A THOUSAND WORDS

Do you think we were the only ones who got preoccupied with gold treasures? Look at this extremely busy lady.  She went to the same place we went to, and sat on the same bed, leaned on the pillows inside the tiny room of this "gold holder".  She must have been awed as were by the stories, signs and pictures the buried treasures.

Nope, the gold bars were not shown to her at that time.  She saw pictures of the gold bars as we have seen their pictures.  (I have the picture in my file, but the pictures are too dark.)  But for this important person to travel more than five hours to know more about Marcos gold and all, she must have been intrigued by the stories.  Looking at this picture with her Secretary for the Department of Social Services and Development, we can tell they were listening intently, awed, mesmerized!  The fact is, their stories are often fascinating. 


Here is another interesting picture of the bars I personally saw, touched, weighed and where my small samples of gold pieces came from.  The first time I saw the bars was in the back of the Toyota Tamaraw FX.  We had to be seated at the front seats to protect their gold from us.  We could extend ourselves down to the back and hold the bars, quite a difficult position, but that was the closest they would allow us to come near to their gold bars.  The holders are often so neurotic over their gold, we had to go along with their so called "procedure".  They are always concern about procedures and system that even if you offer a large amount just to see the gold, they will not.  They have to examine you, test you, try you out, before they would allow you to see their holdings.

There was this weighing scale the holder lifted up, put it to zero or the arrow pointing to the center, while we placed the bar on it.  I asked my friend Martha (not her real name here) who claimed she is an expert to be with me.  She has been gold hunting for several years.  We were only about 2 months into it.  We weighed the bar but was not exactly 6.2 kilos.  In fact it was only about 6.1 kilos. It is tapered, and in size when we measured the bar it was about 2" x 6.2" at the top, a little less than 3" x 6.5" at the bottom, and about 1.25" in thickness. The color is much more dull and rather rough compared to the fake picture I showed at the beginning of this page. The bottom by the way is not totally flat and not levelled well.       

Now, when we started, I paid P3,000 as down payment to pay for the gasoline and the "aunt of the owner".  The arrangement was I would pay them an additional amount on a staggered basis should I assess for myself the bars to be true and have the small pieces tested by jewellers.  If I am not convinced that the bars were real gold, then I don't have to pay them anything more.

An enlarged picture. There are different markings of buried treasures.  What I saw twice was Burma with three stars.

 

We bore a hole through the Burma bar that we weighed and measured.  I agreed when the "gold holder" said he would bore through one particular bar that we weighed.  Otherwise, several bars will have plenty of holes if everyone would be allowed to choose any bar at random.  I agreed because it was measured to the right size and weighed almost 6.2 kilos.  I presumed not all bars would be exactly to the exact weight.

To me, it was an exciting moment to hold the few pieces gold in my hands.  I was the one who unwound it around the drill bit.  I knew it was real which was confirmed when Norman when he tested it with his gold tester using the manual system, rubbing it on a dark smooth stone, pouring a high concentrate of nitric acid on it and comparing the color with the different gold karats which he would rub just beside the sample.  Our gold looked higher than 22 karat gold!   

Quite frankly when I felt I would be paying more if I were convinced, I wanted to get the most out of my money.  I asked that we take a picture of the gold inside the Tamaraw.  These gold holders are somewhat neurotic and terribly suspicious, he vehemently objected to the idea afraid that we will take pictures of him and the lady aunt sitting at the back of the van.

Instead, they asked for pictures of my family and took pictures of the bars with our pictures in it. This gold holders have their hide-out somewhere in Cavite but we could never get a hint where in Cavite is it.  So, I gave them the wedding picture of my eldest son and of my husband.  Unfortunately, I lost the original copies of the  pictures to some friends who borrowed them to show-off to their buyers.  Back then, it did not seem so important to have the original pictures, until this blog.