Pair digs up buried hoard in Methuen

boston glob ^ | 4/26/05 | David Abel

[bitt]

It's everyone's fantasy, a dream we always wake up from, tormented that the images of our sleep are just illusions.

That is, finding buried treasure.

One morning three weeks ago, such a fairy tale suddenly came true for Barry Villcliff and Tim Crebase, two friends trying to dig up a small tree in Crebase's yard in Methuen, they said.

Using a spade to get at the roots, Crebase heard a thud, and about a foot down, he saw he had hit a piece of wood. The 23-year-old roofer then realized the wood was part a 2-foot-wide box.

He kept digging until he ripped the top off and found nine rusted tin cans, which decades ago -- maybe nearly a century ago -- held ginger cookies and dough. Crebase wrapped the cans in a sweatshirt and carried them to a nearby truck, where he and Villcliff, his 27-year-old boss from Manchester, N.H., began cracking them open.

''It didn't look like anything we ever saw before," Villcliff said in a phone interview last night. Then he caught a glimpse of Crebase's face and knew he found something valuable.

''I'm a pessimist; I was waiting until I got a professional review before I jumped to any conclusions," Villcliff said. ''Tim, however, was singing and dancing. He was ranting like a rabid monkey."

When they finished emptying the old cans in a milk crate, they saw before them about 1,800 bills -- including more than 900 $1 bills, 200 $2 bills, and 300 $20 bills dated from 1899 to 1929, they said. There were also a pile of gold and silver certificates and scores of notes from local banks in Methuen, Haverhill, Amesbury, Newburyport, and beyond.

[bitt]

[Pearls Before Swine]

If the bills stopped at 1929, it was a reasonable banking decision by the burier. Withdrawals are tedious from the Two Foot Down Bank, although its balance sheet is stable.

[nuconvert]

Neat!

[pabianice]

I KNEW I left that box somewhere...

[livius]

Withdrawals are tedious from the Two Foot Down Bank, although its balance sheet is stable.

LOL!

[toothfairy86]

They'd probably get a lot more than the $100,000 the coin dealer told them it was worth if they sell it on ebay.

[bitt]

best reason there is to play in the dirt...

[catpuppy]

TFDB doesn't even give you a toaster.

[dasboot]

HAHAHA! They'll be lucky to keep any of it, after ten years of the state and fed, and assorted and sundry claimants, hacking away at their find in the courts. Shooda just stutted up about it, and sold it piecemeal to private collectors. Dufa! There's a big meetin' goin' on right now in the Statehouse: poring over arcane law to see how it can be seized.

[SMARTY]

Wouldn't it be the sole property of the owner of the property? Anyway, if he just kept quiet and sold the stuff to private dealers, he would have been better off.

[bitt]

'Dufa!'

is that the plural for doofuses?

[dasboot]

That's the correct plural for dufuss. A really smart Freeper said so. Stutted is in the Scrabble dictionary...I'll bet.

There's no blatant point of commonsensicality that cannot be overturned by lawyers. (whose is it?)

[toothfairy86]

That's the trouble with these young people. They had to go shooting off their mouths about their find. They wanted the 15 minutes of fame. Let's see if they actually get to keep any of it. Look at that that guy who found a sunken galleon full of treasure. It was in litigation for years.

[mmercier]

you are apparently familiar with massachusetts.

in a case like this "you don't write it if you can say it, and you don't say it if you can wink" (howie carr).

[Sender]

I thought it was dufii?

[mmercier]

you are apparently familiar with massachusetts.

in a case like this "you don't write it if you can say it, and you don't say it if you can wink" (howie carr).

[dasboot]

you are apparently familiar with massachusetts.

I reside in the smelly ol' armpit! Yessir!

[G Larry]

You gotta choose!
Fame?
or
Fortune?

For these two, both will be fleeting.

[bitt]

doofus
doofi
doofi
doofam
doofa

doofae
doofarum
doofis
doofas
doofis