Frank Halfpenny had been poor most of his life. Every day he drove a beat-up old 1971 Ford Dart to work in a thrift store five days a week, eight hours a day, earning just enough to survive financially. Frank lived in an old, dilapidated trailer and could only afford what he could buy at the local Dollar Tree store.

At work, Frank collected cheap forms of entertainment, mainly VHS tapes. His kind manager knew he was poor and allowed him to have or borrow what he needed. Frank collected all the movies he could watch on his VHS machine that had been running smoothly for at least ten years.

One day Frank brought home several VHS tapes to watch. When he slid one of the tapes into the VHS player and pressed “Play,” he saw an old man digging a hole next to a young magnolia tree on a green hill with scattered trees. The tape continued to play showing that the man continued digging for approximately 30 minutes. When the man stopped digging, he looked exhausted, trying to catch his breath. He put down his shovel and slowly walked out of the scene. Five minutes later, the old man returned with a medium-sized plastic box.

Then he walked over to the camera and opened its contents. Frank marveled when the shiny gold and silver coins appeared upright in the box. “My name is ‘Burt McCoy’ in the woods here in Savannah, Georgia. This is my rare collection of coins inside this container that I started when I was 40 years old. Now, I’m going to bury it, because I’ll be here in an hour.” He paused and continued, “If anyone finds this tape, I give you permission to search my collection that I am about to bury. These include antique gold and silver coins in top condition.”

Wondering why he was burying the coins, Frank wondered who “they” were? As he watched the rest of the video, he saw Burt burying his coins and filling the hole. Then McCoy came back to the camera and said, “I live in …”. Suddenly, the distant sound of car wheels screeching and the hum of full-power trucks rushing in his driveway made McCoy look to his right and panicked. . “Oh no! They’re here for me. I have to go now and hide!”

McCoy walked quickly to the camera and turned it off. Then the tape ended with a blizzard pattern of static running across the screen. That was the end of the tape. Frank stared at the screen for five minutes with his eyes and mouth wide open. He quickly decided to find McCoy’s coins, if they were still buried.
Frank had to find out more about Burt McCoy. So he walked to the nearest library.

He sat down at a computer and went to the Google prompt that was already waiting and typed “Burt McCoy, Savannah, GA” and hit the “Enter” key. Several hits looked promising, but one caught Frank’s eye: “March 14, 1982: An elderly local millionaire shot on his property while driving burglars out of his home with rifles.” The next message read: “Burt McCoy Killed by Robbers, Captured by Police.”
Frank began to fit the story together with the video clip of the man named “Burt McCoy.” He wondered where Burt lived, but none of the articles he reviewed gave an address. He wrote on Google: “Burt McCoy, Savannah, GA, home.” Unlucky.
Then Frank searched a list of people the man might have been related to, typing in “McCoy, Savannah, GA,” but came up with almost no results. Then, he decided to write “McCoy’s old house, Savannah, GA”. Fortunately, he had a good hit: “McCoy house demolished; property turned over to local government.”

This news article was dated September 2, 2018. Not long ago! He thought. Also, the street name of the old man’s house was included in the article, and Frank quickly jotted it down. He also searched the Internet for results of any kind derived from typing “collection of lost coins found.” Fortunately, news about the treasure was rare, which was encouraging because no one had discovered the treasure yet. But first, McCoy’s yard had to be located.

Frank ran back home to get a shovel. Then he went to the thrift store to check if they had metal detectors. Fortunately, his boss allowed him to borrow an old one without all the modern conveniences. He practiced on it for half an hour until he felt comfortable using it.

Then Frank’s heart began to race as he drove toward the property. As he got closer, he watched in horror as bulldozers were combing an area toward the rear of the property. After panicking a bit, she tried to calm herself to recall clues from watching the tape. First, McCoy had been digging next to a young magnolia tree, which had grown very large since 1982. Then, Frank remembered McCoy looking to his right when he heard the noise of car engines coming for him.

After surveying the landscape, looking for grown magnolia trees, he saw three. He looked for where the house used to be, which was to McCoy’s right. Unfortunately, all the magnolias were the top candidates for the treasure location. Frank wasted no time opening the trunk of his car to remove the detector and shovel.

Frank thought he was racing against time to find the treasure because the excavator operators might see him and come see what he was doing. Frank grabbed one of the trees and quickly turned on his detector, swinging it quickly back and forth. He didn’t get any reading with the first one. He walked as fast as he could to the second magnolia and spun the machine around it. There was no luck there either. The last tree had to be the one chosen.

By now, Frank had attracted the attention of one of the excavator operators a hundred yards away and got off the machine. Frank saw it and waved the detector wildly and quickly got a strong signal. It had to be this! He thought. Then, he dropped the detector and brandished the shovel on the ground just outside the signal.

He dug so fast that he hardly cared about damaging the container that held the coins. But, the bulldozer operator picked up his pace, walking quickly toward Frank.
Frank dug until he found the plastic container. As he pulled it off the ground. It felt quite heavy, which was a good sign that it was loaded with coins inside. The excavator operator recognized what Frank was carrying and began to pick up his pace. Frank carried the container, the detector and the shovel at the same time to his car as fast as he could. Then he was gone, just before the guy got to Frank’s car door just as he was getting out.

As soon as he drove to his trailer, he opened the dirty old plastic box and saw the coins. He looked through them and started tossing them into the air, yelling “Eureka … I’m rich!” Frank learned of the rich after taking the coins to a reputable coin dealer in Atlanta who estimated the total value of the treasure at $ 3 million, which, at auction, generated $ 4 million.

A month later, the money became available to Frank, who already knew what to do with his wealth: buy Burt McCoy’s land and build a modest house roughly where the old one stood. However, he kept his job at the thrift store in case he discovered other hidden treasures.