Pirate Chest: When to give up

ky.rebel

Jr. Member
Mar 30, 2010
89
3
east Tennessee
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawyer,but I don't understand why or how a group of pirates would bury a chest so deep.If all they had to dig with was wooden shovels and the water table starts at 3 feet,why not put it somewhere that would be easier for them to recover it from.Maybe they never planned to recover it,doubt that.Could be I guess,look at oak island.Best of luck,hope you find your treasure,but seems to me you have already got it with all the adventures you were able to share with your friend before he passed on. H.H. fred maybe these guys did find something and just don't want to advertize it. :dontknow:
 

Frankn

Gold Member
Mar 21, 2010
8,711
2,989
Maryland
Detector(s) used
XLT , surfmaster PI , HAYS 2Box , VIBRA-TECTOR
1- I don't hold much faith in dowsing, it cost me $3k extra for a well once.
2- The deepest cache that I have ever seen had a little over 1' of earth on top of it.
3- An object the size of a pirate chest, about 3 sq ' bottom area, would not sink except in a swamp and no pirate would bury it there. ie Pirate chests are smaller than most think. Consider the weight of gold.
4- I dought that most pirates buried there chest much above the high tide mark.
 

Attachments

  • hand print-2_edited-3.jpg
    hand print-2_edited-3.jpg
    30.6 KB · Views: 1,337
  • hand print-2_edited-3.jpg
    hand print-2_edited-3.jpg
    30.6 KB · Views: 1,314
OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
I will agree that the pirates probably did not bury the gold more than 6 feet. If the norm is to bury a dead person at 6 feet, how deep would they dig to bury their very valuable stash? After 4 years in the army I know that the diggers will keep digging until whoever is in charge tells them to stop. Most of the time when someone hides something, they do plan on coming back. Of course bad things happen to bad people, so there is probably lots of gold that was not recovered by the original people that hid it.
The chests like you see in the movies are very unrealistic, as are most movies. A lot of times they may have dug a hole, placed an empty chest/box in it, and then filled the box up. All but the smallest box would weigh too much to carry. If a heavy object were placed in the ground in the soil that you find near the water in SW Florida, over a long period of time it will sink until it hits something hard enough to stop it. This is a fact. An object covering a lot of square inches would not sink as much, but the so called "pirate chests" were not very big.
A lot of people don't realize just how much gold weighs, especially in comparison to lead. If someone were to hand you a gold bar or gold coin that was actually gold-plated lead, would you be able to tell the difference? A 1 cubic foot of lead weighs around 750 pounds. A 1 cubic foot of gold weighs over 1200 pounds. Form your hands 1 foot apart and imagine a block of gold weighing that much. It would take 6 modern day men to lift it.
I know it takes a stretch of the imagination to accept that dowsing works if you have not seen it with your own eyes. Try taking your cell phone to a third world country or somewhere that they have never seen or heard of one. Tell them all the things that it will do and then try to show them. Let's say you have absolutely no reception. They will look at you as if you are an idiot. Now put down your "dumb phone" and show them your "smart phone" and then tell them all the amazing things it can do. Of course you have no reception, so now you look like an even bigger idiot.
I believe that when a dowser is around a person with a lot of negative energy it is the same as when you cross under power lines and your phone loses reception. Dowsing does not work for everything all the time. It should only be used as another tool to locate things. One of the guys that worked for Mel Fisher's crew said they used dowsing to see if there was gold in the area, and then used electronics to pinpoint it.
It is nice to see that there are people on this board that have an open enough mind to at least think that I may be on to something. I have tried to make money in some of my other ventures so that I would have the money/time to go after the treasures. According to my wife we are still broke. I am the eternal optimist and hope that things will change for the better.
 

TheHarleyMan2

Bronze Member
Feb 27, 2008
1,594
464
Never Know I May Live Next To You!
Detector(s) used
GTI 2500/Bounty Hunter
Minelab Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
In my opinion I am very open to just about everything. My feel on dowsing is, "Have I ACTUALLY SEEN DOWSING WORK?" No I haven't! Have I MET A DOWSER? No I haevn't. Do I believe that somethings are possible? I believe that there are things in this world that many can never explain.

