“There’s Something Here”: Hikers Stumble Upon Hidden Gold Worth $340,000
Gold coins, other treasures, and unanswered questions emerge from Czech forest discovery.
What began as a peaceful winter hike in the Czech Republic turned into the discovery of a lifetime.
Two friends were walking near the Krkonoše Mountains this February when they noticed something odd in a moss-covered stone wall. “There’s something here,” one said, and they were right. Hidden in the wall was a stash of 598 gold coins wrapped in black fabric and stuffed inside an aluminum canister.
The coins, dating from 1808 to 1915 and weighing more than 15 pounds, came from multiple countries: France, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and the Ottoman Empire. Some bore countermarks from 1921, suggesting they had been in circulation in the regions that are now Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not far from the initial discovery, the hikers found a second cache, a metal box containing 16 snuffboxes, ten bracelets, a comb, a chain with a small key, and a powder compact.
Archaeologists at the Museum of East Bohemia are now carefully studying the treasure, trying to piece together its origins, which remains a mystery. No one knows who hid the treasure—or why it was never reclaimed. Some researchers believe it may have belonged to a Jewish or Czech family forced to flee the region during the Nazi occupation of the late 1930s. Others speculate that the Nazis themselves could have hidden it near the end of the war.
What is clear, experts say, is that the motive wasn’t tied to the face value of the coins. “It wasn’t about what the money could buy,” noted researcher Jiří Brádle in an interview translated by Radio Prague International. “This was about the gold itself. It was deliberately hidden because it was precious metal.”
The hikers have turned the entire cache over to experts but may be entitled to a finder’s reward under Czech law, up to 10% of the treasure’s value.
It’s not every day you follow a hiking trail and end up in a real-life treasure story. But that’s exactly what happened because sometimes, the forest really does have secrets to share.
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Kele Johnson is the Editor of Kovels Antique Trader magazine and the Digital Content Editor of Active Interest Media's Collectibles Group. Her captivation with collectibles began at a young age while dusting her mother’s McCoy pottery collection. She admits to a fondness for mid-century ceramics, uranium glass, and ancient coin hoards. Kele has a degree in archaeology and has been researching, writing, and editing in the collectibles field for many years. Reach her at kelejohnson@aimmedia.com.
