The Offer

[maipenrai]

Probably the land owner will end up trying to find it himself, and if he is Really interested in finding it, he may go the metal detector route, and just like some of us, he may get very good at it, and even to the point that this will become his hobby.
It seems that the most logical way for him to go, is try to find it himself, and after some time, a year or two, then he may turn back to Frankn, to make a deal. Since we all know something about detecting, it is hard to say what a non hunter would do, but I still think he will try it himself, I know I would, and the majority of people would. If someone told you that there was a bank account somewhere, with your name on it, what would you do? I would try to find it myself, and if all else failed, then get an expert to do it.

As for interest on this money, either in the ground or in the pocket, I doubt that interest could be counted, since it probably will never see a bank, or any other place to grow interest.

Im sure Frankn isnt letting all the secrets out of the box, so we dont know if this money is in a form that even a detector cannot find, but if it can be found with a detector, then 9 acres is not so hard to search, if determined.

 

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[Twisted One]

Twisted one, It doesn't fit. I am selling nothing. The land owner is giving me nothing. In fact I am giving the land owner $50,000 that he didn't physically have before.
As far as not paying for work not ordered, try getting a painting for the cost of the materials.
What I am doing is called working on speculation. I put the work up front and if I find the Cache I should be paid royaly, but if I don't find the cache, I loose royaly. Would you look at a new house and say I am not paying for the work, I didn't order it. Oil production is done on speculation. lets be realistic, almost everything you buy in the store was made on speculation. Think about it! Frank

I disagree. I feel you are selling your services, and asking for the majority of the findings. If you were did all of the leg work and found oil on another mans land, do you think he is going to care how much work you put into it, or repay you for the time and money you invested?

It boils down to if you agreed to a 50/50 split on the find, and the find was the $150k, you invested $15k. You made a $60k profit. split with your partner for $30k each, while the owner made $75k for being the lucky person who happened to purchase the right piece of property.

If you refuse the 50/50 split you are out the $15k you spent already aren't you? If you agreed to it, and didn't find it, you are out the same.
If you don't agree to the land owners terms, you are not only out the $15k but always going to wonder if it is there or not.

As I said before. If I was in your position, I would have agreed to the 50/50, or attempted to negotiate to a 40/60 if possible. But mainly because I am inexperienced, and would love the opportunity, as well as the fact that I don't have any highly probable leads, other than the typical treasure legends in my area.

If I were more sure of myself, as you seem to be, and had other leads I would certainly be willing to hold out for a better offer from the land owner, and risk losing it, at least until I ran out of other leads to follow. At that time if the land owner has not offered me something I found more reasonable, than I would be inclined to make another attempt to negotiate with him.

That land owner could be sitting on his porch everyday waiting for you to come back with good news, or he may have blown you off as some whacko that is chasing rainbows. Either way, it seems your loss is going to be there, while he loses nothing.

 

[Frankn]

Spart, everyone sells the image of themselves. Look at all these crazy avatars. But I am not selling him anything. I am finding something that someone else buried on his land a long time ago for a fee based on the effort put forth. He is loosing nothing and gaining plenty.
I don't discuss past finds. This is one of my basic rules, but I do discuss Future prospets and this is what usually seals the deal, but it must be applied in layers for the most effect. That is my next move.

Ouachitacaveman, I have 11 ac and several are unsearchable without a bushog. If you came up to me as a landowner, I would grab the $50K.

Twisted one, The oil speculation fits best. The investor has put out for equipment and manpower before he approached the property owner and makes a deal where he recovers his cost plus makes the lions share of the profits. People don't speculate to loose money or let you make more than they do.
I don't consider $30K for bustin my as s while he gets $75K for watching me from his easy chair a good deal.

