I would venture to say that nearly all of the cache’s found in the last 60 years were found with a metal detector.
That's a tough one to have a firm opinion on, as we can't know how many caches were quietly recovered with no one the wiser. However, in terms of the ones that make the news, it seems that more often than not no detector is required - they're completely accidental. In fact, if you were to pin me down on a guess about the nature of "nearly all" caches, I'd say that nearly all were concealed, and nearly all were found by accident.
The nearest thing to an attempt at documenting America's history of recovered caches is "Numismatic Finds of the Americas," by Kleeberg. It's by no means definitive because again, we can't know how many finds are undocumented; we can only know about the ones that were. And because we don't know the ratio of documented to undocumented finds (and can't), it's impossible to use it for accurate statistical analysis. However, I'm willing to take at face value that the ratio of
types of documented finds are probably similar to the ratio of
types of undocumented finds. If we can accept that this is valid, the vast majority of non-shipwreck finds are complete accidents. I have not bothered to actually organize everything in there by type, but a few scenarios seem to come up very consistently:
1. Cache was found while gardening.
2. Cache was found while plowing field.
3. Cache was found during building demolition.
4. Cache was found while enlarging basement.
I'll get back to why this is exactly how I'd expect most caches to be found later on in this post.
Personally, I don’t think they would be buried very deep, just enough to keep it out of site and avoid accidental discovery.
Exactly, particularly if it was buried before metal detectors became commonplace. But even after that, there are some very good reasons to go shallow - namely, that you don't want anyone seeing you burying something valuable as that might raise suspicion. Thus, the quicker the hole can be made and covered, the better. The same goes for when it's time to make a "withdrawal" from your cache.
This would explain why so many caches have been found by people working in their gardens, sowing crops, or in the case of the Saddle Ridge Horde, simply taking a walk: the stuff simply wasn't buried very deeply. I'm forced to admit that because we can't know what we can't know, it's possible (but I don't think probable) that there is way more loot buried just deep enough to avoid casual finds and metal detectors...but because we can't know that, it doesn't logically make sense, and we're not going to find something like that except by accident, it's probably best not to spend too much time thinking about it.
When I read about hidden money being found it’s usually not buried. It’s under the chicken coop, or in a hollow beam in the barn, under a floor board, under a step, in a mine shaft, ect.
Oh, plenty of it was buried; we know that because it was found buried. But stuff has been found in discarded clothing, inside the walls of buildings, concealed within old furniture (Kleeberg documented a few of these, where an old piece of furniture was diassembled for refurbishment and money was found concealed in it), etc. People can be very clever when hiding things. But it seems that most of the time, they went with the tried-and-true method of burying it.
Think about it...largest risk is someone seeing you bury the valuables, or visiting the cache.
You going to dig a 3’ hole?
Exactly, which is why I'd bet that the only reason we haven't seen more documentation of people turning up buried treasure in their basements is because a significant portion of the finders never told anyone about it. Would you? I sure as hell wouldn't. But if I were going to hide something valuable near my home...well, under the basement floor is about perfect in terms of balancing security and convenience.
One thing I learned is that some times money was placed between the stacked foundation stones as they were building victorian homes. It was supposed to bring good luck similiar to breaking a bottle over the stern of a new ship.
Do I have any proof of this? My dad found two gold coins that were from the corner of a stone foundation. Might be something to that..
Kleeberg documented a lot of those. The trend there is that it is usually very little money...just a few coins at most, usually with the date that the building was erected. Again, we can't know how many haven't been documented, but I'll bet that most of these were. The value amounts are not such that people would be worried about lawsuits, and the discovery would generally involve multiple witnesses.
Put yourself in the shoes of the workman that's prying apart a stone chimney during a demolition and you find a silver dime from 1880. Would you take that secret to the grave with you, or would you say to me (the guy hauling the stones out to the truck), "Hey Dave, check this out! I found a dime behind the mantle!"
Karl Von M says in his treasure hunter's manual that most caches will not be below arm's length depth (say 2-2&1/2 feet). I believe he was correct, and that most will be more shallow than that. This normally applies to larger caches, as stated above many smaller ones are in houses or outbuildings. Also as stated above flower gardens are common, I had a friend whose grandmother had silver dollars stashed in hers. A modern detector with a large coil (17-18") should be able to hit a jar of coins at 18" or better. A PI detector with that size coil should be able hit the jar of coins at two feet. Karl also said that if outside, the cache would usually be visible from the bedroom window.
To go back once again, we can only make accurate guesses about what has been found, not what might be found later or is never found at all. It could be that 95% of the caches out there are buried at 100 feet or deeper...we'd never know, because nobody is going to find one of those by accident. However, Karl's opinion seems firmly rooted in logic to me. There are practical considerations for burying something of value and if it's deeper than my arm is long, we're now talking about real work (and time!) involved in burying it, and then I'm going to need a tool of some sort to retrieve it.
Let's go back to those four scenarios that I mentioned earlier. For #1 and #2, the cache was buried outside of the house, but likely where it could easily be seen from the house. These are also places where someone could reasonably be expected to be seen digging on a regular basis, which means that if someone is observing me pulling weeds and planting flowers (as if they would observe me doing this in the first place, as it's not very exciting to watch), their first thought would be that I'm simply doing some gardening, not burying treasure. The fact that that garden (or that field where the crops are) is right outside my window and is a place I frequently walk through is just a bonus. This is actually more clever than it initially appears.
For #3 and #4, we've eliminated the possibility of outside observation. In fact, if something is to be interred inside a wall or under a basement floor, not only is the work located where random people will not see it and have no reason to be, but we maintain a cover story: I'm ripping that wall out to replace it because it's got water damage and I'm enlarging my root cellar, not burying treasure in my wall or basement.
