A couple contacted me about some valuable items that were apparently buried on land that they now owned. A family member that had amassed many items was ill and was supposed to show his longtime friend where these items were buried. Time went on and he never divulged where he supposedly buried the items in question. One day when the family members came over, they found a dirty shovel in the living room, which was very unusual. They asked him about the shovel and he said he just forgot it there. They thought that was odd. Later, they also found out that there was a toolbox missing from the garage. Did he bury these items in the missing toolbox? After his passing, the family purchased a metal detector to see if, in fact, he had actually buried the items they thought he still had. They knew there was no safety deposit box, as he had some problems with the bank years earlier and he did not trust them. They searched the property but came up empty. Apparently the items in question were buried on about 4 acres of land. I hunted several times a week for about 3 weeks. I did find some old tools, some coins and a kid’s ring, but no luck on the "treasure". Perhaps this was just a tall tale and the treasure was spent long ago. No one knew for sure. I found an overgrown spot near a tree, old stump and fence line of the property. I kept getting inconsistent signals from this one area. After 45 minutes of digging around, I realized that there was a barbed wire fence that was embedded in the ground. I cut through the fence and proceeded to probe around. Still inconsistent signals, but I was able to eliminate most of them by turning down my pinpointer. I was now getting a faint steady signal below the surface and not from the barbed wire fence. I knew something was there. After changing my position, I proceeded to dig down again. After a few minutes of digging, my shovel blade hit the sweet sound of a metal container. After switching detectors, I was able to get a nice picture of the object in the ground through analysis imaging and it did confirm that this was a box of some kind. Could it truly be the toolbox with the alleged treasure??? There is bad news and good news . . . The bad news . . . after unearthing a metal box, we realized that this IS NOT the metal toolbox that disappeared from the garage. The good news . . . The box was FULL!!! I could hear objects moving about as I struggled to free the box from the clay earth. Could this be my lucky day??? After getting a large hammer from the garage, I broke the lock off the box and opened the lid. I instantly saw silver coins and as I peeled back some of the items then I saw the color of gold!!! A toolbox FULL of coins, jewelry and collectibles. I am truly blessed and it happened on my Mother’s birthday. About 5 years ago I found some silver on my Dad’s birthday. Call it divine intervention. Call it luck or just persistence. Whatever the case, you never know what you can find . . . unless you try! I will continue to detect, explore and enjoy this hobby, after not touching a metal detector for 30 years since I was a kid. Needless to say, this fun hobby has now turned into a profitable one! I am very thankful, to say the least, but I wonder what happened to that other toolbox???
J Gamble - OR, USA.
