How Modern Treasure Hunting Works
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- čas přidán 29. 11. 2023
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Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Max Moser
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
References
[1] cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwe...
Here in Norway, a community out on the western coast was instrumental in recovering the treasure of a Dutch galleon, the Ankerendam, a ship loaded with cash that blew of course, and sunk in the 1600's. The revenue and treasure was split between the Norwergian state, the Netherlands, and the families of the local divers, who discovered the wreck, it having moved slightly over the centuries from where it was reported to have gone down. Today, if you meet some of the familiy members of the divers, they have dutch Guilders in the jewelry they wear with their traditional dress/folk costume.
See, that's relatively fair.
The treasure hunters need to be compensated into significant profit territory, or there simply is no incentive to find anything.
Minor error correction: 14:15 you said Sue when you meant Stan.
Came here to point the same.
Same
Same
Same
Same
Just want to point out, Sue wasn't bought by the Field Museum, I don't think they could afford it. It was bought by McDonald's, who has a great relationship with the city amd community of Chicago, and theu bought it with the intent of donating Sue to the Field Museum.
Mhh mhh sweet sweet tax deductible donations
Ba ba ba ba ba, I'm buying it.
It was bought by a consortium of companies including McDonald's and Disney.
@@melz6625it's still a net cost. Some people have a misunderstanding that somehow donating allows you to make more money, but it only reduces taxable income by the same donation amount.
So if you were going to pay 1 million USD tax on 5 million profit, donating 5 million would remove that 1 million tax obligation, but you had to use 5 mil to get there. So, you could have either gotten 4 million after tax profit or 0 from donating.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 It's actually amazing/distressing how many people I see on the internet that actually have zero idea how taxes (especially tax deductions and tax brackets) work and yet they still feel the need to comment about it.
It is actually insane to me that treasure hunters are not, at the very least, compensated for the recovery of sunken objects by whoever is claimed to be the owner. They should absolutely be given a large percentage of whatever they bring back up, especially if its been 50-100+ years.
I agree if the treasure hunters didn’t do all this work to find and reclaim it then it’d just simply not exist. I can see how this could be problematic though, maybe someone steals valuable items and sits in them long enough for them to be considered lost treasures shrug 🤷
Sunken objects still have ownership, that's why. There's not a distinction between a sunken object and an object in your home.
If you have a boat and it sinks to the bottom lake, it doesn't become "not your boat" it's just your boat, but at the bottom of a lake.
@@christopheraplin Disagree. You abandoned your boat at the bottom of the lake and left it there. If its sitting there for years and you never come to somehow reclaim your boat, I would say you gave up your rights to the boat. So therefore, sunken objects do not have ownership. Its BS people can come back and claim later they deserve to get that stuff back.
@@christopheraplinin German law there is a Concept called „herrenlos“ which defines an object that lost it’s owner
If I just recovered millions in gold and silver from a sunken ship and a nation, which didn't even consider recovering it, wanted to claim it, I'd just throw the treasure right back into the ocean instead of handing it over.
In fantasy stories, dragons often guard a hoard of treasure. It turns out the real treasure is actually the dragons' bones.
And it's scales as well. Just remember that they're really heavy so you might need to stash some of the stuff in your inventory in the dragon's corpse so you don't get over encumbered.
The real treasure was the friends we made along the way.
And they are guarded by lawyers
*laughs in Skyrim Heavy Dragon Bone Armor*
@@taylorruckner5976 The REAL treasure was inside us all along.
A very impressive video!
impressive video ❤❤
Good
Good
👍
Very nice
Fossil Hunter here! Great video, thoroughly enjoyed it. Here in Florida, we are lucky that we work with the Florida Museum of Natural History. They issue us permits to collect in public waterways, we file reports, and they get 1st dibs on anything scientifically important. We get to keep and sell anything they don't want.
In practice, it works out great. Most stuff that you'd imagine as valuable like a Mammoth jaw they don't want since it really offers little scientific value (case dependent there). But, other stuff, like a Megalodon nose and an undescribed cat jaw that my dive buddy discovered, they were escatic to recieve.
Now, you can't apply this to private property for obvious reasons. But, I wish archaelogists and more states operated like this.
Final note, I know you highlighted the financial opportunity a lot, but most fossil hunters like myself and Pete Larson too I imagine, got into fossil hunting because we love doing it, we love the activity and we love the science behind it. Although, I will admit, like anything, there are absolutely bad actors. Anyway, I appreciated the fair and informative video and I am looking forward to more from you!
H-h…how did you find a megalodon nose??
@@kinggizandthelizwiz7977 I'm also confused, thought their 'skeletons' were made of cartilage and thus didn't fossilise well.
