Buried Pirate Treasure Fact or Fake News

My 9-year old son asked me if buried pirate treasure really exists. As an antique chest and trunk expert I thought I should know the answer. Of course it does! But I thought I'd better do a little research. I was very surprised by what I discovered.

The swashbuckling16th and 17th century blood thirsty pirate definitely existed and so did their gold, silver and gems filled treasure chest, wooden legs, parrots, eye patches and skull and cross-bones. Did they really bury their pirate treasure and make a map with an X to mark its location?

The legendary pirate chest definitely existed: a wooden storage trunk which pirates used to store their ‘loot’ or ‘booty’. A large strong travel chest or strong box would have been used by pirates as they were easy to move around and pretty secure. Pirate mythology and countless films and books tell tales of pirates burying their chests on desert islands marked on a map with an X.

Image: Captain Kidd in New York Harbour by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Captain William Kidd welcoming a young woman on board his ship; other men and women crowd the deck as another woman steps aboard. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

The only real pirate known to have buried his treasure chest was the Scottish pirate William Kidd, born in Dundee 1654. Captain Kidd was hired by the British government and colonial investors in USA as a privateer, to hunt down pirates attacking British ships around North America and the Caribbean. When he failed to find any pirates, under duress from his crew he became one himself. He eventualy struck it rich when he attacked a Persian ship flying the French flag returning from Kolkata. It’s believed that he buried some of his treasure on islands while sailing to Boston. Unfortunately, the law on privateering changed, he was caught, tried for piracy in London. It’s reported that he offered part of his hidden treasure as a bribe. It didn’t work. He was found guilty and hung in 1701. Legend has it he said that if he was killed, his treasure would never be found!

Rumours and legends of buried pirate treasure chests from his adventures before he returned to his home in New York are still circulating. A very large silver bar was found aboard one of Captain Kidd’s sunken ships in 2015. Since then people are still looking for his buried treasure chest.

Myth 1: Pirates rarely found a treasure chest filled with gold, silver and gems. The ships pirates attacked would have been carrying: spices, remebering that many tropical spices (sffaron, cloves) were worth their weight in gold, calico, cotton, slaves, silk, opium and tea.

Myth 2: A treasure chest wouldn’t have stayed full for very long. The pirates would have quickly divided it up and spent it on arrival in ports on their travels.

Myth 3: Rumours about Kidd’s buried treasure continued into the c19th. A set of maps were discovered in 1849. The maps pinpointed the exact location of Kidd’s buried treasure in the China Seas with an 'X' on the spot.Expeditions as late as 1951 were sent to find the buried treasure. None was ever found. The British museum revealed the maps were fakes. Kidd had never sailed anywhere near that part of Asia.

Myth 4: The likely explanation for the myth is that Captain Kidd became the inspiration for the epic pirate novels by authors in the mid to late 1800s. Robert Louis Stevenson, in 1883, wrote Treasure Island and Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Gold Bug. Captain Kidd’s and other blood thirsty pirates’ exploits looting treasure chests over- flowing with gold have simply become more exaggerated over time. Or became 'fake news'. Sorry but buried pirate treasure didn’t really exist.

Of course this should not stop us from reliving their adventures and exploits.

The travel trunk above is a late Victorian trunk from 1890s and would have been similar to the trunks pirates would have used to store their treasure. Modern day ‘treasure chests’ might come in various shapes and sizes: from smaller memory boxes or jewellery chests with lots of compartments and trays, padlocks for keeping your ‘treasures’ locked away, to larger blanket and storage chests which will make a bolder pirate-style statement. Whichever size and style suit your personal taste, Scaramanga has a wide range of antique and vintage wooden chests, coffers, trunks and boxes which look like pirates chests, for storing your own personal valuables. So, whilst there may never truly have been any buried pirate’s treasure to discover, the beauty of the treasure chest need not remain a myth – you can display one in your own home.

Image: early 1820s Georgian learther travelling trunk

Scaramanga specialises in antique wooden chests, antique travel trunks, antique coffers, kists, blanket boxes and antique storage boxes. We probably have one of the widest ranges in the UK. Each antique wooden chest and trunk has been meticulously restored by skilled craftsmen to ensure it can be used for many years to come. See our range of wood storage trunks and pirate chests.