A Golden Harvest From The Garden

Rusted Steel Safe
Jewelry should make you happy, especially when you find it at Dallas Gold & Silver Exchange prices. But finding it in a rusty box in your backyard is pretty good as well.
 
Last month in the New York City borough of Staten Island, Matthew and Maria Colonna-Emanuel noticed a piece of rusty metal behind some trees in their garden.
 
“It was really prominent when the deer ate away all the foliage,” he said.
 
They started digging and unearthed a rusty box. Inside were a wad of soggy $100 bills and plastic bags containing gold rings, diamonds, jade and other jewelry.
 
“You dream as a kid that you find a buried treasure, and it happened,” Matthew said.
 
But they weren’t typical pirates. There was also a piece of paper with their neighbor’s address.
 
“I knocked on their door and asked if they’d ever been robbed, and they were,” he said. The box had been taken on the day after Christmas in 2011, and police told the owners not to count on recovering the estimated $52,000 worth of stuff inside.
 
The Colonna-Emanuels didn’t move in until three years later and had no idea why thieves would stash the loot in their garden.
 
“A couple people asked us, ‘Why did you return it?,’ ” Maria said. “It wasn’t even a question. It wasn’t ours.”
 
Her husband added, “The reward is karma. Good karma.”
 
We certainly hope he’s right. But in case there’s any reward money as well, the virtuous couple can fill their own jewelry box here at prices they won’t believe.