Coins & The Law

By Billy Blackstone. LLB.

Attorney at Law

My client, Mrs. Ima Horder of Hixville, U.S.A., is an ardent Lincoln Cent collector of long standing. I have handled all this well-to-do matron’s legal affairs since the death of her husband many years ago. Her aggressive ways have often erupted into legal disputes and I have hence come to know her quite well.

 Her latest call for my services had its origin when one of her gentlemen friends gave her a metal detector, a “coin shooter,” as a Christmas present. Having read of the many valuable finds made with such devices, she gleefully anticipated the opportunity to use hers. For practice, she decided to make systematic sweeps of her own back yard. When nothing turned up there, she  crossed onto the property of her neighbor, Sandy  Hook, a ship’s captain. There, her machine began signaling a find as she moved it to and fro under a clump of wild roses.

To assure the privacy of her find, Mrs. Hoarder took due note of the spot and did no more until nightfall. Then she returned with her garden tools. After loosening the top-soil, she probed the area with her trowel until she met with resistance and a hollow metallic sound. Anxiously, she dug around the object with her spade until she bared a small sea-chest about one foot square. The box was heavy as she tried to remove it, but she was able to drag it to her patio and was struggling to get it up her back steps when Hook’s yard lights illuminated the scene and he appeared holding a rapier to Mrs. Hoarder’s throat.

“Steady as she goes, wahine,” he growled, “or I’ll slice yer gizzard out and eat it for breakfast come morning.” “Well, I never…” Mrs. Hoarder began. “Maybe never before, milass, but I’ve caught you this time and the Shore Patrol’s on its way.” The call I got was from the village Constable, not the Shore Patrol , but Mrs. Hoarder was nonetheless by then booked with criminal trespass on Captain Hook’s complaint.

The judge paroled her to my recognizance and she was soon telling me her story as I drove toward her home. “Whatever possessed you to go digging on your neighbor’s property?” I asked. “Property, schmoperty,” she spat. “That’s treasure I found and treasure belongs to whoever finds it. The Constable’s got that chest now, but whatever’s in it is mine and that old barnaclebitten geezer has no more right to it than the man in the moon. Besides, he doesn’t own that property, just been renting there the last ten years or so.”

“Still, you can’t deny you were trespassing and that means…” We were now in her driveway and I cut the engine off. “You’d better look in your law books, sonny, before you start preaching to me,” she snapped as she slammed the car door shut.

I did just that the following morning. I found, as I expected, that a trespass with intent to take another’s property is a criminal trespass and it is of no moment that the complainant is a tenant rather than the landowner, so long as he had the superior right to possession. But the more difficult question was whether the chest and its content were Hook’s property or were “treasure” which might be claimed by the finder.

Searching the law of Treasure Trove, I found that by no means is all buried property considered treasure. Instead, valuables, no matter where kept, still belong to their owner so long as he intends to reclaim them at some later date. Treasure, I found, may be generally defined in the law of abandoned property under which a person may forfeit his right to property by failing over a long period of time, to claim ownership actively or otherwise attend to it. And while burying valuables is certainly not the best way to safeguard them, the law is clear that a person who buries his property on land to which he has a right of access does not thereby lose it as “treasure” so long as he actively intends to reclaim it at some future time.

In the leading case on the subject, two young boys out hunting on unfenced range had discovered a hole in the ground which, upon exploration, produced a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills. The landowner laid claim to the find as did the federal authorities contending that it was the proceeds of illegal drug sales. No one came forward to claim the money, despite police efforts to find the owner and widespread press notice of the case. Awarding the money to the boys, the court cited the law of abandoned property and held the find a “treasure” since the owner had obviously abandoned it. The court limited the landowner’s recovery to damages for harm to the land, if any, and refused to speculate in the absence of evidence, that the money was the product of illegal drug sales.

I called the village Constable and asked about the details of Hook’s complaint. He told me that Hook had opened the chest in front of him; that before doing so he told the Constable it was full of common U.S. silver coins dated before 1965, which was exactly what they found in it; that the chest opened easily with a key Hook carried on his keyring; and that Hook had buried the chest to keep it from the hands of burglars while he was periodically out to sea.

The chest was obviously Hook’s property and not “treasure” in any sense of the word. My job now was to inform Mrs. Hoarder that she had no rights in it and would probably be convicted of criminal trespass to boot. But before I could lift the phone, she burst into my office giggling and towing a large man with a full beard of jet black hair and a peg-leg on his left knee.

 “Hook’s the name,” he bellowed, “Sandy Hook. And this lass ye already know, me neighbor, and a fine one at that.” “Well, er, uh, yes,” Mrs. Hoarder stammered. “After all these years as neighbors we finally made each other’s acquaintance and he’s such a charmer, you know., Well, over Bloody Marys this morning, we agreed that I’m going to watch over his home while he’s away at sea and he’s going to drop those nasty charges against me. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum,” I almost sang out.