After 10 Years, Hidden $1M Treasure Chest Finally Found (theguardian.com) 78
89-year-old Forrest Fenn had a secret, reports the Guardian. He'd hidden a treasure chest worth over $1 million somewhere in America's Rocky Mountains:
For more than a decade, he packed and repacked his treasure chest, sprinkling in gold dust and adding hundreds of rare gold coins and gold nuggets. Pre-Colombian animal figures went in, along with prehistoric mirrors of hammered gold, ancient Chinese faces carved from jade and antique jewelry with rubies and emeralds.
For more than 10 years, "hundreds of thousands" of fortune-hunters searched for his hidden treasure chest, according to the Guardian (adding "Some have said it was a hoax and pursued lawsuits.") Fenn posted clues online, and included nine hints in a 24-line poem in his 2010 autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase. Many quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the search and others depleted their life savings. At least four people are believed to have died searching for it.
Fenn, who lives in Santa Fe, said he hid his treasure as a way to tempt people to get into the wilderness and give them a chance to launch an old-fashioned adventure and expedition for riches.
"There seemed to be despair everywhere," Fenn told Business Insider in 2018. "I wanted to give people some hope and something to believe in... I hope parents will take their children camping and hiking in the Rocky Mountains. I hope they will fish, look for fossils, turn rotten logs over to see what's under them, and look for my treasure."
So where was it? "It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains," Fenn posted coyly on his web site, "and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago."
For more than 10 years, "hundreds of thousands" of fortune-hunters searched for his hidden treasure chest, according to the Guardian (adding "Some have said it was a hoax and pursued lawsuits.") Fenn posted clues online, and included nine hints in a 24-line poem in his 2010 autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase. Many quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the search and others depleted their life savings. At least four people are believed to have died searching for it.
Fenn, who lives in Santa Fe, said he hid his treasure as a way to tempt people to get into the wilderness and give them a chance to launch an old-fashioned adventure and expedition for riches.
"There seemed to be despair everywhere," Fenn told Business Insider in 2018. "I wanted to give people some hope and something to believe in... I hope parents will take their children camping and hiking in the Rocky Mountains. I hope they will fish, look for fossils, turn rotten logs over to see what's under them, and look for my treasure."
So where was it? "It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains," Fenn posted coyly on his web site, "and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago."
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For more than a decade, he packed and repacked his treasure chest
In that case wouldn't the best strategy have been to slip a GPS tracker on him or something similar and then sit back and wait?
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A lot of things would have been a better idea from both sides. Not only could the guy who put the chest there have motivated people better, the individuals who went after it could have found better ways to motivate themselves. If you want to go out in the woods and find gold, there are actually plenty of legal claims you can buy and work. A lot of them suck. It's hard work. You almost certainly won't get rich, but there are plenty of people that look for gold on the weekends, or even full time and get
An example of "letterboxing" (Score:1)
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Note that Fenn has not revealed what the treasure was, where it was or who found it, and he has declared that he never will.
Was it found by Walt Longmire? (Score:3)
Kind of Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kind of Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Or at least said he did...
Re:Kind of Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
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And don't tell anyone you found it, thus making everyone pissed off at Forrest Fenn instead of you.
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I prefer to believe it was but he didn't actually say where it was or who found it so technically there is no real confirmation it was ever real.
Some people sued him? (Score:3)
On what grounds could anyone sue this guy?
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They should make it a Discovery channel competition.
Re: Some people sued him? (Score:3)
Expedition Unknown on Discovery Channel actually covered this in one of their episodes. They've covered similar hunts as well.
Re:Some people sued him? (Score:4, Funny)
They should make it a Discovery channel competition.
Too easy - just go through the mountains until you spot the camera crew.
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Smart thing to do would be to tag every rich person with some sort of gps tracker.
Re:Some people sued him? (Score:4, Funny)
Smart thing to do would be to tag every rich person with some sort of gps tracker.
We call them iPhones.
But we don't need the money.
Signed, Apple.
Illegal possession of archeological artifacts (Score:3)
The contents of the chest sound highly suspicious. I hope he has reliable documentation on the origin and provenance of the artifacts. Otherwise, he (and the finder of the chest, if he/she chooses to keep the items) could be really in trouble.
<annoyed grunt/> (Score:3)
I wanted a case of Canadian Club! [messynessychic.com]"
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This is America (Score:3)
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On what grounds could anyone sue this guy?
That's easy. I'm not a lawyer, but I've got several friends who are. Remember "sue" doesn't necessarily mean "sue and win". Apparently at least 4 people are known to have died while looking for the treasure chest so I'm sure grieving family members could find a variety of things to sue for. Probably some variation on the "attractive nuisance" idea where the victims were taken advantage of by the guy who hid the treasure because he knew that some people would react irrationally to his challenge and hur
Congratulations (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Congratulations (Score:4, Informative)
The IRS would like to send a congratulatory card, if you could please submit your name and address.
