Did the ever decide it was faked? They being whoever? 
This “they” says its a hoax.
I have two books that mention this:
[ul]
[li]Singh: The Code Book, by Simon Singh, Copyright 1999 by Simon Singh, published by Anchor Books.[/li][li]Poundstone: Biggest Secrets, by William Poundstone, Copyright 1993 by William Poundstone, published by Quill.[/li][/ul]
The cipher is in three parts: The location of the treasure; The composition of the treasure (1,014 lbs. gold and 3,812 lbs. silver deposited on November, 1819, and 1,907 lbs. gold, 1,288 lbs. silver, and jewels valued at $13,000 then deposited on December, 1821), and; The addresses of the next-of-kin of Beale. The second one has been broken, hence my summary of the contents of the vault. Both Singh and Poundstone give all three complete ciphers, and quote liberally from the pamphlet they came from, for people like me to puzzle over.
Singh and Poundstone agree that the ciphers are, well, dubious. Poundstone did a word analysis on the pamphlet and compared it to the deciphered portion of the cipher. While stylometry isn’t an exact science, the evidence points to the cipher and the pamphlet having the same author, who wasn’t Beale. James B. Ward applied for the pamphlet copyright, and is the person Poundstone fingers as the hoaxer. The pamphlet is officially anonymous, in that it bears no byline and it says it is, but Ward sounds like a logical guess. A sample of text known to be by Ward correlates pretty strongly with the pamphlet and the cipher.
People have been trying since 1885, when the pamphlet containing the cipher was published, to find it. The second cipher claims it is “in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford’s, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground …” Nobody has had any luck. Even the NSA is reputed to have tried its hand at it. And if they’ve solved it, well, nobody’s telling. But the evidence points towards a hoax perpetrated by James B. Ward.
Beware that “they”; his analysis is flawed in a number of places. The author doesn’t seem to have a solid grasp of how dictionaries are compiled and meant to be used, yet insists that there are a number of anachronistic words in the Beale letter. For example, he claims that according to the OED, the word “appliance”, as used in the Beale letter, debuted in 1597, was used again in 1613, and then wasn’t used again until 1861. Indeed, the OED contains quotations for “appliance” from 1597, 1613, 1861, and 1876. This does not mean, however, that the word was unused between 1613 and 1861! Obviously the OED was never intended to include a comprehensive list of literary citations for each and every word.
The author also claims that the use of the word “improvise” is anachronistic because the OED’s earliest quotation is from 1837. From 1837 to 1822, when the Beale letter was purportedly written, is not so great a leap, though. The OED is not infallible in pegging the first recorded usage of a word; indeed, its quotations are drawn almost exclusively from major published works. Most words are used for years, if not decades, orally or in informal writing before they first make their way into a published document.
I have a big problem with the Beale cyphers. The plain text of the one solved cypher refer reads:
I have deposited in the county of Bedford about four miles from Bufords in an excavation or vault six feet below the surface of the ground the following articles belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number three herewith. The first deposit consisted of ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold and thirty eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver deposited Nov eighteen nineteen. The second was made Dec eighteen twenty one and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold and twelve hundred and eighty eight of silver, also jewels obtained in St. Louis in exchange to save transportation and valued at thirteen thousand dollars. The above
is securely packed in iron pots with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone and the vessels rest on solid stone and are covered with others. Paper number one describes thw
exact locality of the vault so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.
Notice how it talks about “number three” – the third cypher? That to me is the key to the hoax. The numbers on the papers weren’t assigned by Beale! They were assigned by Ward, who ordered them by the length of the cypher. So, either it’s a lucky guess on the part of Ward by assigning the number 3 to the cypher listing the names of the people involved, or it’s a hoax.
Second, neither of the two unsolved cyphers is long enough to contain the names and home towns of 30 people.
Finally, we don’t even know that Thomas Jefferson Beale was a real person. We don’t even know that the person Beale gave the cyphers to was real. All we know is what Ward wrote.
The Beale Cyphers are an interesting puzzle. And I’d love to see their solution. But I don’t think that there’s any real treasure.