UnderMiner

Silver Member
Jul 27, 2014
3,780
9,633
New York City
🥇 Banner finds
2
Detector(s) used
Minelab Excalibur II, Ace 250
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Came across piles of garbage bags tossed in the woods of my local park the other day. Probably dumped by house renovators or an angry landlord. Initially sparked my curiosity because I could see alongside the garbage were everyday household items like pots, pans, and old books. Here is some of the junk I ended up bringing home (and then throwing away again).

DSC029522.jpg

So I looked through the junk and discovered a nice new Zippo Lighter.

DSC029862.jpg

If they were dumb enough to throw this nice lighter away there had to be more nice things I figured. So I took the time to look through more junk. It was gross, most of the bags were filled with water and soggy old books and papers.

Then I found the real treasure, at the bottom of one of the bags: 2 40% Silver Un-circulated Eisenhower Dollars!

DSC029542.jpg
DSC029682.jpg

A 90% silver Washington Commemorative Half Dollar!

DSC029642.jpg

A Sterling silver BMW key chain!

DSC029692.jpg

A "Sons of Liberty" Commemorative token!

DSC029742.jpg

A $2 bank roll of nickles and a $5 bank roll of dimes!

DSC029562.jpg

And a broken piggy bank-like thing that had a total of $15 in clad change in it.

I was so excited to have found this stuff that I took the whole gross bag home, water, soggy books and all. After getting over my excitement for finding 3 silver coins and a silver key chain I later examined the bank rolls and discovered that the $2 roll of nickles was in fact a roll of Buffalo Nickles! Most in exceptionally good condition! There were even 3 "V nickles" included, the oldest being from 1896!

DSC029602.jpg
DSC029832.jpg
DSC02972.JPG
DSC029712.jpg

I expected the roll of dimes to be of a similar age and be all silver, but alas my luck had run out for the day, they were all modern clad dimes.

DSC029762.jpg

The day's total: 37 Buffalo Nickles, 3 V Nickles, 2 40% silver Eisenhower Dollars, 1 90% Silver Washington Commemorative Half Dollar, a Sterling silver BMW Key Chain, a commemorative token, $20 in clad change, and a nice new Zippo lighter. (And $145 in cash that I made @ work that day, which I for some reason included in the picture, I guess to ad to the size of the day's haul lol).
 

Last edited:
Upvote 35

Old Dude

Gold Member
Feb 20, 2013
8,799
9,850
Luzerne County, Pa
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
2
Detector(s) used
Fisher F75, Garrett ATPro, Garrett GTAx 500
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
I would almost bet that was the result of a ticked off landlord that cleaned up his rental. I see the same thing here in an area I like to walk. Congrats to you....those were some great finds!
 

goldnugget

Sr. Member
Nov 3, 2005
435
241
East Coast U S A
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
Minelab XP-Pro- MinelabExcaliber -Fisher1260 Minelab E-Trac - Minelab Equinox 800
What a Haul, I'd give up my Days job to find a stash like that-Nice start for a Coin Collection-goldnugget
 

rainorshine

Sr. Member
Oct 6, 2013
293
891
Black Hills, SD
Detector(s) used
AT Gold
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I vote banner. Look at all of those beautiful nickels. Awesome job on searching through the gross junk!
 

CoinandRelicMan

Silver Member
Apr 3, 2011
3,979
2,244
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
3
Detector(s) used
E-Trac, Safari, Cortes, Musketeer, Makro Pin-Pointer
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Congrats on the Great Eyeball finding !!!
 

Garrett424

Silver Member
Jun 20, 2014
3,164
2,284
Granite, Maryland
Detector(s) used
Teknetics Omega 8000
Teknetics Delta 4000,
Deteknix XPointer,
Fiskar's Big Grip Digger & my old Army Trench shovel for the tough jobs
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
When I was a kid, my dad dumpster dived one time and found a bag full of good watches, new fishing lures and a bunch of other things that I can't remember. I don't think it was as good as your find. Congratulations.

I once watched someone dump trash in our company dumpster. I had a look and found a nice brass touch lamp that's still working over 20 years later and a really nice camcorder in a really nice case with all of the cables and hardware (this was in the pre cell phone era when you had to spend real money to shoot video). I sold the camera for 400 bucks.

My kids used to make fun of my dumpster diving (and treasure hunting) but they always got quiet when the cash showed up.

You just never know what people will dispose of. As the saying goes, one man's junk is another man's treasure. How true it is.
 

Goldiver

Bronze Member
Sep 15, 2006
2,345
1,150
Fremont, Ohio
Detector(s) used
Equinox 800, Fisher F-75 LTD2, CZ-70, CZ-21, 1280x, Vibraprobe 560, Minelab Pro-Find 35
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Very cool I admire your observation skills!

Steve
 

dirtTick

Jr. Member
Jul 7, 2014
34
42
Johns Island, SC
Detector(s) used
Minelab Equinox 800 (current)
Garrett AT PRO
White's Prizm 5G

Garrett Pro-Pointer AT (current)
Garrett CSI Pro-Pointer
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I suspect more than likely the bags belonged to a homeless person. Not proud of my friend, but he found someone's shelter in the woods of a traffic cloverleaf, and proceeded to rummage through it. He found $1500, plastic containers of 100's new dvd box sets, tools, houseware stuff, and etc. The guy apparently "collected" from stores on a regular basis, and had his own store of sorts. The shelter was completely rained out, with the roof caved in, and appeared to have been vacant for a long time. Guy probably got caught or picked up and sitting in a cell for awhile. I bet the first place he returns to is his shelter to gather his belongings.

Not saying it's a definite thing in this case, but could be.

Anyhow, cool finds.
 

DocBeav

Bronze Member
Jul 8, 2012
1,697
3,157
SE Va
🥇 Banner finds
1
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
6
Detector(s) used
Minelab Equinox 800, Minelab CTX 3030 (17", 11", 6" coils), Minelab Excalibur 800, Minelab Excalibur 1000 (w/OBN's Remote Pinpoint mod and CTX headphone connector)
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Great score man!
 

mirage83

Hero Member
Dec 20, 2009
812
581
NW Georgia
Detector(s) used
Whites MXT, XLT
Helluva good selection of trash recoveries you got there. Don't know how bad the bad parts were, but the good stuff made up for a lot of it at least.
 

OP
OP
UnderMiner

UnderMiner

Silver Member
Jul 27, 2014
3,780
9,633
New York City
🥇 Banner finds
2
Detector(s) used
Minelab Excalibur II, Ace 250
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
This batch was just in some waterlogged bags of mold and papers, but I've found treasure in much worse places than this. I'll post some images of the other treasures I've discovered whenever I have time.
 

BigWaveDave

Gold Member
Nov 22, 2013
9,322
16,996
Mountain Maryland
🥇 Banner finds
2
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
4
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT Pro, AT Max, Minelab
Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
wow, unbelievable luck to find so much...congrats!
 

treblehunter

Gold Member
Jun 18, 2013
9,675
11,295
New Jersey
Detector(s) used
Minelab Excalibur II
XP Deus
Garrett pro pointer
XP Deus MI-6 pinpointer
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top