I'm Canadian so I always forget about this wrinkle.
Up here in Canada you're not taxed on "winnings" nor on the capital gain on the sale of your primary residence. (Secondary residence - Like a cabin - Yes.)
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Well its not cash, so presumably its not income until he sells?
Congratulations, US, not so different (Score:2)
Here in the U.S., you can claim gambling losses up to the amount of your winnings, and capital gains on your homestead residence are not taxed... a second home, yes, indeed.
Found money, on the other hand, is completely taxable... and a million falls into the federal near 40% bracket.
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Which is why the finder doesn't want his name revealed. He'd have to sell a lot of the treasure to avoid the tax bill.
And god help him if he has ever divorced; his ex will want her share.
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Re: Congratulations, US, not so different (Score:1)
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I'd argue it counts as a gift, which means that the donor has to pay the tax (not the donee). And the current lifetime exemption on gift taxes is $11.58 million, so unless Forrest Fenn did eleven other of these he doesn't have to pay a dime.
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The exclusion is limited at a very big amount, but only $15k per person per year. Sorry.
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You're misunderstanding how the system works.
You have a lifetime limit as a gifter which is currently somewhere north of 11 million. That's money that you can give as gifts and not be taxed.
IN ADDITION, you also have a yearly waiver of $15,000 per person - if you give somebody 15000 in a year, it doesn't count towards the lifetime limit. If you give them 16k in a single year, you lose 1k off your lifetime limit.
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Re:Congratulations, US, not so different (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. You can exclude $250,000 of gain (as a single person) or $500,000 gain (as a couple filing jointly) on the sale of your primary residence - anything above that is taxed. You can only do this once every two years. Of course, when computing your gain, you increase your tax basis by the cost of improvements (but not ordinary maintenance).
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No, it's income now, in 2020. If the finder doesn't have about $400K in ready money, he'll need to sell some of the treasure to come up with the tax bill. And the first installment payment is due in July, 2020.
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I know what you are saying, and while it is technically true - there is no way in hell that the IRS is going to get $400K of that money.
That's gain. Cashless income is still income (Score:2)
I think I know what you were thinking of, but not quite.
Income doesn't need to be cash to be income.
If non-cash income were not taxed, your employer would provide you with a house, car, cable TV, Walmart gift cards, etc.
What isn't taxed until you sell is the change in value of an item you already owned. Suppose you buy a classic car for $10,000. Later that car is worth $15,000 and you still own it. As an individual you don't owe taxes on the $5,000 increase in value until you sell it for $15,000, which pro
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"Where this actually matters in most cases is one should be saving for retirement, with most of those savings invested in stocks. The stocks go up in value over time, but sometimes go down. If they are up on tax day you don't owe a tax on the increase, because they might go down again the next day. Taxes are due when you sell the stock, so the final value to you is known - the value of your stock won't go down the next day since you no longer own it."
Yes, or the same thing is also utilized by the ultra-weal
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> This is why I always try to explain to people that they should ignore the 1% by income... many of those people are just working class people who've worked hard, well, and been successful. What you want to focus on is the 1% by wealth.
Yeah I agree. What good would it do me to make $150,000 income and be $350,000 in debt, struggling to make to make two car payments on new cars? I'd be in the top 1%, and I'd be broke.
I want financial security, so I want to build some wealth so I don't have to work for th
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"I want financial security, so I want to build some wealth so I don't have to work for the man the rest of my life. I want to learn from those who build wealth."
Luckily you can both support taxing the 1% by wealth AND building wealth so you don't have to work for the man. Consistently and safely earning a top 1% net income from low risk dividends/interest investments requires about $3 mil, make that per person in a household and you've got a minimum threshold before wealth tax kicks in. You'll kick a lot mo
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> Luckily you can both support taxing the 1% by wealth AND building wealth so you don't have to work for the man. Consistently and safely earning a top 1% net income from low risk dividends/interest investments requires about $3 mil, make that per person in a household and you've got a minimum threshold before wealth tax kicks in.
Are you thinking of the top 0.001%, those ten people?
$3 million wealth puts you WELL into the top 1%.
If you save $871,000 for retirement, you are among the top 1% wealthiest peo
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"If you save $871,000 for retirement, you are among the top 1% wealthiest people in the entire world"
Fantasy. Or at least serious p-hacking and games with averaging. But who is talking about the world? This is the United States.
According to: https://dqydj.com/net-worth-brackets-wealth-brackets-one-percent/
"99.0% $10,374,030.10"
0.01% is the usual figure which is 3.282 million in the US, your 0.001% would be 328.2 thousand people in the US but you said world which would be 780 million people. The disparity
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>> "If you save $871,000 for retirement, you are among the top 1% wealthiest people in the entire world"
> Fantasy. Or at least serious p-hacking and games with averaging.
