Seneca - Early 19th Century Central park

"For more than a decade, anthropologists and historians pieced together the history of a short-lived African-American community that was snuffed out in the 1850s by the creation of Central Park. They combed vital records and tax documents, scanned parkland using radar and studied soil borings.

But because the vestiges of the community were buried beneath the park, the leaders of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History — a consortium of three professors from City College, Columbia University and New York University — were kept from doing the one thing that would open a window onto the daily existence of the some 260 residents: digging.

That all changed eight weeks ago, after they won permission from the city to excavate in an area of the park near 85th Street and Central Park West."

Read more HERE.
And HERE.

Image Credit: Fred R. Conrad / The New York Times

Beneath Your Feet: Russia

"Most people dream of discovering treasure, forgetting about the daily grind and spending the rest of their lives on a tropical island. Even if you never find a trunk of pirate gold, treasure hunting can actually be a stable source of income.

Russia is one of the best places for uncovering hidden treasure. As a result of the country’s many wars, revolutions and economic crises, the number of caches stashed away for a rainy day under floorboards or in tins in the attic is truly mind-boggling. Vladimir Poryvayev, a long-time treasure hunter, says that in the late 1990s, he found a sack full of diamonds. He says he had been looking for it on behalf of some people who had heard stories of treasures from their grandparents."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: ITAR-TASS

Store Owner Preaches Ethical Hunting

"The way Tim Garton sees it, historical artifacts -- and the stories behind them -- remain forever lost if they stay buried in the ground.

But the owner of Metal Detector Sales of Southwest Missouri cringes at the thought of treasure hunters randomly digging up artifacts, leaving holes behind, with no concern for ethically extracting or documenting what they find.

'I'm trying to get people educated on how to do it right,' said Garton, cofounder and treasurer of the 417 Relic Hunters metal detecting club in Springfield."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Bob Linder / News-Leader

MO Research: Rules to Hunt

A nice little read for Missouri hunters looking on places to hunt.

"So you just got a brand new metal detector and can't wait to go dig up buried treasure.

Slow down a bit.

Rules about where and how you can use the device vary greatly.

Metal detector hobbyists also emphasize the need to always get permission before any dig.

Metal detectors are not allowed in national parks -- including Wilson's Creek National Battlefield -- and hefty fines and even jail time await people who remove artifacts from federal lands."

Read more HERE.

The Ship Warwick

"'The loss of the good ship Warwick was not the only disaster that this cruel storm brought with it. It also meant the total ruin of the winter’s crop of corn, to such a great extent that all the inhabitants were very worried about a shortage of food. They had good reason to be anxious, for even though the islands were prolific enough in every respect, and had two harvests every year, yet careless wastage had become the custom with most of the people’ C.F.E. Hollis Hallett, Butler’s History of the Bermudas, 2007

On October 20, 1619, the third governor arrived in Bermuda at the behest of the Somers Island Company, the corporation that owned the 12,000 acres of the island.

The gentleman was Captain Nathaniel Butler, who succeeded in his position the first governor, Richard Moore (1612-15) and the second, one Daniel Tucker (1616-18)."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: The Royal Gazette

T'Hunters Give Away Some Secrets

"Searching for treasure isn't only for movie characters. Real-life adventure hunters have unearthed treasures worth thousands of dollars in their own backyards.

Take Tim Saylor and George Wyant, who have their own metal detecting-themed company called Anaconda Treasure. By day, Saylor writes software for an insurance company and his friend Wyant is a copper miner. But on weekends, the Montana men have taken metal detecting to a whole new level.

'We're not exactly normal,' Wyant said. 'We don't think fun and comedy and treasure detecting have to be mutually exclusive.'"

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Getty Images

Montana Bullet Finders

"Blue Mountain probably wasn't named for all the blue grenade rounds in its grasslands, but it could have been.

Blue was the color indicating a practice load for military training exercises that took place for 50 years on the mountainside south of Missoula. This week, guys in bright yellow vests are prowling the recreation area looking for those old munitions and perhaps more dangerous explosives.

