Eez joke.
^ What he said.
Wow! I guess when you work around that much gold, it loses its specialness. I think I’ve heard the same from people who deal with money all day long. After a while, it’s just a bunch of green paper.
The OP doesn’t specify a jurisdiction. But I’ve heard that, at least in some jurisdictions, the gold itself must be turned over to the government, but the finder (not the property owner) is entitled to compensation in the amount of the gold’s value, so long as the finder had a legitimate reason to be on the land when it was found. IIRC, there was a case in England where the finder was hired to work some farmland, and in the course of plowing discovered a Roman treasure trove. The landowner tried to claim ownership, but in the end the plowman got the money.
Pawn shops in many, if not all locals require you to show ID to take anything from you. Otherwise, they become a very easy fence for any stolen goods. Criminals are far less likely to associate their personal info to turning your burglarized goods into cash.
I believe that in most of those jurisdictions “treasure trove” “(found treasure”) has to have been hidden, typically buried, and in most cases to be at least a few centuries old; modern laws are more about protecting items of archaeological significance than they are about determining who owns the shiny valuable things. So, a (presumably modern) gold bar that someone just carelessly left lying on the sidewalk (gosh, don’t you just hate it when you do that?) wouldn’t qualify. (Although a gold brick that was buried, even fairly recently, “with the intention of recovery and whose owners or heirs are unknown” apparently would qualify as “treasure trove” in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.)
Also, at least in the UK the current laws provide that if someone who has a legitimate reason to be on land finds such buried treasure of archaeological significance, the reward will be split between the finder and the owner or lawful possessor of the land.
In found in the US, schlep that heavy bar to a time machine and transport back to Gold Standard days. No wait, it would not be worth so much then. I’ll go with “melt it down”.
That won’t work. A gold plated brick of tungsten carbide will weigh almost the same as a brick of pure gold.
In an episode of Pawn Stars, I know it’s all fake, they had a fellow with a gold bar to sell. I seem to recall that they drilled about 1/2" in to show that it was gold all through.
I would imagine any “load” of gold buillon bricks would be shrink wrapped to the pallet, after having been counted and verified by a number of people.
Vaults which handle only money–coin and currency–do this. Coins are counted and placed in boxes which are sealed, and stacked on pallets. At a certain amount, the boxes are shrink-wrapped to the pallet. Currency is handled the same way. The people who count the money wear jumpsuits with NO pockets. And there are cameras everywhere.
If the shrink wrap is disturbed, everything stops.
Someone could not take out, say, a box of quarters to use as a doorstop.
~VOW
It won’t. Pure tungsten will, though. (tungsten carbide is 15.6 g/cc, W and Au are both 19.3)
Too bad James Marshall was a little too dim to realize that. He’s the dude who found gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848 while working as a carpenter there. Legend has it that he became so excited, he rode through the streets of Sacramento shouting “GOLD! GOLD! THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!” :smack: thus setting off the California Gold Rush. (Not to be confused with that dude who ran naked through the streets shouting “Eureka”.)
Go back in time, melt it down, give it to your grandpa to invest. You’ll be richer now.
It is concerning the Manhattan Project that I read the story of the worthless pure gold brick used as a doorstop to the plutonium storeroom. Perhaps in Feynman?
Grandpa was a wild biker and a liquor smuggler. He’d have had fun with it.
That’s what that ‘vrow’ sound was.
In the real world, of course, that is bullshit. If a bag of money falls off an armored car, you can’t just keep it because you found it on the street corner.
Well, you can try, but they’ll probably be able to track down someone spending it.
What if you find a dollar? Or a five-dollar Bill? Or a twenty? At what point are you expected to notify the police? What if I go to the police station to turn in a nickel I’ve found?
My gf is always misplacing her stuff. I’d assume the gold brick was hers, so I’d hide it for safe keeping. Then, when she told me she couldn’t find her gold brick, I’d get it out and all would be well.
The Mildenhall Treasure, as chronicled in Roald Dahl’s story of the same name.
Constantly look over your shoulder. Whoever lost the gold probably wants it back. Badly.