skierbob
Hero Member
- Jun 7, 2006
- 954
- 84
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab e-trac; Minelab Exp II; Troy Shadow X3; Garrett AT Pro.
View attachment 718165
View attachment 718166
Ten years ago in December, 2002 I found my very first coin cache. It started me on a quest that lasted over three years. It was not the usual cache, if there is such a thing, and it is not an easy tale to believe. But, oh was it exciting.
My hunting pal, Tommy, called me on a Friday night to set up our Saturday hunt. Our other buddy, Frank, had suggested a certain wooded area adjacent to park grounds northeast of town. We had done some hunting there before and a few nice finds were made, such as Barber and Liberty Seated coins, large cents and even a half reale. We had hunted a spot not far from there a year before when Frank unearthed a cache of silver dimes. Tommy thought I could do well there with the new Minelab Explorer I had recently bought at the FMDAC convention in Sandusky, Ohio.
By the time I got there on Saturday morning, Frank's van and Tommy's car were already there and they were long gone up the trail into the woods. As I got my Explorer out of the trunk, I was thinking how heavy the detector was and worrying about my left shoulder, which had recently been diagnosed with a complete tear of the rotator cuff. This had made me switch arms for swinging the detector, as well as for digging. I was doing everything with my right arm and it was feeling it. As I headed into the woods, I was looking around, but didn't see either of my buddies. They must have been deep in the woods by then.
I got to an intersecting trail down by a creek and turned right. I started hunting an area between the trail and the creek, which looked like it may have been a good spot for swimming and picknicking in years past. About fifty yards up the trail, I noticed a pathway to the right, winding its way up a slight incline to a plateau area. I started to search along this path, hoping in vain that no one had done so before. The path meandered past a couple of huge trees with split trunks and a third tree at the top of the path with a triple split trunk. I worked my way up the path to the triple split tree at the top, finding only a couple of memorial pennies along the way. I got to the triple split tree and searched around the lower side of it without any luck. I continued searching around to the upper side of the tree trunk. All of a sudden I got a loud, fairly high-pitched, double beep signal that semed to be very wide. The target cross-hair of the Smartfind screen settled in at a quarter inch below the penny/dime area and the depth gauge indicated the target was about four or five inches deep. The detector was pinpointing at three or four different spots within a two foot area.
I couldn't figure what this target was, not having much experience with the Minelab detector, but since it was at the foot of a triple split tree and sounded pretty good, I had to go for it. I stuck my woods digger into the ground down to about six inches and lifted up. The dirt was very soft and loosely packed and there were no small roots to deter digging. The dirt lifted up easily, but there was no target in it. I took another scoop out of the ground and still there was nothing. I put my digger in deeper and about ten inches down it hit glass. What is this, I thought, another fake-out? I'd been fooled before by people burying bottles and cans after pick-nicking. I started scooping out hands-full of dirt to get a better look at what was in the ground. Finally I rubbed my gloved hand over the bottom of a large jar. Scrapping away the dirt, I could see in the bottom of the jar. Wow, I could see what looked like stacks of large silver coins inside the jar.
I got so excited, I could hardly believe it. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. Nobody was there. Where was Frank? Where was Tommy? I dug around some more in the hole and discovered two more jars were in there upside down. Then I was shaking and laughing and crying all at once. After 25 years of metal detecting, I'd found a honest-to-goodness cache. I've got tears in my eyes even now just thinking about it.
Then I had to figure out how to get these three heavy jars out of the ground with one good arm and how to carry them back to the car, along with my detector. I decided against leaving them there and looking for the other guys for help. I did not want to take a chance on leaving the spot unattended. It took about 15 minutes to get the jars out of the ground. I couldn't pull them out with one hand. They were heavy and the moist ground created a suction that was hard to overcome. As I tried to lift them out, my gloved hand kept slipping off the jars. Finally, by using my 22-inch long digger as a lever, I was able to pry them up out of the ground one by one.
There was one big apple sauce jar and two large peanut jars. As I wiped off the jars, I could see that one contained plastic rolls of silver dollar size coins and rolls of silver dimes. The two peanut jars had what looked like cellophane packs of coins inside all folded up. I went over the hole again to make sure there wasn't anything more in there. There was something. It was a shotgun shell. I figured this was what pulled the target cross-hair down from the top of the Smartfind screen. I filled the hole back up so that no-one would know anything was dug there.
