Yes, I, too, read Stone 588, but De Beers isn’t the monopoly it used to be. But I still think that if you turn up with a 100+ carat gem quality diamond–cut or not–you’lll find someone eager to say “Shut up and take my money.”
(For now, at least–I have little doubt that we aren’t too many years away from multi-hundred carat gem-quality artificial diamonds–the nearest diamond factory is only around 15 miles from me–the products are small now, but they’ll get bigger.)
I think a wise move would be to bring an assortment of gems back in one of the wooden chests lying around. Then bury the chest in my own back yard for a year or so.
When I “find” it, the whole thing will be mine because it is on my land. The chest and gems will (hopefully?) carbon date to some ancient period, and the horde will be dated by the wood of the chest. No responsibility of mine to explain the origin, the original owner of the chest was probably a seafarer - or a pirate even - and bedevil DeBeers.
Either way, a few gold ingots would be of use, but mostly I’d want gems. Any beautifully worked settings containing emeralds would be a bonus find for myself and Celtling.
I knew that there were none nearly that size, but I didn’t know how small they were. The largest found doesn’t have a good picture, but here’s the second largest. About $119,000 today.
hmm… move to Astoria and claim One-Eyed Willy’s treasure?
My spouse and I showed up at a metals dealer with a 1 ounce ingot of gold and sold it with no questions asked so… um… no, I don’t think the gold and silver would rate much scrutiny.
Probably not best to show up with 40 pounds at once, but selling it off in bits and pieces (like old coins) probably not a problem.
Maybe the young maiden.
Not that I’m going to start multiple-page thread about how young women are superior to older ones or that there’s anything wrong about my wife at all, it seems an essential component of the “live happily ever after” package. And we all need that.
The kind of books I’m thinking about are. I’m not after his Harlequin Romance collection.
How valuable are books going to be? Even if they’re magical in the fantasy world where the dragon comes from, they won’t be magical when you get them home.
Can you even read them? Where’s the Rosetta Stone? Any fanboy can make you up a “tome” full of gibberish. (It’s a thing among Lovecraft fans! We bury 'em in the garden to “age” them.)
If you could read 'em, will that be of interest to anyone? Say one of them has a really cool and unique religion, described in great detail. You might build a growing and vigorous cult around it, and rake in a lot of money. But, again, you can do that for yourself, making it all up from nothing.
Seems like a dead end, unless you’ve got reasons I’m not thinking of.
You are a looter after my own heart.
This is exactly what I would do.
I would take the Arkenstone and ransom it to the dwarfs. Some mithril would be nice too.
And how well can you defend yourself against a lot of pissed off Dwarves intent on reclaiming a cultural treasure? :dubious:
Someone above suggested that Mithril is aluminum, but I tend to think it is Titanium. Either way, it is no great treasure on this world. Besides, Mithril came from Moria, not Erebor.
From lotr.wikia.com;
In TA 2770, Smaug came from the mountains in the north, drawn by great wealth amassed by the Dwarven kingdom of the Lonely Mountain, which included gold, gemstones, silver, pearls, the many-faceted crystals of emerald, sapphire and diamond, and the famed Arkenstone.
So yeah, I’m going for the emeralds and sapphires. Plus a little gold just because.
Sure, some gold and gems of course. It’d be really cool to have dragon head/hands as some have suggested too. But what about scales? Make a dragon scale suit of armor. Or a dragon scale coffee table…