Yeah that sounds fair, good luck with the hunting!
wow, florida doing something that makes sense for once, no wonder why it exists.
@@kinggizandthelizwiz7977 Their nose is composed of hard cartilage, just like their vertebrae are. In rare cases, hard cartilage can also mineralize and become bone, hence why the museum was so interested in it.
So the Sioux sued Sue over Sue’s skeleton?
In my opinion, if a government or company leaves a ship at the bottom of the ocean for over 100 years, its fair game. Even if it's insured, the insurance company should be the ones fronting the money to get it back and if they don't, they loose right to claim it. Finders keepers...
I think there should be universal archeological and ethical rules that always apply to such sites due to their historic value and as possible gravesites. I also agree with the rule of warships belonging to their governments/successor states. I don't want nazi items from recovered submarines to be sold to some neonazis, and I also think countries have a right to their lost or previously inaccessible cultural heritage. The approach of bidding on tenders from governments for their sunken ships seems like a fair process that works for all parties.
@@TheTechnoProwhat an asinine opinion. Who cares about neonazis?
@@TheTechnoProDude, who cares about historical value or gravesites? We should be focused on the present, and if there is something important to research there, it should be able to be taken. As for Nazi items going to neo-Nazis… get over yourself. You are right about one thing, though. Nothing should ever be left alone if it has any value.
@@jarretta2656 clearly you since you cared enough to call the opinion asinine, indirectly defending neo-Nazi's is a questionable position.
@@speedy01247 And here it is, by randomly bringing in "nazis" to an unrelated debate you have a false premise. Nobody is defending neo nazi but you just want to use false equivalence to call someone a nazi because you think it makes you win the argument.
As a life long Black Hills resident it's always a neat surprise when we are mentioned in a video, mostly because it feels like nothing ever happens here 😂
Ditto!
My dad represented Pete Larson in the criminal case that followed, and it is a way more interesting story than how it's portrayed here
@@seamusduffy983just links for further research?
@@seamusduffy983There just wasn't the time to get in the case deep in this video.
It's wild to me that you can pull something out of the middle of the ocean from the 1800s and the government can still say they own it. I guess the ocean is just like a bank vault.
Warships, from a legal perspective remain property of that government for all time.
The Spanish government did that company dirty in that case but the law isn't always right.
Warships, from a legal perspective remain property of that government for all time.
The Spanish government did that company dirty in that case but the law isn't always right.
As far as law and ethics are concerned, property still belongs to the owner even if they are not still in immediate possession of it. How would you feel if every time you left your home, everything inside it was up for grabs for anyone who could take it?
@@jamesharding3459 come on. The middle of the ocean and your home are not equivalent. If you leave something under the ocean for over 100 years and never try to recover it, do you really care all that much?
@jamesharding3459 Thing is that's actually how it works it just takes a lot longer and they gotta be actively squatting there without you doing anything for 5 years
Minor correction: At 7:28 you said “160 miles off the coast of North Carolina” while the map shows the distance of the shipwreck from Charleston, a city in South Carolina
Note to self. IF you find gold bricks or jewelry on a ship, just melt the gold down to make new bricks and say nothing
It's common knowledge in the coinc collecting community that old, well-preserved coins are usually far more valuable than their melt value or face value. I imagine something similar applies here. They could do that, but the standard approach is potentially much more profitable.
@@jeffbenton6183 yes but then someone might claim it as theirs and you are left with nothing. Treasure hunters should have rights to the plunder or else we will just lose historical objects to blank market sales or it getting melted down.
I thought the modern version of treasure hunting was stealing Amazon packages 😅😂😂😂
No, that's just loot boxes.
Different pirate lol
Also worth pointing out that, by immediately removing fossils from where they lay, the for-profit fossil hunters are also denying academics/researchers the ability to date and contextualize the bones using stratigraphy. This represents a massive knowledge loss regarding the finds themselves.
14:20 Eh, that's not Sue getting sold...
One for the annual "Things I Got Wrong" video, he should have said Stan
At 14:15 I think you mean Stan, not Sue. I could be wrong but you were done talking about Sue and had moved on to Stan and then out of nowhere Sue came back and got sold right when you were talking about Stan's auction 😅 I brushed it off not thinking much of it until you said, "with the sale of Stan and the subsequent explosion in the fossil industry" at 19:19 which is exactly what you were talking about with the auction where you (accidentally?) said Sue.
"Who owns what?" is the most imporant question in all of human history.
the answer is usually who has the bigger gun.
