Some Guys Have All The Luck

This sort of thing would never happen to me:

Pair digs up buried hoard in Methuen
By David Abel, Globe Staff April 26, 2005

It's everyone's fantasy, a dream we always wake up from, tormented that the images of our sleep are just illusions.

That is, finding buried treasure.

One morning three weeks ago, such a fairy tale suddenly came true for Barry Villcliff and Tim Crebase, two friends trying to dig up a small tree in Crebase's yard in Methuen, they said.

Using a spade to get at the roots, Crebase heard a thud, and about a foot down, he saw he had hit a piece of wood. The 23-year-old roofer then realized the wood was part a 2-foot-wide box.

He kept digging until he ripped the top off and found nine rusted tin cans, which decades ago -- maybe nearly a century ago -- held ginger cookies and dough. Crebase wrapped the cans in a sweatshirt and carried them to a nearby truck, where he and Villcliff, his 27-year-old boss from Manchester, N.H., began cracking them open.

''It didn't look like anything we ever saw before," Villcliff said in a phone interview last night. Then he caught a glimpse of Crebase's face and knew he found something valuable.

''I'm a pessimist; I was waiting until I got a professional review before I jumped to any conclusions," Villcliff said. ''Tim, however, was singing and dancing. He was ranting like a rabid monkey."

When they finished emptying the old cans in a milk crate, they saw before them about 1,800 bills -- including more than 900 $1 bills, 200 $2 bills, and 300 $20 bills dated from 1899 to 1929, they said. There were also a pile of gold and silver certificates and scores of notes from local banks in Methuen, Haverhill, Amesbury, Newburyport, and beyond.

The two went back to work, but later that afternoon made their way to the Village Coin Shop in Plaistow, N.H. When they walked in with their milk crate full of old greenbacks, Domenic Mangano, the shop's owner, quickly locked the door behind them.

''I was thinking, 'I've never seen anything like this in my life,' " said Mangano, who estimates their find is worth more than $100,000.

He knew they were genuine, he said, because fake bills look purposely aged.

None of the men know why the money was hidden in Crebase's yard, but they have their theories.

One is that the stash was the proceeds of a robbery. Another is that it was profits hoarded from bootlegging during Prohibition. Or, they figure, it could be the savings of immigrants who didn't trust the local banks.