HIDDEN WEALTH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 119, 4 May 1934, Page 12

HIDDEN WEALTH

Doubloons & Pieces of Eight Two recent chance discoveries of hidden wealth have recalled the days of romantic old Spain when Caballeros filled their purses with doubloons, ounces, reales and pieces of eight. The first find was made by a little boy in a village near Barcelona with the strange name of Esplugas de Llobregat. He was carrying to the village rectory an antique table which belonged to nobody in particular but was borrowed on ceremonial occasions by anyone who wished. Under his heavy load, the boy only just managed to reach the rectory door when he stumbled and fell, the table with him, on the flag stones. At that moment, before he had had time to rub his knees, he heard a clinking sound, and opened his eyes wide to see pieces of gold showering on the stones from a secret drawer which has slipped out. He called the cure, who picked up the coins, thousands of them, worth about $25,000, old, worn gold pieces minted in the far-back times when Philip 111., Charles 111. and Charles IV. were on the Spanish throne. The boy left the rectory and ran happily home, for the. cure had rewarded his labour with 16 of the gold pieces. The other diwoverv of long lost gold happened in Por+avia, a sunny little village near Vigo, where the, galleons landed their bullion from the Spanish Main in the days of Spain’s great maritime prowess. Villagers were demolishing the ruined walls of a very old house when a stroke of a pick axe set gold pieces of eight glinting in the sunlight through a rent in a little leather bag hidden in a wall. A neat pile of little bags like the fist was soon found all bulging with reales, pieces of eight and other old coins, over jPOC of them.