Great video! Not sure if you take requests, but I've always been fascinated by the "crazy logistics of fine dining restaurants". A friend works as a sous-chef, and there are so many moving pieces that need to fit just perfectly to get the seemingly flawless multi course menu experience. With basically non existing margins for error.. :)
That would be a good fit for the Nebula series, though of course it would be nicer if it was available on YT 😊
This video remimded me of a discussion (really more of a passionate argument) I had with a marine archaeologist on one of Rare Earth's videos, talking about how the Azores basically banned treasure hunting in their waters, despite it having one of the highest concentrations of valuable shipwrecks in the world. They were passionate about how much they hated treasure hunters, because in their eyes they destroyed historical artifacts for financial gain. I did try to argue the approach the British took here, that a collaborative effort could be a win win for both sides, because marine archeology is so expensive it would help to have a sponsor, but they seemed unconvinced, I think they envisioned that it's better it sits undisturbed on the bottom alone for another century while they scrape together the funding themselves. I retorted that the reality would be that there majority of these wrecks would never be examined unless there was more funding available, and that wasn't going to happen through public funding, but they seemed convinced they'd get round to all of them eventually, before they were buried or crumbled away to nothing. How I'm not sure, but still. That seems to be the mindset of the most vocal opponents in academia.
Not doing treasure hunting just means that most wrecks will disappear into the sea bed, with most data that can be gleaned from them lost. So IMO it is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Paragraphs exist.
most academia are midwits who lack critical thinking skills. they cant think out of the box
7:30 charleston is south carolina, not north carolina.
In the case of sunken treasures it feels like greed and lazyness at its best. They didn't put in the work to salvage a boat from sea yet they want it the second someone else does it.
My nephew is super big into Dinos. One year for his birthday I got him one of those simple dino tooth fossils. He loved it but my sister hated me because she had gotten him a new bike and was the hero for 5 mins till he opened my gift. Had a good laugh about it.
In the Canadian province of Alberta, where I live, fossils are considered Crown property(unless they were dug up before the law regarding fossils in Alberta was passed, I think in 1979, or exceptions like ammonite which can be mined with a license) and theft of fossils can result in a 50,000 dollar fine, and up to a year in jail. This also obligates the government to collect any fossils found, and forces mining and construction companies in the area where the fossil was found to lend their resources to help researchers excavate fossils, since they can’t generally go around it, and destroying it is also illegal.
The Crown????? Like they're owned by Charles III?????
14:15 supposed to be "Stan"
I find this all ironic because it's not like any of these government entities actually care until the hard work is done.
Governments: "We'd rather every single golden coin stay in the ocean than share a single speck of gold with the people who recover them"
Yeah, pretty much. Personally, if it was me doing these salvage operations, I'd just sit on the coordinates of a find for a few years (to make it hard to find based on my transponder location), then find the closest government with a reasonably legitimate claim to whatever may be on board and tell them something to the effect of 'I found your shit, how much are you willing to pay me to tell you where it is and/or dig it up for you?'.
the more and more i hear stories like this the more and more I understand the Killdozer guy
Best comment lol
This reminds me of that short documentary I saw years ago about sunk trade ships full of Chinese ceramics around Southeast Asia. Because they were in bulk, the team doing the recovery process auctioned a bunch of it to keep funding their project.
Don't need to look any further than the success of shows like Gold Rush. People LOVE treasure, people love exploration. No wonder it's popular, it must be absolutely exhilarating to have the time and means to just go treasure hunting. If I had the cash, I'd split my time between a chalet in the alps and treasure hunting. Must be absolutely lovely
This was a really interesting video! I didn't realize there was so much red tape with this stuff. That kind of pisses me off actually..... lol Like NONE of these countries were actually looking for their shipwrecks, but when someone else puts in all the effort and takes all the risks, *suddenly* they're all whinny like they're owed something. Reminds me of this lyric, "None of you would help me when I baked my bread, now all of you will help me eat it. I can see that you are very well fed, this indicates that you don't need it."
Love the video, absolutely fascinating topic. If you happen to look into the comments of any of these for ideas, I think an excellent idea in the same sort of genre you might say is the market for antiquities, especially the grey and black markets. As someone who's done a few archeological digs and been warned about dig site looting and how much of the artifacts sold in the world are questionably legal at best, I think it'd be a really interesting thing to see your quality of research directed at!
I hadn't known the tragedy behind Sue or that Stan had left us in the states.
I was once a paleontology student at Central Wyoming College.
Being on a dig is one of the most fun things 20something year olds can do.
Not knowing those two things saddens me.
Fresh, juicy, crispy Wendover video.
14:16 You mean Stan.
