[Travis McGee]

Today at this moment, platoons of lawyers are combing the land records. Next, they will find a great-nephew of the original hoarder to claim the coins as his property. California will agree, and the coins will be in probate for another century. Or until they are “lost” and wind up in some Cali politico’s floor safe.

[P-Marlowe]

These people will be divorced and bankrupt in the next 2 years. The government will not allow them to keep a nickle of this treasure. As you know the government confiscated all gold dollars back in 1933 and traded it for I believe $35 per ounce in paper money.

By the terms of that law, these people will probably have to surrender the entire fortune to the federal government and then the $35 per ounce will be deposited in some fund for distribution to the family of the person who buried it there. The theory would be that as of 1933 all those gold dollars became the property of the Federal Government.

As others have said, they should have just buried it in their own backyard and sold it piecemeal. Finders keepers only applies in elementary school playground situations.