History Main / PirateBooty

* ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'': Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blanke) was captured and brainwashed by supervillain Killer Shark into thinking she was his partner Queen Killer Shark and helped beat and catcher her teammate Huntress (Helena Bertinelli). It was revealed that this Killer Shark was the grandson of the original one that brainwashed her when she battled him in the 40s, and he wanted her to lead him to his grandfather's treasure. She led Killer Shark to his grandfather's treasure, but she broke free of her brainwashing and, with the help of her teammate Huntress defeated Killer Shark. Later while Zinda and Helena are bragging to their friends about defeating Killer Shark, one of their friends asks if they can borrow some of their treasure, implying that they took the treasure Killer Shark wanted for themselves.

* "Saltbeard" from Creator/TheMostEverCompany's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZvARrqizzY Pirate ASMR]] video lets us in on the [[SpecialEffectsFailure extremely]] [[StylisticSuck convincing]] sound of "5 million golden doubloons" towards the very end of the video.

** Drake was the second of the two known pirates to have buried treasure - he stole ''so much'' treasure from the Spanish that he couldn't take it all in one trip, so he took the gold and hid the silver. Of course, since the spot where he buried the silver was only a few hundred yards away from the spot where he stole it in the first place (not wanting to haul a lot of very heavy treasure any further than he absolutely had to), the Spanish were able to find and recover it fairly quickly... Until Drake, or any one else in England's Privateer force, stole it off them again!

** Though the exact nature of this "fortune" is arguably the greatest mystery in the series. It's merely the prestige of having been the only one since Roger to make it to the end of the world that will make whoever finds it the pirate king. In all likelihood, the actual TREASURE as in silver and gold aspect of the One Piece is probably rather meagre. Speculations on what it could be range from a single piece of eight (It is ONE piece, after all) to an item that Roger was fond of.
*** "Arguably", nothing. Oda has gone on record saying that the real meaning behind the name "One Piece" is his best-kept secret. The only real hints we get about what it actually is come from two times he said that it definiely is a physical reward, and [[ItsTheJourneyThatCounts not the whole journey]] as he does not like that kind of endings. and from Whitebeard, who seems to imply that it does have genuine importance, but it is probably not the "silver and gold" kind of treasure either (at least not completely),
*** There are however other instances of Pirate booty that more fit into the cliche. Nami spent ten years collecting booty stolen from pirates to try and buy back her village from the pirates who had occupied it, only to have it taken by corrupt marines when she almost had enough.

* In ''Film/TheGoonies'', Mikey finds a TreasureMap leading to the "rich stuff" of legendary pirate [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar One-Eyed Willy]].

** Though the exact nature of this "fortune" is arguably the greatest mystery in the series. It's merely the prestige of having been the only one since Roger to make it to the end of the world that will make whoever finds it the pirate king. In all likelihood, the actual TREASURE as in silver and gold aspect of the One Piece is probably rather meagre. Speculations on what it could be range from a single piece of eight (It is ONE piece, after all) to a one piece bathing suit that Roger was fond of.
*** "Arguably", nothing. Oda has gone on record saying that the real meaning behind the name "One Piece" is his best-kept secret. The only real hints we get about what it actually is come from Whitebeard, who seems to imply that it does have genuine importance (ruling out the sillier or purely symbolic theories), but it is probably not the "silver and gold" kind of treasure either (at least not completely).

** The sky island arc is driven by the search for treasure as well, and after saving the entire island from civil war and evil overlords with god complexes, the Straw Hats decide to steal a whole bunch of treasure from those people they just saved and make off in the night. Made hilarious by the fact that as they made their escape, they were pursued by the sky islanders who they thought were trying to stop them, but were instead attempting to give them a huge golden pillar worth many times that of the loot they'd stolen. To show their appreciation. The islanders eventually gave up and let the Straw Hats think they were being all evil and piratey, much to Robin's amusement ([[OnlySaneMan she was the only one who knew]])

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Before his execution the long dead pirate Capt. Storm buried his famous treasure in a location which would decades later be right by the bandstand at Holliday College.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}''. Captain Brinebeard's game over message has him compare your skills to his buried treasure - "just a myth!"

But as they say, behind every story is a grain of truth. The idea of pirate gold most likely arose from the "Treasure Fleets" used by the kingdom of Castile-Leon to transport the silver mined in Mexico and Columbia (90% of it from just one mine in Potosi, Columbia) to Seville. On one notable occasion in the 16th century the fleet was scattered by a cyclone, and several ships were picked off by English privateers and Dutch sea beggars, both officially sanctioned by the English government and the Dutch resistance, respectively. Even today, sunken treasure ships are highly sought after by modern treasure hunters. Additionally, the ''passengers'' on ships typically carried money in the form of gold or silver, in small quantities.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* ''{{Tintin}}'' in ''Recap/TintinTheSecretOfTheUnicorn'' (a ship) and ''Recap/TintinRedRackhamsTreasure'' combines this with a {{pirate}} [[DesertIsland treasure island]] and a DismantledMacguffin TreasureMap.
* ''{{ComicBook/Hitman}}'' had an arc centered on finding a coffin full of wealth in an unmarked grave in a huge cemetary. [[spoiler: Subverted rather cruelly when it turns out the dollar bills didn't survive, leaving only a green-tinted pile of papery mush in the coffin]].

