Karl von Mueller, National Prospector's Gazette and the history of treasure hunting

[Randy Bradford]

Just wanted to share a wonderful experience with my friends, particularly those that are interested in buried treasure, mining, folklore or history. My friend Terry Carter recently conducted a phone interview where I was given the opportunity to talk about Karl von Mueller, The National Prospector's gazette, a brief history of treasure hunting and last but not least, my recently published book: Selections from the National Prospector's Gazette Volume 1.

It's lengthy interview and is absolutely ambitious in the amount of material and topics discussed. I don't expect many folks to spend the whole hour listening, but hopefully a few of the folks on my friends list will lend their time and their ear and enjoy something that I myself enjoy enormously.

Terry Carter is the same individual I collaborated with on my Montezuma and LUE map videos and is perhaps my oldest friend in Utah stretching back to my earliest days in showing my interest in buried treasure and Utah folklore. Terry has a lot of fabulous original content on his site and I'd encourage you to take a look around there as well.

I welcome feedback...here, on FB, on the YouTube comments, or in email. Enjoy!

 

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[Rebel - KGC]

BRAVO!

 

[G.A.P.metal]

Nice going Randy
Karl is a legend and well deserved .
I have this book by Karl !
Gary

 

[mdog]

That was a good interview, Randy. The interview moved along real smooth and the audio was great. You covered a lot of subjects and, I thought, it was a good lead up to your books. I'm looking forward to reading your book. I'd like to learn more about Karl.

 

[Oroblanco]

Well done Randy!

Please do continue,

 

[Dirt1955]

Ordered 2 copies from Amazon, will be delivered tomorrow! My christmas present to me and one for an archivist in LA I need a favor from...hmmm...keep em coming Randy!

 

[Randy Bradford]

Ordered 2 copies from Amazon, will be delivered tomorrow! My christmas present to me and one for an archivist in LA I need a favor from...hmmm...keep em coming Randy!

Sure appreciate it, once I've got Volume 2 done I'm going to focus a bit more on promoting them. I have a few idea but it made more sense to hold off until I could promote two. I've got nearly 70 pages of Volume 3 done now as well. Hope you enjoy the reading, books always make an outstanding present to one's self.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Well done Randy!

Please do continue,

Not sure what to continue with other than assembling books...NPG will keep me busy through the end of next year and then its onto other projects. I like doing the videos but the truth is I know a lot but only about a few things. So far nobody's yelling at me for getting anything wrong so I'll take that as a good sign. Knowing more folks that actually knew and spent time with Karl or had letters from him might fill a few wholes and answer some questions I have though.

 

[Randy Bradford]

That was a good interview, Randy. The interview moved along real smooth and the audio was great. You covered a lot of subjects and, I thought, it was a good lead up to your books. I'm looking forward to reading your book. I'd like to learn more about Karl.

You're kind sir, its tough working with really broad questions and the reality is I don't know anything about Karl that I didn't read or wasn't told me by someone else. Frankly I don't have anyone in my immediate sphere that's into treasure hunting so I never get to have conversations about the things I'm reading and learning about.

I really did want to do something that would promote the book without sounding like an hour long commercial.

Thanks for the feedback sir...

 

[Randy Bradford]

Nice going Randy
Karl is a legend and well deserved .
I have this book by Karl !
Gary
View attachment 1524584

Wise investment, I have a copy of one of those myself. Karl was working on a revised 2nd edition that he never published, he references it in the NPG a number of times. He had a number of interesting projects that he refers to that never came to fruition for whatever reason. Thank you for the kind words...

 

[Old Bookaroo]

G.A.P.metal: Now there's a book that's close to my heart!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Dirt1955]

I recently obtained 4 issues of the "Treasure Hunter's Yearbook by A.T. Evans
1970 -1971
1971-1972
1972-1973
1974-1975
Karl von mueller is prominently mentioned with a lengthy bio in 1970 - 1971.
I have the feeling he had something to do with the publication.
How many issues did A.T.Evans issue?
I can't seem to find anything regarding the author or Eureka Press listed as the publisher.
Any help will be appreciated.

 

[mdj]

Dirt1955 : He wrote four yearbooks. You've got them all!

 

[mdj]

Randy Bradford I listened to your interview last night. I thought it was very informative. Could you please give us a complete list of all the books you plan on writing from the N.P.G. newspapers. I do plan on buying them all.

 

[Randy Bradford]

I recently obtained 4 issues of the "Treasure Hunter's Yearbook by A.T. Evans
1970 -1971
1971-1972
1972-1973
1974-1975
Karl von mueller is prominently mentioned with a lengthy bio in 1970 - 1971.
I have the feeling he had something to do with the publication.
How many issues did A.T.Evans issue?
I can't seem to find anything regarding the author or Eureka Press listed as the publisher.
Any help will be appreciated.

A.T. Evans was the publisher of the Prospector's Club newsletter, associated with the Prospector's Club of Odessa that would later be taken over by Harley Smith and ultimately became the Prospector's Club International before being sold by Smith to someone in Indiana. Smith was similarly involved with the National Treasure Hunter's League around this same time and wrote for them a great deal. I'd have to check, but he may have been the Editor/Publisher of their magazine

A.T. Evans is probably one of the most overlooked treasure personalities I can think of. It is my opinion that the Prospector's Club newsletter was probably second only to the NPG in terms of quality among the independently published "tabloid" style publications of the era. He published the "first" (I'll explain shortly) 24 issues in a book format entitled, which can be found at amazon: Treasure Classics Volume 1: Prospectors Papers.

