's partially in international waters, partially as part
(29:35):
of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The Spaniards lease
the ship from the French West Indies Company, and so
they all have a claim. And then complicating this is
the fact that in the United States we passed the
abandoned shipwreck deck, which means all shipwrecks within US waters
(29:59):
uh uh, which is what like three miles off of
any of our coastlines. Um our US properties? Is that right? Yep?
So it's super convoluted. And that's actually the territorial waters
thing has kind of been the toughest one or the
um the best claim that any country can lay on
(30:21):
a ship is now it's in our territorial waters. Customarily
that means that's yours, that's yours to deal with. But
when the ship is in international waters, are partially in
international waters, that's just a whole different ball game. And
even when something's in territorial waters, like Spain's not gonna
go away. You know, when two to three billion dollars
(30:42):
is on the table, they're gonna say no, We're gonna
use our diplomats to press you know, at least getting
a portion of this. France will do the same thing,
and the salvers are like, well, hey, wait a minute,
this is this is ours, And actually, at first the
Florida Um Florida judge said, yep, it's yours. Being clear,
two to three billion dollar booty is yours. Take it,
(31:04):
put on this eye patch in this cool hat, and
go get it. Well, but you have to get Spain's
permission to go get it, right exactly, so Spain's gonna
say no, we want to have something to do with this.
But that Shipwrecked Act, the whole, the whole reason why
the United States is even involved is from that Shipwrecked Act.
It's very similar to that UK Act where it basically says, nope,
(31:27):
it belongs to us. Where the United States, it's in
our territorial waters, it belongs to us. But here's a
significant portion of it usually like of it. And the
point of that is to keep um salvers and treasure
hunters interested enough that they're actually going out and salvaging
these archaeological sites. But they're doing it under the jurisdiction
(31:49):
of the state or federal government, which says you've got
to keep daily logs. You have to break the reck
site into strings of square meters, you have to catalog everything.
You have to have a certified archaeology, a marine archaeologist
on board throughout the entire voyage overseeing this whole thing.
You gotta do it right, and we'll give you of
(32:11):
what we can get for it, which is substantial in
some some cases. But it's not like treasure hunting is
like a cheap activity. It's a very expensive undertaking. Yeah,
it's seriously expensive. And like they don't just like these
treasure hunting companies don't just go in there and say, hey,
I think there's something there, let's go grab it. I mean,
they do all their research because it is so expensive,
(32:32):
two ensure as much as possible that they will have
a claim to it in the end. You know, they
don't just go in there willy nilly and hopes that
the courts will decide with them. No, no, for sure,
But I mean I think that's the probably of significant
portion of the operating costs of a treasure hunting outfit
is the court costs and fees um to to get
(32:54):
the to to get the rights to the treasure. I
would guess, yeah, and in this case too, I'm sure
of France was like Florida judge, like, I don't care
what you say. But Florida judges have a big say
in this. They're about as professional as you could get
as far as as um passing judgment on treasure claims
(33:14):
for sunken ships. Because Florida has the most sunken ships
of any state in the Union, something like six thousand
to ten thousand estimated shipwrecks from piracy, hurricanes, all this stuff. Um,
Florida's got it. Also, if you're gonna if you're looking
for a judge who has experience on ruling on a
case like this, Florida is probably your best bet. Don't
(33:35):
go to Oklahoma. That would be my my suggestion. That's
just good advice all around. And it can also so
um if you're a treasure hunter, not only can the
court costs be killer, you might be put in jail.
There's a guy named Tommy Thompson who's a very famous
treasure hunter who found the wreck of the Fitzgerald. No, although, man,
(33:59):
there are a few wreck that fascinate me more than
the M. M. Fitzgerald. I can just sit there and
look at those eerie pictures of it all day long.
I can I just sing that song over and over. Um,
you shouldn't do that. He'll drive you insane. No, he
found the wreck of the s S. Central America, which
was a steamer that went down in a hurricane off
the coast of South Carolina in eighteen fifty seven with
(34:21):
four hundred and twenty five souls aboard and three tons
of gold and um. He found it, and he went
and sold a bunch of stuff and didn't pay his investors,
and a judge put him in jail in Ohio, where
he's been sitting since I think two thousand fifteen, because
he refuses to say where five hundred gold coins from
the wreck went. He just won't say. He said that
(34:43):
he gave him to somebody and believes, but he can't
remember who they are. That's really that's what his That's
what his lawyer had to tell the Washington Post. That funny. Yeah,
I'd just be like that to somebody and he can't
remember who. Yeah. I mean, I wish we could have
been a little bit more like black and white about
the shipwreck thing. But it's just it's just so depends
(35:06):
on the case. Yeah, you know, there is no solid rule.
There's a couple of solid rules. There's one above ground
where if you are caught digging on federal land. That's
a felony um and any stone tool found in the
United States belonged to the federal government automatically, I would guess,
(35:27):
unless it's in Texas, in which case the Texas authorities
and the federal authorities would fight with one another over
your right to own that stone tool. That's a good point.
So I think that's about it for finders Keepers. Good one. Yeah,
I thought so too. Uh. If you want to know
more about finders Keepers, go find something and say finders
Keepers and see what happens, and then let us know.
(35:48):
And in the meantime, we're gonna sit here and do
listener mail. I'm gonna call this Stanford Prison prison experiment
follow up angry Fallow. Yeah you read this one. Hey, guys,
just want to say thank you for your episode on Zimbardo.
I'm a cognitive psychologist and have been teaching for years,
and it makes me angry in a way I have
(36:10):
never been angry before. You do your best to fact
check and show that you're giving the student and she's
not talking about our show, by the way, not Zimbardo.
You do your best to fact check and show you're
giving the students reliable information, but then someone pulls crap
like this again Zimbardo, and causes serious problems for us
(36:30):
as teachers. How did I handle this chapter this year? Well?
Number one, I taught it as normal as the text
takes forever to be updated. And number two I showed
them the video ghost of Abu Grabe? Is it Abbi grade?
Abbi Grade? And had to had them right about how
Zimbardo's study predicted this would happen. And then three had
(36:52):
them all listen to your podcast. Now they're all as
angry as I am, partially at me for doing that,
but I wanted them to feel the effort they put
into it go to waste. But I had a very
interesting observation in one class, the publicity and popularity off
this study. Could it have actually created the dystopian prison
environment and part at Abi Grabe through expectation? Oh, I
(37:17):
see like a self fulfilling prophecy, I guess. So. Basically,
was Zimbardo the actual lucifer in his book having an
effect not only in society as a whole and what
we believe about humanity, but how we act we now
live in his hell? Then she says, thanks again. Uh
and that is from Alison Demming from Try County Tech
(37:39):
Temporarily insane with rage. It's right, I don't blame her. Yeah,
that was That was a good episode, dude, one of
the best. Yeah. Thanks Alison, Yeah, thanks a lot, Alison.
Thanks for writing in with the support. We agree with
you wholeheartedly. It's passion. It's not anger, that's right, man,
Or maybe it's anger. I don't want to tell you
how may feel, man, Chuck, you're killing at the stays.
(38:01):
So if you want to get in touch with us,
you can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
and check out our social links. I'm at the Josh
Clarkway dot com and world via email at stuff podcast
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
(38:22):
dot com
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