Everyone dreams of finding a treasure and getting rich overnight. This is supported by numerous stories of lost treasures that have not yet been found.
the Amber Room
The Amber Room was created in Prussia by the architect Eosander during the reign of King Frederick I, who spared no expense in furnishing his capital. According to his plan, Berlin in luxury and wealth was to surpass the French Versailles. Therefore, Queen Sophia-Charlotte ordered a royal study, completely decorated with amber, which in those days was not inferior in value to silver.
But the customers never saw the results: the queen died in 1709, and the king in 1713. Their son, the practical Frederick William I, refused to sponsor the expensive project in the future and presented the amber panels of the unfinished office to Peter I. The Russian emperor wrote to his wife Catherine: “The king gave me a hefty present with a yacht, which is well-tidied up in Potsdam, and a cabinet in Amber, which has long been desired. In 1717, amber panels arrived in St. Petersburg with exact instructions for their installation. Only Peter's daughter, Elizaveta Petrovna, managed to take advantage of the gift. In 1743, she ordered the installation of amber panels in the Winter Palace. But apparently not destiny was the wealth of Frederick I to be in one place. Ten years later, the panel was transferred to the Big (Catherine) Tsarskoye Selo Palace,where, under the guidance of the architect Rastrelli, it was supplemented with new details.
During World War II, the decoration of the precious room was stolen and placed by the Germans in the amber museum in Königsberg Castle. This was the last place she was shown. During the entry of Soviet troops into the city of Konisberg, the Amber Room disappeared without a trace, and its location today is shrouded in a veil of secrecy. In 1981, it was decided to restore the Amber Room in its former form, and now it can be seen in the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace.
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Theft at Lufthansa
The robbery aboard a Lufthansa aircraft is considered one of the largest in US history. It happened at Kennedy Airport (New York) on December 11, 1978. An estimated $ 5 million was stolen and jewelry worth $ 875,000 were stolen. If we translate the cost of the stolen, taking into account inflation and rising prices, to date, the amount will be $ 20 million. One of the robbers was named Henry Hill and was portrayed in the movie Goodfellas by actor Ray Liott.
Valuables and money were never found, which was largely due to the inglorious end of the robbers themselves. Jimmy Brook, who directed the robbery, got rid of the other participants in the crime, just in case, so that they would not, on occasion, become witnesses against him. Ultimately, he pocketed all the spoils that he spent on entertainment. Much of this wealth has never been discovered.
Tsar's gold
By the beginning of World War I, the Russian Empire possessed the world's largest gold reserve, which was estimated at 1 billion 695 million rubles (1,311 tons of gold, more than 60 billion dollars at the exchange rate of the 2000s). During the First World War, Russia transferred a significant part of it to European banks as a guarantee of payment to the Allies for the supply of weapons, gunpowder and food. After October 1917, no one returned the gold to the new authorities. Apparently, it continues to be kept in private banks in the USA, Great Britain and France.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government, in order to preserve the part of the gold reserve remaining after the transfer, evacuated it inland - to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Kazan gold fell into the hands of the White Guards and was transported to Omsk at the disposal of Kolchak (650 million rubles, or 505 tons). He, in turn, placed part of the national wealth in foreign banks - their further fate remains unclear. In 1919, ataman Semyonov, one of Kolchak's subordinates, seized in Chita a part of Kolchak's gold, which was sent to the United States as a guarantee of payment for the delivery of weapons (33 boxes of gold). Semyonov forwarded this to Japanese banks for the supply of military products.
According to various estimates, the total value of Russia's gold reserves found in foreign banks is estimated at between $ 100 and $ 300 billion.
Leon Trabucco's gold
In the early 1930s, Mexican millionaire Leon Trabucco made several mysterious expeditions to the New Mexico desert. At the same time, the United States was under the influence of the Great Depression that broke out in 1929-1934 - the value of the dollar fell sharply, and gold rose incredibly in its price. Therefore, Trabucco and his partners decided to earn extra money by buying out large reserves of gold in Mexico and shipping them to the United States in order to sell them profitably.
They set up their cache in the New Mexico desert in the southwestern United States. But in the end the adventurers miscalculated. Under the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, private ownership of large reserves of gold was declared illegal. On this, luck literally turned away from them. Over the next five years, all of Trabucco's partners died, and Leon himself spent the rest of his life trying to sell the unlucky gold to no avail. After his death, the location of the hidden treasures remained unknown.
Templar treasures
The Order of the Knights Templar (Templar) was founded in the Holy Land after the First Crusade by a small group of knights led by Hugo de Payne. The Order grew rich right before our eyes, especially due to its financial activities. They were the largest creditors in Europe - many European monarchs turned to them for money, which provided them with great political influence. According to the historian Lozinsky, the chief treasurer of the order was the chief treasurer of France.
As a result, they were destroyed by their own wealth - at the beginning of the XIV century, the French king Philip the Handsome, greedy for someone else's good, took advantage of his influence on the Pope and initiated proceedings against the order. The Templars were outlawed overnight. The surviving Templars transported part of the accumulated treasures on ships in an unknown direction. Subsequently, according to the legends, the Templar gold ended up in Nova Scotia, the territory of modern Canada. It is believed that part of it was transported to Oak Island, Canada, where the descendants of the knights of the temple hid it in a cache with numerous traps. But all this is just speculation. Whether hidden wealth still exists, or whether it has been divided many times over the past centuries, no one knows.
Schultz's Treasure
The Dutchman Schultz was one of the most famous American gangsters. During the era of "Prohibition" in the United States, he made a huge fortune through the so-called "wet cases", that is, the sale of illegal alcohol in various cities of the United States. Under suspicion of the investigation, Schultz hid his fortune in the Catskill Mountains (near New York).
All information about the exact location of his wealth Schultz took with him to the grave. In the decades after Schultz's death (he died in 1975), the area was flooded more than once, which should have washed out the treasure. But so far, no information has been reported about the profits accidentally found during a walk in Catskill.