There have been a number of great antique hoaxes through history, pranksters who know a certain piece will outlive them and that a story well told could send the unwitting on a merry chase long after the prankster is gone.
Chalk it up to the human need to reach out and tickle someone from beyond the grave, and antiques can be the perfect conveyance.
Take Patty Henken of Illinois. Patty thought her ship had come in when she pried off the seat of an old chair she was working on and a typewritten note fluttered alluringly to the ground.
The note, signed by a "Chauncey Wolcott," instructed the finder of the note to a hidden hoard of gold coins - stashed at a residence long ago and waiting for the person sharp enough to find it.
Patty did some quick mental calculations on the price of gold today, found a backhoe operator and rented some ground penetrating radar and went to the location, a vacant lot. She began to dig, and dig.
But an old friend of a deceased newspaper classified ad employee raised the alarm, identifying Chauncey as a fellow employee and a man without a pot to p... bury gold coins in. Patty knew she'd been had when the author of her note was further identified as John "Jay" Slaven - a local prankster known for his practical jokes.
It seemed Jay liked to leave typewritten notes in odd places around town, and Patty was not his only victim. As she calculated her out of pocket expenses from her "treasure hunt" it was revealed that the location where her pot of gold was meant to reside was actually the site of Slaven's home. He died in 1976.
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