Indianhead Jones
Hero Member
- Jul 28, 2008
- 695
- 9
- Detector(s) used
- White's Eagle Spectrum/White's Eagle II
1800's Coin Purse Spill...And A Ghost Story (?) WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT!
This is not a pleasant story, and I thought long and hard about posting it, but it was a hard lesson learned for me, and perhaps it will serve to convince others to avoid making the same stupid mistake that I did.
I want to assure everyone at the outset that this story is absolutely true...no lies, no embellishment. But you'll have to take my word for it.
It's about a spectacular coin purse spill recovered, and one of the most frightening days of my life.
It happened in the summer of 1986, with my detecting buddy Ken, who just passed away a few weeks ago from leukemia.
Ken had been laid off from his job, and was collecting unemployment insurance, and one Monday morning, I took a ride with him to the next town while he picked up his unemployment check. We were going to do some detecting later that day.
We arrived at the unemployment office, and I decided to take a short walk while he waited his turn in line. The town itself was, and still is, an economically-depressed, high-crime, low-income medium-size town, with a very high unemployment rate. The town went into receivership after the arrests and convictions of the Mayor and other city officials after a major corruption scandal, involving stolen city funds along with police corruption. I think you get the picture.
I walked up the street to get a cup of coffee, and as I stood outside the coffee shop, just up the street the town's original burial ground was in view. I walked over to check it out, and was horrified, to say the least at what I saw. The small cemetary, about a block square, was totally vandalized....it's ornate iron fencing torn down in places, and the entire cemetary was defaced with spray-painted graffiti, littered with liquor bottles, beer cans and other garbage, and headstones toppled and broken. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing...it was a sickening sight.
When I met up with Ken again, I took him over to see what I had seen. I then got an idea that I would come to regret.
I told him that we could possibly detect the cemetery and maybe find some old coins, as it dated back to the 1600's, but also, we could bring garbage bags with us and clean up garbage at the same time, try to right the headstones, and do whatever else we could to try and give the residents of this once-beautiful burial ground some of their dignity back. The detecting would take a back seat to the cleanup effort.
So, we set the rules: We would ONLY detect the common areas of the cemetary, and stay clear of the actual grave sites. And we would ONLY do this after we picked up as much trash and garbage as possible. It was going to take more than one day to do all this, so we decided on the first trip to pick up trash and right the headstones, and do a few minutes of detecting afterward to see if there were treasures to be found in the common areas, such as the perimeter of the fence-line, and the walking paths that criss-crossed the common areas. If it panned out, we would come back for a second trip to pick up more trash, fix headstones, and do some more detecting.
We arrived back the next Saturday morning, got out the trash bags and started to work. In a few hours, we had filled four trash bags, and had righted a section of headstones, and gathered pieces of broken stones to try and match them up. We were exhausted, so we decided to spend a short time detecting the common areas away from the actual grave sites, and hopefully find some very old coins.
WARNING! THE FOLLOWING IS VERY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING! DON'T READ ON IF YOU ARE EASILY FRIGHTENED OR UPSET!
I started working a path around the perimeter, close to the iron fencing surrounding the cemetery. Ken started at the main gates, which also had been torn up by the vandals described earlier. I quickly found a few silver coins from the 1930's, and I realized that our hard work earlier was going to be rewarded.
I had just centered another signal which was reading in the silver range, when all of a sudden the sound in my headphones quit. I was using a Whites 6000/Di Pro, and thinking my batteries were dead, I was about to open the compartment to check them. I was shocked to discover that all the knobs on the detector were turned all the way to the minimum setting, and the main power knob was switched all the way off. This was very disturbing, and I wondered how I could have accidentally hit all 6 knobs to their minimum settings, and actually switch off the detector at the same time.
I switched the detector back on, reset all the knobs, and ground balanced again. My threshold hum came back, and everything seemed normal again, so I continued to dig the target, which turned out to be a Standing Liberty quarter...a beauty that looked almost uncirculated, and even had much of it's mint luster. I pushed on, knowing that more silver was sure to be found.
