Great ideas over at Ars Ludi on using treasure to impart important adventure information to player characters:

You can describe some detail about a room they search, or lecture them about history and lore when they talk to random NPCs, and sometimes they’ll listen and sometimes they won’t. But when you drop clues as treasure details you can be certain they will hear you and wonder what it means.

I’d also add that if you provide a 3x5 or 4x6 card for each detailed treasure item, include the story and/or clues on the card. Because they will keep looking back at that card trying to find a better use for that treasure. And since they pay attention when they get treasure, there’s a good that that they’ll remember when they come across something similar in the future.