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treasure cave by tortilla flat

Oroblanco said:
Side note but the little sacks were "pokes". No prospector would be caught dead without his poke, a little bag for holding gold dust.

Please do continue, that theory of Hacksaw Tom and the stage robberies seems the most likely explanation IMHO.

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2: :coffee2:
Click to expand...
roy...we thought about them being pokes but there were too many of them...if they were prospector pokes they would have been stored in the box by passengers on the stage and there would have only been a few...they were odd size too..long and skinny
 

Anyone else got a story?
Oro is providing the coffee ;)
:coffee:
 

azdave35 said:
roy...we thought about them being pokes but there were too many of them...if they were prospector pokes they would have been stored in the box by passengers on the stage and there would have only been a few...they were odd size too..long and skinny
Click to expand...

Old time gold pokes were not a standard size and not like what they are selling today as a poke (like this example)
https://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/goldpoke.html

A stage robber, robbing the passengers and thus collecting gold watches would also likely be gathering the gold pokes from any and all prospectors that may have happened to be unlucky enough to be on the stage when it was robbed. I can't see what else they might have been but pokes.

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
 

Oroblanco said:
Old time gold pokes were not a standard size and not like what they are selling today as a poke (like this example)
https://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/goldpoke.html

A stage robber, robbing the passengers and thus collecting gold watches would also likely be gathering the gold pokes from any and all prospectors that may have happened to be unlucky enough to be on the stage when it was robbed. I can't see what else they might have been but pokes.

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
Click to expand...
it would depend on if he got everything in the box from one coach or if it was an accumulation from all his heists...the man said they were all the same size...thats why we figured they were a shipment from a mine...and the watches were new...not used so they didn't come from passengers
 

Hillbilly Prince said:
Anyone else got a story?
Oro is providing the coffee ;)
:coffee:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have one too. Here's a cache I'll bet you haven't heard of in southwest Colorado.

The miners in the Idarado Mine on Red Mountain Pass in 1974 were mostly Hispanics from Montrose (except for a few hippies from Durango). Most of the full-timers high-graded the mine when they could - gold ore and also valuable mineral specimens. The company looked the other way because they knew these guys would just go work somewhere else if the high-grading was stopped. They had lots of rich sulfide veins and needed to keep as many miners working in them as they could get. The mineral specimens were sold to Benjie's Rock Shop in Ouray, no big deal, but since gold was still illegal to possess then, the miners had to black-market the sale of their ore. A Red Chinese agent made the rounds every year to buy up what was available, discount price, cash only, no questions asked.

My work partner V.T.'s dad worked rich stopes in the Idarado, and one day I was at his house in Montrose with V.T. and saw about four wooden powder boxes in his garage full of cobbled picture rock in white quartz and also some light greyish rock shot through with little flecks of fine gold. Maybe a hundred pounds of rock. Maybe more. This ore was probably worth thousands of dollars in those days.

V.T.'s dad's stope partner - call him Rudy - was paranoid about keeping his high-grade at his house, so he always stashed his in a secret place "in the rocks" near a dirt road not far from the highway between Montrose and Ridgeway. Well, Rudy dropped dead one day in about 1972 of a heart attack, leaving only his wife. He never bothered to tell her or anyone else exactly where the stash was. Some of Rudy's miner buddies hunted for the stash off and on for months for his wife, but never found it and eventually gave up. I don't know if the ore was in boxes, bags, buried or what - it was always to be a temporary stash until Chinese sale day.

Maybe a hundred ounces of gold values. Maybe much more value as specimens. Just waiting for you right off the highway, "in the rocks". Maybe you'll cut me in if you find it.
 

Loke said:
I'm all ears - keep it coming!!
Click to expand...

This is an internet forum, and not youtube. If you are keeping your ears open......you are gonna have a looooooooooong wait! LOL

Mike
 

Oroblanco said:
Old time gold pokes were not a standard size and not like what they are selling today as a poke (like this example)
https://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/goldpoke.html

A stage robber, robbing the passengers and thus collecting gold watches would also likely be gathering the gold pokes from any and all prospectors that may have happened to be unlucky enough to be on the stage when it was robbed. I can't see what else they might have been but pokes.

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
Click to expand...

Come on! This was the Old West! They were Buckskin Condoms!

Mike
 

sdcfia said:
Yeah, I have one too. Here's a cache I'll bet you haven't heard of in southwest Colorado.

The miners in the Idarado Mine on Red Mountain Pass in 1974 were mostly Hispanics from Montrose (except for a few hippies from Durango). Most of the full-timers high-graded the mine when they could - gold ore and also valuable mineral specimens. The company looked the other way because they knew these guys would just go work somewhere else if the high-grading was stopped. They had lots of rich sulfide veins and needed to keep as many miners working in them as they could get. The mineral specimens were sold to Benjie's Rock Shop in Ouray, no big deal, but since gold was still illegal to possess then, the miners had to black-market the sale of their ore. A Red Chinese agent made the rounds every year to buy up what was available, discount price, cash only, no questions asked.

