Frozen treasure found amid plane wreckage in the French Alps

[mookiemookie]

A treasure of precious jewels has been found by a young alpinist on the ice caps of Mont Blanc, where it likely was lost decades ago amid the wreckage of a crashed airliner.

French authorities must now contact their Indian peers to try to find the owners of the jewels. If no one claims the gems, they will be returned to the young Savoyard mountain climber.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/26/20707001-frozen-treasure-found-amid-plane-wreckage-in-the-french-alps?lite

Why would you be so dumb as to tell anyone what you found????

[AVGWarhawk]

Honesty is the best policy. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Honesty is the best policy. :yep:

Except for when you find precious jewels :O:

[Betonov]

Why would you be so dumb as to tell anyone what you found????

http://img.pandawhale.com/66147-indiana-jones-belongs-in-a-mus-hHan.jpeg

[mookiemookie]

Honesty is the best policy. :yep:

Keeping your trap shut seems to be a more lucrative policy in this case.

[Madox58]

Ya think maybe the owner was ON the crashed airliner?
Na. It couldn't be that simple. Some Insurance Company will claim they own them.
I'd charge them a recovery/finders fee if they try.
Say...
ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!
http://stallioncornell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/dr-evil.jpg

[AVGWarhawk]

Keeping your trap shut seems to be a more lucrative policy in this case.

It never is lucrative to take what does not belong to you. :03:

[Armistead]

Honesty is the best policy. :yep:

I found a oar used on a 1800's bateau when metal detecting. I pretty much knew what it was and took it to our county museum to show and help ID markings. The state took it and later gave it to same museum.

I still metal detect and look for arrowheads on the 3 rivers near me, technically I must report or turn in every item over 100 years old.:O:

I've been detecting some on one of the largest slave plantations in the south. The house burned down, but the shell remains, but all the brick slave quarters still remain. Walking through the woods you can still get a feel for the once large gardens. It's all grown over in the woods, but I can just picture it when it thrived.

[Platapus]

All I know is +1 for the use of the term alpinist. :up:

[mookiemookie]

It never is lucrative to take what does not belong to you. :03:

Well when you think about how the gems are going to go to some insurance company that traces its lineage to the original insurers through who knows how many mergers and acquisitions, I wouldn't feel the least bit of of compunction about whistling down the mountain with my haul. And even if the original insurer is still in business, they wrote that loss off a loooooong time ago. It's for all intents and purposes ancient history. It's totally different than finding a bag full of money on a bus.

[Jimbuna]

Well when you think about how the gems are going to go to some insurance company that traces its lineage to the original insurers through who knows how many mergers and acquisitions, I wouldn't feel the least bit of of compunction about whistling down the mountain with my haul. And even if the original insurer is still in business, they wrote that loss off a loooooong time ago. It's for all intents and purposes ancient history. It's totally different than finding a bag full of money on a bus.

I'm thinking of all the trips to different places abroad being paid for in part by selling a gemstone in each country :sunny:

[AVGWarhawk]

Well when you think about how the gems are going to go to some insurance company that traces its lineage to the original insurers through who knows how many mergers and acquisitions, I wouldn't feel the least bit of of compunction about whistling down the mountain with my haul. And even if the original insurer is still in business, they wrote that loss off a loooooong time ago. It's for all intents and purposes ancient history. It's totally different than finding a bag full of money on a bus.

I think it is up to the original owners and insurance company to decide. This is similar to finding a Spanish galleon loaded with gold coin. Somebody lays claim.

[mookiemookie]

I think it is up to the original owners and insurance company to decide. This is similar to finding a Spanish galleon loaded with gold coin. Somebody lays claim.

Agree, and with those cases I think it should be finders keepers too.

[Platapus]

Agree, and with those cases I think it should be finders keepers too.

It all depends on the legal status of the wreck -- derelict or lagan (ligan).

According to maritime law:

If the wreck is in the legal state of derelict than it is finders keepers, but if it is in a legal state of lagan, then it still belongs to the owners who must pay the finder a salvage fee.

Most wrecks that had valuables are considered lagan by the owners.... just in case.

Derelict means that the wreck has been abandoned, the owners have surrendered their claim and consider the cargo irrecoverable.

Legan means that the wreck is still under ownership of the owners, the owners maintain full rights, and responsibilities, over the wreck and that the cargo is not considered irrecoverable.

The laws of the state of registry and whether the wreck is in the jurisdiction of another state makes this complicated. Maritime lawyers get rich from the derelict vs lagan argument. :yep:

It is the same legal status as flotsam and jetsam

Flotsam and lagan are related
Jetsam and derelict are related.

More than you probably wanted to know.

[mookiemookie]

More than you probably wanted to know.

That's never the case.

I think it's really interesting. I would imagine that, with ROVs and undersea sonar and technology being what it is today, there would be few owners who would ever declare anything valuable to be irrecoverable and give up their rights.

Again, I think it's different if the wreck is fairly recent - say within the past 10 or 20 years or so. I can see someone saying they have a claim on it. But when we're talking about Spanish galleons full of gold and wrecks that are decades to hundreds and hundreds of years old, it gets a little silly in my mind. Someone who has a very tenuous link to the original owner coming in and saying "Yep! That's mine! Thanks for collecting something I never knew existed and never missed!" Doesn't seem right.

[Platapus]

Well there is a cost to declaring your wreck lagan. Because the cargo and the wreck still belong to you, you would be responsible for any damage the wreck may cause, either to shipping if in shallow water, or the environment. You also need to make reasonable efforts to locate the wreck and mark it with a buoy. So just considering all of your wrecks lagan may not be economically feasible. And this is good, we don't every wreck to just automatically be considered lagan.

But you bring up an excellent point that will probably buy some maritime lawyers their 3rd BMW.... what about ROVs? What used to be irrecoverable may be recoverable now.

The downside is that if the courts, in considering ROVs, decide that the cargo is recoverable then the owners, under lagan may be ordered to either pay for a ROV recovery or lose their rights.

Man I need to get into this maritime lawyer gig. That's money in the bank!!!