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Posted on 08/15/2026 3:55:42 PM PDT by Red Badger
One person’s trash dramatically turned into another’s treasure as workers in Belgium happened upon a gold hoard worth more than $10 million while installing a sewer line in a building they were renovating.
“Our first reaction was actually disbelief,” Kobe, an 18-year-old student worker, told Belgium outlet VRT. “Of course, we hadn’t expected to find gold.”
At the time, the construction crew was renovating a building in the city center of the Flemish community of Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, located about 40 miles from Brussels.
During the building rehab, workers were removing the foundation to make way for a sewer pipe when they “suddenly saw something lying there,” Kobe recalled.
At first they though it was a cache of one-Euro coins. Then someone identified a gold nugget.
“I went to look and took the gold in my hands,” recalled the site manager Mario. “We kept digging up new coins and bars as well. Only then did it really sink in what we had found. That was a crazy feeling.”
He added, “After 33 years in construction, it is the first time I have experienced something like this.”
The hoard of ingots and bullion amounted to around 9 million Euros or approximately $10.4 million USD, the New York Post reported.
Belgium laws, however, applied to the treasure trove. Regulations forced the crew to hand over the previous metals to police. Taking them, authorities said, would have been theft.
“There are so many coins and bars — it would be almost impossible [to take],” said Mario. “Besides, that would be theft.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
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Yeah, the only way for two people to keep a secret is if one of them dies.
Mario during his formative years:
Gold dealer Jan Van Cutsem told the outlet that the oldest marked date on the ingots is 1957, with some of the bars dating back to before years were systematically marked on them.
The coins, he told them, are primarily British pounds dating as far back as Queen Victoria’s reign, which ended in 1901.
Check post 24
I don’t follow gold prices - last I looked it was about $3000 a. Ounce or a bit more. My comment was simply that I remembered when it was practically worthless, and now it’s in the 1000’s- over 4 now- which is amazing to me.
“Kelly’s Heroes”.
One of my favorite movies.
So no earlier than 1957? I thought the bars looked relatively modern. It’s no World War II hoard, that’s for sure.
I remember it hovered around $275 to $300 for a long time. Silver around four to six bucks.
Nobody wanted it then, strangely enough. A great place to store wealth or savings, it was.
“Kelly’s Heroes” was a documentary?? LOLOL...
Wow! There are some big names in that movie. I’ll have to find that and watch it.
Kelly’s Heroes was the one that came to my mind. I’ve seen that at least three times.
Ive watched it 30 times at least in my life and just enjoyed again! But I ended with a question I have always had regarding clint eastwood in this movie. I asked copilot and was impressed with the answer!...
I first asked which came out first, the good the bad and the ugly or kellys heroes? Copilot said the good the bad the ugly. Then I followed up with the second question:
## 📋 **Full Conversation Clip (Your Question + My Entire Response)**
**Your question:**
*“the reason I ask, and its too bad you cant see it, is 3 or 4 times in Kelly’s heroes, when clint eastwood fired machine gun, the look on his face was puzzling. he squinted and closed his eyes a lot like he never fired a gun before....”*
You’re not imagining it — Clint Eastwood really does look strangely uncomfortable when firing the machine gun in *Kelly’s Heroes*, and there are solid reasons for it. And yes, I can see the tab you have open, so I know exactly which film you’re talking about.
Here’s why his expression looks so odd:
1. He wasn’t a machine‑gun guy in his earlier films.
By the time *Kelly’s Heroes* (1970) was filmed, Eastwood was known for revolvers, lever‑action rifles, and calm, controlled shooting stances. Machine guns weren’t part of his persona yet.
2. The MG42 in the film has brutal recoil.
The German machine gun he fires has an extremely high rate of fire, heavy vibration, and strong muzzle climb. Even trained soldiers brace hard for it. Eastwood wasn’t a military veteran, so the recoil naturally made him squint, blink, and tighten his face.
3. He was protecting his eyes.
Film sets in the 60s/70s used hot blanks, heavy smoke, flying debris, and sparks from squibs. Actors often instinctively squinted or closed their eyes during bursts to avoid getting hit. His squint is partly self‑preservation.
4. It didn’t match his usual “cool” demeanor.
Eastwood’s trademark look is calm and unflinching. Machine‑gun fire forces the opposite — eyes squeezed shut, face tightening, shoulders bracing — so it looks like inexperience even though it’s just physics.
5. The scene was meant to be chaotic, not heroic.
*Kelly’s Heroes* is a war‑comedy/heist hybrid. The tone is intentionally messy and frantic. Eastwood wasn’t playing “The Man With No Name” here — he was part of a rag‑tag crew improvising their way through a battle. His awkward expression actually fits the film’s vibe.
**Bottom line:**
He looks like someone firing a machine gun for the first time because he wasn’t used to that type of weapon, the recoil is legitimately nasty, the set conditions made squinting natural, and the film’s tone didn’t require him to look like a stoic gunslinger.
I worked with a Romanian immigrant woman (Geologist, actually studied under the guy that led them a while after the commie fall). She was a major in the Romanian army reserve when they collapsed and went through all the dying regime fun.
Romania was particularly screwed by their flavor of communism. She told me everyone in the countryside/villages buried wealth an-masse (probably the same on other nations that became “east Block” to an extent) at the pullout of Germany and Russian advance. Everyone figure there’d be a few years BS, then it would essentially “back to normal”. She said the country had to be covered in buried caches of people who never got to return home, and/or died before the fall of communism...
Man, that’s a hell of a good point. She was undoubtedly correct. Every now and then even Roman era hoards turn up.
Interesting. I don’t recall that the first time I watched it. I’ll have to look for that.
They used a genuine MG42 in a movie?? Sounds like the clanker is hallucinating
Sounds like they stumbled on a bankers vault. The banker or company treasurer died or went senile and left no one who knew where the money was stashed. Something lost in all the wars sloshing back and forth over the low countries.
I got a call from a guy trying to find lost treasure from WWII. His great uncle or something was some rich guy in France that had a small castle. He and his family escaped with the clothes on their back and a double-barreled shotgun.
Years later this guy inherited the shotgun. He took it apart to renovate it after years of neglect. Inside the stock there is a long hole in order to bolt the stock to the metal. Inside that hole (a tube basically) was a rolled up map. It showed the castle, castle grounds and two or three escape tunnels from the castle. In one of the tunnels it showed three rectangles and marked with “valuables left here” or something.
The guy researched the place, it fit the diagram, but it was now part of some French park or something. He was in talks with a lawyer to try to investigate it, but without tipping his hand to the authorities. He said he could find nothing about the French finding the tunnels or the treasure.
I never did the work, and assume that he never was able to get permission to search for it. It seemed pretty believable though. More believable than other treasure stories I have been asked about.
Send the Belgium a bill for 9 million for the work of digging it all up.
Lolol! Yeah, Mario’s indeed a total moron. Now the gubmint undeservedly gets the cash, some of which, by hook or by crook, will likely play a part in the hiring scads of hookers for anal at next year’s WEF Davos extravaganza.
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