What legal process do I have to go through to legally own/sell it?
Here, at any rate, it’s called ‘stealing by finding’. You would have to take ‘reasonable steps’ to establish the owner’s whereabouts and inform him/it. Such steps usually involve notifying law enforcement.
Wasn’t that covered in the famous court case of “Finder vs. Weepers”?:smack:
Several jurisdictions have a law that if you find lost money over a certain amount, you’re supposed to turn it in to the police. If a certain length of time (often a year) goes by without it being claimed, then it’s yours.
It is possible such a find could be gold-plated (and if it happened to me it definitely would be). So first I would weigh it and measure its dimensions. From the dimensions calculate how much you would expect it to weigh. Thus if the brick were 8" X 4" X 2" that is 64 cubic inches. A pound of gold is 1.44 cubic inches so it should weigh 44.4 pounds. But if you found that the brick only weighs about 26 pounds then you very likely have lead with a gold plating.
The first rule of “Find a Brick of Solid Gold with No Indication of Ownership on the Street” club (FaBoSGWNIoO club) is that you don’t talk about FaBoSGWNIoO club
The second rule of FaBoSGWNIoO club is that you DO NOT TALK ABOUT FaBoSGWNIoO club!
eh
If I found $21k in gold on the side of the road. It must have belonged to my grandfather who died 18 years ago. I would take my heirloom to my father-in-law and use his smelter. He keeps it around for the gold he pans and every decade or so he makes some coins since its easier for the dealer he works with. After reforming the bar I’d wait 4 or 5 years to sell the gold to his dealer. Then I’d take my $18k and do something fun with it. Of course if $18k wouldn’t improve my life much I might hold on to it as my hedge against inflation.
I’m not advocating stealing by finding, but gold is so easily melted couldn’t you just cast it into a couple of different shapes? Or does gold have some signature that would identify it specially after re-melting.
If a poor person lost it, it should be given back. If a rich person lost it, I’d say just keep it.
You don’t automatically have rights to stuff you find. Technically, the owner of the property would be the one who should take possession and try to find the owner. So if you found it in the street, it would be the city. If you found it in a parking lot, it would be the owner of that property. And if you found it in your front yard, that would be you. But in all cases, the person who finds it is supposed to take steps to return it to the proper owner.
This sometimes becomes an issue when a truck carrying money has an accident or something and the money flies all over the place. The people who pick up the money aren’t legally allowed to keep it. It’s not often practical to go after everyone who picked up a few bills, but if someone were to pick up a lot of the money, they could be prosecuted.
24 karat jewelry-grade gold is 99.9% pure. Bars of gold may be 99.99% or 99.999% pure. So yes, if you show up with a ring that is higher purity than 24k, someone that tested it could know that something was up.
If the found item(s) could be established to have owners, such as in a stock certificate, I believe an unclaimed property law goes into effect that has the state take control of the property for some period of time before it becomes property of the state. This is largely applied to unclaimed balances in bank accounts and insurance payments which wouldn’t be found on the street, but are presumed to have an owner. Unless that gold is clearly marked with a treasury serial number or something I don’t think that would apply in this case.
Can you get higher purity than 99.999%.
Well, you would have to make a lot of rings! Jewelry isn’t typically tested for the exact alloy. Jewelers use an acid test. They would first try the 18k acid and since it would pass that test, they would try the 22-23k test. Not much jewelry is that high of purity since it is quite soft but Asian gold, especially Thai gold, can be 23k and is used as investment jewelry. Thais wear their wealth. Some of our friends have rings on every finger, sometimes more then one. My wife used to have 23k rings but after selling them has stuck to the more affordable 14-18k stuff. Any good quality jewelry is expected to be stamped with the purity.
But it would be worthwhile to melt it and recast if if you were being sneaky. While you are at it, throw in some silver to drop the alloy down a bit. Gold is not traceable and that is one of the problems on the international scene as it is easily “laundered”.
Dennis
That was actually the case of “Finders v. Losers”. As I recall, the judge ruled that Finders are keepers and Losers are weepers.
It was upheld on appeal.
As for the OP, I’d take it to a pawn shop. They will tell you if it’s real (as they once did for me when I tried to pawn the old necklace my dad gave me, which was merely plated).
Even discounting the rather flexible honesty, how does one determine the owner, then the owner’s wealth? I mean, if someone answers your call with, “Musk residence; Elon speaking,” that’s a pretty good indicator but I’d bet not all who are wealthy enough, in your opinion, to not deserve the brick’s return as nearly so famous.
I’ve told this story before, but the scenario you described almost actually happened and it almost set off an international incident. The key word being almost.
I have I friend that works at the Federal Reserve in NYC, the one with the epic gold vault. She was allowed to give private tours to friends and once I got to chatting with the guys that worked in the vault.
The gold vault in NYC is mostly home to gold owned by other countries, the US keeps it’s own gold at Fort Knox.
And whenever the gold is transferred out, the inventory process is stringent, to say the least. Multiple people unlock cages, count and verify and sign at every step of the procedure.
One time, after a transfer, the receiving country claimed to be short a brick. The employees at the Fed swore that they had sent everything and that they had proof. This had the potential to be a real issue.
Then someone checked the loading dock. A gold brick had been removed as used to prop open a door while the truck was loaded. And they forgot to put it back when they were done. It was sitting in the corner of the loading dock with some other rubbish. Crisis averted.
Somebody got 99.9999% once in 1957. (In Australia, not the Mariana Trench.)
I’m assuming that was a joke, implying that anyone who owns a gold brick is rich enough to afford losing a gold brick.
You can’t just tomb-raid that cache of gold or sunken treasure ship. The state or crown has jurisdiction to put it in a museum; you may in turn receive a reward, but you may not merely swipe the treasure Indiana Jones-style. Old beer bottles are probably legal to keep, on the other hand.