Hunting for Missing Treasure

Since this is only a partial list there are probably many more missing treasures. I didn’t list robberies, precious items such as relics, art work and other things of value. It is hard to imagine but an Indian Potentate ordered the Patiala Necklace which not only contained all the diamonds listed above, but it also had the world’s seventh largest diamond set into it. You have to wonder how some of these treasures disappeared in the first place. Take the Kruger Millions for instance. The story goes this way. When President Paul Kruger of South Africa was in a war with the British known as the Boer War, he decided to hide millions of dollar’s-worth of gold and jewels so the British wouldn’t get them. It is said today’s value of the treasure would be over five hundred million dollars. It is also said part of this treasure was found by a canoe paddler named Gerrie du Plooy in 2016 when he was by the Emmarentia Dam. Du Plooy saw something shinny and dove in the water. He thought it was a watch because people in a canoe often put their watches in the front of the canoe, but it turned out to be a pile of gold coins. Many people think this is not the Kruger treasure, but a different unknown treasure, because they believe when Kruger was escaping from the British he brought the treasure with him.

The way some of the treasures went missing is easy to explain, because they were on ships which sank due to storms or naval action. The San Miguel & The Lost 1715 Treasure Fleet is said to be giving up its treasure begrudgingly. Every once in a while, treasure is found off the Florida coast which is said to belong to this fleet. The fleet was sunk during a hurricane off Florida’s central coast. One haul included one million dollars in gold coins. It is thought four hundred million dollars-worth of gold from this fleet is still to be discovered.

The original crown jewels of England were lost by King John. In the case of King John, it was greed and stupidity which caused him to lose the jewels. King John wanted his crown jewels with him when he went into battle so he had a wagon which trailed him. There are several opinions on how the royal jewels were lost. One which is favored states John’s men were in a battle and took a shortcut around some marshland known as the Wash. Supposedly the heavy wagons were caught when the tide came in. It is said many men drowned and the treasure was lost. There have been a few cases of a country’s crown jewels being stolen.

One of the most interesting treasures is said to be the treasure of the copper scroll. The copper scroll was found in a cave where some of the dead sea scrolls were found. It differed from them since it was made of copper and they weren’t. It also was written differently because the Hebrew was closer to that used in the time of Christ. The really BIG difference was it referred to sixty-four places where treasure was buried. If we add up all the places and what was said to been in them we get a total value of over a billion dollars.

I certainly am not a treasure hunter, but it seems to me the most interesting treasure is the Copper Scroll treasure and I think that might be the one I would look for, although some of the others are no slouches. There is enough missing treasure around the world to keep treasure hunters busy forever. Personally, I am getting sick of watching treasure hunting programs. I have watched the hunt for the treasure on Oak Island for years and as I said I don’t think I can stomach another treasure hunting program that will also drag on for years, but that is my personal feeling, I am sure there are plenty of others who would enjoy more of these programs. As long as there is missing treasure, there will be treasure hunters.