Treasure hunters

SpencerT · 12-04-2011, 10:06 PM

I use to go metal detecting with a friend and his father when I was younger and the father got really into it. He took scuba classes and bought all the gear to go under water detecting. He found a ton of change, but never anything really valuable. I wonder what things you could really find in different places. Are there really any hidden treasures left in this world today?

Grandpa · 12-04-2011, 10:45 PM

yep, look at the USS Central America they found not long ago. It actually wasn't lost but they didn't have the technology to recover the gold. Why we have the legend of the Iron door in our valley where bandits hid a fortune and no one can find it.

And there are numerous lost mines, gold shipments, and sacred artifacts hidden in the High Uintas.

And here is a true story that happened just a few months ago. A friend works at a metal salvage yard adjacent to a steel plant. His company takes smashed cars, old steel, etc and shreds it for the steel plant to melt down and redraw. One of the guys was cutting up an old farm plow that had been in the pile for over a year. The main beam on the plow was a 4x6 inch tube. When he cut into it, that beam was stuffed with pvc pipe of various sizes to fit the silver coins the old farmer had hid in there. They took out two full buckets of silver coins and that doesn't count what went into pockets before they turned it in. Most of the coins were silver dollars or the silver "blanks" that private coin companies make.

Can't you just picture poor old grandpa, sitting in a nursing home and all he can do or say is nod and say plow, plow, plow and the kids laugh and say grandpa is plowing again today.

ejdixon · 12-05-2011, 05:45 AM

I'd like to believe so. The thing is to know where to look, and that can take quite a lot of researching and lots more luck.

Lamebeaver · 12-05-2011, 06:46 AM

Plenty of "lost mine" and higrader stash stories out West. I've looked for a few of them.

It's funny to know you're within a few hundred feed of millions in gold but not knowing exactly where.

Pathfinder1 · 12-05-2011, 09:27 AM

Hi...

No, I never went treasure hunting, as such.

On those rare occassions that I enjoyed prowling through private, long abandoned trash dumps I did get a few antique bottles though.

Another way of going "treasure" hunting is apparently becoming popular, thanks to the TV shows "Storage Wars", "Auction Hunters", Pickers", etc.

MountainMan22 · 12-05-2011, 01:07 PM

I have a friend that moved out west to Colorado and he actually goes panning for gold. I didn't even realize there was still gold in the ground out there, but he says there are still huge veins of it. I'd love to try it sometime since the price of gold is high now.

Bojib · 12-05-2011, 05:39 PM

There are stories around this area of people hiding their money in Mason jars, then burying them around their property. Sometimes they couldn't find all the jars that were hidden, or would fall ill and no one would no where to look.

Every now and then you'll hear of someone finding some of the old jars.

There are actually a lot of old "home places" in deep hollows that have long since been abandoned. There are no good roads in or out, you either have to hike in, or ride an ATV into some locations.

I've always wondered if someone had the right equipment if they could explore the property in the vicinity of the houses (well, remains of houses, usually only chimneys are left) and find some old treasures.

ejdixon · 12-06-2011, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MountainMan22

I have a friend that moved out west to Colorado and he actually goes panning for gold. I didn't even realize there was still gold in the ground out there, but he says there are still huge veins of it. I'd love to try it sometime since the price of gold is high now.

Has your friend have any luck with it? That would be really something I'd really wanna try out.

Grandpa · 12-06-2011, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ejdixon

Has your friend have any luck with it? That would be really something I'd really wanna try out.

Don't know about Mountainman's friend but panning and hunting for gold is thriving. Check it out.

I don't know the truth of this story but, as the story goes, the local rocket factory had a layoff and Jimbob was a prime feature of it. A co-worker had been telling stories of panning for gold in Wyoming on weekends. With no more knowledge or information than that, Jimbob, whose string of lights were pretty dim as it was, headed for Wyoming to find gold. Now, Wyoming is a big place but Jimbob did understand how gold could be washed down from above. He drove along a canyon road until he saw a likely alluvial fan coming out of a gorge, jumped out and tried dry panning some of the scree. He had no idea what he was doing, realized it, so filled a large soda cup with likely dirt and headed back home to have this co-worker check the dirt out. Turned out there was over 6 oz of gold in that cup. Sure enough, ole Jimbob has been hunting for 20 years trying to remember where he found that dirt.

Judy Ann · 12-06-2011, 08:02 AM

Pirates and privateering thrived along the Carolina coasts for a period of time. I am always hoping to stumble across Blackbeard's booty on the barrier islands. There are a lot of wrecks from when the U boats patrolled the East Coast during the World Wars. Our own USS Hunley was brought up not too long ago from the Charleston Harbor.