It would be easy for us to say that a 1909 S vdb cent is worth "1 cent". And a 1916 D mercury dime is worth "10 cents", etc.... To thus be outside the scope of laws to turn in items over a certain value criteria. And we would also justify ourselves by noting that it's also been buried for ~100 yrs, so the person who lost it is long-since gone .
So NONE of us would turn in valuable coins (even though worth over the lost & found criteria threshold). Right ?
But consider the following true story:
A retired guy in a city near me, took up detecting, as a way to get exercise. He was just a sandbox and tot-lot type hunter. Just an excuse to get out and walk during his retirement years. He made a route of all the parks and schools in his area of the county, and made sport of hitting a few each weekend, such that by the end of the month, he'd worked them all. Just accumulating clad change, with the occasional ring or whatever.
One day he was working a sandbox at a school that was blt. in the late 1930s. He got a couple of very old coins. Like a seated quarter, a bust half, and so forth. But since he wasn't a coin collector, he didn't really know his old coin ID's. And he assumed these were gimmicks or fake, or tokens or something. He threw them into his box with his other finds.
A few days later, a buddy of his was over at his house shooting the breeze. They were looking through his latest finds, when the friend saw the older coins. He knew his old coin ID's, and told his friend that these were very much real, and .... valuable. Asked "where did you find these ?". So the two of them decided to go try this sandbox more. They got a few more key date valuable old coins ! After multiple more hunts, they had ended up with something like 8 to 10 key coins. Like silver dollars, bust halves, seated quarters, and so forth. They were besides themselves with glee.
But confusion set in: Because obviously, the school was not old enough for these coins to be there ! So they formulated the theory that the SAND in the sandbox must've come from the beach (this school is only 1 mile from the beach). And during a sand replenishment project recently (bring in clean sand to replace old sand) the coins must've been in the sand that came from the beach ! What a grand stroke of luck, eh ?
After awhile, they could find no more coins in the sand box. So one of the men wandered out of the sandbox, and was hunting the tall grass along a border. He got a signal, parted the grass, and .... barely 1/2" down under the surface, was ANOTHER key old USA coin. So the two men started hunting all the grass around the sandbox and school yard, and found another 6 or 7 old coins. Hence, all-told, they had something like 15+ key date numismatic old USA coins now.
But this sort of threw their theory of the "beach sand" out the window. Since these coins were coming from the grass. Doh. So they hatched a new theory: That this location where the school was built, must've been an early 1800's camp or watering hole spot, on an old travel route. And that the modern school must've been built over the spot. They rationalized this because the old El Camino Reale (route between the CA missions) passed by only a mere 1000 ft. away.
One day, 1 of the 2 men was hunting alone. An after school janitor spotted him, and walked out to talk to him. Told the md'r: "If you find any old coins.... and I mean OLD coins, let me know." The md'r asked the janitor why he was saying that. The janitor explained that : A few semesters earlier , a nerdy loaner 3rd grade student had brought his dad's coin collection to school for show & tell (without his dad's permission or knowledge) . And then, during recess, had proceeded to pass out the coins to classmates, to "make friends". And the kids, not knowing one coin from other (treating them like play money or tokens), had simply gone and lost a bunch on the playground.
A few days later, when the dad realized what had happened, he went to the school principle. The principle, in turn, marched the father and son into the classroom, where all were made to stand at attention. The children were told that those coins should not have been passed out, and that they were to return any coins they'd been given. A few coins got returned, by kids who happened to still have them. But the rest either denied having gotten any, or said they no longer had theirs, or whatever.
As the md'r heard the janitor's story, it IMMEDIATELY became clear what the origination source of their coins had been. Doh !
Ok: You tell me: Who do the coins belong to: The md'rs ? Or the coin collector ? And if you were the coin collector, and got wind of the fact that some yahoo md'r had "your" coins, wouldn't you feel like they'd had an obligation to turn them in ?
I don't know if the md'r revealed to the janitor that they did, in fact, have a bunch of the coins. So I'm not sure what followed. But you can see this brings up various layers of legal ramifications, eh ?