See for yourself:
http://publications.credit-sui... [credit-suisse.com]
You're one of the richest people in the world, and you're whining that you aren't rich enough.
> But who is talking about the world? This is the United States.
Who is talking about the United States? This is Beverly Hills. I'm not quite as rich as Oprah Winfrey waaaaaaa waaaa
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"Who is talking about the United States?"
We are since this is a US based forum.
"You're one of the richest people in the world, and you're whining that you aren't rich enough."
Everyone is one of the richest people in the world if you expand the bracket enough. But you could fit YOUR top 1% into the population of the United States the third most populous nation in the world! Not exactly an elite crowd. It is also fairly meaningless since the value and cost of property outside the US doesn't necessarily direc
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When you realize that you're whining about being one the richest people in the world, you could STOP instead of digging deeper into being MORE of a self-entitled little brat. Seriously.
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Wait, suddenly I personally am one of the richest people in the world? I'm an American, there is a better than average chance my net worth is a negative value even if I live in a million dollar home.
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There are many exceptions to that rule, especially when the amount in question is thousands of dollars instead of 10s of millions. Generally, you're OK if you make the tax payment by the end of the "quarter" (which isn't exactly a quarter year). Sometimes penalties can be avoided if it's the first time you underpaid. There are lots of details that can be figured out just by reading the tax forms and instructions.
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Yes, I meant it's taxable income for the year you sell it, not every year as it goes up and down. Quarterly estimated payments are a thing that applies to income generally.
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I have to pay when i receive my RSUs. People who win cars, homes, or any other significant prize have to pay under the same rules. I think it even applies to receiving something digital like bitcoin.
That box is probably a real nightmare tax situation to be honest.
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The first rule of finding a chest full of gold coins is that you didn't find a chest full of gold coins.
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With Bitcoin I can look back in hindsight and say I could’ve bought a few GPUs and mined that shit. Back when I first heard about it on here, I thought to myself “Eh, whatever, that’s not gonna catch on. Back to playing Angry Birds on my iPhone 4...” Point being, it was something I had the means to do, but ignored. It’s a bonafide woulda-coulda-shoulda.
Even if I had heard about some million dollar treasure buried somewhere out in BFE on the other side of the country, I had
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Well in fairness I don't think the idea was to make a career out of searching for the treasure. The idea is that people would have a great hobby and maybe spend time with their children making a hobby of it.
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It's one of those things that appeal to emotion-based humans, who go through their lives from feeling to feeling. They don't do much thinking and are suspicious of those of us who do. Failing to see life as they do seems like a horrid existence to them, and they consider us The Other.
Just look at this, it has little to do with the treasure hunt - the story is all about how it made people feel. If you wonder why our elections are screwed up this is exhibit A.
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Yeah I hear ya. To me, the article is lacking anything cool. It may as well just be a made-up thing. No winner. No "So $winner, how'd you go about finding it?" Nothing. Just a dry story: "Hey one day a dude hid stuff worth $1M. Well, 10 years later, another dude found it!"
Like I said, I thought I was out of weed, but I wasn't! Isn't that AWESOME!! Lemme submit to the slashdot editors, BRB...
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(MicrosoftWindows: 3.0, On a 286)
News for Herds, Fluff that Natters (Score:1)
In what way is this a suitable article for a tech news site? Is Slashdot becoming the new Yahoo News?
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And if geocaching isn't a hobby for nerds, I don't know what is.
Declined to release his name? (Score:1)
Riiiight. Just like the chest was put there 10 years ago. Riiight. Pics or neither of them happened.
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I was more interested in the fact that he hasn't release the location. Under the stars and exactly where he left it?! Great to know!
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Let's see - that rules out... actually nowhere. Literally every place on earth can conceivably fit that description.
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Riiiight.
Not sure why you wouldn't believe this. Many lottery winners or other winners of large windfalls don't want their names released. Especially if they won something others have dedicated a portion of their lives to.
Hell some people wouldn't even tell their wives they found a treasure like that. The'd likely just fake their own death XD
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The skepticism is that there ever was a treasure not that someone found the alleged treasure.
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More to life than cash (Score:3)
A job done well. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is what some peopl don't get:
Injury, hardship and death are not the actual bad thing. Injury, hardship and death for nothing of worth is!
If you die in an exploding rocket, after having done everything, trying to get to the moon for the first time, that is not a waste of life. That is a hero right there.
And if I die in a car crash, after driving an amazing rally race through mud and gravel and mountain serpentines, having the best time in my life, that's also worth it (at least to my tastes).
I rather live 40 years, actually having *lived* a full life, rather then 120 years, being a scared pussy in its safe space, that yet never lived at all
If this was about making people have adventures, he did well. Only the hunt should have be for something of greater use to humanity. Like some science thing m. Say, gravity waves.
If all the wealth we create with automation should serve one purpose, then to let us explore and ponder and tinker and enjoy our lives, instead of working just to have our basic needs met.
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