Evans published as best I can tell beginning June 1964. His original newsletter was published on mimeographed legal paper and featured mostly reader submitted content. These legal paper issues are hard to come by, they were largely made with carbon paper and faded over time and under the best of circumstances probably just looked like letters to folks who didn't know what they were.

Beginning April 1965, Evans switched to a newspaper version with most issues being 8 pages long and absolutely packed. The above mentioned book covered April 1965 to April 1967 in it's entirety. The newspaper was small enough to fit into a binding (about the same size as the NPG books I've been putting out) and represent complete facsimiles of the originals news papers. These can be a bit pricey, but occasionally come up on Ebay in the 50 dollar range...and well worth the cost. I've bought several large batches of the newspaper itself over the years, these seem to be easier to come by than most. My suspicion is that the subscription rate was fairly low hence Evan's ability to hold onto subscribers.

One interesting note about the book (Prospectors Papers), and the Yearbooks...its rare to find them NOT signed. I cannot guess how many copies of any exist but again, my suspicion is that A.T. Evans took advantage of the booming Treasure Show phenomena of the early to mid 1970s and traveled the circuit and sold his books directly to customers at these shows. The bindings on them tend to split I've noticed, perhaps Eureka was a subsidiary of RAM who's books were similarly noted to have poor binding. The Yearbooks are rather unique and also, in my opinion, worth the price...usually around 20-30 bucks each. They can demand a premium because they are so frequently sold with his signature in them.

H Glenn Carson tried similar books in the early 1980s, with two editions of the Treasure Hunter Annual...same idea but not nearly as well done and his timing was bad. By 1980, the really big boom in treasure materials was starting to wane with many old timers having passed on and many of the smaller magazines either going under or being consolidated. I must confess, I was but a we lad then...but it doesn't take much to look through all the material and deduce a lot of this. 1965-1975 produced a ton of new newsletters, treasure clubs, magazines, etc. as it broke away from the Western and Men's magazines and developed its own identity. Coupled with the emerging and constantly improving (and price reductions) state of metal detectors, this was a prime era for writers, manufacturers and publishers that would begin to correct itself by the end of the Disco era.

Sorry, I realize I rambled a bit there...hope this answers your questions though!

 

[Randy Bradford]

Randy Bradford I listened to your interview last night. I thought it was very informative. Could you please give us a complete list of all the books you plan on writing from the N.P.G. newspapers. I do plan on buying them all.

Thanks for the feedback on the interview...some have been critical of the phone interview format...others just thought I droned on way to much, and I freely admit (and my posts attest to that), I am indeed guilty of this more than I'd care to admit.

NPG is slated to be a 4 book project

Book 1: Exanimo looks at books (complete and available)
Book 2: Ask Exanimo! (complete and available)
Book 3: Feature Articles (cover stories, mostly material greater than a page long and featuring many writers besides just KvM)
Book 4: Tips For Prospectors / Dowsing / Recoveries (Pretty much a mash up of what's left over that people might be familiar with)

The draft for Book 3 was completed last week. I still have to do editing, formatting, inserting photos, and the Index. If you have the first two books then you know I don't skimp when it comes to the Index. Books with that much disorganize information need a good index to be useful, I firmly believe that. Right now the publisher, CreateSpace, is merging with another publisher so I'm desperately hoping that goes quickly, smoothly, and that the new publishing format is as straightforward as CreateSpace was.

Once that's done I have probably 10 other treasure related projects in various stages of completion. The more I read and research and work on things the more ideas that hit me. I'll always make announcements here on Treasurenet but the one problem with Treasurenet is that its so vast its hard to reach all interested parties because many of them limit themselves to a handful of specific sub-groups.

Thanks for the feedback and I appreciate the questions...

Randy

 

[Ryano]

Karl von Mueller, National Prospector's Gazette and the history of treasure h...

Randy, where is the best place to purchase your books to ensure you get the most money earned ? Thanks

(I should've also asked Sdcfia (Steve) this before I bought his book on Amazon a few months back !)

 

[sdcfia]

Randy, where is the best place to purchase your books to ensure you get the most money earned ? Thanks

(I should've also asked Sdcfia (Steve) this before I bought his book on Amazon a few months back !)

I hope you liked it. It's a print-on-demand book from CreateSpace, which is the self-publishing subsidiary of Amazon. They set the minimum sale price and allow the writer to set the final price. I bumped their minimum price up to the next even dollar, which gives me my royalty - a big fat 59 cents. Thanks for your support. Ha ha. I started writing it originally only as a memoir for the amusement of about a dozen or so partners and friends, then discovered it was way cheaper to self-publish a book than to do my own copying, binding, etc. at a print shop. I'm always amazed when a stranger buys one.

By the way, here is the best place I've found to buy used books. https://www.bookfinder.com/ For example, last month I bought a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, for $1.09 (delivered). Granted, there are many thousands of used copies available of this book, but I got a 1912 edition, hardcover, nicely illustrated, with a portrait of Twain at the frontispiece. In near-perfect condition, pages only very slightly yellowing, slight shelf wear on cover.