My work partner V.T.'s dad worked rich stopes in the Idarado, and one day I was at his house in Montrose with V.T. and saw about four wooden powder boxes in his garage full of cobbled picture rock in white quartz and also some light greyish rock shot through with little flecks of fine gold. Maybe a hundred pounds of rock. Maybe more. This ore was probably worth thousands of dollars in those days.

V.T.'s dad's stope partner - call him Rudy - was paranoid about keeping his high-grade at his house, so he always stashed his in a secret place "in the rocks" near a dirt road not far from the highway between Montrose and Ridgeway. Well, Rudy dropped dead one day in about 1972 of a heart attack, leaving only his wife. He never bothered to tell her or anyone else exactly where the stash was. Some of Rudy's miner buddies hunted for the stash off and on for months for his wife, but never found it and eventually gave up. I don't know if the ore was in boxes, bags, buried or what - it was always to be a temporary stash until Chinese sale day.

Maybe a hundred ounces of gold values. Maybe much more value as specimens. Just waiting for you right off the highway, "in the rocks". Maybe you'll cut me in if you find it.
Click to expand...

I can thoroughly believe this one my dad had a prospecting friend who would go to Silverton twice a year to buy gold for cash during the 70's from the miners. I visited with him in 2000 and he had kept some of the richest ore he had collected from them it was the most gold I have ever seen in quartz matrix.He past in 2006, but before he went with every visit I wrote down everything he would tell me he would not allow himself to be recorded but as long as I wrote he had no problem.The bad about your story SDCFIA is that Ridgway reservoir was built in 79 that lake covered up a lot the hwy ran right thru the middle with off shooting dirt roads and in the perfect country to hide something.
 

Last edited:
azdave35 said:
i guess people were alot tougher back then lol
Click to expand...

I'm afraid to touch this cause I think I may be on a watch list here :D
But...men and women were tougher back then. Just ask anyone older than your self :) The really tough ones went for buffalo hide from the hump. Same stuff used to make shields as I understood it.
The most reliable, and reusable, were buffalo horns of course ;)
 

cyzak said:
I can thoroughly believe this one my dad had a prospecting friend who would go to Silverton twice a year to buy gold for cash during the 70's from the miners. I visited with him in 2000 and he had kept some of the richest ore he had collected from them it was the most gold I have ever seen in structure.He past in 2006, but before he went with every visit I wrote down everything he would tell me he would not allow himself to be recorded but as long as I wrote he had no problem.The bad about your story SDCFIA is that Ridgway reservoir was built in 79 that lake covered up a lot the hwy ran right thru the middle with off shooting dirt roads and in the perfect country to hide something.
Click to expand...

The very first shift I worked at the Idarado our crew spent a couple hours collecting picture rock from a vug that the previous shift had mostly looted. I got a full sandwich bag of rock that looked like the LDM matchbox ore. I'm thinking, "Man, this is a pretty good gig." That was the best I did, but I only worked six months there. Later on, I got some awesome quartz crystals and very good specimens of galena, peacock and pyrite. It was commonplace.

Ha ha, yeah, I saw that lake on Google Earth. It may be too far south, but what do I know? - I've slept a few times since '74.
 

Has anyone heard of John Steinbeck???I'm still waiting for someone to toss some beans on the floor...lol

Ed T
 

gollum said:
That would all depend on the stitching of the sides......for her pleasure!

Mike
Click to expand...

For some reason that got me thinking of the Tandy leather catalogs. Those people are still in business, but I don't think they carry kits for authentic miner gear like that.
 

azdave35 said:
i don't remember how the man heard about dale but he had dale dowse a map for him..dale and him ended up making a few trips up there in the 70's ..nothing ever came of it and the man finally gave up on it...when i met dale in the 80's he told me the story and naturally i wanted to go look for it so he called the man and had him come over...i talked to him for a while and he impressed me as an honest man (plus he was wearing shorts and you could clearly see the scars from the bullet and surgeries)..after he left i was pretty certain that he had found the strongbox just like he said....dale and i made a few trips up there and we did find a cave that fit the description but no box:dontknow: ..we too lost interest in the cave and got busy with another treasure....in the 90's i told a friend and he spent some time looking for it...he too found a cave that fit the description but no box:dontknow: ..so now we had 2 caves in the area that were a match for the treasure cave...we figured either one of the caves were correct but someone else had stumbled onto the box and took it...or there was still another cave out there somewhere with a box full of goodies....if any of you feel lucky give it a try:occasion14:
Click to expand...

We need more stories like this.
 

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