The Hidden Hoard Of My father

[vikingfury]

Hello,

new to this posting

I was wondering if anyone new of a good way to find gold silver and diamonds in a home.

my father was a collector of ALL including gold $20 saint gaudens, Morgan dollars and loose diamonds he was struck by a car and we know there is stuff in the house but we are not sure how to find it.. we know metal detectors are good but don't seem to work in a house because of so much metal

any detectors that can only pickup Gold, or Silver?

thanks for any help

Marc

 

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[jeff of pa]

do you know where he spent most of his time when at home ?

Favorite Room ?

 

[madmacabre]

why would he hide it and not tell his own kids

 

[jeff of pa]

Also did he have any Hobbies other then Collecting ?
and Did he have a Special room for his Collections ?
is there a Drop Ceiling ?
Check for Hollowed out Books, & Loose floor Boards

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Sock drawer
inside the toe of old boots or shoes
suitcoat inside pockets
inside paint cans or oil cans in garage or basement

 

[WV Hillbilly]

If you think you have looked everywhere & haven't had any luck , you might pick up the book ( Search )
by James R Warnke . I recently bought the book off e-bay & it lists many places in & around a home that
people hide things . I bought it for $9.99 + $3.00 shipping .

 

[vikingfury]

Hey Guys Thanks for the ideas.

He was a little more advanced than that.. the spot we did find things was one he had made..

Our fireplace ran the length of our family room he had a metal box installed into the hearth that was only accessible one the other side of the end wall down in the corner and you could not even see it> but push on the corner and up flapped the door exposing 4 ft of a metal box.

he always suggested the normal places.. like behind the toilet paper roll holder down in the wall, inside door knobs, in the wall cavity attached to a wire only accessible from the attic. inside hollow door knobs with cotton to dampen the sound of loose stones. the freezer, the rafters.

he suggested all of these but never did them it usually took work to get to his things.

he had a 5 x 6 mosler sitting empty in the basement and knew if someone came in they would take that and be out of there.

we knew of a lot of stuff but as we all know hoarders have there only secret stash of the good stuff.

thanks again for the info.

 

[vikingfury]

He always had room in his bedroom and basement where he would exercise and of course the kitchen

I have included a picture of the family room

basically there was a 1 foot path to the above areas.

we have gone over the room and kitchen completely. except to remove wall cabinets.

basement is next we are removing the ceiling and wall board, he would use hook rods to push things past the point of reaching normally. the basement had a ceiling vent that you removed the grille and 2 screws then pushed it out of the way and the hook would grab metal army cans..

 

[jeff of pa]

Sounds like you have your work cut out
for you then. Could be any and every place.

 

[cavers5]

For heaven's sake, make sure you check the mattress,box springs, and bed rails, headboards, etc. also the hollow rods/stems of all the exercise equipment. Perhaps he had a piece of exercise equipment over a cache in the floor or directly beneath a spot in the ceiling?

Cavers5

 

[vikingfury]

Hey,

Yea, we checked his brass bed for things inside. cut his bed and disassembled the box spring
check for loose tiles or floor boards the basement is concrete. check the sump pump hole for mason jars.
I am hoping the ceiling will reveal some stuff.

I bought some chemical they use on forensic stuff that you mix and put in a sprayer then spray areas and it will sit for 6 hours and then relieve finger prints or oils from hands. I am hoping this will reveal areas frequently touched and we can investigate from there.

said it was not supposed to damage anything.

hopefully it will help

 

[Fisher]

If your pretty sure it's in the walls or ceiling you can still use a metal detector. Just use the disc. until it doesn't pick up nails. Any big hoard will still ring through.

Good Luck

 

[vikingfury]

What is a lrl

 

[diggemall]

Just a thought, but anybody smart enough to cache goodies well would also realize the threat a house fire would pose to a collection.

I would focus on areas protected from damage by a fire.

Diggem'

 

[jeff of pa]

What is a lrl

lrl is a scam, I Don't know if he was trying to make a Joke


Please ignore comments like that.

Sorry for his post.

Jeff

 

[vikingfury]

Thanks Jeff,

I am leaving for his house tommorow i will keep you guys up to date i can also take a picture of his fireplace door if you would like to see it.

