Originally published at: Woman hired treasure hunter who found the rumored $46,000 hidden in her family's home | Boing Boing
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Would it be cruel to leave a ‘just possible to find’ note about an old stash every time you move house?
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This is an absolutely brilliant money laundering scheme.
IRS: Care to explain where you got all this cash?
Me: I found it. Professional treasure hunter, at your service. Tell your friends.
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Curious to know if the treasure hunter gets a cut of the find.
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In the future, it’s going to be a USB stick with a crypto-wallet.
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$46k in 1958 when they hid the box was worth $422k today. Invested in the S&P 500 since 1958 it would have grown to $26.5 million today! So, probably a little bittersweet to find it.
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Not the haul this dude found, but I found now twice a wooden boxes full of old tools on the property we have. The low humidity and desert sand have preserved them very well. Previous owner was a tradesman, and during his 60 plus years of owning the property took to digging holes and depositing things in the sand, apparently he was on his own for some time, and was suffering dementia badly before being taken to a assisted living home. I’m continuing on with spreading gravel on the property, so I expect to be pleasantly surprised by future finds, I’m a tool junkie so it’s treasure to me.
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A great way to launder $46,000 in pre-1958 bills - an awfully specific money-laundering scheme.
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I wonder if the person who hired the treasure hunter is now kicking herself for not looking just a little harder before outsourcing the apparently minimal effort it took for the guy to find it.
If I thought there was a cache of money in my attic I’d be up there with some tools and some time to find it. Not like it’s hard to fix carpentry if needed.
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Red flag #1: that attic is too clean
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I was wondering how those numbers would break down. That’s epically bittersweet. I really don’t understand the mentality to hide cash in you home, but hey those were different times. At least they didn’t burry it in the backyard only to dig up I bunch of deteriorated bills. But the treasury believe it or not will exchange pretty heavily damaged bills as long as the serial number is visible.
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No need to hammer home the point, it is plane to see that it must have been a wrench for the old guy to abandon his treasured tools.
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If the socket fits…
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You have a metal detector?
If not, my wife is crazy for metal detecting and comes with her own equipment.
(seriously… if you do the grunt work digging instead of me, I’ll owe you one!)
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The article does mention they were moving out of the home. If there’s ever a time one might hope to find a clean attic that’s probably it.
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Thank you very much for the offer. We have one lent to us by a friend. The last box I pulled out was filled with large to extremely large wrenches, some SnapOn and a few that are specialty pipe wrenches. I covered most of the obvious areas, now I’m working on the outer spots, that are less likely to have been dug by hand, especially a very old dude. The other surprise has been buckets, I’m talking 5 gallon buckets of good quality screws, lots of galvanized deck screws, bolts & nuts of many sizes. I’m a novice fabricator & carpenter, it’s been a real prize to find these items. As well I found less than a foot under, 10 foot - 20 foot pieces of galvanized pipe, 1 inch - 3 inch, that stuff is very expensive, that’ll keep for a future projects. I guess that old fella had some time on his hands, or maybe thought they were at risk of being stolen, who knows.
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The money would’ve been better used had it been invested into property, stocks or even gold/silver. That 46k back in the 50’s would be worth more now but still cool that they were able to find the cash 
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1950’s worth of $46,000 to todays 2021 worth is approx. $500K. Average inflation rate 3.42%
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Maybe some of the bills are collectable and worth more than face value.
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