Curious Inquiry

[Mkriegs]

Hi, I have been metal detecting for several years now and have always been skeptical about the plentiful existence of true caches. I was just wondering how often you all true cache hunters make good discovery?? I understand why you dont post your finds on here but was just skeptical and curious.

 

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[Mkriegs]

*discoveries

 

[gunsil]

They in fact are not plentiful, but pretty rare. More are found inside structures than outside. See if your library can get you a copy of "Treasure Hunter's Manual #7" by Karl VonMueller. It is the definitive book on the subject as well as other aspects of land treasure hunting. The book is kind of hard to find, but one sold on ebay a few days back, perhaps you could find one on Amazon. I just looked on Amazon, and there is one used copy available, a new one too, but the price is crazy on the new one.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Caches are indeed plentiful. It's the abandoned and forgotten ones that are rare. Most people eventually recover and spend their hidden loot.

For you to have a chance of finding a cache, you have to find the people who had money beyond the cost of living, then they had to be someone who didn't trust banks for this excess money, then they had to die very suddenly or suffer a massive stroke that prevented them from recovering or divulging the location. Finally they had to have no heirs who had any idea of the money who would then go looking for it.

Once you find all those circumstances you have to try to put yourself in the mind of the hider and hope things haven't changed since the cache was hidden.

 

[gunsil]

Yes Jason, I should have said that "lost" caches are rare, but I suppose I just figured that was what the OP was referring to. I have lost a few small ones I buried as a kid and lost something I buried in the woods after a forest fire destroyed my tree markers. Although my "cache" was metallic, the woods where I buried it are full of iron ore so good that even large rocks set off a detector. Your tip that you have to find people who had enough to need to hide in the first place is largely missed by most folks who hear all the stories about buried hoards when nobody in the vicinity ever had that kind of money in the first place.

 

[MLively]

Interesting thread, I too am a MD and have often wanted to venture off into cache hunting. I have a good lead that I'm am going to pursue in the next couple of months. The said person that his it died from a stroke and had no wife or kids. But the family knew of his cache but didn't know where it was placed. Hopefully I can set one morning to try and figure it out while at the location. HH


Proud to be a Texan!

 

[Msbeepbeep]

Yep, and most caches are small like $100. The bigger ones are usually hidden better to avoid accidentally discovery, and the bigger ones that are found and done right, you will never know or hear of. It's how the game is played.
I wish you GL in your search and hope you are successful!

 

[Frankn]

There are many cache stories. The most popular ones will never be found because a lot of them are 'made up'. I have searched for many caches, found a few small ones. I am still looking for the big one. I will give you an idea of what you are up against. I searched for the gold bars at Dents Run supposedly 'stolen' by attackers, or by the guards themselves. It was an iffy story to start because it had a few 'holes' in it. The officer in charge was officially listed as being stationed out west, not in PA area. The route taken kind of vanished near the end. I looked for two weekends on location. What broke it was when I went in to have breakfast, I wound up with a group of locals that clued me in. The story was rehatched from an old fable with no basis in fact by an author who wanted to sell a book. The state parks dept decided to use the tail also to promote tourism. They even made an old map copy of the route and marked the trails in the woods. Hay, it was nice in the woods except for the large rattlers. Here's my camp on that location. Frank...

 

[YumaMarc]

Caches are indeed plentiful. It's the abandoned and forgotten ones that are rare. Most people eventually recover and spend their hidden loot.

For you to have a chance of finding a cache, you have to find the people who had money beyond the cost of living, then they had to be someone who didn't trust banks for this excess money, then they had to die very suddenly or suffer a massive stroke that prevented them from recovering or divulging the location. Finally they had to have no heirs who had any idea of the money who would then go looking for it.

Once you find all those circumstances you have to try to put yourself in the mind of the hider and hope things haven't changed since the cache was hidden.

I think there are localities where the possibilities are greater than others. I lived on the Mexican border for many years and heard countless stories of buried loot. I can see how it is definitely possible in Mexico due to the chaos of the Revolution of 1910 when banks, besides not being trusted anyway, were robbed and burned, villages looted and razed to the ground, any males carried off to be forced into one semi-military faction or other, and untold thousands of people displaced from what had been their homes. Anyone with any valuables buried them in the ground so as not to be found by the next gang of banditos to arrive. People who were forced to vacate their homes took as little as possible so that they had less to lose to the next robber. Probably many caches of buried valuables are still in the ground all over Mexico due to many of the owners ending up like these guys, shot merely for the suspicion of being on the "wrong" side.

 

[NEPADIGGER7]

Bang.curious sometimes makes your win