TREASURE TROVE

Hokitika Guardian, 3 January 1931, Page 6

TREASURE TROVE

MANY CLAIMANTS APPEAL

GERMAN IS SUCCESSFUL. SYDNEY, December 9. The disputed ownership of about 220 sovereigns found buried in a pickle bottle at Sirius Cove occupied the attention of the city coroner to-day. Many? claims were received by the police, hut after elimination there remained those of Herman Thiel, of the finder, (a boy scout named John Spain) and of the State and Commonwealth Governments. Air D’Arey Irvine, who appeared for the.. Crown, explained that under English law if the owner of treasure trove could not be found the treasure passed to the King. If it was found that this money belonged to Thiel, who was German, and that it had been buried during the war, the Crown would have some claim under the Treaty of Versailles.

Detective Hubert Thompson stated that John Spain brought the money to the detective office on October 19, 1929, and said that he found the pickle bottle with the money while scouting with his troop in Sirius Cove. Herman Thiel said that- he arrived in Sydney in 1910. Four days before the Great War broke out he withdrew £l5O in sovereigns from the bank. For five months be saved bis pay. and then lie put it all in a bottle and planted it in Sirius. Cove. Revisiting tlie spot in 1924 he unearthed the money, abstracted one half-sovereign, and reburied the money. The coroner decided that the sovereigns were the property of Herman Thiel, Tt is understood that the coroner recommended-to the State Government that, Spain should be given £SO of the money.