What is the largest and/or most valuable object (or stash) to be lost?
By “lost” I don’t mean “destroyed by fire” or “sank to the bottom of the sea” or somesuch; rather, I mean “it’s probably somewhere, but nobody knows where it is.”
Possible examples would include, say, rare DaVinci manuscripts in some Vatican vault somewhere; works of art stuffed away in a government warehouse somewhere (and the records of where it went are gone); some of Jesse James’ loot hidden in a cave in Missouri, etc.
I don’t know if it’s the most expensive, but the Amber room might deserve a mention.
I can think of two that might meet the OP & are worth in the 6 figure range
The Irish Crown Jewels were stolen in 1907 and would be worth millions today – what happened to them is a mystery - but the most popular scenario is that they were broken up… so the Jewels themselves are probably somewhere though I don’t know if the Jewelry is still extant (might be though).
In 2003 a 727 was stolen from a runway in Luanda Angola and has never been found. It is apparently worth more than $1 Million
Moving this to MPSIMS. But with a note.
These sorts of threads always present a quandry for a moderator. There is probably NO factual answer possible to this OP. So what do I do?
You can still get factual answers, whether your question goes into MPSIMS or IMHO. But it doesn’t exactly fit the purpose of GQ. Just my opinion, I know.
samclem GQ moderator
Did they find out that “stolen” plane in Africa was part of an insurance fraud scheme, or am I misremembering?
There’s the Cheapside Hoard, a cache of Elizabethan/Jacobean jewels dated between 1600 and 1650, but some of the pieces may be of earlier manufacture. The jewelry is made using gold and silver and real gemstones, but the decoration relies heavily on enamel. You can see pictures here, and here is there are more here at the Museum of London, where the hoard is kept.
How about King John’s tresure, lost in 1216.
Or maybe some buried pirate booty.