WIRED Magazine Sits with Treasure Hunters

Great multipage spread from Wired Magazine.

"They are specters from our collective childhood, observed from behind half-finished sandcastles. They move purposefully along the beach, captivating young onlookers with the promise of magical treasure.

They are the metal-detector guys. The archetypal loners. Sealed off from the world by giant headphones, happy to reward young tagalongs with a bottle cap.

'It’s my Zen,' says Alex Kelley, President of the Bay Area Searchers. For many, like Kelley, the hunt itself is a meditative experience, a way to escape from the daily grind."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Wired Magazine

FL Pirates Out After Irene

 "Hurricane Irene brought a treasure trove of waves for surfers last week, but Flagler Beach resident Eric Nierstedt was looking for a different kind of treasure.


He was combing the beach, with a shovel slung over his left shoulder and a metal detector in his right hand. Neither the rain nor the waves dissuaded him.

'I haven't found anything, yet,' he said just before 10 a.m. 'The tide is still pretty high, though.'"

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Julie Murphy \ The Daytona News Journal

Lake Close to Home Drained

"Phil LaRocco has waited 35 years for Berkeley Lake to be drained. Like all treasure hunters, he knows great stuff lurks at the bottom of lakes, especially this one.

'I was here with my father in 1976 when the lake was low,' he said, moving his metal detector over the dry lake bed. 'He found 67 gold and silver rings in two weeks.'

Berkeley Lake is being drained as part of a $3.25 million bond project that includes a berm to screen Interstate 70 on the north, with trees and native grasses fringing a walking trail."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Andy Cross / The Denver Post .

Canada Man Turns Hobby into Recovery Business

"Andrea Bielecki was slamming some last-minute flowers into her front garden this summer when she slipped her wedding band and 1.5-carat diamond engagement ring into her bra so she wouldn’t lose them.

Company was coming, she had an eye on her toddler and it was only for a minute.

Then her daughter ran into the neighbour’s yard and Bielecki had to chase her, her mom arrived with groceries to be unloaded, Bielecki swept up some leaves in the backyard and suddenly it was bedtime.

Her wedding ring tumbled out of her clothes. Her engagement ring did not."

Read more HERE.

Check out Mark Ellis at Ellis Metal Detecting Service.

Image Credit: Keith Beaty \ Toronto Star

Jar of Gold Coins Found in UK

"Digging deeper after unearthing a jam jar lid led a metal detecting enthusiast to discover 20 gold coins dating from the reigns of Charles I to Queen Victoria.

An inquest in Lynn yesterday heard the coins were believed to be stolen property and an appeal was made for information about who owned them, possibly more than a century ago.

Norfolk coroner William Armstrong said the coins were found by Mark Nicholson on March 14 while he was metal-detecting with permission on land near Walsoken owned by Mr Richard Stocks."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Lynn News

Eastern Shore Treasure Seekers

 
"While many lost items are of significant value, they're usually priceless to their owners. That's why a band of metal detector enthusiasts are breaking out their gear in preparation for the hunt.

'You'll never know the feeling of finding something that means something to somebody ... unless you've done it,' said Salisbury resident Bill Draper. 'It's really a unique feeling -- a feeling $1,000 doesn't buy.'

Draper is the co-founder of Shore Seekers Artifact & Recovery Club, an organization formed in 1988 for the purpose of enjoying the hobby of metal detecting with fellow enthusiasts who specialize in reuniting people with their lost items."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Chuck Snyder \ Delaware Wave

Looking to Return Wedding Band in WA

A member of the same detecting club in Washington as one of our followers and fellow blogging peer "cjc" of the Beep-Beep blog was recently in the local news in their area trying to return a wedding band he has discovered.

"Rick Razor is a member of The Cascade Treasure Club and has been a metal detector enthusiast for more than a decade.

In that time he has found a lot of valuable stuff, but of all the treasures he's discovered it is a gold wedding band he found in Idylwood Park in Redmond in 2007 that haunts him because he's been unable to return it to the owner.

It is engraved with a wedding date and Rick hopes that will make it easy to identify."

Read more HERE.

