Cave of gold bars

[Cubfan64]

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: You've taken a picture of a "gold bar". But .... of course ....... d/t photo/camera issues, no one viewing can discern a gold bar. But rest assured, it's a "gold bar". Right ? And then when asked "why don't you just go over and get it", the answer is : "Cultural heritage laws that forbid you from doing so". Right ?

Am I understanding the ingredients of the story correctly so far ?

Makes sense to me. I mean I can't count the number of times I've seen gold bars out there in them mountains, taken a blurry photo from a distance, then proceeded on to the next destination without going over and looking at it up close and taking a nice focused picture. If I can't pick it up due to federal regulations why bother right?

I once got a photo of "hundreds of crosses" in the ground in a remote area of the Superstitions from someone associated with John. I was unable to see a single "cross" of any kind in the photo and when I asked what they looked like up close I was told they decided not to walk over to take any closer photos and didn't want to disturb the site but there were CLEARLY hundreds of them there - I just wasn't looking closely enough.

Whatever floats your boat I guess

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Makes sense to me. I mean I can't count the number of times I've seen gold bars out there in them mountains, taken a blurry photo from a distance, then proceeded on to the next destination without going over and looking at it up close and taking a nice focused picture.....

Exactly. It is beyond dispute. Durned those cultural heritage laws in the first place ! I can't count the # of gold coin and bars I've left lying exactly where I found them "lest I upset some archaeologist 1000 miles away".

 

[azdave35]

Exactly. It is beyond dispute. Durned those cultural heritage laws in the first place ! I can't count the # of gold coin and bars I've left lying exactly where I found them "lest I upset some archaeologist 1000 miles away".

 

[John_Arizona]

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: You've taken a picture of a "gold bar". But .... of course ....... d/t photo/camera issues, no one viewing can discern a gold bar. But rest assured, it's a "gold bar". Right ? And then when asked "why don't you just go over and get it", the answer is : "Cultural heritage laws that forbid you from doing so". Right ?

Am I understanding the ingredients of the story correctly so far ?

yes

 

[John_Arizona]

Exactly. It is beyond dispute. Durned those cultural heritage laws in the first place ! I can't count the # of gold coin and bars I've left lying exactly where I found them "lest I upset some archaeologist 1000 miles away".

a bit of it is paranoia

 

[Tom_in_CA]

yes

Does the government (that you fear) know of the bar's location ? Such that perhaps some govt. official is waiting there with a ruler to slap you on the knuckles for picking up the gold bar ? If this post is not a joke, then I hope you can see that the average person reading such a thing, is not going to believe there was ever a gold bar there.

But here's a way you can capitalize off the "find" : Make a map. Go to a street corner in a big city of the Philippines. Sell the "treasure map" to the next adventurer. After all: The japanese passed through the area, and *we all know* that wherever they set foot, they buried certain treasures (gold bars) all over the place. Right ? You can make a lot of money selling treasure maps.

 

[John_Arizona]

Does the government (that you fear) know of the bar's location ? Such that perhaps some govt. official is waiting there with a ruler to slap you on the knuckles for picking up the gold bar ? If this post is not a joke, then I hope you can see that the average person reading such a thing, is not going to believe there was ever a gold bar there.

But here's a way you can capitalize off the "find" : Make a map. Go to a street corner in a big city of the Philippines. Sell the "treasure map" to the next adventurer. After all: The japanese passed through the area, and *we all know* that wherever they set foot, they buried certain treasures (gold bars) all over the place. Right ? You can make a lot of money selling treasure maps.

well, I'm not interested in making a map or even selling one for the matter. I offered to take a certain well known individual out there, but was declined... which is fine. I can respect that, not everyone wants to go marching around looking for Gold in the Superstitions, because amongst locals, it's a very touchy subject... so let's put it this way... maybe I wasn't seeing things correctly due to the 100 degree heat, maybe my camera was hallucinating, maybe object was smaller than it appeared in my camera at 100 yards, who knows and possibly we may never know. I'm not going to lose sleep over it, that picture was taken so long ago and maybe the pixels spread and disrupted the image, maybe it's nothing at all but a big piece of feces from a mountain lion.

 

[Carl995]

To me it looks like a boulder covering a shaft full of gold bars!
I'll split half for the government?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

John, I was getting a little confused here. Your avetar bio. says you are from the "Philippines". So I was thinking you were saying the gold bar was in the Philippines. Ie.: along the lines of the yamashita yarn, etc...