I have one room with an open ceiling and i have to check in the rafters and back to the main sile which is packed with insulation

 

[deepskyal]

Keep in mind, some of them old timers burried things OUTSIDE.
My greatgrandfather had 2 trunks with silver dollars behind his chicken coop and I knew a drug dealer..(not that I had anything to do with him) ...had his different types of marijuana burried in coffee cans along the foundation wall outside.

Look to see if patio stones or big trees, landmarks of any kind.

Just cause you didnt see him bury it, doesn't mean he didnt.
Al

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Just a thought, but anybody smart enough to cache goodies well would also realize the threat a house fire would pose to a collection.

I would focus on areas protected from damage by a fire.

Diggem'

Not necessarily. My Dad was a hoarder. He collected stamps. Canceled stamps off envelopes cut off and bound with thread in groups of 100 by similar stamps and stored in the boxes manila binders come in. Hundreds of thousands of cancelled stamps! He wanted a millions stamps and I think he made it in spades. Probably worth something (he worked at a utility and pulled them off the payments mailed in for 40+ years!). In amongst them were first day covers, old Canadian air mail, stuff of value. Also sugar wrappers from every restaurant he'd/we'd ever been to, match books & boxes, gum wrappers and coffee stirrers. In two of the identical boxes were thousands of Topps baseball cards ('55 through '61; I put together a complete set of '55 and came up with five rookie Sandy Kofax cards). I got to be an expert grading and moving baseball cards (how's this for sad - Dad hated baseball and never took me to a game or even threw me a ball to play catch so I have zero interest in baseball; we sold every one). There were also binder boxes of newspaper clippings of every Cornell sporting event that made the local paper or the Ithaca Journal (Dad subscribed) since about 1930. Most everything else went to Catholic Charities as they were the first to express interest. Mom just wanted stuff gone.

Some of the boxes (in the attic) were damaged by water when there had been a small house fire. Also damaged in that fire was a binder of 72 Morgans in vinyl pages that semi-melted to the coins. They were in a larger box full of old Stamp Digest magazines?? The fire went up an inside wall into the attic and the firemen threw soaking piles of Popular Science, Mechanics Illustrated, National Geographic, a Civil War canteen, a pierces tin lantern even older, toys from the 1910's all out the attic window in a heap in the lawn. I did find the CW belt-buckle ("A D") that was in with the canteen but some neighborhood kid(s) ended up with the rest.

We'd go through 100 pounds of trash for every pound of treasure, for sure. Sadly, most of it was sold and is now going to a nursing home for Mom.

And the absolute WORST! We had separated out the family photos and letters in moving Mom and between trips across town to the nursing home when the house was empty some dirtbag broke in and took the box with the photos (and some boxes of books and the microwave). Civil way daguerreotypes & tin types on up to & including Grandpa's photos from WWI. I'm still seeing red 6 years later.

 

[vikingfury]

Wow!
Can I just say your dad was very similar to mine. collected everything,,
I still have to go thru a garage 2 stories 30 x30 the entire upstairs is Saturday Post, Life, comics, boys life, tons of Milwaukee railroad stuff (films, lanterns, papers, ads, keys, locks) Indian arrowheads, steins, 1800's lithographs, Swords furniture and tons more. the sad thing is he took care of none of it growing up we could never even get into the garage. so he filled it up and never touched it or cared for anything. we I first got there after finding out he was killed. we started to empty the garage and finally got to the pull down stairs it was chaotic there were 1000's of magazines and some had fallen and squirrels nested in them. an old 200 year painting had half the frame chewed up. so sad such nice things and then never cared for them.

here is a picture of some of the coins and I am Finding a picture of the garage.

 

[jeff of pa]

Wow!
Can I just say your dad was very similar to mine. collected everything,,
I still have to go thru a garage 2 stories 30 x30 the entire upstairs is Saturday Post, Life, comics, boys life, tons of Milwaukee railroad stuff (films, lanterns, papers, ads, keys, locks) Indian arrowheads, steins, 1800's lithographs, Swords furniture and tons more. the sad thing is he took care of none of it growing up we could never even get into the garage. so he filled it up and never touched it or cared for anything. we I first got there after finding out he was killed. we started to empty the garage and finally got to the pull down stairs it was chaotic there were 1000's of magazines and some had fallen and squirrels nested in them. an old 200 year painting had half the frame chewed up. so sad such nice things and then never cared for them.

here is a picture of some of the coins and I am Finding a picture of the garage.

WOW !

That's amazing already.