After a few minutes more, the threshold hum again disappeared, and I lifted the detector and discovered that once again, all the knobs were set at minimum, and the main power knob was again switched all the way off. At this point, I began feeling nauseated, started sweating, (it was a cool day) and felt like I might get sick. Then, I started shaking, and feeling very nervous and scared, and I didn't know why. It was a horrible feeling of dread and panic, so I started walking to the main gates to tell Ken that I was feeling sick, and that I wanted to get out of there.
I walked across the center of the cemetery towards Ken, and as I walked, I was passing a raised area where tombs were situated against a small hillside. It was then that I noticed that the tombs didn't escape the sick and twisted vandals who had desecrated this ancient burial ground. Most of the tombs had been broken into, and I walked over to see how much damage had been done. I peered into one tomb that had its door torn off, and what I saw actually made me start crying. The poor individual to whom this tomb belonged had also been desecrated. The bones had been arranged to spell out a filthy word, and this person's skull had been smashed. I couldn't take any more...I started running and vomiting at the same time, and now the scared feeling had turned to full-blown panic.
I ran towards Ken to grab him and get out of there when I heard him yelling at me, a huge smile on his face, and pointing to a pile of coins on the ground next to him. He was still taking coins out of the hole next to him, and he was so excited that he was screaming with joy. I told him to get up and move his butt (I didn't say "butt") as fast as he could toward the car. I grabbed his detector and he scooped up the coins and was swearing at me as I manhandled him out the gate and toward the car. He was furious, but I didn't have time to explain...I just dragged and dragged him until we reached the car. I grabbed his car keys and no sooner was he inside that I sped off down the street, still under his verbal attacks. He was furious to say the least.
On the way home, he showed me what he was so excited about, and I couldn't believe my eyes. He had detected the remains of a very old coin purse, and it's contents...38 beautiful old coins, only 5 of which were copper. There were bust dimes, several bust quarters, silver 3-cent pieces...all from the 1830's to the 1860's. My eyes were staring at them, my hand was holding them, but I simply could not believe that Ken had found this beautiful pile of coins, and the remains of the old coin purse that had once held them.
I was sick to my stomach all the rest of that day, and I had nightmares that night. The next day, I called Ken and related everything that had happened to me, and the heart-breaking things I had seen. I also told him that I felt as if the treasures we dug were stolen from that sacred place, and that they didn't belong to us, and should never have been disturbed. I also said that I felt great about the cleanup efforts we made there, but the things that happened to me had me convinced that the poor souls who rested there were angry, and that maybe it was their way of crying out that they had had enough of us, as well as the sick vandals who came before us. And as much as I wanted to finish the cleanup that we had started, I just couldn't go back again.
Well, nothing out of the ordinary had happened to Ken the entire time we were there, and he found all this quite amusing. We had a falling out after that. We still made detecting trips together, but things between us were never the same.
I got rid of the coins I had dug, for my own peace of mind. I actually wanted to re-bury them where I found them, but after that day, I couldn't go back there.
And Ken, who was still a novice treasure hunter, with much to learn about collector-grade coins, had taken Brillo pads and polished to a mirror-gloss, each and every one of the coins he had recovered from the coin purse spill.
I was a much younger man in 1986, and subject to stupid ideas on occasion. I actually believed that cleaning up that sad, vandalized burial ground gave Ken and I the "right" to detect there. I was wrong, and found out the hard way.
I'm sure that some people in this forum will disagree, but I believe in my heart that what happened to me that day was a true paranormal experience. The incident I described with the knobs on my detector had never happened prior to that day, and never occurred again.
I did a lot of growing up after that day, as far as being a responsible treasure hunter is concerned. There are simply places where treasure hunters and metal detectors don't belong...and burial grounds are at the top of the list.
As a footnote to this story....that sad, depressed town had more than it's share of problems. My subsequent phone calls to the officials who had taken over the jobs of running it, regarding the plight of it's burial ground, and the poor souls who rested there, fell on deaf ears. They had "other things to worry about".