I had met a person, (His name is Dallas), that I spoke with who also prospects for gold. He had told me about a man that told him how to use brass dowsing rods to find gold. The man explained it to Dallas how Dowsing works and what to do. Dallas was also sckepticle, so the man told him to go out and get 2 brass rods and make some dowsing rods with them. Then take the rods long end and place just the tips of the rod in contact with some gold nuggets and such that Dallas had and let the tips sit in the gold for a week and do not touch or let anything else touch the tips or the long end of the rods.

The man told Dallas to give him a call when he was ready for him to come over and show him how dowsing works on finding gold.

Dallas had called the man to come over and the man told Dallas to place a vile of gold somewhere in his backyard that only he, (Dallas), would know where it is. The man came over an hour later and asked Dallas to give him the dowsing rods. Dallas said the man started in the front of the house and the rods started moving and the man was walking around to the backyard following the rods.

Dallas said the man walked slowing with his eyes almost closed concentrating, following the pointing direction of the rods and the man walked and the rods crossed each other and the man looked down under a some of leaves, (as the leaves were all over the yard), and found the vile with gold in it! Dallas couldn't beleive it! The man told Dallas that if the rods ever seem like they are week, trim off about a 1/4 and let the tips "soak" in the gold aura for a few days.

I have known Dallas for sometime and he is not one to BS. He swears up and down that dowsing worked and the man told/showed him how it works. Dallas has a little claim in Colorado/Wyoming border and he uses those rods to find small pockets where gold, (fines and small flakes), had accumulated.

I haven't made any yet, but I am going to!
 

Salvor6

Silver Member
Feb 5, 2005
3,755
2,169
Port Richey, Florida
Detector(s) used
Aquapulse, J.W. Fisher Proton 3, Pulse Star II, Detector Pro Headhunter, AK-47
Primary Interest:
Shipwrecks
Bigdogdad a few points to consider:
1. On your first dig you had a lot of publicity. The local newspaper was there. A crowd of people was there.
2. That was over 10 years ago
3. Someone else could have dug it up since then.
I know the area where you were digging near Godfried Creek. That was the known hangout of Capt. Brewster Baker AKA Brewbaker. :icon_pirat: His vessel was spotted by the Revenue Cutter Grampus in 1821. Baker and some of his crew were captured, tried and hung in accordance with the Anti-Piracy Act of 1821 passed by Pres. Monroe. Its very possible some of his men hastily buried their treasure before fleeing into the woods only to be captured later.
The investor has not lost faith in you. He wants me to check out your other sites with my Pulse Star. I live nearby and I charge a lot less. :laughing7:
 

OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
No one has dug for the chests since I dug over 20 years ago. Actually there was no publicity on the first dig with a backhoe. During the second dig one of the guys involved called the local paper and the story spread to other papers in the area. It is impossible to dig for the chests without anyone seeing you, it is completely out in the open.
I am glad to hear that the investor is still interested. I will wait for his call. No more texting please.
 

limegoldconvertible68

Full Member
Mar 18, 2009
228
14
Illiniois
Detector(s) used
Fisher F70 with 11"DD coil, CZ-21 with 10" coil, Fisher 1265X
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
You are on a ship when you get spotted by the Grampus. Explain how you hastily bury your treasure on land without a single sailor from the Grampus seeing you do it. Assuming they had a treasure it would have been below deck. In there hast to escape with their lives do they run the ship aground and jump overboard and flee every man for himself or do they decide to lift an extremely heavy object from below deck put it on a row boat and slowly take it to shore, than dig a huge hole, use ropes to lower the heavy gold laden chest into the ground and then cover the hole before fleeing without anyone from the Grampus seeing the exact spot they buried the treasure at. The story just doesn't have a ring of truth to me.
 

OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
Ok Mr Pirate Detective, I will try to reply. The first thing is I have not based the fact that I beleive in this site on any particular pirate story. The old man that showed me the location found it thru map dowsing, not by reading pirate stories. The Brew Baker story might be completly true or may not have any truth to it at all. I am not going to get into a big discussion on how pirates kept or hid their stolen gold. I do know that most people do not keep all their eggs in one basket so that if the pirates had gold they would keep in in multiple places. One of the easiest ways for the authorities to find and catch them would be to look for the pirate ship sitting in safe harbour, attack/board it, and look for their stolen valuables.
One of the things about this location that made it a good place to hang out and hide was the fact that there was and still is an artesian spring right on the saltwater bay. Without fresh water readily available they could not survive. Period. They spent a lot of time on shore looking for food. Without fresh food they could not survive. Period. The pirates had camps. The pirates were crooks. The pirates probably did not trust each other. They probably had their own gold stashes. They probably did not go on the internet and tell everybody where it is. Bottom line. None of us know what really happened back then and I don't really care.
Because of all the FACTS that I have accumulated over the years and my TOTAL belief in the abilities of my original dowser, I believe, but don"t know that there MAY be gold hidden on the property in question. The ONLY way I will ever know for sure is to dig deep enough in the right place. If it is there, I will find it. That would definitely shut up all the critics that I have accumulated in the past 25 years.
Does this answer your questions? Again, I am not really interested in hearing all the second guessing as to what happened almost 200 years ago. I am interested in figuring out how to find the EXACT location and depth where there may be gold and other valuables buried on a piece of property that I have already done two serious digs on and that I have permission to do another dig.
I am new to TN. After going on other boards and reading lots of threads I see where people come on and start arguing points and changing subjects to where the original intent of the thread starter is lost in the confusion.
 

Bum Luck

Silver Member
May 24, 2008
3,482
1,282
Wisconsin
Detector(s) used
Teknetics T2SE, GARRETT GTI 2500, Garrett Infinium
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Bigdogdad said:
I first became involved in this site in 1987. An 87 year old dowser had told me about the chests and I immediately became somewhat obsessed with trying to dig them up. I had lined up a proffesional digging crew to do the excavating, but they backed out at the last minute. I rented a backhoe and tried to do it myself. I tore up a huge commercial septic system and could not get to the chests. I dug a pretty deep hole which is hard to do in Florida as the water table is usually near the surface. I had a pump running to keep the water out of the hole.
I had to rebuild the septic system with only help from my wife.
I was absolutely convinced that there was at least one chest on this property but I did not know what to do next.
In 1992 we attempted to dig up the chest by hand digging and laying a concrete block well down to the chest. We got as far as 15 feet and then the well got hung up on a mud hog hose that we could not pull out of the ground from the first dig. The well would fill up with water from the septic system and I ended up scuba diving in it. My hands, eyes, and ears became infected. Almost everyone involved felt we should give up. I was determined to keep going but we were run off by Hurricane Andrew. A week later the county told me we had to fill the well in.
Just so you will understand my obsession I have to explain something. Around 1983-1984, before I knew him, the dowser that I took to all those places stood on the bow of one of Mel Fisher's boats, swung his pendulum and led them to the pile of gold from the Atocha. Hard to believe but true.
 

OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
To limegoldconvertible, I just saw another board on TN that is titled "Armchair Treasure Hunting". Perhaps it would be more suitable for your way of thinking.
 

TheHarleyMan2

Bronze Member
Feb 27, 2008
1,594
464
Never Know I May Live Next To You!
Detector(s) used
GTI 2500/Bounty Hunter
Minelab Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hey limegoldconvertible68

No one knows for sure why pirates buried thier treasures. There was several chests that were unearthed during construction I beleive somewhere around Miami many years ago and some research others have done for many years, researched that pirates buring their loot, chests, boxes, whatever.

Logic answers would be that they buried them for their own use later, to prevent someone else getting them, or who knows. No one knows for sure if they were being chased and had to jump ship quickly and hurry to shore and bury them. Fact is they buried their loot to prevent them from being captured on the high seas with them aboard their ship!

Put yourself as a pirate sailing the seas and robbing and pillaging all the merchant ships from other countries. After yo hit one ship, of course you may go to another country that has no interest of you ebing captured. You spend some of your treasures on partying, supplies, etc. Then you go back to pillaging. Lets say to hit a ship and find a great hoard on board, too much for you to keep in your possession. What are you going to do with it? There are NO BANKS! You can't keep it all on your own ship because what if you and your ship gets captured? Not only do they have you, but they also have evidence that you have the goods!