By the way, the $15K payout on my end is only if found, so It is no pressure on me. Frank

 

[spartacus53]

Ouu, ouu I still have time for one more monkey wrench

Now what if the cache is no where near what you anticipated? I'm talking between 5-20K. Do you still have to fork over $15K for the info, or does that get renegotiated too

 

[Frankn]

Spart, Not likely, the guy that buried this cache had money coming out of his as s. As to the $15K, Yes it would automatically drop. As you can see, I operate with a bit of forsite. Frank
My biggest problem is trying to give these land owners money! LOL

 

[bigscoop]

Treasure hunting is a risky business, always has been, and there is always research time and cash investment before the actual hunting. The problem here that has to be overcome in some way is that the prior research time and cash investments weren't a condition of say, work for hire or type of agreed prior employment or partnership. Because of the nature of the business this is sort of a difficult position to address because you really don't want to expose what you know before an agreement can be reached, and yet that exposure, or certain amount of it is probably going to be critical to possibly sealing a deal, that and the past credibility of the one seeking the access and the deal. Because of some obvious and/or personal reasons this individual probably isn't going to risk exposing either forms of this information, and yet without it there really isn't anything for the land owner to place any trust or confidence in.

For me anyway, the real issue that has to be overcome here is that in today's world people are promising the delivery of fortune everyday, I probably get 10 -15 of these week just on the internet alone, another 5 - 10 each week through info commercials or programs, another 5 - 10 through the mail every week. People these days fully understand that the amount of scams out there are unlimited and far too numerous and that people are falling victim to these scams every hour of each and everyday. So, the way I see it anyway, somehow this hugely ingrained obstacle has to overcome before any offer will be taken seriously. Not sure just how you can do that without risking a little information and exposure.

 

[rockhound]

If the landowner decides to hunt for it himself, he will probably hire someone to help find it, and this will expose the possibility that a cache is buried on his land. If he doesn't find it, then one night someone will come there and find and haul away his fortune and he will not recieve anything. It is a scenario that has been repeated many times before. If Frankn had not been an honest person wanting to give the landowner a share, he would have found a way of finding the treasure over a period of several nights and the landowner would have never known anything about it. His offer of 1/3 split is a realistic one. I have seen 50/50 splits turned down because of landowner greed, and most of these treasures are still ther in the ground because of it. I have also seen some landowner agree to a split and recieve enough money to pay off their farms or homes with it. I would deffinitely take the split rather than taking a chance on losing it all to someone who stole it during the night. When a tale about a cache gets out, its like a gold rush, everyone wants it and will go to great lengths to find it, legal or not. Good Luck. rockhound

 

[justanotherbarber]

I haven't gotten a second reply yet, but here is how I look at it. My partner and myself have put in months of computer and on the ground time to locate this cache. In the last part of the search it seemed hopeless untill I contacted a "specialist" in locating people and places. I had to offer him a 10% split to locate it. he found it in 2 days complete with present owners name and address. The present owner has nothing to loose in this deal if nothing is found, but my partner and I will have lost a lot. Why should my partner and I accept 25%each and the owner collect the lions share of 50%? At 1/3 the owner stands to pick up $50,000.
The way I look at it allocated shares only go to the actual work providers and the land owner.
When I work with a partner, I agree ahead of time if we are going to pool and split finds or keep what we each find. In this case there are 3 partners, my partner , the land owner, and I. Frank

I see it like this. You did all that work without him asking you. You took it uppon yourselves to do it. Now if he had approached you to do it then you would be entitled to compensation for your time. But as of now I agree with the land owner. sorry.

 

[Frankn]

Bigscoop,He knows it's not a sham because it cost him nothing. There is no risk to him what so ever.

Justanotherbarber, I really don't understand why some of you guys don't understand speculation.
Speculation is when some or all of the work has been done before a deal has
been reached, but the work is part of the deal.
Example: a painting is done on speculation and hung in a gallery . You pay for the time spent on it before you bought it.
: you go in to look at a car. when bought you will pay for the time spent building it.
: when you buy gas, you pay for the cost of exploration.

When ever work is done to achieve a profit the buyer payes wheather the work was done before or after the deal. In a business deal, all costs are figured in. Frank

 

[bigscoop]

Bigscoop,He knows it's not a sham because it cost him nothing. There is no risk to him what so ever.