I unzipped my coat half way and shoved the three jars in as far as they would go. Then I held my detector in both hands and placed it under the jars to brace them up. Then I trundled out of the woods and back to the car, which was parked about three hundred yards up the road. It was a struggle to get back to the car. A jogger passed by on the road, giving me a funny look. I tried to ignore him and all the cars going by. It took forever and I was exhausted. I was barely able to control myself waiting for the guys to come back for lunch. It was only 11:30.
Finally, they came back up the trail out of the woods and crossed the road to where we had parked. I told them to come and see what I had in the trunk. When I showed them the three jars filled with coins, they both did a double-take, not believing their eyes. After several exclamations and expletives, they demanded to know exactly where I had dug them up. I told them I was too excited to do any more hunting, but I would show them the spot after we ate lunch. I took them to the spot after lunch and left them to search to their hearts' content. I told them I'd have to figure out how to divvy the stuff up after I got home and could see what all was in the cache. They said not to worry about it, whatever I felt like giving them. We had no formal agreement about splitting up finds. However, Frank had let each of us have a roll of silver dimes out of the cache he had found, so there was a precedent.
When I got home, I examined the contents of the jars. All told, there were 802 coins in the cache, 606 of which were silver. The big apple sauce jar held seven rolls of Canadian silver dollars dated 1964 and 1965. There were also two rolls of silver roosevelt dimes. The peanut jars held 29 U.S. proof sets from the early sixties and 69 Canadian proof-like sets from the early to middle sixties.
I gave Frank five of the U.S. sets and five of the Canadian sets and he was happy with that. Tommy didn't want any of the coins, I don't know why. I found out later that they had spent the whole afternoon hunting all around the area, but had found nothing else.
We have tried to figure out why someone would bury proof and uncirculated coins on public land. He had to know that there were people with metal detectors who could find them. I believe the cache was buried within the ten years or so prior to my finding them. We asked around at different coin shows and coin shops. No one has heard of any robberies of such material. Anyway, wouldn't a thief try to fence such things off as quickly as possible? The only thing we could think of is that some well-to-do collector or dealer decided to play a treasure game or something. Take heart all you diggers, there may be a modern treasure out there for you, too.
Here are some pictures of the cache taken by a friend a couple days later:
Some close-ups:
Hope you enjoyed.
Ten years ago in December, 2002 I found my very first coin cache. It started me on a quest that lasted over three years. It was not the usual cache, if there is such a thing, and it is not an easy tale to believe. But, oh was it exciting.
My hunting pal, Tommy, called me on a Friday night to set up our Saturday hunt. Our other buddy, Frank, had suggested a certain wooded area adjacent to park grounds northeast of town. We had done some hunting there before and a few nice finds were made, such as Barber and Liberty Seated coins, large cents and even a half reale. We had hunted a spot not far from there a year before when Frank unearthed a cache of silver dimes. Tommy thought I could do well there with the new Minelab Explorer I had recently bought at the FMDAC convention in Sandusky, Ohio.
By the time I got there on Saturday morning, Frank's van and Tommy's car were already there and they were long gone up the trail into the woods. As I got my Explorer out of the trunk, I was thinking how heavy the detector was and worrying about my left shoulder, which had recently been diagnosed with a complete tear of the rotator cuff. This had made me switch arms for swinging the detector, as well as for digging. I was doing everything with my right arm and it was feeling it. As I headed into the woods, I was looking around, but didn't see either of my buddies. They must have been deep in the woods by then.
I got to an intersecting trail down by a creek and turned right. I started hunting an area between the trail and the creek, which looked like it may have been a good spot for swimming and picknicking in years past. About fifty yards up the trail, I noticed a pathway to the right, winding its way up a slight incline to a plateau area. I started to search along this path, hoping in vain that no one had done so before. The path meandered past a couple of huge trees with split trunks and a third tree at the top of the path with a triple split trunk. I worked my way up the path to the triple split tree at the top, finding only a couple of memorial pennies along the way. I got to the triple split tree and searched around the lower side of it without any luck. I continued searching around to the upper side of the tree trunk. All of a sudden I got a loud, fairly high-pitched, double beep signal that semed to be very wide. The target cross-hair of the Smartfind screen settled in at a quarter inch below the penny/dime area and the depth gauge indicated the target was about four or five inches deep. The detector was pinpointing at three or four different spots within a two foot area.
