OK guys and dolls, I want to give you a little fictional example so please bear with me:
What If;
You discover an old farm house, mansion, Victoria era home, you research it, discover it had a lot of civil war era activity around it. You decide to contact said homeowner, upon arriving you discover a little old lady age unimportant but elderly, during the discussion she states this was his birth place and she has lived there for xx'# of years. Granting you permission you set off to the land of gold coins, breast plates, and cobs, after a great day of hunting virgin territory, you decide to call it a day as the sun is near setting. You pockets and bag are full of many different trinkets, coins and relics:
You decide to show this little old lady all that you found, spreading everything out on a towel on her kitchen table, slowly she starts looking over them when you hear her gasp, scared because you think she might have just had a heart attack and was going to die in your presence, you see her reaching for a small worthless little trinket. With a tear rolling down her cheek she tells you this trinket (insert your own description here) was lost by her (brother, sister, mother, father, husband, boyfriend) over xx'# of years ago. You can tell by the way she is holding it how much it means to her, asking if she can have it naturally you tell her it is hers. She slowly starts describing her (brother, sister, mother, father, husband, boyfriend) to you basically telling you all about her family history as the tears slowly roll down her cheek, not tears of sadness but tears of joy because that little trinket brought them forth.
Now sure you could have decided to not show the home owner/ property owner what you found on their property and that worthless little trinket could have ended up in your collection, or you could have sold it, but who gained more enjoyment from it, you or her?
Sometimes Ladies and gentleman, as strange as this world is, sometimes fiction becomes reality, I know. She died shortly afterwards and that worthless little trinket, her relatives informed me later she requested it to be buried with her. It belonged to her childhood sweetheart who died in the early parts of WWII before they could get married, she never got over him and never married another.
Ladies and gentleman, our purpose is to find the past, sure each of us has dreams of grandeur, riches beyond belief, I am no different than you, I dream the same. But what could amount to a few pennies in value to me, could be priceless to the person whose property it was found on.
