There is absolutely no way I’d have turned those in.
Edit: I found the article, the lad may have a payout coming to him.
It is now held in Brussels as authorities investigate its legal ownership. Belgian law mandates a five-year waiting period for claimants; afterward, the find could be divided between Kobe and the property owner if no owner comes forward and it’s not criminal money.
Hope he gets his due. I cannot fathom the mind that sees Fuck You-money and immediately thinks “oh gosh, I need to give this to a cop!” But I’m sure he meant well.
He wasn’t alone when he found it. It was an entire construction team, building and digging on a municipally owned site which was publicly accessible and almost certainly monitored, if remotely.
There was no conceivable way to keep that find quiet under those circumstances.
So if he did manage to pinch off one, props to him.
Yeah, if I found like a hundred thousand in cash, it wouldn’t get into a bank account, I’d just be buying groceries and retail purchases in cash for a long time, and saving the money I would have spent normally. Maybe asking places to make change so if the serial numbers get noted, things get spread about a bit.
A single bar? Chip off a 50g piece, re-melt it, sell it to a jeweler or cash-for-gold place. Rinse & repeat with enough time inbetween and never in the same location twice, and always for cash.
Multiple bars will either require a multi year plan or more… professional means.
Idk. If I lived in a place where healthcare was a right, in which I had reasonable expectations of having my basic needs met, where I felt I didn’t need to scramble day in day out just to survive …
I have a friend who used to do exactly this. He used to be a bit of a conspiracy nut and didn’t believe in the stability (or validity, for that matter) of the US dollar. He wanted to do all his monetary exchanges in gold and silver, which were very stable and reliable at the time (about 2 decades ago).
I don’t know how exactly, but he converted any cash he earned into gold and then worked out a deal with his local grocery store to buy his groceries with tiny bits of gold.
He was a good kid, if not a little dumb. I think the grocery store humored him. Besides, gold is valuable, so they may have been just ripping him off.
If he hoarded his gold instead of spent it, he’d be up about 100% over the last five years alone. Only crypto would’ve given that kind of return in the same time span, with far greater risk.
The irony of being called an idiot by someone so dim that “taking the bars to the grocery store” is the best they could come up with. I’m not even offended.
There is absolutely no way I’d have turned those in.
Edit: I found the article, the lad may have a payout coming to him.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katematthams/2026/08/15/summer-job-student-finds-gold-stash-worth-over-10-million/
Hope he gets his due. I cannot fathom the mind that sees Fuck You-money and immediately thinks “oh gosh, I need to give this to a cop!” But I’m sure he meant well.
He wasn’t alone when he found it. It was an entire construction team, building and digging on a municipally owned site which was publicly accessible and almost certainly monitored, if remotely.
There was no conceivable way to keep that find quiet under those circumstances.
So if he did manage to pinch off one, props to him.
Same, but probably difficult to turn $10M in gold into spending money without someone noticing.
Yeah, if I found like a hundred thousand in cash, it wouldn’t get into a bank account, I’d just be buying groceries and retail purchases in cash for a long time, and saving the money I would have spent normally. Maybe asking places to make change so if the serial numbers get noted, things get spread about a bit.
Imagine doing that 98 times
In the U.S., that would get you enough food for weeks!
Seriously. Loaded up on groceries this weekend, and total cost for 1.75 carts was well over $600
What the actual fuck is going on over there. My condolences
Just some minor societal collapse. Don’t worry, we’ll totally get better…
Honestly I’m hoping the feds collapse because frankly speaking they are the problem and I don’t see it getting better.
just everything being expensive because we pay the monetary price of the colonial wars our oligarch overlords enact abroad to enrich themselves
Don’t forget any home improvement tasks. Need your yard leveled? Landscapers would love to give a slight cash discount.
Tree needs taking down? Cash.
Tuckpointing a chimney? Cash.
Annoyingly, you can’t actually use “cash” cash for a cash down payment on a house. Mortgage lenders like to know where the money is coming from.
That’s why you bury it in the backyard and only use little bits at a time.
But then you risk some kid digging it up and turning it in to the authorities.
The cycle continues
How would you even go about turning a huge bar of gold into cash anyways?
A single bar? Chip off a 50g piece, re-melt it, sell it to a jeweler or cash-for-gold place. Rinse & repeat with enough time inbetween and never in the same location twice, and always for cash.
Multiple bars will either require a multi year plan or more… professional means.
I think it’s a case of ‘who you know’ in that line of work.
Ebay
Best store it where no one will look: in the woodburner. Dont tell anyone.
10M spend bit by bit takes more than a life time
Should be plenty then.
Definately. More than one needs for survival :D
It’s work, but the hourly rate’s not bad.
He could get it fenced for about 30-50% of its market value.
Exactly, even if he kept 1 bar any place he could legally exchange it will have to give the appropriate tax documents since its such a high amount
I thought gold was soft enough to be easily cut by a lot of other more common metals
True, but you would have to do it so slowly to avoid detection. Small pieces over years maybe decades to avoid detection
Still comes out to a lifechanging amount of money for most people, I would think. Maybe some bars left over for your descendants
Idk. If I lived in a place where healthcare was a right, in which I had reasonable expectations of having my basic needs met, where I felt I didn’t need to scramble day in day out just to survive …
Yeah he should have just brought them to the grocery store and paid with them. Idiot.
I have a friend who used to do exactly this. He used to be a bit of a conspiracy nut and didn’t believe in the stability (or validity, for that matter) of the US dollar. He wanted to do all his monetary exchanges in gold and silver, which were very stable and reliable at the time (about 2 decades ago).
I don’t know how exactly, but he converted any cash he earned into gold and then worked out a deal with his local grocery store to buy his groceries with tiny bits of gold.
He was a good kid, if not a little dumb. I think the grocery store humored him. Besides, gold is valuable, so they may have been just ripping him off.
If he hoarded his gold instead of spent it, he’d be up about 100% over the last five years alone. Only crypto would’ve given that kind of return in the same time span, with far greater risk.
Wow. So if he had gone without food his couple of hundreds of dollars worth of gold would have been worth a couple hundred more dollars right now.
But in terms of use as currency what he was getting ripped off by was whoever was exchanging the gold.
The irony of being called an idiot by someone so dim that “taking the bars to the grocery store” is the best they could come up with. I’m not even offended.
Breathe. Not you.
You said you wouldn’t turn them in. So what would you do with them? How would you even begin to spend them?