When ever work is done to achieve a profit the buyer payes wheather the work was done before or after the deal. In a business deal, all costs are figured in. Frank

I hear you Frank, but every good scam begins with the notion of getting a big return for virtually nothing, and all of them come from honest appearances. I would think you would let your good lawyer handle it for you as he has an obvious background that would probably be taken more seriously. Landowner takes communication to his lawyer, who with a bit of checking and a phone call, confirms that the guy is legitimate, as is the offer. Now this would seem to me to be a far more professional, credible way of handling it. But that's just me.

 

[TooManyHobbies]

Just spent an hour or so reading this entire thread. Very interesting. Frankn, you said the landowner bought the property as an investment. He may be smarter at buying/selling than you think. The equity in the property may have gone up in his mind, and he may be able to make money on the sale of the property just in speculation.

If I was the LO, my first thought is: "If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is". And if I didn't ask for your services, I don't want your services with your promises of riches. I see scam artist at work (not that you are, just playing devil's advocate). If in fact you know the cache exists and it will be worth that amount, put your money where your mouth is, pay him $50g in $100 bills. He'll know your serious and accept the 1/3. If your not willing to do that, I would also demand 50/50, your entity and me. I don't care if your entity is one, two, or a hundred partners. That's not his problem, it's yours. If you can't accept that, walk away. Perhaps you can buy the property when it comes to sale, or when he dies you can convince the heirs. Also, whether you are the nicest, most honest guy in the world, a stranger is always subject to caution and I personally would suspect that if your offering $50g, you stand to make a ton more that $100g.

Now, you bring in a second landowner, so you may be damaging land to not one, but two different properties, and only promising a share to the LO that the cache is on. The other guy gets to fix or pay to fix his own property at his cost? Not right. What if the cache is right on the line, who are you going to split it with and at what percentage?

I think your offer is OK, but being the offer-er and being the offer-ee is too different things. Basically, all of your hard work and research has the same value as, his land and his "Yes" response. 50/50. Good luck either way.

 

[justanotherbarber]

When ever work is done to achieve a profit the buyer payes wheather the work was done before or after the deal. In a business deal, all costs are figured in.

I do understand your logic with this, but the home owner may not and he holds the cards. I'm new to this forum and don't wanna start a fight. Just be carefull that tou don't give him too much info on the prize or pi#$ him off or you could see some dozers out there one day.

If you have never heard of the "Goat Doctors Hoard" look it up... Good example of what to do. Jimmy Sierra Normandy was involved in that a number of years ago. Very good read... Maybe you should call him and get some advice as he was the most well known Cache hunter on the planet. He has a web site www.jimmysierra.com and you can get his number from there. He will point you in the right direction.

 

[pegleglooker]

Hi Gang,
I'll tell ya this, it is very hard to beat power.... Power usually wins.... and the land owner has the power, he can say no, go look for it himself or possibly just doesn't care about it as much as a Thr.... So he can lock you out and wait YEARS before someone else comes by and then says yes ( only because he " thought " he was nicer, or accepted the landowners terms ). Find a mutual result and go get your money!!!!!

PLL

 

[Frankn]

A lot of good advice and opinions here. This is where it stands. I look at it as a 3 way split because my partner worked on it my tracing down the relatives of the orginal land owner and I worked on it trying to trace the actual property. It is easy to trace backward because the deed tells the seller, but it is hard to trace forward because the deed doesn't know the next buyer. This is complicated by the fact that deed descriptions are taken from older deeds. In the process road names change, road locations change, some have no names, only being the road from X to S etc. We had to drive hundreds of miles checking locations and interviewing people. One nice old lady In her 90's explained that the family had split into 2 branches, one there and one in the mountians to the west. Now we had two locations to check. This happened over a period of several months. We finally engauged a professional property finder for a 10% split of the $150,000 or $15K. He comes up with the location of the orginal farm site. It did not contain a usable house. and the property owner does not live on location. The locator also furnished the owners address and the name of the adjoining property and it's owner. So you can see that there is a lot of sweat equity in this on mine and my partners part.
We made an offer of a 1/3 split . It was countered with a demanding 50/50 only reply. This told me they were interested and a bit greedy. I replied explaning all the work that went into it on our part which warrented the 1/3 split. I am waiting for a reply while I shift into the next phase which I call reality. Don't ask! In the story two properties are mentioned. I got the impression that The location markers are on one property and the cache possibly on another ajoining so I sent a letter to the other land owner. Frank

