Western & Eastern Treasures Magazine
Featured Online Article from
Volume 33 January 1999
 Five days of intent searching in a well-worked park netted the two TH'ers scores of older coins, all from depths of over 8". |
About three months ago, I ran into a person at the Kennedy Space Center, where we both work, who is an avid treasure hunter like myself. I have met several other TH'ers at various places, but when I met Mike, I knew in the first 30 seconds that he was as severely addicted to detecting as I am! Indicative of the magnitude of our obsession, Mike and I know better than to ask one another to take a month of vacation to go treasure hunting, because the answer would be an explosive Yes! This fanaticism even causes some occasional problems with the opposite gender in our lives.
Mike has been a continuous TH'er for 27 years, and I have about 24 years of experience. As a result, we've been able to exchange valuable information and ideas which have bumped us into the "Professional TH'er" bracket, as far as performance in the field is concerned. And that's where this story really begins.
A few weeks ago, Mike recommended that we hunt a park in Titusville, Florida. Usually, I am an extremely positive person, but his suggestion soon had me complaining about something that I have always preached the exact opposite about. You see, I have never passed by this park without seeing at least one TH'er hunting there. And since I drive by it every day after work, I think I can safely say that this park has been hunted over 1,000 times. However, Mike had just purchased the identical top-of-the-line Fisher detector that I have and, after some schooling in my test garden and validating the new unit, I was eager to hit the field. So, I accepted his offer.
 Mike Holman (left) and Tom Dankowski take five while hunting a Florida park. |
The park is about 110 years old and consists of approximately ten acres of land. Upon arrival, I analyzed the soil conditions and judged nine of the ten acres undetectable for various reasons. I felt certain that only about one acre had potential to produce, and in time this proved to be correct. Mike decided to watch my techniques for a few minutes before he began hunting, but after four minutes, during which I pulled three Mercury dimes from 10-1/2" deep, Mike was done watching!
He put me to work in one area, then went to another to begin his own search. In just a few minutes he came running over to show me an 1888 Indian Head cent! A few hours each day and several days later, this particular acre had yielded three Indian Heads, two Buffalo nickels, 37 Mercury dimes, a Standing Liberty quarter, a Washington quarter, two Walking Liberty halves, and several dozen early Wheat cents. Ironically, nothing came out of the ground from 0 to 8". This credit goes to all the other TH'ers. Everything was at the extreme fringe capabilities of our detectors.
 Here's another look at the dimes, many of which acquired smoky &/or amber toning during long years of storage in the jar. |
Mike was startled by the performance of his new machine. Of course, we work "by the book," with the coil parallel to the ground lightly scrubbing the grass, using slow, methodical, overlapping sweeps. And when natural landmarks aren't sufficient to keep our patterns on track, we use colored plastic spikes to segment small areas at a time.
We did encounter one problem that I was partially aware of. When Mike and I were within 120' of each other, both of us stopped finding deep coins. This happened twice, and after the second time it resulted in an immediate departure from the park to my test garden. My hunch was right. I had Mike turn on his detector and stand 75' from me. My unit was quiet and stable; however, I could not detect my shallowest dime at 7.75". When Mike walked back to a distance of 110', I could detect the same dime, and when he turned off his detector, I could consistently detect the deepest test-garden dime buried at 11.2". This was a problem we were glad to solve, because neither of us had any idea that our detectors were quietly operating at a reduced performance level.
During our next several hunts, I made the most finds. This happens occasionally, and we are both aware of it. Of course, I had to kid him about having the edge, even though I knew sooner or later the pendulum of luck would swing back in his direction. The time? Two days!
 Uncovering a cache of silver coins is an unforgettable experience for any treasure hunter! |
Mike went out of town for the weekend and, though I didn't know it, took his detector with him. When he returned home, he immediately called me. He could hardly talk, but I didn't notice because I was excitedly telling him about finding what appeared to be my first Civil War button. In fact, I went over to Mike's house to brag, still under the assumption that he'd had a detectorless weekend. Shaking, I handed Mike the Civil War suspect. Shaking, too, he handed me a Ball fruit jar.
At first, I didn't know what I was looking at. In a few seconds, I collapsed to the floor, opening the jar on the way down. In all of Mike's 27 years of treasure hunting, he had never found a cache. Now, in a fairly big way, he had destroyed that track record. I dumped out 287 silver dimes, two Barbers and 285 Mercuries, and happily accepted my defeat!
I consider this cache to be the largest treasure hunting find I have ever witnessed. Scooping up an expensive piece of jewelry on the beach is one thing, but finding a cache is an entirely different ballgame. It came about when Mike took a tip from a friend who has a lawn service. This person told him about a piece of abandoned property where about a foot of ground had been removed, along with a house dating back to the 1920s. Mike saw an opportunity!
After hunting for about an hour and finding nothing, Mike reached the controls on his detector to ensure optimum performance- or any performance for that matter. Then he received a large signal that he felt certain was a soda can. He passed the coil over the target at different heights, and even at 2' above the ground, it was still a deafening signal. It wasn't the kind of "hit" he'd been hoping for, but after an hour of silence, at least it was something. So, mainly out of boredom, he dug.
At just over a foot, Mike felt a solid object and widened the hole. Knowing that people used to bury trash in the backyard, he wasn't particularly excited when up came an old Ball jar, intact, caked with dirt. Then he shook the jar. Silver has an unmistakable clink- a highly distinguishable, discrete frequency. And the rest is history!
Author's Note: Much credit goes to Kellyco for their instrumental logistics efforts.
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