Karl Von Mueller and the Treasure of the Valley of Secrets

[Daryl Friesen]

Hello All,

I made a video about Karl and the Treasure of the Valley of Secrets. Some of you old school treasure hunters out there will find it interesting. Have a watch.

 

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[Ryano]

Thanks for sharing. Let’s talk about that cave near Segundo - is the entrance sealed ? I seem to remember Patrick D stating the opening is very small and difficult to approach.

 

[Tiredman]

Karl's works are now somewhat released in the two volumes of the National Prospectors Gazette. One covers questions and answers and the other is a review of books. The ones mentioned here are given reviews as well as many others.

 

[Tiredman]

By the way the Scarlet Shadow book with the cave you mention, Karl found only that one chapter of interest. Over all he considered the book a bunch of "bunk." The going after smaller treasure caches was due to his belief they were more obtainable than the famous ones, since the famous ones grew with time and each telling. He also covered a couple of authors who wrote stories for magazines and these were grabbed and rewritten by later writers causing new lost treasures stories. Over all it is interesting to study the evolution of some of the stories. Nice to see a video on Karl, Thanks

 

[Ryano]

Many years ago I read a book that referenced the LUE as “The Incredible Lue” and described it as a pasture of gold in New Mexico. I was reminded of that when I saw a post made in one of the Beale threads alluding to a Beale-Lue connection. A comment made on youtube for Daryl’s video discusses possibilities of how the Lue could be a source for many of the “lost Indian gold” tales of the region. Interesting...

 

[Randy Bradford]

Karl's works are now somewhat released in the two volumes of the National Prospectors Gazette. One covers questions and answers and the other is a review of books. The ones mentioned here are given reviews as well as many others.

Volumes 3 and 4 are not far behind.

Volume 3 is being edited and needs the index, Volume 4 in manuscript form is nearly complete at which time it will be submitted for edits...

 

[Randy Bradford]

By the way the Scarlet Shadow book with the cave you mention, Karl found only that one chapter of interest. Over all he considered the book a bunch of "bunk." The going after smaller treasure caches was due to his belief they were more obtainable than the famous ones, since the famous ones grew with time and each telling. He also covered a couple of authors who wrote stories for magazines and these were grabbed and rewritten by later writers causing new lost treasures stories. Over all it is interesting to study the evolution of some of the stories. Nice to see a video on Karl, Thanks

Karl seems to intersperse the LUE in the Valley of Secrets almost randomly. He states directly in the book that they are separate treasures that MIGHT be related. His inclusion of the LUE in the overall narrative appears arbitrary with little direct connections to what he was discussing.

Similarly, the Scarlet Shadow was written as fiction and a bit of Pro-Socialism propaganda, why Karl ever felt these treasure aspect of this story was legitimate is beyond me.

Perhaps the greatest value of this book, besides the LUE references, is Karl's in-depth accounting and explanation of researching the events of the Scarlet Shadow. To the discerning reader, these parts of the book provide an absolutely outstanding blue-print of how to conduct, document, and extrapolate good research.

 

[Randy Bradford]

This video is interesting, but overlooks some intersting facts that I think would give the reader a glimpse into the narrative of TotVoS. Most notably, he glosses over the explosion. In the book, the explosives are consumed by a goose. Memory escapes me, but at some point the explosives are detnated while inside the goose and this leads to the massive explosion of the airships that were being constructed.

Karl felt that the story was true and part of his searching included seeking out places near Segundo where the trees had been knocked over with symetry, presumably by the explosion. I beleive he was also looking for (as clues) areas where a large amount of unexplained alumininum scraps would be found...remnants of the airships.

Keep in mind, this story ocurs before 1910, whether or not airships are really that likely...and whether or not they could be constructed in the wilds of Colorado (even if you could build them, how on earth were they going to fill them?). Similarly, if the target was Idaho, why not build the ships closer...Utah woul,d be much closer and every bit as remote...ditto northern Wyoming.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Thanks for sharing. Let’s talk about that cave near Segundo - is the entrance sealed ? I seem to remember Patrick D stating the opening is very small and difficult to approach.

I'd have to look around, fairly certain Patrick D had a picture...a sort of "then and now" comparison. The cave was high up a very steep and rocky slope, approach was both difficult and dangerous. Seems to me I read somewhere that locals had confirmed this was actually some sort of mine, though nothing like gold or silver.

 

[Honest Samuel]

Karl was the best of treasure hunters. God bless.

 

[Tiredman]

Yesterday I got in the mail a book that Karl gave a good review on in his National Prospectors Gazette. This one is "They Found Gold" The story of successful treasure hunts by A. H. Verrill. It is about treasure discoveries from a archeologist point of view. The introduction was written by Karl, it should be interesting.

 

[Tiredman]

Interesting that Karl wrote the intro for the book and gave it a good review.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Karl didn't give many bad reviews. Reading a lot of his stuff and his friends and counter parts (Johnny Pounds, Art Lassagne, A.T. Evans, Bill Mahan, etc.) it's pretty obvious he had a sort of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours arrangement with many other noteworthy folks in treasure hunting, particularly those publishing. What you see is folks swapping articles written for free publishing and both sides frequently mentioning other publications in an environment one might see them as competitors. Karl also reviewed books that were sent to him, meaning he'd get two copies of his own for his personal library...so undermining people that might publish later would have hurt him, particularly since he was acting as a distributor for many of these books.

He did something similar with metal detector reviews...he'd name positive reviews, but would speak cryptically about manufacturers who were turning out bad products or those that had blatantly stolen designs from other manufacturers. He never, as best I can tell, named a brand he had negative feelings about though he'd speak a great deal about why some brands were band (without naming them specifically).

Another way I've seen these arrangements play out is in subscriptions. Some years back I bought a bunch of H. Glenn Carson's magazine collection, all of them addressed to Carson Enterprises. Long story short, he'd write articles or do a regular column in exchange for free copies.

 

[Tiredman]

Thanks for the info Randy. I am still reading They Found Gold and am holding off commenting on it.

 

[Moonmountain]

 

[cyzak]

View attachment 1770313

Very interesting site.

 

[Ecominer]

Moonmountain, I suppose you realize your vertical pointer lines up with the horizontal pointer, pointing to the left in the background. Since you didn't say it for your readers, I thought I would state the obvious. Nice pict!!