Lost Treasures: True Stories of Discovery

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Gold nuggets, Roman coin hoards, buried pirate loot, rare gems, and
long-lost masterpieces—this book appeals to that greedy little duck in
all of us. Almost everyone dreams of finding a lost treasure. Larry
Verstraete tells more than 80 exciting stories of people who struck it
rich. Sometimes the treasures were discovered completely by chance, like
the person who found George Washington’s handwritten inaugural speech
stuffed in a pouch inside an old book. Other treasures were discovered
only after years of painstaking effort and millions of dollars risked,
like the man who uncovered Pirate Black Sam’s loot sunk under the
turbulent ocean off the coast of Cape Cod.

Not all the discoveries would fall into what most people would consider
treasure. For example, Verstraete tells the tale of a man who found a
filthy old pair of pants in a box inside an old shack in Nevada. After a
few runs through the washing machine, the pants turned out to be the
oldest surviving pair of Levi’s known to exist, worth nearly $50,000.

While Verstraete loves to describe the thrill of the chase, he also
stresses treasure-hunter’s ethics, and there is even a page called the
Treasure Hunters’ Code that informs readers of a person’s legal
obligations to archaeologists and historians as they search for
treasure. This is a great read for any armchair treasure hunter from 8
to 80. Highly recommended.