Full Time Meteor Hunting in UK

"Gazing up at the night sky, Rob Elliott is on constant alert for fireballs or streaks of light suddenly breaking up the darkness above him. As the UK's only full-time meteorite hunter, Elliott knows these falls from outer space can contain the most magnificent and exciting rock fragments created billions of years before the Earth was formed.

With specimens capable of fetching thousands of pounds depending on their rarity value – those from Mars and the Moon being the most prized – every meteorite shower is literally "treasure from Heaven".

A meteorite is a piece of a meteoroid or asteroid which has survived its journey through the Earth's atmosphere, falling to the ground without being destroyed. They are also known as fireballs or shooting stars."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: The Scotsman

Chinese Families MD For Scrap

"The Shang family, from Zhumadian of Central China's Henan province, recycles steel bars at a demolition site in Jinan, the capital of East China's Shandong province, Aug 8, 2011. 

As many urban Chinese children are enjoying cool air conditioners, 8-year-old Shang Guangwei and his 11-year-old sister are spending their summer vacation at construction sites, recycling waste iron and steel with their migrant parents. 

Each day, their mother would use a metal detector to find metal and their father would then try to dig out what was seen as treasure to the family"

Read more HERE. 


Image Credit: China Daily

Saving Blair Mountain History

"On a warm day in West Virginia, Kenny King is on his hands and knees, digging in the dirt. He's near the peak of Blair Mountain, searching for buried artifacts from a little-known battle that took place 90 years ago this month.


'It is a unique part of American history,' King says, waving his metal detector over a hole in the ground. 'No where else can you find an actual battlefield that is as big and extensive as maybe a World War I battlefield.'

King, both prospector and amateur archeologist, is known locally as an expert on the infamous Battle of Blair Mountain, which unfolded over 10 days in 1921."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: CNN

MO City Overturns MD Ordinance

A victory for hobbyists everywhere as a Missouri city official actually contemplated the "real" repurcussions of the hobby and realized it's trivial to try and govern a harmless hobby.


"Carthage Mayor Mike Harris said 'exaggerated and erroneous information' led the council to give preliminary approval to an ordinance controlling metal detecting in city parks.

At Harris’ request, the Carthage City Council tabled indefinitely final consideration of the ordinance that would have required anyone wanting to use a metal detector in a city park to sign a request sheet and turn any artifact that was older than 100 years over to the city.

The vote to table was unanimous."

Read more HERE.

Moutain Treasure Club Uncovers the Past

"Rich with enthusiasm, Tom Warne has found not only a fervent group of people with which to share his hobby, but a bounty of treasure, as well.


On a sultry July morning, Warne is joined by four fellow prospectors on the back patio of his Loveland home to talk about the Rocky Mountain Prospectors and Treasurer's Hunter Group, of which they all are members. Some are lively, while others are more stoic, yet all are passionate about the booty they have found over the years.

Both Paul Lange and Rick Mattingly are Loveland residents, while Paul Mayhak and Dick French live in Fort Collins. They are part of the 150-member local organization that has been in existence since 1986."

Read more HERE.

Check out more from the Rocky Mountain Prospectors and Treasure Hunters Group HERE.

Image Credit: Reporter-Herald

UK Beach Coughs Up WWI Medal

"A metal detector enthusiast is appealing for the family of a First World War serviceman to come forward after unearthing his medal on a beach.

Tom Neesam found a solid silver medal on Seaton Carew beach while out using his metal detector.

It belonged to Robert Henry Pollard, who was born in Hartlepool in 1886 and went on to receive three other war medals."

 Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Peterlee Mail

Bama Coast Gold Hunters

"Treasure hunter is the last thought that springs to mind when you see the middle-aged Mobile couple standing neck deep in the Gulf of Mexico wearing big yellow headphones.


But it’s the only description that fits.

While some people dream of diamonds and rubies, Mike Taylor and Darlene McAfee find them.

They ply the waters off the Alabama coast looking for gold, silver and other treasures lost in the sea. It’s not pirate booty they find, but loot lost by unlucky tourists."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Ben Raines \ Press-Register