Ben,
We are on the same page; maybe not the same paragraph... Webster's Definition of Treasure: wealth of any kind or in any form . It seems this website is to show what treasures are found and enriches its readers with other readers' explanation of how they hunt treasure. It would be a boring magazine that only shows pictures of treasure; leaving out the ways and courage it takes to find it.
For the Purest of the world, in the true meaning of the words, "Treasure Hunting", one wouldn't necessarily say your neighbor found treasure when he finally mowed the tall grass in his front yard and found his mother-in-law's old washing machine he can sell for scrap. But no matter where you hunt it, or how you post your finds, "wealth is wealth", whether measured by the pound, troy ounce, carat, rarity, etc. When I find outdated cast brass décor, I consider finding it a form of treasure if I dig it up while detecting or pay 1/4 the scrap price at a garage sale, because selling it at double or triple the price I paid lets me take that wealth and go buy "treasure" in the form of American Silver Eagles or Canadian Maple silver bullion for half the cost or for free.
In 2003, I wrote a treasure story that was sold and published by "Lost Treasure" magazine entitled, "Finding treasure with dead batteries". It was about finding things like electrical conduit, 1-1/2" thick by 4'x8' insulation panels, two trailer loads of foil-faced 6" thick fiberglass insulation, and other items after the batteries died in my detector. The two walls of my workshop where the heat load on the West and the cold soaked wall on the North ended up with an insulation factor of R-50 and the remaining walls have R-19. Enough foam panels from the big box stores, and rolls of foil faced fiberglass insulation, along with 2x6, 2x8, and 2x12" lumber, and a pallet of 30+ sacks of Portland Cement in 92lb. bags, all for free, would have cost me Thousands of dollars. So, the level of success in how you hunt and what you hunt are easiest measured by the money you made/saved. But the key to all these garage sale finds and the story's materials came down to just remembering to say "Thank You" to the people who once owned the items.....
"Treasure hunting" isn't really about "making Money", it's about finding a rarity that gives you "Options". Options to improve your life, and in turn down the line, help someone else. It's a single event or combination of those Options that make your blood pump full with adrenalin, your pulse race, and your heart feel warm with gratitude, and that "TODAY", with your treasure-find, you were triumphant over this day's adversities.
"Treasure is where you find it."....How to get the value out of it comes from where you show it and where you post it,
Bill
Remember that old saying, "Knowledge is Power".
