(WSVN) - A couple renovating their lawn in New Jersey found a secret stash in their backyard that seems to have been there nearly 100 years, and there’s a South Florida connection.
The woman, who is from South Florida, and her husband found buried treasure, but how it ended up in their yard remains a mystery.
Richard Gilson was doing renovations with a mini excavator when he found something in the ground.
“And I find these two, just like these things here, and I think that they’re roots that grew in a pipe or something, so I threw them in the soil pile, thinking I’ll use them for back fill,” said Gilson.
A few days later, he took a closer look.
“It must have been torn by the rake because I could see the edge of it, and I could see by the edge that it was paper,” said Gilson, “and when I dug a little deeper, I could see it was green paper, like money, and right then I knew what happened. I thought ‘Oh, that was buried.'”
Gilson and his wife Suzanne Gilson, who is originally from Hialeah, found out they were dollar bills that dated to the 1930s.
“We started to take it apart, and it was all these small little cigarette sized, 10 of them to a bundle, and it ended up being 10s and 20s that were rolled up and buried in the ground– 1934, every bill here has a date of 1934,” said Richard.
The Gilsons found another bundle of cash a couple of days later that added up to about $1,000 in total. In 1934, this stash would have been worth about $20,000.
“It’s just interesting,” said Suzanne. “It’s interesting to imagine almost 100 years ago, someone, you know, rolling up his money, wrapping it up, tying it up with rubber bands, and then crawling 45 feet in the crawl space and burying it.”
Despite the discovery, the Gilsons said they don’t plan on spending it.
“I think that what I would probably do is just make like a little display case for it, potentially,” said Richard.
Now, they have a message for other homeowners.
“There may be more value in your home than you know,” said Suzanne.
“We don’t want anybody bringing their shovel,” said Richard.
Suzanne moved from South Florida to New Jersey over 30 years ago.
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