When you understand why there are hidden treasures waiting for treasure hunters to find, you also start to realize where they might be. To begin with, people hide things. They always have and probably always will. Then, to be blunt, they die. If they told nobody where their valuables were stashed, it can be many years before anyone knows about them.

For example, when people buy gold and silver, they commonly bury it or hide it where robbers or government agents won’t find it (some are worried that gold will again be confiscated, as it was under Franklin Roosevelt’s administration). If the person later passes away without telling anyone about the treasure, it can sit there for a hundred years. Obviously, then, the best places to look for such things is in older homesteads and houses. The more history, the more likely it is that someone hid valuables and left them there for you to find.

Treasure hunting takes a certain frame of mind. You have to try to think like those who would have done the hiding. In the case of valuables the owner expected to hold long-term, like the gold mentioned above, burial is common. On the other hand, people usually want cash to be more available, so it is more likely to be hidden in walls in the house, or in a coffee can in a garage.

So, if you know of an old house owned by a family member, or that you can get permission to enter, here are some of the places that people hide money and other valuables:

Under sinks - Look especially for extra pipes that do not connect to the drainage system.

Basements - Try above ducts running along the ceiling, and inside the holes in the top row of cinder blocks that make up the walls.

Heating oil tanks - This was a favored place many years ago. Silver coins were dropped in as a saving plan for those who didn’t trust banks during the Great Depression. Shake the tank for rattling sounds.

Under car seats - I used to keep an emergency twenty-dollar bill under the car seat. Others have certainly done this as well, forgetting about when the car was sold.

In books - Putting currency in the pages of books was common at one time, and is still done. Check any books found in old houses. Bibles especially.

Pump houses - Check the ground inside old pump houses for signs of buried treasures, and look for extra pipes as well. It used to be common to put a pipe full of silver coins in a pump house to hide them.

Yard burials - Hidden treasures can be found in yards by looking for low spots. People tend to level the site after burying valuables, and then when the ground settles there is a slight depression.

Garages - Look in the rafters and eaves.

Under houses - Crawl spaces are a great place to hide things. I know a man who buried a hundred ounces of silver in the crawl space of the house where he lived. Now, what if I hadn’t known this and he passed away with the stash still there?

Think of the things that people might have buried or otherwise stashed - gold, silver, jewelry, cash, watches, stock certificates, etc. Then get into the mind of the previous occupant of a home and imagine where you might have put these valuables. That’s how you find hidden treasures.