Free Republic

Kaja Veilleux has hunted New England attic treasures for more than 50 years. He once found a copy of the Declaration of Independence sitting on a pile of trash, and he made headlines this year when he stumbled upon a million-dollar portrait gathering dust in an old farmhouse in Maine that may have been painted by the Dutch master Rembrandt. Then there was the time, Veilleux said, he was shown a $50,000 gold coin kicking around in a tool drawer, only to have the well-meaning owner destroy much of its value before he could auction it by using a scouring...

It was an ordinary day at his Los Angeles law office when John Nadolenco opened a letter from Brazil enlisting his help in a mission to retrieve a stolen, and quite possibly cursed, 836-pound emerald. The year was 2014, the heyday of the Nigerian prince email scam, and the up-and-coming attorney was no fool. “I immediately thought it was just completely fake, a total hoax,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m not falling for this one. I’m smarter than this.’” He tossed the letter in the trash. But Nadolenco’s boss asked if, as a favor, he could look into the...

Collins-Black has been a lifelong fantasy enthusiast, immersing himself in games and mythical adventures such as Dungeons & Dragons since childhood.By 2015, the successful musician and entrepreneur was looking for a change of pace and envisioned a project that would help him reconnect with his younger imagination.Motivated by Forrest Fenn's infamous treasure hunt launched back in 2010, Collins-Black dreamed of creating something more personal and accessible. Instead of Fenn's single chest hidden in the Rocky Mountains, Collins-Black envisioned multiple troves allowing every person across the country the opportunity to be in closer proximity to one of the chests."I wanted to...

The man leading the search for King John's lost treasure says he has pinpointed a small area at the Sutton Bridge site which contains valuable targets.Raymond Kosschuk has been conducting tests at an undisclosed site in Sutton Bridge for over a year and says his equipment is picking up overwhelming evidence of the treasure, as we previously reported.Mr Kosschuk, from Keighleyin Yorkshire, believes that he has found scientific anomalies which are consistent with the high value items King John lost in 1216.King John lost the treasure to The Wash during an ill fated crossing from King's Lynn on October 12,...

TRAVERSE CITY - The French government says it still owns the Griffin, a 17th century ship built by legendary explorer La Salle that may have been discovered in northern Lake Michigan. France filed a claim to the vessel Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, escalating a legal battle over who owns and has authority to retrieve artifacts from the long-lost vessel. Michigan also is seeking title, although state officials have raised doubts about whether the Griffin's gravesite actually has been found. They say federal law gives the state ownership of abandoned vessels embedded in its Great Lakes bottomlands....

A team of U.S. wreck hunters, backed by the governments of France and Michigan, has revealed plans to dive next month to a site on the bottom of Lake Michigan, where one of the most important ships in Canadian history — the 17th-century barque Griffon — is believed to be lying in a tomb of sand awaiting conclusive identification. The first sailing ship on the Great Lakes, the Griffon was built in 1679 near present-day Niagara Falls, Ont., by the famed French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and symbolized the ambitions of New France to construct and control...

Deep down on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Swedish treasure hunters think they have made the find of a lifetime. The problem is, they're not exactly sure what it is they've uncovered.

Nearly 200 years after it foundered near Prospect, a British naval ship could spark an international incident if treasure hunters are allowed access to it before archeologists, a Halifax documentary filmmaker says. Earlier this year Nova Scotia issued a treasure trove licence to a group seeking to recover the potential loot raided from the White House in the War of 1812 and sent to the bottom of the sea when a fleet of British ships went down in a storm before it reached the friendly port of Halifax. Arcadia Films producer John Wesley Chisholm has applied to the province for...