Real Hidden Treasures Still Waiting To Be Found

We've all imagined stumbling upon treasures of unimaginable wealth — it's why we have lotteries, after all. Of course, by now, all the really good treasure must all have been recovered, right? Wrong — billions of dollars of bountiful booty are still out there, just waiting for the right adventurer to track them down and turn them into a retirement plan for the next ten generations of their family. Grab your pickaxe, shovel, and diving gear, and get to work on unearthing ...

It was so impressive that it was called the Eighth Wonder of the World, and just like they ruined the swastika, the Nazis ruined this. According to the Smithsonian, Nazis looted the Amber Room of St. Petersburg's Catherine Palace, packed it into 27 crates, and sent it to what's now Kaliningrad. It was actually reassembled there as part of a castle museum for two years. In 1943, the Amber Room was broken down into pieces yet again and hidden from the approaching Allied forces.

And that's all we know. There are plenty of theories about its ultimate fate, including the possibility it was destroyed by bombings. But other theories say it's still kicking around, possibly at the bottom of the Baltic Sea or scattered throughout private collections. One of the Amber Room's panels was actually found in Bremen in 1997, but it was being sold by the son of a soldier who had no other information. There's even a theory that says the Amber Room the Germans stole was a fake one and that the real one has been missing for a heck of a lot longer than we think. Either way, if you're wondering how six tons of amber goes missing ... join the club.

Many things were different in 1907, and ideas about security were very different. When the Irish Crown Jewels went missing, they were under the not-so-watchful eye of Sir Arthur Vicars, who kept them in the library of the Bedford Tower of Dublin Castle. They were only kept there because no one had measured the door when they were building the dedicated safe room. The jewels' actual safe couldn't fit, so they decided to just leave them in the library and, presumably, go for a drink.

It was a member of the cleaning staff who told Vicars the keys to the library door weren't where they were supposed to be on the morning of July 6. It wasn't until the afternoon that he bothered to check the jewels and found they were gone. Locks were unlocked, doors had been opened, and no alarms had been sounded, leading to the belief that it was an inside job. The top suspect isn't Vicars but his second-in-command, Francis (brother of Ernest) Shackleton. He ultimately vanished without a trace after completing a prison sentence for bank fraud. Other suspects have been named, but the jewels are still missing. The Irish would probably still like them back, please and thank you.

A lot of the treasure lost at sea during the early years of the eighteenth century cam about due to two things: the War of Succession in Spain, and a whole slew of hurricanes. In 1715, a small flotilla of ships came together to form a fleet of treasure ships, bound from the New World to Spain. Spain was in dire need of funds following the war, so it was common for treasure ships to sail back to Europe during times of peace, so they could help build up the empire's coffers.

The flotilla arranged in 1715 was another of these missions, and they decided to hold off on their trip until right before hurricane season began, the idea being that the prevalence of hurricanes might keep pirates away during their trip. The wager paid off, in that they didn't have to deal with pirates, but then the hurricane went after them, sinking every ship in the fleet.

Since the fleet sank, many efforts have been made to recover the treasure. Only a small fraction of the treasure was ever found, but six of the seven vessels were located. The San Miguel was a small Carrack-class vessel, lighter than a galleon and therefore faster. Because of this, the San Miguel was loaded with treasure, one of the richest treasures to be found on the bottom of the sea, in fact. So naturally, it's the one ship in the fleet nobody's found. There's always a catch.

It may surprise you to learn that the final resting place of history's most successful emperor, who commanded the largest contiguous empire in history, is unknown. The grave of Genghis Khan has been a secret lost for nearly a millennia — wherever it is, it's likely the untold riches of the Mongolian Empire might just be settled there, too.

That's the basic legend of Khan's tomb. The story goes that he wished his burial place be kept secret, so 40 of his men took his body and buried it somewhere. They were then killed by Khan's guards, who in turn committed suicide, leaving nobody alive to tell where the tomb was. It is also said that "40 girls — adorned in precious garments, gold and fine jewels — were killed and buried with him, to join his spirit in the afterlife." Whether or not this story is true doesn't matter. The location of Khan's final resting place has been a mystery since his death, and people have been looking for it ever since.