I couldn't figure what this target was, not having much experience with the Minelab detector, but since it was at the foot of a triple split tree and sounded pretty good, I had to go for it. I stuck my woods digger into the ground down to about six inches and lifted up. The dirt was very soft and loosely packed and there were no small roots to deter digging. The dirt lifted up easily, but there was no target in it. I took another scoop out of the ground and still there was nothing. I put my digger in deeper and about ten inches down it hit glass. What is this, I thought, another fake-out? I'd been fooled before by people burying bottles and cans after pick-nicking. I started scooping out hands-full of dirt to get a better look at what was in the ground. Finally I rubbed my gloved hand over the bottom of a large jar. Scrapping away the dirt, I could see in the bottom of the jar. Wow, I could see what looked like stacks of large silver coins inside the jar.
I got so excited, I could hardly believe it. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. Nobody was there. Where was Frank? Where was Tommy? I dug around some more in the hole and discovered two more jars were in there upside down. Then I was shaking and laughing and crying all at once. After 25 years of metal detecting, I'd found a honest-to-goodness cache. I've got tears in my eyes even now just thinking about it.
Then I had to figure out how to get these three heavy jars out of the ground with one good arm and how to carry them back to the car, along with my detector. I decided against leaving them there and looking for the other guys for help. I did not want to take a chance on leaving the spot unattended. It took about 15 minutes to get the jars out of the ground. I couldn't pull them out with one hand. They were heavy and the moist ground created a suction that was hard to overcome. As I tried to lift them out, my gloved hand kept slipping off the jars. Finally, by using my 22-inch long digger as a lever, I was able to pry them up out of the ground one by one.
There was one big apple sauce jar and two large peanut jars. As I wiped off the jars, I could see that one contained plastic rolls of silver dollar size coins and rolls of silver dimes. The two peanut jars had what looked like cellophane packs of coins inside all folded up. I went over the hole again to make sure there wasn't anything more in there. There was something. It was a shotgun shell. I figured this was what pulled the target cross-hair down from the top of the Smartfind screen. I filled the hole back up so that no-one would know anything was dug there.
I unzipped my coat half way and shoved the three jars in as far as they would go. Then I held my detector in both hands and placed it under the jars to brace them up. Then I trundled out of the woods and back to the car, which was parked about three hundred yards up the road. It was a struggle to get back to the car. A jogger passed by on the road, giving me a funny look. I tried to ignore him and all the cars going by. It took forever and I was exhausted. I was barely able to control myself waiting for the guys to come back for lunch. It was only 11:30.
Finally, they came back up the trail out of the woods and crossed the road to where we had parked. I told them to come and see what I had in the trunk. When I showed them the three jars filled with coins, they both did a double-take, not believing their eyes. After several exclamations and expletives, they demanded to know exactly where I had dug them up. I told them I was too excited to do any more hunting, but I would show them the spot after we ate lunch. I took them to the spot after lunch and left them to search to their hearts' content. I told them I'd have to figure out how to divvy the stuff up after I got home and could see what all was in the cache. They said not to worry about it, whatever I felt like giving them. We had no formal agreement about splitting up finds. However, Frank had let each of us have a roll of silver dimes out of the cache he had found, so there was a precedent.
When I got home, I examined the contents of the jars. All told, there were 802 coins in the cache, 606 of which were silver. The big apple sauce jar held seven rolls of Canadian silver dollars dated 1964 and 1965. There were also two rolls of silver roosevelt dimes. The peanut jars held 29 U.S. proof sets from the early sixties and 69 Canadian proof-like sets from the early to middle sixties.
I gave Frank five of the U.S. sets and five of the Canadian sets and he was happy with that. Tommy didn't want any of the coins, I don't know why. I found out later that they had spent the whole afternoon hunting all around the area, but had found nothing else.
We have tried to figure out why someone would bury proof and uncirculated coins on public land. He had to know that there were people with metal detectors who could find them. I believe the cache was buried within the ten years or so prior to my finding them. We asked around at different coin shows and coin shops. No one has heard of any robberies of such material. Anyway, wouldn't a thief try to fence such things off as quickly as possible? The only thing we could think of is that some well-to-do collector or dealer decided to play a treasure game or something. Take heart all you diggers, there may be a modern treasure out there for you, too.
Here are some pictures of the cache taken by a friend a couple days later:
Some close-ups:
Hope you enjoyed.
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