Free Republic

Last summer, 53-year-old Jeff Murphy was hiking in Yellowstone National Park when he disappeared. Park investigators found his body on June 9, where Murphy had fallen 500 feet from Turkey Pen Peak, after accidentally stepping into a chute. But he wasn't on just any hike. He was looking for a treasure box of gold and jewels worth up to $2 million, buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains by an eccentric millionaire named Forrest Fenn. Fenn, an art dealer and millionaire in his 80s, lives in Santa Fe, N.M. In his self-published memoir, Fenn included a poem that supposedly leads to...

A New Mexico multimillionaire wants you to get off the couch and go searching for hidden treasure. Forrest Fenn, 82, believes too many Americans spend their free time watching TV or playing video games. He hopes the bounty he hid — a chest filled with millions of dollars in gold coins, diamonds and emeralds, among other gems — will prompt some to explore the outdoors. "Get your kids out in the countryside, take them fishing and get them away from their little hand-held machines," he told TODAY.

It is thought that the battle ship, which was discovered off the island of Ulleungdo, was sunken during the Russo-Japanese War and could have had the gold of an entire flotilla on board. The Dmitrii Donskoi was an armoured cruiser in the Russian Imperial Navy’s Baltic fleet which was deployed to the Pacific in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War. The warship would have taken part in the Battle of Tsushima which saw Russia defeated by Japanese warships.

A RUSSIAN warship called Dmitrii Donskoi carrying gold worth £100 billion has been discovered off the coast of South Korea and is believed to have sunk in a naval battle 113 years ago. It is thought that the battle ship, which was discovered off the island of Ulleungdo, was sunken during the Russo-Japanese War and could have had the gold of an entire flotilla on board. The Dmitrii Donskoi was an armoured cruiser in the Russian Imperial Navy’s Baltic fleet which was deployed to the Pacific in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War. The warship would have taken part in the Battle...

<p>WHY ARE THEY SO VALUABLE?</p> <p>Experts say paper money was illegal in California until the 1870s, so it's extremely rare to find any coins from before that period. Additionally, most of the coins are in mint condition, having been stashed away seemingly immediately after they were minted. They were valued by Don Kagin, a numismatist who is handling the sale and marketing of the coins.</p>

Three years ago, a Denver bellhop ventured into Arizona’s Superstition Mountains determined to find the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, an elusive, vast gold reserve that has lured prospectors since the 19th century. Jesse Capen, 35, had made finding the hidden treasure an “obsession” fueled by more than 100 books and maps on the legendary — and perhaps nonexistent — mine named for German immigrant Jacob "The Dutchman" Waltz. On Saturday, years after Capen’s Jeep, wallet, backpack and cellphone were found by hikers, volunteers from the Superstition Search and Rescue finally located what they believe is Capen’s body. “We call ‘em Dutch...

<p>TAMPA -- Explorers believe they have found the sunken remains of an 1860s steamer that could yield the richest cargo ever recovered from a shipwreck: thousands of gold coins worth as much as $180 million.</p> <p>The SS Republic was carrying 59 passengers and 20,000 $20 gold coins from New York to New Orleans when it sank in a hurricane off Savannah, Ga., on Oct. 25, 1865, according to newspaper accounts and other historical records.</p>