Most merchant ships sailed along the coastlines in view of the coast so they could follow their way around without getting lost at sea and also close to a source of food and fresh water. After all, they didn't have compasses like we have today they used an astrolabe. Priates probably did the same thing waiting in some harbors making it easy to hit the merchant ships beause they knew they were using the route.

Either way, treasures were buried. Have I seen any? No, but I did do a good bit of reading on how, why, and where treasures and loot was/is/maybe buried and not just here on t-net!
 

teleprospector

Silver Member
Jul 8, 2007
3,794
4,134
The Motor City
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
25
Detector(s) used
Extended Sensory Perception, L-rod, Y-rod, pendulum, angle rods, wand.
White's MXT, Garrett Ultra GTA 500, AT Gold, SCUBA Detector Pro Headhunter, Tesoro Sidewinder, Stingray, 2 box-TF900, Fisher TW-6
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi bigdogdad,
Dowsing has revealed....
White rectangle area: Mixed attractions of silver/gold, various locations.
Green circled area: Gold attraction.
Blue circled area: Silver attratction.
Orange/blue circled area: Copper/silver/ruby gem attraction.
Thanks for posting your picture,
Jon

p.s. oopsie! i copied the pic with okiedowsers location.....i'm such a :tard: sometimes lol
 

Attachments

  • howardsm (Medium)dowsed.jpg
    howardsm (Medium)dowsed.jpg
    75.4 KB · Views: 556
OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
Thanks for the input. I am not sure if your answers are going to affect other dowsers. When it appears to me that anybody that is going to dowse this picture is done, I will post the findings on this site.
 

bluehunter1973

Bronze Member
Jul 15, 2006
1,375
57
Port Huron, Mi.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
only after you spend everything you got and your wife leaves you or you can higher someone with that ground radar that can penetrating deep into the ground. Your call.
 

OP
OP
B

Bigdogdad

Bronze Member
Mar 5, 2012
1,627
437
Primary Interest:
Cache Hunting
I think we are going to get a great big trackhoe that can REALLY penetrate deep into the ground. I will NEVER give up until I find what I am looking for.
 

TheHarleyMan2

Bronze Member
Feb 27, 2008
1,594
464
Never Know I May Live Next To You!
Detector(s) used
GTI 2500/Bounty Hunter
Minelab Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Bigdogdad said:
I think we are going to get a great big trackhoe that can REALLY penetrate deep into the ground. I will NEVER give up until I find what I am looking for.

They have the excavators that have the long booms on them that some companies use for deep digging!
 

Red_desert

Gold Member
Feb 21, 2008
6,852
3,502
Midwest USA
Detector(s) used
Garrett Ace 250/GTA 1,000; Fisher Gold Bug-2; Gemini-3; Unique Design L-Rods
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Bigdogdad said:
Thanks for the input. I am not sure if your answers are going to affect other dowsers. When it appears to me that anybody that is going to dowse this picture is done, I will post the findings on this site.
One of the other dowsers gave me a Pm, didn't really have much time to check. So far, I don't find the chest(s) supposed to be there. I picked up a little bit of something in 2 of the photos, I would sift your dirt to check for small stuff.
 

Red_desert

Gold Member
Feb 21, 2008
6,852
3,502
Midwest USA
Detector(s) used
Garrett Ace 250/GTA 1,000; Fisher Gold Bug-2; Gemini-3; Unique Design L-Rods
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I do a lot of dowsing in the dowsing board, that is where you should start this kind of a thread. So, I checked all your photos again, as for pirate chests, any kind of chest or buried cache....nothing that I would use a backhoe to recover. Being Florida most places have at least a few lost gold/silver items on the surface. If close to the surf, there will be places with loose treasure 10+ feet down.
 

Red_desert

Gold Member
Feb 21, 2008
6,852
3,502
Midwest USA
Detector(s) used
Garrett Ace 250/GTA 1,000; Fisher Gold Bug-2; Gemini-3; Unique Design L-Rods
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Actually, didn't have time to go over them like I normally do. I'll take the time now to mark what does seem to be there....if I feel a chest is there, will mark it too. When finished will post them in the dowsing board.
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top