Ok, so your gold bar pix is from the supersititions, not the Philippines, right ? I guess it's all a moot point now. As you are now saying that you acknowledge it's not necessarily a gold bar or anything.

 

[azdave35]

John, I was getting a little confused here. Your avetar bio. says you are from the "Philippines". So I was thinking you were saying the gold bar was in the Philippines. Ie.: along the lines of the yamashita yarn, etc...

Ok, so your gold bar pix is from the supersititions, not the Philippines, right ? I guess it's all a moot point now. As you are now saying that you acknowledge it's not necessarily a gold bar or anything.

Ive heard quite a few gold and silver bar stories found in the superstion area..two different areas that carrol ingle found....the ones trapper found a couple miles south of quarter circle u...the bar carl broderick found by govt well...the ones found by lafrance...and then there is walter perrine....the bars found in the wash that runs through queen valley...there are some knotheads that say they found a fissure cave by black mesa with gold bars...there are more but i cant think of them presently...but all of these were hidden...either in a cave or buried in a wash...i've never heard of a gold bar laying on top of the ground.....but i guess there is a first time for everything

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Ive heard quite a few gold and silver bar stories found in the superstion area.....

So too have I "heard quite a few sightings of Elvis and Bigfoot". Stories are a dime a dozen.

This was exactly the play-by-play when I got ready to cache-hunt in Mexico. At the invitation of employees of mine who'd originally come from Mexico. So too did they regale me with all sort of stories of past caches found. So .... certainly .... with metal detectors it would be child's play to find more !! The stories all sounded so compelling.

But once we arrived, and went a week with nothing but a bunch of junk (and some individual old coins) to show for our efforts, I started asking my host for a little bit more info. on some of the stories we'd come down to pursue. Eg.: if he'd alluded to " ... someone who'd seen coins in a pot found ..." then I'd ask to speak to that person.

Eventually, getting introduced to that person, well ..... it turns out they didn't exactly *see* the coins for themselves. But instead had gotten it on good authority from so & so who saw it dug up. Then you track down THAT person. And guess what ? They too didn't actually *see* the treasure. But not to worry, they got it on good authority from ........

Do you see the never-ending regression ? Do you see the camp-fire stories gone awry ? Yet, humorously, in each case, the person telling the story will always tell it with iron-clad first-person certainty. Doh!

So too do I feel that this entire Lost Dutchman and Superstitions mountain nonsense, is nothing more than the same ghost-story silly-ness. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[eastcoastdetectorist]

I hope you find it! I'm not an expert but it certainly looks like something is there.

 

[somehiker]

Ive heard quite a few gold and silver bar stories found in the superstion area..two different areas that carrol ingle found....the ones trapper found a couple miles south of quarter circle u...the bar carl broderick found by govt well...the ones found by lafrance...and then there is walter perrine....the bars found in the wash that runs through queen valley...there are some knotheads that say they found a fissure cave by black mesa with gold bars...there are more but i cant think of them presently...but all of these were hidden...either in a cave or buried in a wash...i've never heard of a gold bar laying on top of the ground.....but i guess there is a first time for everything

Might not be the first time Dave. Gold ore in leather sacks was said to have been lost or dumped onto the ground during the Peralta Massacre episode.
As I sorta recall, some folks were drawn to Peters Mesa by a similar claimed find. The bag might rot away, given enough time, but not the gold.
Cargos have come loose from pack animals while crossing rough ground as well, so a similar situation involving one or a few gold bars is not inconceivable IMO.

 

[gollum]

fyi, I have parkinsons, so you'd rather say some cruddy remark about my photos, well go out there yourself and look, go look in the palo verde trees and brush, everywhere.
try to hold a camera without shaking a lot, i have a hard enough time trying to set up a tripod or anything, but i will go out an at least hike around and look and try to find what you guys talk about, but you guys would rather talk about it than look

You don't need to run down anything, because many of the people posting here live in or not too awfully far from the area.

Your previous pictures of the rocks in the saguaro, the pan full of gold, and all the pics you took of yourself in the mugshots section are nice and clear. Whatever you did with them, do with the gold bar. I don't know why you wouldn't pick it up? If you think there would be issues either legally or spiritually, I'm sure any of the locals would be glad to grab it for you!

Tom,

Good to see you posting credible skepticism again. Hahaha I took about a two year break from this asylum.