 

[poorhunter78]

A lot of good advice and opinions here. This is where it stands. I look at it as a 3 way split because my partner worked on it my tracing down the relatives of the orginal land owner and I worked on it trying to trace the actual property. It is easy to trace backward because the deed tells the seller, but it is hard to trace forward because the deed doesn't know the next buyer. This is complicated by the fact that deed descriptions are taken from older deeds. In the process road names change, road locations change, some have no names, only being the road from X to S etc. We had to drive hundreds of miles checking locations and interviewing people. One nice old lady In her 90's explained that the family had split into 2 branches, one there and one in the mountians to the west. Now we had two locations to check. This happened over a period of several months. We finally engauged a professional property finder for a 10% split of the $150,000 or $15K. He comes up with the location of the orginal farm site. It did not contain a usable house. and the property owner does not live on location. The locator also furnished the owners address and the name of the adjoining property and it's owner. So you can see that there is a lot of sweat equity in this on mine and my partners part.
We made an offer of a 1/3 split . It was countered with a demanding 50/50 only reply. This told me they were interested and a bit greedy. I replied explaning all the work that went into it on our part which warrented the 1/3 split. I am waiting for a reply while I shift into the next phase which I call reality. Don't ask! In the story two properties are mentioned. I got the impression that The location markers are on one property and the cache possibly on another ajoining so I sent a letter to the other land owner. Frank

It is much easier for some folks to Speak their opinion, Without knowing how much work goes into researching history.. No matter how far back it goes..

This Project has close to 7 months of research.. Uncountable hours of computer time, On the road driving time, Library time, Public records searching and so on.. If We were to break this down and actually figure a rough estimate of hours put into this.. I have no idea how many hours we have put into this Hunt.. Frankly don't care, I have had alot of fun working with my Partner... And Yes! finding a bag full of skittles is a bonus..

Darn it!!! Now I got a sweet tooth for skittles..

Poorhunter

 

[Frankn]

Well now you all know who and what went into this project already and it's only the beginning
Now all you prospective cache hunters can see how it is done, or perhaps how it should not be done. Frank

 

[poorhunter78]

Well now you all know who and what went into this project already and it's only the beginning
Now all you prospective cache hunters can see how it is done, or perhaps how it should not be done. Frank

Oh!! Left out one thing Frank... The smell of Fresh COW $HIT

 

[justanotherbarber]

You should have told him you were from the gas company and needed to find a lost gas line and it would require a vast amount of digging and you couldnt be disturbed.

The late Karl Von Muler would tell people he was digging for ground squirrels to send to the university. When he got permission he would set up a tent with no floor so nobody could see what he was doing and dig till he found what he was looking for. He did this all over the country.

 

[limegoldconvertible68]

I still don't understand how your difficulty on locating the property owner justifies giving away $15,000. I have use the help of local genealogy services numerous times. They are all volunteers and can come up with names and location of even the most obscure people I am looking for and they do it for free. The same with court house records. Whenever I am looking for a property owner I pull up a map, get the coordinates and the county clerks office or the assessors office use their computer and give me a name and address in seconds. Finding property owners should never cost $15 grand.

 

[Frankn]

LIme, let me explane this one last time. We were dealing with a location from over 100 years ago. We didn't know the present location or land owner. We were dealing with a 100 year old hand written word description. As mentioned above, you can trace easily backwards, but not forward. The records in Maryland are partley computerized and the land office merely referres you to the computer base. The finders fee is to a private land specialist who was worth every penny because we had come to a dead end and he brought us the answer that completed the puzzle. There's an old saying, you have spend money to make money, so we feel justified in covering our cost in the split. Frank