Common landmarks may hide treasures

“X” doesn’t always mark the spot when it comes to buried treasure. Often, treasure is hidden by landmarks such as stone walls or old outhouses, says Long Island, N.Y., resident Michael Chaplan, author of “The Urban Treasure Hunter: A Practical Handbook for Beginners” (Square One, $18.95).

Say you’re walking in the woods. “You look up on a hill and say, ‘Gee, maybe people had a picnic there.’ And you go up with a metal detector and find old coins,” he says.

Once you find those coins, a rule known as the Treasure Trove doctrine decides if you can keep them. It may sound romantic, “but it’s a bunch of legal statutes,” Chaplan says, explaining that an item is only considered treasure if it has no rightful owner.

The statutes came up this spring when some Massachusetts roofers said they found more than $120,000 in antique bills buried in a lawn and appeared on national TV to discuss their good fortune.

While treasure law varies from state to state, Chaplan says, an item usually has to be in a natural area – lodged in a tree, hidden under a rock or buried in the ground – to be considered treasure.

It was later reported that those Massachusetts roofers were allegedly lying about the money they found. The bills weren’t buried. They had been hidden in a barn on a person’s property. The money had a rightful owner; the roofers had no claim.

“I don’t know why they went public,” Chaplan says. “I guess they wanted to have a media event.”

In New York City, Chaplan says, the treasure laws basically work like this: Hunters have to declare what they find to the city. The city has the option to take it. If the city passes, the hunter gets to keep his treasure.