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Tell us your cache story

Treasurekidd

Elite Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
1,241
Location
Warwick, RI
I've noticed that this little corner of the forum is always kind of quiet compared to the others. As metal detectorists, we are always happy with a Wheatie, a Merc, an interesting relic, a nice piece of jewelry and a pocket full of clad, but we all dream of striking it rich with that one truly fantastic treasure find someday. I'd like to hear about your cache stories - caches you've heard of, how you researched it, hunting for it, and finding or not finding it. Even finding one by sheer luck! All caches qualify, from as small as several coins in one hole to a mason jar full of them.

Please keep the details generic in terms of locations or names, I don't want people jumping each others "claims", but lets hear those cache stories, I know there's some good ones out there! Thanks, and HH!
 
Hello Treasurekidd, here goes: Did a bit of reasearch into an old Chinese settlement about 80km from where I live. The history books say it was in one spot, but after spending some time in the Aussie bush, found it wasn't quite the case. I located the site after finding a 'third' chinese ceremonial oven that isn't known about, and detecting the little house sites around the old sluicing workings, found over 100 chinese coins, some dating back to 1621. I also have 5 of 20 poetry coins that were minted in 1677. The other coins date around 1644. So this was the bees knees of finds for me! Older than the English pennies I usually detect!
HH Angela :grin:
 

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Great story, Angela. Can you give an estimate of how much time you put into your discovery?
 
Hello Len, I read through as much material on the settlement that I could find, which wasn't a great deal. Even tried the internet, but couldn't find anything relevant for this area. But I found that purely going out bush and exploring once I had a general idea of where it might be located, was the best way. I would say I've spent about 2 days every week in the scrub for the past two months, detecting various spots that even hinted a site. One thing the Chinese did was grow their own vegies, so I looked for evidence of flat or hilled area, cleared of bush scrub, and with fertile soil. The Chinese rarely left behind rubbish, unlike the Europeans who threw it all over the place. They tend to bury their rubbish deep. So there might even be potential bottle dumps around the place, but unfortunately no detector will go THAT deep! And I don't think a probe would do it either. In total between my husband and I we've retrieved over 200 coins, the tiny green and white glass opium bottles, glass beads from the gambling game fan tan, and a few small buckles. Even found an unusual lead ink pot, which we donated to the local museum. We even took the museum curator with us, and he detected for the first time in his life, three chinese coins, using Garry's Explorer 2. Now that was something. The bloke never detected in his life!
HH Angela :grin:
 
Wow, that's a really great story Angela. You may have created a new detectorist, and a museaum curator at that. That's a really good thing! Thanks for posting an educating experience for all of us to learn from.

Let's keep em coming everyone. Unfortuantley, my cache finding experience is limited to 9 modern coins in one hole, which fits more under the title "pocket spill" than "cache", lol!
 
Hello Treasurekidd, my dream now is to find a gold sovereign. I just gotta keep getting out there till I do!
HH Angela :grin:
 
Not sure if this counts but here goes...

I love to go to banks and buy rolls of halfs to search for silver coins. More than once I have gotten rolls that are easily more than half silver coins, mostly 40% silver Kennedys, sometimes 90% Kenendy's are mixed in.

This winter yielded my best "finds". On two consecutive weekends I found 4 solid rolls of 40% silver Kennedy coins. That came out to 80 coins and 11.83 ounces of silver! The very next weekend, I bought 6 rolls from one bank. 1 roll and half of another were Franklin Half Dollars! I was high as a kite that day! Another almost 11 ounces of Silver and some really old coins!

I have yet to find a cache with my detector but I can manage until then!
 
WOW, is roll hunting really that good?? I've tried it once, buying all 20 halve rolls my bank had, and found........zero silver. No 1964s and no 40% halves. And when I returned them, the look I got from the teller persuaded me not to try again. Maybe I'll give it another shot. Thanks for posting that, it's a whole new way to treasure hunt!
 
Great story and great research Angela! It certainly paid off.

Great idea hitting the bank for halves too. I didn't ever think of that. :roll:
 
Treasurekidd said:
WOW, is roll hunting really that good?? I've tried it once, buying all 20 halve rolls my bank had, and found........zero silver. No 1964s and no 40% halves. And when I returned them, the look I got from the teller persuaded me not to try again. Maybe I'll give it another shot. Thanks for posting that, it's a whole new way to treasure hunt!

Those are my 2 very best half dollar finds ever at the bank. It isnt uncommon here to go out and find between a half and a whole roll of mixed alloy coins (90% and 40%) in one day. I know what you mean when you search alot of rolls with no luck, this morning i went through $500 worth of halves and nothing :( Persistence is the key.

Ever since silver went to 13.00 an ounce, it has been a fierce competition to get them from the bank!
 
I've done the halves roll searches in the past and did end up with 3 40% half's in one roll but, nothing at all since then.


Hey Treasurekidd.. I've found at least 20 or more caches....of bottle caps. Does that count??
 
10 years ago both myself and detecting partner were on a stubble field in north yorkshire. this field was unremarkable although it had produced a few hammered silver coins from Henry II to Elizabeth I. One day we went as our other sites were in crop and after spending a few hours in the pouring rain stopped for lunch. We both decided to give it another hour and if nothing turned up we would head off home. I went to the top of the field, he went to the bottom and the signals were few and far between when i turned around and he was running up the field. He asked me to have a look at 2 coins he had found and instantly i could see they were 10th century saxon silver pennies...By the end of the day we had unearthed 80 saxon and 1 viking coin from Edmund, Eadred, Eadwig and Eadgar.
An unforgettable day and after going for a treasure trove inquest etc we got £14,000 for our little hoard.
 
That extra effort after lunch certainly paid off for you!! Seems to me I've read several other stories on this forum about folks who were ready to quit for the day, but just gave it a few more swings...and WHAM!, a great find. Congratulations!
 
I found a cache last summer quite by accident.  I was helping out at our historical society park and as usual was nosing around(I find as much by just keeping my eyes on the ground as with my detector).  Spotted a few coins in the dirt off in an unvisited corner of the grounds and thought, "Cool, someone lost the change out of their pocket".   I ended up taking out over fifty dollars in change that had apparently been in a stoneware jar which had been broken at some point scattering the change over several feet of ground.
This money had to have been left by the previous owner-she donated the land to the society when she died.  The coins were between 1965 and 1995 when she passed away.  Now obviously she kept her GOOD stuff somewhere else and I'm still looking for it!
 
$50 in clad coins qualifies as a cache to me! That's awesome, you must have been going nuts diggin it all up, only to find all modern coins! Thanks for posting it!
 
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