Mike

 

[gollum]

Are you asking if treasures have "markers" ? I would say no, not necessarily. I have personally posse-hunted and found several caches . Like for next-of-kin who hired me to come find stuff they suspected had been stashed by a parent or grandparent. And in each case, no, .... there was nothing "un-canny" or "mysterious" in the places we got them with our detectors. I mean .... aside from perhaps "beneath a window @ side of house", or "in the crawl space under the house next to a certain plumbing pipe or in a certain corner". etc....

And I've hunted with buddies who found "wild" ones (not commissioned posse hunts). Of which I partnered on one of those finds (jars and jars of silver coins): And they were just random placement . Found by the good fortune of having dug hub-cab sized signals. Doh! And in each case, nothing "un-canny" that we could look around afterwards and say "aha! No *wonder* that odd shaped rock was over there!" etc....

Hence when persons went to bury something: No, they did not necessarily "riddle the landscape with clues" That sounds like the plot to raiders of the lost Ark movie, eh ? Oh sure, they would have mentally made note of "next to a certain tree" or "5 paces from the bird-bath", or whatever. But nothing that would be any different than any random landscape features, of which they never mean anything.

Hence I'd have to say all the rocks and squiggle marks on your rocks and mountains can be either random coincidence. Or if man-made (lines or circles on rocks) could simply be yester-year graffiti and art.

Tom,

Much would depend on who hid the treasure, when it was hidden, and under what circumstances.


There are literally tens of thousands of Spanish/Mexican Markers between Mexico City and Utah, California and Texas. Unfortunately for most treasure hunters 99.9% of them simply show trails, protected campsites, water sources, etc. Only the tiniest .1%!of them have anything to do with hidden wealth. I have also assisted in several "next of kin" hunts. Twenty acres of dense forest in Gold Rush Country, where grandpa the prospector kept many years of panning in sealed tobacco tins hidden in a hollow tree. I can't begin to tell you how many hollow trees there are on twenty acres in the Northern Sierras. Hahaha

Prior to approximately the mid 1700s, it was virtually impossible to work a mine year round in Northern Nueva Vizcaya due to lack of any support structure and little to no protection from hostile natives. That is the primary reason authentic Spanish Mine Entrances are little more than rat holes. Easy to cover up when they left for the Summer Months. Since they are so easy to hide, they are also very to lose track of without markers to show locations.

Treasures hidden by family members are typically on a property near some obvious landmark (big tree or rock), or a specific distance and direct from a point (usually lost).

Treasures hidden by bad guys after a robbery would be hurriedly hidden without time to mark the spot.

Like I said, it would all depend on who did the hiding, when it was hidden, and under what circumstances.

Mike

 

[Rawhide]

I never call bs unless I know for a fact the guy is misinformed. The closest I have come to a bar is chips or ore hidden in a rock. I would like to think we could share here without judgement. I have heard many stories, and when I check them out I have found some truth to them. All treasure is not gold.

 

[azdave35]

Tom,

Much would depend on who hid the treasure, when it was hidden, and under what circumstances.


There are literally tens of thousands of Spanish/Mexican Markers between Mexico City and Utah, California and Texas. Unfortunately for most treasure hunters 99.9% of them simply show trails, protected campsites, water sources, etc. Only the tiniest .1%!of them have anything to do with hidden wealth. I have also assisted in several "next of kin" hunts. Twenty acres of dense forest in Gold Rush Country, where grandpa the prospector kept many years of panning in sealed tobacco tins hidden in a hollow tree. I can't begin to tell you how many hollow trees there are on twenty acres in the Northern Sierras. Hahaha

Prior to approximately the mid 1700s, it was virtually impossible to work a mine year round in Northern Nueva Vizcaya due to lack of any support structure and little to no protection from hostile natives. That is the primary reason authentic Spanish Mine Entrances are little more than rat holes. Easy to cover up when they left for the Summer Months. Since they are so easy to hide, they are also very to lose track of without markers to show locations.

Treasures hidden by family members are typically on a property near some obvious landmark (big tree or rock), or a specific distance and direct from a point (usually lost).

Treasures hidden by bad guys after a robbery would be hurriedly hidden without time to mark the spot.

Like I said, it would all depend on who did the hiding, when it was hidden, and under what circumstances.

Mike

mike....there was a treasure recovered on peralta road a number of years back...supposedly by bob ward....it was buried by a white outlaw and he carved his name in a giant saguaro ..that saguaro still stood up until a couple years ago....i drove out and tried to find it and its gone...not just knocked down...its gone...the hole the treasure came out of is still there though....

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Good conversation guys.

