What are your thoughts on this story?

[neo]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-treasure5dec05-story.html#page=1

 

[basque-man]

It would certainly be a nice find! Too many people involved and who knows what the real story is now. Do I think the old timers buried their loot. I bet they did when trying to out ride the law. Then again, if ya find it; STAY QUIET!!!!

 

[Msbeepbeep]

There is no doubt in my mind stuff is buried just about every where. Some of it big, but most small caches.
We all love reading about these treasure hunts and would love to do some hunting of our own. Once in a while a chance comes along.
The real successful treasure hunters you will never hear or know about, just how it is, and we all know why...do you blame them?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

It's all a bunch of bologna. I don't believe one bit of this conspiracy theory treasure sign "knights of golden circle" (or templar, blah blah) junk. The reason why ordinary thinking individuals end up believing such fantasies, is that the human mind wants SO HARD to believe (lest you be "left out"). That's why treasure stories are so fun to read. the 1970s treasure magazines were jam packed full of all those silly "lost mine" and "stagecoach robbery" stuff. All fanciful legend. Heck, throw in a faded newspaper clipping (or mark on a tree, etc...), and an artist's drawing of a miner posed next to his burro, and then it MUST BE TRUE! haha

Another dead giveaway as to this guy's gullibility to spin such a fanciful tale, is that he's got his dowsing rod in his arsenal.

 

[CincinnatiKid]

What!!!??
Dosing rods don't work?
Damnit!
Peace ✌

 

[Msbeepbeep]

Pass them over here, the way I've been making "surface" finds lately...I don't think I could go wrong with one!

As for them working or not I'm guessing it depends on the operator. I wouldn't say they don't work, there's just a lot of parameters. One of these days I will give them a try just to see if they work for me.
Kind of like I'm not going to say there are no ghosts just because I haven't seen one.

 

[Argentium]

That was a pretty interesting article - The Knight's of Columbus stuff , along with Knight's Templar and Pretty much all the "Secret
Society " stuff leaves me thinking it's more fodder for bad television . What you cannot miss in this story however is the smaller
caches of gold and silver coins actually uncovered by these men . The Oak Island thing is some of the worst television I've ever
seen -( maybe they can get the Kartrashians involved in it )

 

[Tom_in_CA]

That was a pretty interesting article - The Knight's of Columbus stuff , along with Knight's Templar and Pretty much all the "Secret
Society " stuff leaves me thinking it's more fodder for bad television . What you cannot miss in this story however is the smaller
caches of gold and silver coins actually uncovered by these men . The Oak Island thing is some of the worst television I've ever
seen -( maybe they can get the Kartrashians involved in it )

good post argentium.

I saw the side-bar claim that this fellow(s) had found other smaller (bread and butter?) type caches. Still though, this does not bode any proof of the "secret society" stuff, nor validate their TH'ing methods. I mean, they probably whip out metal detectors to "pinpoint" (yeah that's it) after doing their research on likely spots anyhow. Doh!

Bottom line is, there's lots of stories of md'rs finding caches (heck, even farmers and construction workers by accident). So it has no bearing on others that are mere superstition.

Ironically there were more caches found by the early md'rs of the 1960s, believe it or not (despite our fabulous advancements in technology of the past 35 yrs in md'ing). Because the early detectors were horrible on small objects (doing good to get a coin to 3" deep in the 1960s). Yet did just fine on toaster sized objects! So in effect, those obsolete insensitive detectors were actually the better cache machines. Because they were the perfect discriminator against nuisance individuals coins, nails, tabs, etc..... Today however, we pass over those "durned hubcabs", haha. But .... I digress

 

[neo]

good post argentium.

I saw the side-bar claim that this fellow(s) had found other smaller (bread and butter?) type caches. Still though, this does not bode any proof of the "secret society" stuff, nor validate their TH'ing methods. I mean, they probably whip out metal detectors to "pinpoint" (yeah that's it) after doing their research on likely spots anyhow. Doh!

Bottom line is, there's lots of stories of md'rs finding caches (heck, even farmers and construction workers by accident). So it has no bearing on others that are mere superstition.

Ironically there were more caches found by the early md'rs of the 1960s, believe it or not (despite our fabulous advancements in technology of the past 35 yrs in md'ing). Because the early detectors were horrible on small objects (doing good to get a coin to 3" deep in the 1960s). Yet did just fine on toaster sized objects! So in effect, those obsolete insensitive detectors were actually the better cache machines. Because they were the perfect discriminator against nuisance individuals coins, nails, tabs, etc..... Today however, we pass over those "durned hubcabs", haha. But .... I digress

I've always wondered if the old detectors would be really cheap to buy today just to play around with, not sure if all the treasure hunting magazines should be ignored I have a book somewhere that discusses good and bad leads in magazines. One story was very vague about a ghost towns location with a lot of red flags the author warned against but through a ton of work he somehow did actually find the place but then again I'm new to treasure hunting so I could just be very hopeful lol.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've always wondered if the old detectors would be really cheap to buy today just to play around with.....

Well, sure, a person could buy an old BFO, or a tuned-down old all-metal TR (like a 66TR, or a 77b held at several inches above the ground). And they would miss all coin-sized stuff, yet have no problem whatsoever on jar sized stuff.

Or you could simply use a 2-box machine and accomplish the same thing (and deeper too).

So as much as people would rush to think "the more sensitive, the better" (when it comes to cache hunting), it is actually ironically not true. You will be be-devilled by all the small stuff. And even if you try to set your mind to mentally ignoring all the coin-sized signals, you will constantly be digging a bunch "just to be sure". And/or forever mentally trying to distinguish large versus small-on-top-of-ground stuff. Thus much better just to get a 2-box unit, and it inherently ignores everything smaller than fist or soda-can sized.

That is why there were multiple stories from the 1960s into the early '70s, of rogue beginners finding occasional caches in ghost towns and such. Truth be told, that's probably the only sized stuff they could find

 

[rich99ard]

I find this interesting, although I have a hard time believing information would be carved into trees (something as important as clues for millions that is) - trees burn down etc. carvings into rocks makes more sense