Can You Keep Gold If You Find It In New York State?

Gold is worth a ton of money these days. It feels like if you were lucky enough to find some on your property that you'd be set for awhile, but thanks to a weird law, it might not be worth what you think.

Let's say you're out in your backyard and you've just started your spring planting when you hit something with your shovel. It turns out, it's a chest and it's full of gold like you see on a movie. It's buried treasure that you found on your property. You'd be able to pay off every bill in your house, right? Not so fast.

There's a law in New York that says, the gold belongs to them

Believe it or not, there's a very strange old law that has been on the books since 1776 that "All deposits of gold and silver in or upon private lands and lands belonging to the state are subject to state ownership."
I didn't believe it either, but it's real.

It is in Section 81 of  Public Lands (PBL) CHAPTER 46, ARTICLE 7

Now, the good news is, that you're actually able to keep the gold, but after a few years you owe the state a royalty.

This is not a zombie law

There are things that people call "zombie laws" that are laws that are still on the books but they're absolutely ridiculous and outdated. For example, it's not illegal to keep ice cream in your pocket on a sunday in New York City (why would you?) but it's still technically on the books.

However, this is not one of those zombie laws and people are actually trying to end it with a petition online at Change.org.

They're still waiting on a couple of signatures to get it done though. Weird, right?