"This is one of the suspect areas we're definitely going to investigate," said Weston Solutions project supervisor Rick Logsdon, who leads the dozen-man unexploded ordnance team."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Michael Gallacher / Missoulian

MD Finds Proves ET Existance?

"A teacher at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell may have discovered the first scientific evidence of manufactured debris made on another planet. Furthermore, this debris was found near the location where pieces from an alleged flying saucer were discovered outside of Roswell in 1947.

Frank Kimbler teaches high school level Earth Sciences and college level Geology at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. He says he has always had an interest in UFOs, and actually had his own unusual sighting in his twenties. So when he...

...

His next step was to get out there with a metal detector to see what he could find. He began making trips to the site in May 2010. Using a metal detector that could find a piece the size of a BB, three inches below the surface, he would be able to find small pieces,..."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Frank Kimbler

10K Park Gold

Last night before bed, I got a call from Digger Magoo determined that we were going to head back up to Cheesman Park in Denver to give it another go at finding that lost wedding set. I picked him up from his place around 10a this morning and off we went. He said he had spoken with her again and might have narrowed the search a little more than what we were dealing with before.

The tempperature was already rising and with no looming storms currently off in the distance we put the coils to the soil.

The first hour was by far the most exciting. Concentrating much of our efforts within a 2000 square foot area closest to where she parked along curb next to the grass, we really felt this wold be the day to score the gold. Well, we weren't wrong in that thought... it just so happened it wasn't the correct item we were looking for.

I got a jumpy low 20s to mid 30s VDI on my XLT, and knowing what we were looking for, I was digging almost anything that was from about +10 - +50. And knowing that the item would be shallow, anything I could dig less than 3" (especially just using a screwdriver) felt like it could be it. Well this one, at roughly 2.5" just so happened to be a hefty, 10K men's class of '73 ring from Evergreen High School in Evergreen, CO. It has some initials in it, we'll see what I can do in terms of returning it. But leaving for work in the Gulf of Mexico for the next five weeks will most likely limit that venture for a later time.

But I tell you what, as evidence on the picture provided by my good friend Troy, I sure was grinning when this came out of the ground. And truth be told, it's my first gold ring, and first class ring I've ever found. Just never can seem to get the coil over all them lost goodies out there.

We swung around for the next two hours and both of us we're able to round up a few bucks in clad. Troy did happen to come across a sterling silver cased nail file. The file part was rusted to hell, but the silver sure looked nice. I did find another key, and even a sweet little pocket spill of 7 RTD tokens. I know they aren't old, but digging tokens is just plain fun, I don't care who you are.

So though we didn't find what we came for, we sure left with our pouches full of keepers. And that gold ring will be in teh back of my mind for future hunts to come. The clad totaled to $2.21 over 33 coins. And if you're curious, that ring, in the air, comes in at a solid +42/+43 on the XLT.

Happy huntin' folks, and may the next dig be a good one.

WWII UXO on UK Beach

"A novice metal dectoristist had the shock of his life when he dug up an unexploded WW2 bomb instead of treasure.

Colvyn Gillmon, 46, discovered the mortar bomb whilst out searching for hidden gold or metal artefacts near to Dorchester Cemetery on Saturday afternoon.

It was only the second time the Dorchester man had used his metal detector."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Steve Greaves

Minnesota Man Enjoying His Finds

"Sartell resident Cy Schaefer, 77, is a modern-day treasure hunter. Wihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifth his metal detector in hand, he can be found around St. Cloud five to six nights per week searching for coins and long-lost artifacts.

Retired more than 20 years from the St. Cloud reformatory, where he was a shop supervisor, Schaefer is a widower with eight grown children. He uses his hobby “just to get out and do an activity.”

'It’s all the anticipation ... to hit on something good,' Schaefer said."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Jenny Berg

Marlyand Union POW Camp

"Volunteer archaeologists are descending on leafy Lafayette Square in West Baltimore this weekend in an effort to uncover relics from Camp Hoffman, a Union army encampment that stood there during the Civil War.