I am primarily a coin/relic/jewelry hunter. Not a cache hunter. I've done multiple commissioned hunts (at the request of next-of-kin). However, I did partner in one "wild" hunt, that went like this:

There was a turn of century barn, where it is known that a prior structure from the 1830's to 1850's had stood. That gave way to a wooden barn. Some buddies of mine were trying the floor of the barn to .... hopefully .... get some reales from the adobe era of the history of the site. But ... strangely .... they started getting silver coins. Lots of them. All just mercs, roosies, silver washingtons, franklin halves, etc.... Naturally these were 100 yrs. newer than what they had gone there looking for. But ...... who's complaining ? They bagged about 70-such silver coins, all scattered about the floor of this barn.

Seeking to explain the oddity, they reasoned : Barn dances must've been held in here. Eh ? But this did not explain the lack of pennies. Hmmmm.

Flash forward 10 yrs. later, and I too hunted this barn with a few friends. By the time the 5 or 6 of us who'd hunted this barn compared notes, we got a rough tally of something like 200+ silver coins. Totally strange. And some of the coins were coming out in "clumps" . Like they'd perhaps been in paper sleeves, where the paper had long since disintegrated. And this spread of coins went out the barn door, and down a hill from there.

Eventually, talking to the farmer, we figured it all out: Every couple of years he would go into the barn with his bobcat tractor to clean out the accumulated manure. And would just bulldoze it out the door, and spread it out down the hill. Hence apparently he must've cracked open buried jars over the years, and inadvertently scattered coins all over kingdom-come.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re.: skeptical kill-joy analysis of treasure stories, markers, etc....:

I know it seems counter-intuitive to "doubt" . Because you'd think that this attitude would merely cause a person to NOT go out and chase clues, stories, etc... Right ? Hence they'd simply preclude themselves from the "what if it's true?" side of the equation. Right ?

But IMHO, the opposite is true: If TH'rs would think critically and skeptically (looking for "other explanations" and "more plausible explanations"), then , after weeding out silly coincidences, ghost stories, etc..., they would find themselves only pursuing the leads that DO have potential. Their time would be better spent.

It's the same for md'ing @ single coins/relics: When researching far off sites that are going to require a drive (stage stop, ghost towns, etc....), we ask ourselves for all the reasons why it might be a waste of time. And if it starts to have too many such potential "gotchas", then we concentrate our time elsewhere, instead. This has come from 40+ yrs. of hard-knocks lessons: Would get all excited about some spot I was reading about or heard about from a friend of a friend, blah blah. Rush out there, hike for miles to reach it, ....... only to immediately see it was attributable to some other explanation. Or had a modern house on the spot. Or ..... whatever. And always, in retrospect, I'd realize that I'd put rationale skeptical thinking aside, and had only had dollar signs in my eyes.

Thus as years progressed, I'd start to be much more careful of which leads on-sites I was going to pursue. SO TOO do I believe the same logic would apply to cache hunting. So when these colorful legends come up (and un-canny markers someone sees on a rock, blah blah blah), then in my opinion, the same logic of spending time on the most-likely ones, would be the same logic.

Also: if you look down the annals of history on caches that md'rs found, I bet that all of them (the tame ones, not the commissioned ones) were merely a factor of digging jar-&-hubcap sized signals at whatever place they were hunting. Ie.: most often accidentally found, so-to-speak. And conversely, few if any caches are ever found by chasing the cryptogram clue ones, or these fabled lost-dutchman, yamashita, pearl ship, etc... ghost stories.

So if I were going to angle for caches, I'd merely get a 2-box unit, detune it so that it finds nothing smaller than a soda-can sized object, and merely scout all sorts of cellar holes and foundations of long-gone habitations.

 

[sdcfia]

... So if I were going to angle for caches, I'd merely get a 2-box unit, detune it so that it finds nothing smaller than a soda-can sized object, and merely scout all sorts of cellar holes and foundations of long-gone habitations.

By an enormous margin, the most "treasure" recoveries in this country have been jars of coins, and there have been lots of them.

Many folks believe they are on the trail of fabulous "Spanish treasure", but as Mike indicated earlier, nearly all their "evidence" is either fabrications from documents of questionable origin, obfuscation of historic events, or - if items found in the field - have nothing to do with hidden or "lost" bars of gold, et al. Before committing serious time and energy into such a "project", I'd suggest folks take off the blinders and seriously examine why they believe what they believe. Of course, if merely looking for a good reason for an adventure into the hills, it beats video games (even though the two pastimes are similar in many respects). Having said that, there likely are a handful of cache sites extant in our part of the world, but they won't be the ones splashed all over the public domain.