Posted on 05/18/2018 4:35:38 AM PDT by sodpoodle
For years Matthew and Maria Colonna-Emanuel thought a piece of rusty metal behind some trees in their backyard was just part of a cable or electrical box.
But it wasn't. It was a safe containing $52,000 in cash, gold and diamonds. And the story of how they discovered it -- and what the couple did next -- is remarkable.
The couple saw the metal box between some trees when they moved in to their Staten Island home in New York, but never paid much attention to it.
"I thought it was an electrical box," Matthew Colonna-Emanuel told CNN affiliate WCBS.
They dug it up
When trees in their yard were damaged by wildlife they got a better view. "It [the box] was really prominent when the deer ate away all the foliage," Matthew said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Mel Fisher ultimately won in court and was able to claim almost all of the treasure. I’m pretty sure his family still owns anything found at the site.
No, not with all that cash inside. They would have kept the cash. This was the real deal.
That’s a fun story.
I have to be careful where I let children dig in my yard, due to the 9 or 10 cats and sundry wildlife we’ve interred.
Mel got LOTS from the Atocha.
He used to ski at Big Sky and frequent a bar/restaurant I managed.
Interesting man.
He did have to give a lot away but you make it seem like he is/was penniless. Far from true.
I found a small vial of white powder in my house a few months after moving in. I didn’t keep it long enough to figure out what it was.
If you prefer not to give CNN a click here is a different link from a Salt Lake City Fox affiliate.
Moral of the story.
Going to get a safe, make sure its large enough that it can not be carried off with out a pallet jack and or secured permanently.
According to the New York Police Department, a burglary was reported at their neighbors' home the day after Christmas in 2011. The only thing taken was the safe. It had a large amount of cash, jewelry and other items inside: a total of $52,000 worth of property, police said.
You know, normally, I would not have a problem keeping something like that as, if it's on my property, and if there were no way to identify it, it's mine.
Cause if you make the mistake of announcing it, everybody and their brother will be claiming it's theirs and if you make the mistake of describing any of it, then everybody will say, *Yes, that's exactly what I had!*
However, since there was an address in the safe for the neighbors, and they were able to accurately describe the contents of the safe without prompting, it is proof that it was indeed theirs and the only thing to do would be to give it back.
😏
He could do the same thing with my bank account :-) but I don’t know if anybody would watch.
It’s a shame it didn’t contain emails, birth certificates, college records.... You know, all the stuff that would make things right.
I good reason to use a lightweight cardboard box as a coffin!
Bump
This really is a wonderful story. And a great example of why education in morality and values is so important. Their primary thought was to get the valuables back to the people to whom they belonged, not to take them for themselves.
I met Mel Fisher at his “museum” before he found the atoche. Him and his wife worked the place for extra money. Two years later we met him again, but that time he had piles of load sized silver bars from the atoche.
Look up the gold bar theft from his museum. It hasn’t been solved and sounds like something out of a movie.
I knew some gangsters when I worked for a pizzeria in my early 20s that had a safe.
I heard some other gangsters talking about how those guys kept grabbing a few thousand out of the safe for this and that and soon there’s only maybe 20,000 in it.
They didn’t mention setting up a “how to spend wisely” course for gangsters though :)
If you ever find some buried valuable never tell anyone.
A friend was scuba diving and found a cannon, a rifle, cannon balls and several other items while exploring Burnt Ship Creek (Commodore Perry burned several ships rather than let them fall into the hand of the British, War of 1812). He worked all summer cleaning crud from the brass cannon in his garage, only to have people from New York State come and seize everything and haul them all off, because they belonged to New York State.
All treasure is the State’s treasure, Citizen.
See the Oak Island series on History Channel.
Likely the treasure found, melted and spent years ago.
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