* Possibly the TropeMaker (in fiction at least) in the 1824 short story "Wolfert Webber" by WashingtonIrving which - like Poe's "The Gold Bug" - is about Kidd's buried treasure. Robert Louis Stevenson acknowledged "Wolfert Webber" as the primary inspiration for ''Literature/TreasureIsland''.

* ''TheDeep'' by Creator/PeterBenchley (made into a film in 1977) has divers discovering a [=WW2=] ship containing a cargo of morphine, which has sunk on top of a Spanish treasure ship that went down in the 18th century holding a priceless royal dowry. When a local drug kingpin takes an interest, the protagonists have to buy him off by salvaging the morphine while concealing what their real area of interest is.

--> "Haharr, I got all the Booty!"
--> "Oi, someone be plunderin' our Booty!"

The greatest amount of pirate treasure is said to be on the Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Though obviously not the Caribbean type of pirates, [[HornyVikings generations of vikings]] {{buried treasure}} [[OlderThanTheyThink from their raids]] to Northern and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea there.

* Subverted plenty of times in the ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' series. In ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' the treasure of Melee island turned out to be a t-shirt that said that you found it, and in ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge'' the McGuffin the Big Whoop turned out to be a worthless ticket for an amusement park, [[spoiler:though actually, it was later revealed that the Big Whoop was the entrance to hell, where [=LeChuck=] became an immortal Ghost/Zombie/Demon]]. The trope image is [=LeChuck's=] personal horde from ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland''; later on whenever Guybrush successfully raids a pirate ship (to get the money he needs to upgrade his cannons) he'll proudly declare "We're loaded with booty."

The reality of piracy was a lot more pragmatic. Food, fresh water, weapons and ammunition, timber, ropes, and sails were all of more immediate value to the corsair than a chest full of gold (which, if they ever got any, would promptly be ''spent'' on food, fresh water, weapons and ammunition, timber, ropes, and sails, with what was left going to drinking and whoring before they got caught and hanged). These things kept their ships and crews operating outside the reach of the law. In addition, very few cargo vessels carried that kind of wealth. Those that did were warships sailing in groups with enhanced security to fend off any pirates that might attempt an attack. (Certain, more mundane-looking cargoes, mind, might be more valuable than we would think of today--alcohol, fabrics, spices, and various "exotic" items from extremely far afield) Furthermore it was much easier to fence cargo goods than gold and jewels, and even if a pirate found such treasures they might not even understand the value of the items. In one famous case a pirate smashed a large diamond with a hammer because a crew mate got numerous smaller diamonds as his share. Feeling cheated he smashed the diamond into numerous smaller pieces.

But as they say, behind every story is a grain of truth. The idea of pirate gold most likely arose from the "Treasure Fleets" used by the kingdom of Castile-Leon to transport the silver mined in Mexico and Columbia (90% of it from just one mine in Potosi, Columbia) to Seville. On one notable occasion in the 16th century the fleet was scattered by a cyclone, and several ships were picked off by English privateers. Even today, sunken treasure ships are highly sought after by modern treasure hunters. Additionally, the ''passengers'' on ships typically carried money in the form of gold or silver, in small quantities.

The greatest amount of pirate treasure is said to be on the Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Though obviously not the Caribbean type of pirates, [[HornyVikings generations of vikings]] {{buried treasure}} [[OlderThanTheyThink from their raids]] to eastern Europe and the Black Sea there.

* Come the UsefulNotes/GreatDepression, and with gold seizures taking place across the West, especially in the USA and to a lesser extent in Europe, people began burying their gold coins and other gold objects to ensure the metal couldn't be requisitioned by the government. Some of these hoards weren't buried in the ground, but hidden in more unexpected places; in 2017, a huge hoard of Gold Full and Half Sovereigns (pre-Decimal Pound and half pound coins used in the UK and elsewhere in the British Empire) was discovered [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-39655769 sewn into purses and hidden underneath the keys of a piano donated to a college]].

** Drake was the second of the two known pirates to have buried treasure - he stole ''so much'' treasure from the Spanish that he couldn't take it all in one trip, so he took the gold and hid the silver. Of course, since the spot where he buried the silver was only a few hundred yards away from the spot where he stole it in the first place (not wanting to haul a lot of very heavy treasure any further than he absolutely had to), the Spanish were able to find and recover it fairly quickly.

* Similarly, while collecting treasure is a task in ''Pinball/PiratesOfTheCaribbean,'' it's not one of the ones needed for attaining the WizardMode.

Pirates sustained themselves and their vessels by using supplies and cargoes plundered from their victims and selling what they had no use for. This provided the coin for obtaining things they couldn't steal, paying their crews and spending a raucous night enjoying the pleasures of a seedy port.

'''Captain:''' ''[shoots him, then looks at his other men, who furiously begin digging a hole]'' Ahhr! We'll dig up the treasure in seven yarr. I've drawn a [[TreasureMap map]] on this cracker, which [[PirateParrot Polly]] will hold for safe keepin'.