Just hours into the project Friday, while dodging rain showers and swarms of June bugs, the diggers had already turned up fragments of mid-19th-century tableware and decorative wrought iron, nails, birdshot and even a piece of an old pocket watch.

'We popped down on stuff right away, which I didn't expect. And it's definitely 19th-century stuff,' said Charlie Hall, terrestrial archaeologist with the Maryland Historical Trust."

Read more HERE.

Cheesman Ring Hunt

It has seemed like forever since I've been able to get out and hunt. This morning around 10a I got a call from my hunting buddy Troy regarding him heading out towards downtown Denver in search of a lost wedding set he had been in contact with a woman about. I agreed to tag along and by 1130a we were on the case.

We met up at Cheesman Park and my first thought was, wow... this is a lot of real estate to cover. Turns out it is about 80 acres worth of old trees and nicely groomed grass that had been a park since 1907, and was previously a cemetery that opened in 1858 (they even have modern-day ghost bus tours through the park).

The hunt started by hitting the area along the southern side of The Acropolis and fountains. As initially all we had to work on was that the rings where lost roughly in front of the structure on the southern side. We hit the area pretty intensely for a couple hours, and besides a couple dollar or more pocket spills I came across, there wasn't much to be said for the area.

Troy got on the horn and contacted the lady to get help narrow down the search. Sadly, the area was still a good 2-3 acres of land to cover, and after an hour or so of no luck, a thunderstorm rolled in and rained us out. Throughout the entire hunt we saw at least four other hobbyists scouring the area, likely searching for the same rings as a Craigslist ad was posted on the subject.

It was a great few hours of swinging the coil, really happy to have gotten out, especially since I don't so often anymore. I did manage $3.49 over 38 coins though, so the day wasn't lost. A '57 Wheatie, small pile of keys, pulltabs, broken sunglasses, and other miscellaneous metal scrap rounded out the afternoon.

One last thing to add. Today was the first time I've actually used my new Garrett ProPointer on a hunt. I've been a true blue Vibra-Probe 570 guys since I started the hobby. I REALLY enjoyed the Garrett, but did have one negative to throw out there. Apparently this is a known issue, but it's something that on my Vibra-Probe it wasn't an issue. I'm very used to jamming the VP 570 into a hole and being pretty rough with it, even slightly bending it in tight spaces to get the direction of a target. With the Garrett, you can't do this. Well, you can, but it causes the thing to false. I added a little video illustrating the point.

Pismo Beach Peddling

"As tens of thousands of people left local beaches after fireworks shows Monday night, a whole new crowd headed the opposite direction.

Metal-detector enthusiasts moved in, ready to find what was left behind.

As the fireworks ended in Pismo Beach, treasure-hunter Gil Rivera was armed and ready.

The 76-year-old LAPD retiree landed with a team around midnight and sifted the sands until three in the morning."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: KSBY

Afghan IED Mentoring

"The explosive hazard reduction course at Joint Sustainment Academy Southwest, here, allows coalition forces instructors teach members of the Afghan National Security Forces the fundamentals of identifying and countering improvised explosive devices.

The course prepares members of the Afghan National Army, uniformed police and border police to operate in a partnership role with coalition forces when IEDs are encountered, the basics of insurgent IED tactics and how to handle and eliminate unexploded ordnance and munitions."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Petty Officer 1st Class Gino Flores

NC Man Finds What Folks Lose

"Using a metal detector, Ray Cox finds coins, cell phones, keys and rings on the beaches of New Hanover County. He also finds a lot of less obvious things, from cooking equipment to brass knuckles.

Last year, the Wilmington resident became a beach discovery himself.

In May 2010, a physics professor in Canada found a message in a bottle Cox threw into the sea in 1961. The message said: 'IF FOUND PLEASE WRITE TO: Jesse Ray Cox, 106 Lake Shore Dr. Wilmington, North Carolina. May 21, 1961 2044.' (The 2044 refers to 8:44 p.m. in military time.)

During a visit to Nova Scotia in September, seeing the message again was an emotional experience for Cox, a normally unemotional person."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Jeff Janowksi / StarNews