I was just about to comment the exact same thing, thank you
The only two rules of treasure hunting
1: If you find something, don't tell the government
2:keep your mouth shut
What you're describing is just looting.
there be treasure🤑
@@Jack-rp6zy Nah, government isn't needed for the world to go round.
I understand the impulse, but that's basically the root of the problem for the Sue issue. If the landowner had told the government (both tribal and federal) the original deal would've gone through and a local museum/historical society would've had control of the bones and profits would have been distributed locally. Instead, he got lazy and was then rewarded while the rest of the local community (tribal and non-tribal) were harmed by his lack of due diligence.
@@Jack-rp6zy yeah but everyone else including governments aren't really interested in playing fair, so why not?
I would love to hear one of these property-grab efforts end with the treasure hunter teplying "fine, if it was yours then I'll just put it back" and dumping or burying the stuff right where they found it.
maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way
🥰
Your release timing was apt; There was a headline in the news yesterday in regard to a lawsuit in relation the the Tyrannosaurus Sue $$$.
this is the best video you have done so far - thank you.
Isn’t Faith SD the same town from the Dollar General video?
Indeed
I think in the modern context on what counts as "treasure" is a little too broad but one thing that seems to unite them all is that there is a lot of paper work involved now
I think 14:12 has a mistake, you said Sue when I think you meant Stan
Yeah, I replayed 3 times 😂
The true scavengers aren't the ones on the ships, it's the ones with law degrees
Thank you, for yet another well crafted video!
You do realize Charleston is in SOUTH Carolina, yes?
Fr lol he’s done the same mistake before
As usual I loved the video, you’re far and away my favorite content creator. Thank you for all the work and passion you put into these!
One minor potential correction, you showed North Carolina but the city that you used connected line to the ship wreck was Charleston, SC. I think you might have done this one other time, and with it being my hometown I’d love if you give us the shoutout next time it’s relevant lol!
I never knew Charlston was in North Carolina. 😂
I love the sound design in this
Very interesting topic to explore, great idea!
Wait... they found letters on a ship that had been submerged in seawater for decades. Where they kept ina watertight safe or something? How did they survive?
Different paper back then. Plus probably packed tightly in envelopes.
They wouldn't be in good condition, but some kind of optical scan could probably see the contents, even if you can't open the letters.
7:30 - Voiceover says North Carolina, Image shows a line being drawn from Charleston, South Carolina
Add one to the goof reel.
Charleston is in South Carolina, not North. That shipwreck was off the SC coast
Wait can someone expand on what was said at @12:37 "when one discovers a fossil, one gains ownership of its intellectual property." The fossil itself is a product of nature and definitely doesn't overcome the §101 judicial exceptions to patentability, so we can rule patents out. Moreover dinosaur bones aren't even an inventive concept... they're just bones. It's not exactly clear how any artistic expression (or any human input, for that matter) is made with the dinosaur bones, so copyright is questionable. And trademark doesn't cover this because the physical dinosaur bones aren't a brand... so I'm at loss for how dinosaur bones or their subsequent casts qualify for IP protection in the US.
I assume it’s the specific cast for those bones. It could potentially be considered art under the law? Like if I take a picture of an oak tree that picture of that tree belongs to me. But not T. rex bones in general or an oak tree in general.
Idk I’m not a lawyer or anything I just assume that’s the line of thinking here
Recently a competitor of the Black Hills Institute was putting a different T. rex fossil for auction but to complete the missing bones, they purchased casts of STAN from BHI. BHI tried to get their competitor shut down by suing them claiming they owned the intellectual property of STAN. This claim made by BHI has never been tested in court and is considered extremely silly by fossil law experts. The auction house nonetheless pulled the auction after it emerged that the seller (whose identity is not known to the public) had misrepresented other facts about the fossil, and its current status is not publicly known. So TLDR Wendover reprated a claim made by BHI in order to intimidate their competitors without fact checking.
@@Heartwing13 Yeah that would make sense for that cast YOU created or that photo YOU took. 100% copyrightable. The language here that’s hanging me up is “upon discovery, you get the IP” implying that there’s come IP inherent to the bones themselves and the finders of said bones suddenly become the owners of it. Maybe he misspoke or wasn’t being precise in his wording, but yeah working in IP it caught my attention!
All these laws incentivize treasure hunters to just melt down the coins.
21:45 I distinctly remember you saying in jet lag that you hate maths
There's no way a billionaire wouldn't just rent out the time and access to study the purchased fossils; they already do all the time. Even more returns on the thing than posting it up like Scrooge McDuck, when you can charge $2-8k per day for scientists to do their work with it as residual contractsz
7:27 "160 Miles off the coast of North Carolina", shows Charleston SC
14:17 stan not sue
This was insane timing for me, as I just got to see Sue YESTERDAY! Was not expecting this!