Larry G.
This is not a pleasant story, and I thought long and hard about posting it, but it was a hard lesson learned for me, and perhaps it will serve to convince others to avoid making the same stupid mistake that I did.
I want to assure everyone at the outset that this story is absolutely true...no lies, no embellishment. But you'll have to take my word for it.
It's about a spectacular coin purse spill recovered, and one of the most frightening days of my life.
It happened in the summer of 1986, with my detecting buddy Ken, who just passed away a few weeks ago from leukemia.
Ken had been laid off from his job, and was collecting unemployment insurance, and one Monday morning, I took a ride with him to the next town while he picked up his unemployment check. We were going to do some detecting later that day.
We arrived at the unemployment office, and I decided to take a short walk while he waited his turn in line. The town itself was, and still is, an economically-depressed, high-crime, low-income medium-size town, with a very high unemployment rate. The town went into receivership after the arrests and convictions of the Mayor and other city officials after a major corruption scandal, involving stolen city funds along with police corruption. I think you get the picture.
I walked up the street to get a cup of coffee, and as I stood outside the coffee shop, just up the street the town's original burial ground was in view. I walked over to check it out, and was horrified, to say the least at what I saw. The small cemetary, about a block square, was totally vandalized....it's ornate iron fencing torn down in places, and the entire cemetary was defaced with spray-painted graffiti, littered with liquor bottles, beer cans and other garbage, and headstones toppled and broken. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing...it was a sickening sight.
When I met up with Ken again, I took him over to see what I had seen. I then got an idea that I would come to regret.
I told him that we could possibly detect the cemetery and maybe find some old coins, as it dated back to the 1600's, but also, we could bring garbage bags with us and clean up garbage at the same time, try to right the headstones, and do whatever else we could to try and give the residents of this once-beautiful burial ground some of their dignity back. The detecting would take a back seat to the cleanup effort.
So, we set the rules: We would ONLY detect the common areas of the cemetary, and stay clear of the actual grave sites. And we would ONLY do this after we picked up as much trash and garbage as possible. It was going to take more than one day to do all this, so we decided on the first trip to pick up trash and right the headstones, and do a few minutes of detecting afterward to see if there were treasures to be found in the common areas, such as the perimeter of the fence-line, and the walking paths that criss-crossed the common areas. If it panned out, we would come back for a second trip to pick up more trash, fix headstones, and do some more detecting.
We arrived back the next Saturday morning, got out the trash bags and started to work. In a few hours, we had filled four trash bags, and had righted a section of headstones, and gathered pieces of broken stones to try and match them up. We were exhausted, so we decided to spend a short time detecting the common areas away from the actual grave sites, and hopefully find some very old coins.
WARNING! THE FOLLOWING IS VERY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING! DON'T READ ON IF YOU ARE EASILY FRIGHTENED OR UPSET!
I started working a path around the perimeter, close to the iron fencing surrounding the cemetery. Ken started at the main gates, which also had been torn up by the vandals described earlier. I quickly found a few silver coins from the 1930's, and I realized that our hard work earlier was going to be rewarded.
I had just centered another signal which was reading in the silver range, when all of a sudden the sound in my headphones quit. I was using a Whites 6000/Di Pro, and thinking my batteries were dead, I was about to open the compartment to check them. I was shocked to discover that all the knobs on the detector were turned all the way to the minimum setting, and the main power knob was switched all the way off. This was very disturbing, and I wondered how I could have accidentally hit all 6 knobs to their minimum settings, and actually switch off the detector at the same time.
I switched the detector back on, reset all the knobs, and ground balanced again. My threshold hum came back, and everything seemed normal again, so I continued to dig the target, which turned out to be a Standing Liberty quarter...a beauty that looked almost uncirculated, and even had much of it's mint luster. I pushed on, knowing that more silver was sure to be found.
