Your guide to owning unclaimed gold

Owning Gold is a wealth goal for most Indians. In fact, 73% Indians believe that owning Gold makes the feel secure, as per the latest World Gold Council report on Indian market. In the journey to building your Gold portfolio, you may, though the chances are rare, come across unclaimed Gold. To cite an instance, a Karnataka resident in the Haradanahalli region discovered a point containing 93 Gold coins when digging a pit to construct sanitation facilities in 2014, as per a news report.

This wasn’t a one-off instance. Last year, in 2016, rumours had treasure hunters queued up at a defunct stone quarry in Rajasthan to own Gold coins dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries. Back in 1946, a treasure trove containing 1821 Gold coins was discovered in Bayana, a town in Rajasthan.

While most of these instances made it to the news owing to the large volume of Gold involved, it is quite possible that instances of coming across smaller quantities of unclaimed Gold are more frequent. A precious currency, monetarily and culturally, there are two Acts as per the Indian law that define your right to owning unclaimed Gold.

While the Indian Treasure Trove Act of 1978 helps you rightfully own abandoned Gold to make it part of your wealth collection, the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972 defines your duties when you come across Gold that dates to more than 100 years.