8 Mythical Stashes of Cash That Await Your Discovery

So, you've successfully unearthed an ancient treasure, and congratulations are in order! Your newfound wealth includes an assortment of gems, necklaces, and dazzling chalices. However, instead of allowing you to relish your good fortune in peace, people are insisting that these treasures belong in a museum. Now, you find yourself entangled in lengthy, intricate auctions that supposedly "respect the history of the items."

What a nightmare! If you had known that discovering buried treasure would entail such bureaucratic hassles, you might never have wielded that shovel. But fear not, as there's a solution: set your sights on a treasure that comes in the form of ready cash or its equivalent in precious metals. With this approach, a quick visit to a pawn shop is all you need, and voila – you're set for life.

Cash-centric lost treasures such as...

8 Beale’s Treasure

For enthusiasts deeply entrenched in nerd culture, this particular quest might pique your interest. The individual in question, Thomas Jefferson Beale, harbored a passion for two things: money and cryptology. Upon his demise, leaving behind a hidden fortune of $93 million in gold and silver somewhere in the Virginia soil, those left behind were astonished to find that he had left behind encoded instructions on how to locate it. Picture expecting a simple letter only to unfold pages filled with perplexing numbers. To date, no one has successfully deciphered the code or unearthed the concealed treasure.

7 Dillinger’s Suitcase of Spoils

If you find yourself on the run from the law, no matter how tempting your recent windfall may be, it's advisable to abandon it temporarily with the hope of returning later. In the case of the bank heist orchestrated by John Dillinger in Ohio, the proceeds were buried and never had the opportunity to be reclaimed. The key members of the gang who likely knew the precise location were either incarcerated or met untimely deaths shortly thereafter. It is believed that somewhere in the rural expanse, a suitcase laden with small bills still lies hidden.

6 Marsh’s Gold

According to stories, the steamboat Far West, under the command of Captain Grant Marsh, was joyfully making its way up the Bighorn River, loaded with gold intended to support the war effort. However, the mood took a turn when distressing news arrived – the Battle of Little Bighorn had just transpired. The Far West's mission swiftly changed, and it was now tasked with transporting wounded soldiers from the battlefield to Fort Lincoln, North Dakota. In a strategic move for speed and space, they opted to abandon the gold, burying it on the shore, and redirected their course to serve as a waterborne ambulance for the injured. The gold remains unrecovered, tempting those who might consider using a backhoe along the Bighorn River's coast.

5 Lost Confederate Gold

In April 1865, amid the Civil War, the Union seized control of Richmond, Virginia, posing a significant inconvenience for the Confederacy. Richmond not only served as their capital but also housed their cash reserves. Robert E. Lee, in a timely warning to Jefferson Davis, urged him to swiftly evacuate Richmond. Davis heeded the advice and promptly fled, carrying with him the gold and silver reserves of the Confederate coffers. However, when Davis was eventually apprehended a month later, he was found to be penniless. Unless he made an unexpected detour to a riverboat casino and suffered a streak of bad luck, it is presumed that the gold and silver are concealed somewhere along his escape route.

4 D.B. Cooper’s Famous Suitcase

D. B. Cooper, an elusive figure known solely from a police sketch, is the mastermind behind the only unsolved plane hijacking in history. In November 1971, he calmly lit a couple of cigarettes on board a plane and informed the flight attendant that he possessed a bomb. Successfully coercing the FBI into providing him with $200,000 in cash and a functional parachute, Cooper then parachuted out of the plane somewhere over southwest Washington. While the details of this daring act might sound like a tall tale, they are easily verifiable, especially since a portion of the money eventually washed up along the Columbia River. Nevertheless, the majority of his loot remains undiscovered.

3 Trabuco’s Treasure

Leon Trabuco, a Mexican millionaire, found himself entangled in an extraordinary investment tale during the Great Depression. Along with associates, he engaged in the clandestine accumulation and smuggling of Mexican gold into the United States. The plan involved burying the gold and patiently waiting for its value to skyrocket, which indeed happened in 1934 with the implementation of the Gold Reserve Act. However, an unexpected twist came with the Act, making private ownership of gold illegal in the U.S. The group had inadvertently smuggled a valuable commodity into a country where it could not be legally possessed.

Trabuco and his three accomplices all passed away before they could sell or relocate the carefully concealed gold. To this day, the whereabouts of the hidden treasure remains a mystery, as it has never been discovered.

2 The Picket Coral Gang’s Big Score

In 1865, the Picket Coral Gang from Boise, Idaho, pulled off a highly lucrative stagecoach robbery, making off with an estimated 800 pounds of gold. Despite a thorough search, all three men involved were eventually located. Unfortunately, two of them were already deceased, and the surviving member, Big Dave Updyke, was essentially destitute with no trace of the stolen gold. When authorities pressed Updyke about the whereabouts of the gold, given his precarious situation, he defiantly told them to go to hell, offering no information about the missing loot. The fate and location of the purloined gold from this daring heist remain a mystery.

1 Schultz’ Stash

Dutch Schultz, a notorious New York mobster and bootlegger during Prohibition, enjoyed the financial benefits of a life of crime. When he was unexpectedly shot in October 1935, it seemed reasonable to assume that he had amassed a substantial amount of ill-gotten gains hidden away. However, in the final moments before succumbing to his wounds, Schultz was not in the most coherent state. Amidst talking nonsensically, he did manage to utter at least one statement that appeared to be true: he claimed to have hidden a stash of money in Phoenicia. The estimated value of this hidden treasure is believed to range between $50-100 million in modern dollars, and its exact location remains a mystery.