After a few minutes more, the threshold hum again disappeared, and I lifted the detector and discovered that once again, all the knobs were set at minimum, and the main power knob was again switched all the way off. At this point, I began feeling nauseated, started sweating, (it was a cool day) and felt like I might get sick. Then, I started shaking, and feeling very nervous and scared, and I didn't know why. It was a horrible feeling of dread and panic, so I started walking to the main gates to tell Ken that I was feeling sick, and that I wanted to get out of there.
I walked across the center of the cemetery towards Ken, and as I walked, I was passing a raised area where tombs were situated against a small hillside. It was then that I noticed that the tombs didn't escape the sick and twisted vandals who had desecrated this ancient burial ground. Most of the tombs had been broken into, and I walked over to see how much damage had been done. I peered into one tomb that had its door torn off, and what I saw actually made me start crying. The poor individual to whom this tomb belonged had also been desecrated. The bones had been arranged to spell out a filthy word, and this person's skull had been smashed. I couldn't take any more...I started running and vomiting at the same time, and now the scared feeling had turned to full-blown panic.
I ran towards Ken to grab him and get out of there when I heard him yelling at me, a huge smile on his face, and pointing to a pile of coins on the ground next to him. He was still taking coins out of the hole next to him, and he was so excited that he was screaming with joy. I told him to get up and move his butt (I didn't say "butt") as fast as he could toward the car. I grabbed his detector and he scooped up the coins and was swearing at me as I manhandled him out the gate and toward the car. He was furious, but I didn't have time to explain...I just dragged and dragged him until we reached the car. I grabbed his car keys and no sooner was he inside that I sped off down the street, still under his verbal attacks. He was furious to say the least.
On the way home, he showed me what he was so excited about, and I couldn't believe my eyes. He had detected the remains of a very old coin purse, and it's contents...38 beautiful old coins, only 5 of which were copper. There were bust dimes, several bust quarters, silver 3-cent pieces...all from the 1830's to the 1860's. My eyes were staring at them, my hand was holding them, but I simply could not believe that Ken had found this beautiful pile of coins, and the remains of the old coin purse that had once held them.
I was sick to my stomach all the rest of that day, and I had nightmares that night. The next day, I called Ken and related everything that had happened to me, and the heart-breaking things I had seen. I also told him that I felt as if the treasures we dug were stolen from that sacred place, and that they didn't belong to us, and should never have been disturbed. I also said that I felt great about the cleanup efforts we made there, but the things that happened to me had me convinced that the poor souls who rested there were angry, and that maybe it was their way of crying out that they had had enough of us, as well as the sick vandals who came before us. And as much as I wanted to finish the cleanup that we had started, I just couldn't go back again.
Well, nothing out of the ordinary had happened to Ken the entire time we were there, and he found all this quite amusing. We had a falling out after that. We still made detecting trips together, but things between us were never the same.
I got rid of the coins I had dug, for my own peace of mind. I actually wanted to re-bury them where I found them, but after that day, I couldn't go back there.
And Ken, who was still a novice treasure hunter, with much to learn about collector-grade coins, had taken Brillo pads and polished to a mirror-gloss, each and every one of the coins he had recovered from the coin purse spill.
I was a much younger man in 1986, and subject to stupid ideas on occasion. I actually believed that cleaning up that sad, vandalized burial ground gave Ken and I the "right" to detect there. I was wrong, and found out the hard way.
I'm sure that some people in this forum will disagree, but I believe in my heart that what happened to me that day was a true paranormal experience. The incident I described with the knobs on my detector had never happened prior to that day, and never occurred again.
I did a lot of growing up after that day, as far as being a responsible treasure hunter is concerned. There are simply places where treasure hunters and metal detectors don't belong...and burial grounds are at the top of the list.
As a footnote to this story....that sad, depressed town had more than it's share of problems. My subsequent phone calls to the officials who had taken over the jobs of running it, regarding the plight of it's burial ground, and the poor souls who rested there, fell on deaf ears. They had "other things to worry about".
Larry G.
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