Me trying not to make a joke about british museums
Love the content!
The story about Las Mercedes was featured on NatGeo's Drain the Oceans. I was always disappointed that Odyssey did all the work just for the Spanish government to swoop in and take the treasure. I am not a lawyer or anything, but it always struck me as immensely unfair.
How in the world does Spain have a claim to Portuguese coast booty? Because the ships were Spanish? So the Spanish just have claim to any former ship in any of the insane amount of Coastlines they colonized or brutally pillaged and laid waste?
While I'm not defending the actions of the Spanish government, a warship remains property of that government for all time, from a legal perspective.
@@somethinglikethat2176time to rule the high seas like a real pirate
@@saosaqii5807the issue is then there would be no way to sell it. Hell, most cold and silver are tracked pretty heavily.
This is by far the best channel on CZcams.
7:26 Charleston is in South Carolina so is it 160 miles off Charleston or North Carolina?
Correction at 14:21
You say it was Sue, not Stan being sold.
Many have mentioned this
There is a stan and a sue.
In Germany there is quite an...interresting...solution for this problem: if one finds (nearly) any archeological remains, they have to be allowed to be researched - of course one would not get any money, because it's obviously owned by the state. This means, that when one is building a house and finds anything of historical value, it's much cheaper to just destroy it, than let a team of archeologists recover it for months - if not years - while the house one planned to life in, cannot be finished and still needs to get payed, as workers and material are still available.
Yet that's not completely onesided, there are historical remains one can still keep and keep all the money it's connected to: unexploded bombs. If such a bomb is found on ones private real estate, one not only is the official owner - no, the owner now also has to take care of it, which means: pay a lot to get it off his land or to start a controlled explosion.
Ideal way to start the morning.
7:31 South Carolina
At 14:17, it's stated that "Sue was sold to the Abu Dhabi Natural History Museum" - I'm assuming that's meant to be Stan?
@Wendoverproductions
Were you instead pertaining to "Stan" being sold instead of "Sue"?
@13:44 the video stated that "Stan" was given to Neil, who in turn had brought it to Christies NYC showroom for auction on 07OCT202 (@13:55), however, @14:15 the video stated that "Sue" was sold to the Abu Dhabi Natural History Museum for $31,847,500.
I like this new video style, was great for this!
As far as ships go, there should be a time limit in which a government can claim the wreckage. Just for a round number, let’s say 100 years. If the government has not located a ship within 100 years of the date it sank, then it forfeits the right to it.
We're getting a lot of Faith, SD content on this channel. As a former resident I'm surprised and delighted
I noticed that too
Wow I'm early as heck to one of your vidoes. 😂 glad i opened youtube at work lol
Really good video! Thanks
7:34 Charleston is South Carolina
7:27 that's South Carolina, not North
Small correction at @14:17: Stan was sold to Abu Dhabi, not Sue
At 7:38 in the video, that’s SOUTH Carolina the shipwreck is 160 miles from, not NORTH Carolina as stated in the video lol
Noting that when discussing the sale price of Stan, it is misidentified (spoken) as Sue around 14:28.
Faith, SD mentioned yet again. Thanks Sam 🙏
A successful treasure hunt for me is finding matching socks!!
Wait, so for $150k I can get a full-sized T-Rex cast!? Might be time to re-arrange the living room!
How about this: you want to claim the loot from the people who spent the time to get it, you gotta pay for the time and expenses used to salvage it in the first place.
14:16
Sue? Or is this a mistake?
Finders/Keepers should apply. Whoever pulls it from the ocean depths should own it.
Fun fact: there is a life size replica of Stan at the Cerritos library
Charleston SOUTH Carolina. Come on, Sam!
6:49 - Costinesti, Romania.
8:24 yet another example to prove that insurance companies are money grubbing wholesale...Thompson too
That institute tried to scam the guy . They knew it was worth millions and offered 5 grand
14:16 you said Sue when you where talking about Stan
Another Banger!
It isn't just treasure. Ships sunk in WW2 that are regarded as war graves are being plundered not for treasure but the metals they were built of.
Another fantastic video!!
A couple small errors @Wendover
7:31 - You started North Carolina, but Charleston is in South Carolina
14:12 - you misspoke and said Sue was sold at auction instead of Stan
14:20 wow you said sue was sold but that wasn’t sue that was the second one , Stan.
Stan was sold for 30 million not sue
14:15 Did you mean to say "Stan was sold..."?
“160 miles off the coast of North Carolina” when you’ve displayed that you’re measuring the distance from Charleston which is in SOUTH Carolina.