Experts Found Gold and Silver Coins
Experts were exploring the Jeleniowskie mountain range in Poland. They were volunteer metal detectorists who were looking for treasure with the permission of the local government.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
What they were able to find were gold and silver coins that were in different locations throughout the mountain range, which are believed to have been hidden there by an 18th-century con man who supposedly swindled an ailing population.
Coins Are From 17th and 18th Centuries
Experts believe the coins date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The coins are yet to be analyzed fully, but this is scheduled for later this year and will give experts a deeper understanding of their history.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
However, the heritage experts and those who found the coins strongly believe that the coins were stolen from locals by Anthony Jaczewicz, a historic Polish fraudster.
Anthony Jaczewicz Exploited People
According to the legend, Jaczewicz claimed the Virgin Mary gifted him the power of healing. He even claimed she lived with him in a mountain hermitage.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
He would tell people this tale to exploit them. Jaczewicz would go around the ailing population and tell them he could heal them. As they were desperate to be healed, they would go along with it, and he could make a small fortune from them, which was stashed away.
Anthony Jaczewicz Was Arrested
While the ailing population fell for his charm, others weren’t as convinced. Jaczewicz was arrested, but at this point, he had amassed a fortune so large that he hired armed guards and turned the hermitage into a mountain fortress.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
He was initially sent to trial in Kraków episcopal court. However, Jaczewicz then escaped and kept his deception up before being arrested again and sentenced to life for his crimes.
The Coins Are Believed to Have Belonged to Many in Society
The initial investigations into the stolen coins have helped experts distinguish between fact and fiction. What may be even more interesting is that the coins that were stolen weren’t necessarily just from those who were sick.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
Experts believe that the coins come from fees he collected, donations, votes and coins that had been robbed from members of the nobility. They are hoping to preserve the coins in late 2024.
Poland Was Going Through War and Plague
Jaczewicz could con people so easily as Poland was going through hardship. The Great Northern War was going on at the same time as a deadly plague epidemic was rolling through the country.
Source: Pierre-Denis Martin/Wikimedia Commons
Both the war and the plague cost millions of lives, and those who were sick wanted to get better, and those who were healthy wanted to be prevented from being sick. This is where Jaczewicz was able to con people because people were so desperate that they were willing to try anything.
Criminals Tried to Steal From Jaczewicz
After they learned what Jaczewicz was up to, other criminals decided they wanted in. But instead of joining him as con artists, they decided to try to steal from him.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
This is why Jaczewicz ended up hiring guards because he needed to protect his treasure from other criminals and is also perhaps why he buried the treasure deep underground so that anyone who did manage to get past the guards would struggle to find it.
Properties Were Seized
Turning his mountain hermitage into a fortress was done by many methods, which included his hired guards seizing all of the nearby properties to make it happen.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
Other methods of stealing were done as well to help expand the fortress and get more treasure, something Jaczewicz was successful with until he was arrested on two completely separate occasions.
Other Swindlers Were Around in the 18th Century
Jaczewicz wasn’t the one and only swindler that was present at that time, as there were others that also existed that would con money out of the population.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
However, Jaczewicz is considered as the most successful, as many people in the local population would donate money to him in the hope that he would cure them and their families of their illnesses.
Jaczewicz Claimed the Pope Blessed Him
After he had been put in prison for the first time and escaped, Jaczewicz didn’t disappear from the public eye for good. He decided to keep up with his swindling.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
When he went around for a second time, he claimed that the Pope had blessed him and that he was a reformed man who could genuinely cure people. Still in the middle of war and plague, many believed him and kept giving him money until he was caught again.
The Treasure Is in a Museum
As these findings are significant, it was decided by experts and the local government to put these coins in a local museum in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski for the public to come and see.
Source: Wojewódski Urząd Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach/Facebook
While the coins are there, they are set to be preserved and will also go under further study in hopes of gathering a bit of extra history and knowledge from what may have happened hundreds of years ago.