Many believe that Khan rests somewhere around Laky Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan, but that's as far as anyone has ever gotten. The Soviets took this legend so seriously, they funded a costly expedition in the 1970s to search for the tomb, but found nothing. There are also those who believe he may have been buried atop Mount Burkhan Khaldun in Mongolia, as this would have been one of the highest points in the empire, and thus quite the symbolic place to bury its leader.

When it comes to buried treasure, finding the tomb of Genghis Khan — even without a speck of gold, though many specks would be preferable — would still amount to the discovery of the century. That's something every treasure hunter would love to put on their business card.

Dutch Schultz was a Prohibition-era gangster who spent the 1920s supplying New Yorkers with all kinds of alcoholic goodness. Like many of the bootleggers and gangsters that grabbed a piece of the Prohibition pie, Schultz fell afoul of the law. After he was acquitted for the second time, he knew he needed to move his fortune somewhere safe. He sent his bodyguard, Bernard Rosencrantz, into the Catskills with a treasure worth somewhere between $5 million and $9 million. No one is really sure just how much is hidden out in the mountains or what it even is, but we know that it's out there.

Schultz and his men were taken out in 1935, after a rival gang decided they'd had enough of the competition. Schultz survived the immediate attack, and while he was dying in the hospital he incoherently raved about a treasure hidden in the woods. The only other person who knew where the treasure was — Rosencrantz himself — died in the same hail of bullets. It's thought Rosencrantz buried his boss's treasure somewhere near Esopus Creek, but there are so many versions of the legend that it's hard to tell. Some suggest the treasure was buried between two pine trees, while others think it's near a rock called Devil's Face. Clues are vague, but on the plus side, the Catskills are beautiful, and there are worse places to hunt for treasure.

The SS Islander was a ferry operating in the waters of Alaska at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s. The ferry was carrying 180 people on August 14th, 1901, when it struck either a rock or iceberg between Douglas and Admiralty Islands. The ship sank within twenty minutes, and 40 people went down with it. In addition, it's believed that the ship contained a great deal of wealth when it went down. Rumors insist there were hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus just tons and tons of gold. Low estimates suggest about $3 million in gold, but upper estimates put the modern value closer to $260 million. So you can see why people wanted to find it, and fast.

The wreck was finally located in 1921 at a depth of 300 feet, which was too deep for diving technology at the time. An effort was made to raise the ship and bring it to shore in 1934. They succeeded in dragging the wreck from the bottom of the sea, but failed to recover the expected cache of gold. Since then, only 1,000 ounces of gold have been recovered from the site. What's more, there has been a legal battle over salvage rights of the wreck, as the belief remains that a huge amount of gold is awaiting whoever can dredge it up to the surface.

Interested? Well, you might have to get in line to give it a shot. Ocean Mar and MK Salvage Venture are actively attempting to recover the gold once and for all, and we're guessing they don't like competition.

In 1885, a pamphlet was published describing the story of Thomas J. Beale, and a great treasure awaiting anyone who could find it in the hills of Bedford County, Virginia. The pamphlet explained that Beale claimed to have found a treasure consisting of great wealth in a cave sometime in the 1820s. He worked with 30 friends to remove the treasure of gems, gold, and silver from the cave to an undisclosed location in Bedford County, where they buried it. Seems like a weird thing to do instead of, you know, spending it, but OK.

Beale then wrote down three ciphers, which he placed into a box and gave to Robert Morriss, a trusted friend and innkeeper of the local tavern. One cipher contained the location, the other a description, and the third listed the names of everyone involved. Morriss was instructed not to open the box unless he hadn't heard from Beale or his partners within a decade. Beale was never seen or heard from again.

When the required time had passed, Morriss opened the box and began working to decipher the texts. He never succeeded, having spent decades on the task. When he died, he bequeathed the papers to an unnamed friend who, in turn, attempted to crack the code. This unnamed man was actually able to break the encryption of one of the three ciphers, using a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The code he cracked provided a detailed description of the treasure — unfortunately finding this treasure proved futile, as the remaining two texts remained undeciphered. Finally succumbing to failure, the man published a pamphlet titled "The Beale Papers" through a friend named James B. Ward, who sold them in 1885 for $0.50 each. Ever since the pamphlet was published, eager treasure hunters have dug holes all over Bedford County, but to no avail. Probably because nobody's thought to consult the world's top expert of the Declaration of Independence, Nicolas Cage.