I need some advice - Post Hole Banks

[PatrickD]

Hi Everyone,

I have a keen interest in searching for old post hole banks or other squirreled away savings that might be recoverable.

However, aside from just the obvious reasons, I could use some shared experience, thoughts, or ideas on where/how to search.

Do you have anything to get me up to speed to minimize my learning curve?

Thanks,

Patrick

 

[SusanMN]

I'd try posting on the Cache board.

 

[Frankn]

It's mostly pot luck unless you have a factual account to hunt.
If they are under a post, usually the post will be 'loose' in the ground. Also, the wire will be esily removed or in some cases, not attached to that post.
In some cases the cache might not even be under a post, but rather a couple of paces off, perpendicular to the fence.
Some things to think about, Frank...

 

[Jason in Enid]

It's mostly pot luck unless you have a factual account to hunt.
If they are under a post, usually the post will be 'loose' in the ground. Also, the wire will be esily removed or in some cases, not attached to that post.
In some cases the cache might not even be under a post, but rather a couple of paces off, perpendicular to the fence.
Some things to think about, Frank...

Yep, just what he said.

 

[rginn]

In the case of my family years ago, post hole banks are a myth. True, they did not trust banks, but they had no money to be buryin somewhere and that might be the case in a lot of other tales. However, there might be one or two. I would pay close attention to the corner posts of an area. Good markers, and generally they don't change.

 

[releventchair]

Go out and hide stuff, you may by thinking on it awhile, want to hide stuff where you can keep an eye on it without being obvious, and at the same time be able to recover it if others were watching you. Speed and privacy but under your care. At night? easy access year round,not a spot others likely to disturb or notice disturbed. That piece of plank that is an out building threshold removable? Keep thinking. Loose single rock,brick,piece of trim, wall outlet. Maybe the wood post you thought needed to be wrested from its mould hole to check under had a hole cut and plugged in the post itself looking like just another knot. Most out house visits are private and lots of ways to hide stuff in and around them. Different sex and different age groups were in different places more than others were. The time worn loose board in chicken coop hiding a homesteading womans egg money.The one in the barn hiding the ol mans card playing money. Different reasons as well as.(Different!, think different depending who why how when and wheres approach.) A documented cache and who put it there about only decent odds of decent recovery though blind caches recovery has happened despite low odds.. Less than that means covering all possible spots within a site,or the entire site, both a gamble, but seems to be what your asking about.

 

[rginn]

Good luck but don't get your hopes up as I don't believe there was that much squirrelling away of cash as some treasure lore would lead you to believe. For one thing, if you're in dire straits and living a day to day existence, as many early day folks did, you don't have money to hide. Another thing, from my experience, if those rascals had a nickel and lost it, they apparently organized a search party and sifted the dirt til they found it. A good possibility is if you are in an area involved in the war between the states, or perhaps an area with unbridled lawlessness and outlaws, such as the Indian Nations, they might bury what ever they had to keep it out of the hands of the outlaws or enemy troops coming through. IF they had anything worth saving. As far as all the hiding spots around old homesteads and farm places, you might only find where Farmer Brown stashed his whiskey bottle so the missus wouldn't know about it. Which would still be a cool find.

 

[golden sluice]

Hello. Back in the bad old days, I think that if you're on the old homestead as an ol' timer and you did come along getting a good sum of money, especially along with your original income, you would be more inclined to dig a cache or making a poor man's safe on the property. I think they new that times, as bad as they were, could always get worse...

 

[Pointman]

I live in a pretty old area and had been talking treasure hunting with people that are now in their 80s when I was a kid. They told me stories where a lot of the old timers before them would hide their money under the house, or in the barn under manure. The reason why they hid them so easily was in order for them to retrieve it later. I have heard very few stories where they actually worked real hard to hide there money and they usually hid it line of sight out in the back yard/pasture somewhere.

I heard a story where one of my "greats" hid the cash that his son sent home from the military in the back of an old radio. When the government pressured him to repay it because of an over payment, he shot himself because he freaked out because he forgotten where he had stashed his son's cash.

 

[foiler]

There is not enough room to discuss this topic here. The subject is long and takes experience to master.

 

[bigscoop]

A) Don't waste your time pursuing anything that you can't establish as fact. People love to create stories & people love to embellish those stories as they pass them on. A good question to ask yourself is; "If it was buried in secret then how do these other people know about it?" This isn't to say that everything you hear isn't true, just most of it.

B) You just never know where people are going to hide money, doubtful that folks are going to hide money in the same way that everyone is said to be doing it, if they did every thief in the county would know right where to look.

C) Not likely that people are going to bury money in a fashion that would prevent them from easily accessing that money if needed. I know a guy who was cleaning an old property and they found six jars full of old silver coins under the outhouse floor when they went to remove that small structure, apparently a loose board in the outhouse floor allowing easy access. In another such case, another friend of mine also found several old paint cans full of silver coins on the upper shelf in an old shed/barn that had been the previous owner's workshop.

D) A lot of nice folks out there, find something worth $100 and "congratulations." Find something worth several thousand dollars and the game immediately changes. If you really think there's any chance of finding a good score, "Get it in writing or don't hunt." If you researched the mystery enough to establish the facts then you already had "prior knowledge" which brings a thing called "disclosure" into play, so even if you have it in writing it may not hold up in court.

 

[G.A.P.metal]

A post hole bank ? would imply a fenced in pasture, so with all the corn field hunters and, all the pasture hunters,all the cane field hunters and, bean field hunters, old cellar hole hunters.
If they did have those banks i would think,they would be found....but i don`t recall many,if any... found on here...at lest posted.
Gary