Another commissioned cache recovery story :

[Tom_in_CA]

I got a call, about 20 yrs. ago, from a lawyer and real estate agent. Asking if I would come to a property to look for a buried cache of silver coins. The story was as follows :

The owner of this rural home had passed away in the year preceding this. His adult children, who had inherited their family home, were getting ready to sell the home.

The man was of the age where he had grown up during the 1930s depression. So ... as the story often goes: Some folk who "came of age" during that time, didn't trust banks. And felt that speculating silver is the wiser choice. The man and his wife had raised their kids in this family home. And by the 1970s, all the kids were grown and gone. By the 1990s, the man's wife had passed away, so he lived alone in the home. By the later 1990s, the man had an injury in a fall, and went to what was thought to be a temporary stay in an assisted living facility. And the family home sat vacant.

The notion, at the time, was that " ... dad's health will get better, and he'll move back home eventually". But it never quite worked out that way. Instead his condition grew worse. He was eventually moved into a convalescent home. That lasted another year or two, until he eventually passed away in the early 2000s. During that entire time, the home sat vacant.

to be continued ..................

 

[Tom_in_CA]

A curious thing had happened during his year or two in the convalescent home : He would occasionally ramble on, to various nurses, about "silver coins buried in the yard". But the nurses paid him no mind. Within a year or so, he was getting alzheimer's & dementia . Less & less coherent. One day, a few of the nurses were on their coffee break in the employee lunchroom . One of them said to the other nurse about how this particular patient had talked about "buried silver". The other nurse perked up and said : " You know that's odd, he said the same thing to me too on a few occasions ". So those two nurses reached out to other nurses who had had interactions with that patient. And : The same thing there too : They too had heard the guy telling them of buried silver.

So the nurses decided they had better say something to the family. So the next time the man got a visit from one of the children, the nurses related all this. The children were aware that their father was silver speculator. But it had never crossed their minds that he had buried it. For all they knew it was in safe deposit box . Or in a closet, or whatever. It wasn't something they ever gave thought to. But now they're hearing from these nurses about "buried".

So they went to their dad's bedside and tried to get information from their dad about where the $$ was buried. But it was too late. The man's Alzheimer's was too far progressed. They could not get a straight conversation. So the best that the man's adult children could do is interview the nurses, to see what he'd said to them the year or so before.

The best they could assemble was that it was "below a window" on a certain side of the house.

to be continued .....................

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The man passed away soon after that. And after all the funeral, and estate and will was done, the family home went up for sale. One of the kid's casually mentioned to the real estate agent about the buried silver that was supposedly there. The real estate agent took an interest in the story . And told them that if they didn't get this recovered NOW (before the sale went through) that they would likely never get the chance to look later.

The house immediately sold right after listing, so : The children only had 30 days (escrow period) to find their dad's coins. The lawyer who had been involved in the last will and testament estate inheritance stuff, was also somehow involved.

So the lawyer and real estate agent went to a rental yard company that had some chintzy machine for rent (like an ACE 250 or whatever). After an hour or so looking on the supposed correct side of the house, they couldn't find anything . Go figure, none of them knew how to operate a detector. They described it as "blaring off everywhere when they tried to detect close to the house".

So they figured they needed someone with experience. They reached out to a local detector dealer, who referred them to me. They explained the entire evolution of the story to me, just as I've relayed it here. And by now, were down to only about 10 days left in the escrow period. I agreed to come take a look.

Within a few minutes, I knew what their problem had been with their rental detector : All the walls of the house were plaster & lath, with chicken screen interior. So that whenever you got within a foot of the wall of the house, the front toe of the detector coil would begin to pick up the metal ribbing interior at the base of the walls.

So as soon as I figured that out, I knew that all I had to do was de-tune the detector . And despite getting blare as soon as I came within an inch or two of the wall, I was eventually able to isolate one tiny spot, beneath one of the windows, that gave a slight rise in the threshold, over the blare.

Digging down at that spot, I found it. It was a big section of PVC pipe, with caps on each end, glued to keep them tight. The pipe section was probably 6" diameter, by a foot or so long. And filled to the brim with silver coins. Quite heavy to hoist out of the hole. We were able to unscrew one end, which revealed a glimpse of the bounty. But the lawyer wanted the cap quickly put back on, and nothing else was seen or counted. Just the glimpse of what I saw on the surface. The pipe was whisked away.

to be continued .................

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I asked if I could take a picture. The lawyer was initially skeptical. But eventually agreed, provided it was not to be shown publicly. I reached for my digital camera (no smart phone cameras in those days). But the battery was dead. They said "No problem we'll take a picture and email you". But they never did. So I never ended up with any photos of this find.

Now as for what the reward /pay was for this commissioned hunt : I still kick myself to this day When we had been discussing this on the phone, I had been thinking "10%" of the value of whatever is found. But then I thought "shucks, what If I didn't find anything, then I'd make nothing". So instead I told them "$100 flat fee". Which turned out to be a big mistake. After travel to his location which was about an hour's round trip, I ended up with very little for my time and expense.

I also only ever dealt with the real estate agent and lawyer. Who strictly handed me $100. Never got to meet the family . Which would have been nice to have seen the satisfaction of reuniting family heirlooms. Versus a lawyer who is "strictly business". But, oh well, Live and Learn . It was still a gratifying hunt.

 

[hoser]

Cool story Tom, but I suspect the family didn't see a penny of that silver. I may be wrong but a similar thing happened to my wife's uncle. But that's another story. I thoroughly enjoyed yours. Well done my friend.

 

[SeabeeRon]

Cool story Tom, but I suspect the family didn't see a penny of that silver. I may be wrong but a similar thing happened to my wife's uncle. But that's another story. I thoroughly enjoyed yours. Well done my friend.

Oh come on now! You can’t leave us hanging like that!

 

[hoser]

Oh come on now! You can’t leave us hanging like that!

Sorry buddy, but I don't Shanghai other peoples threads at least not on purpose.

 

[KOB]

C'mon Tom. It's a good story , yes. For a guy so analytical and meticulous to detail , knows every answer on permissions , exhaustive research on stage stops....yet you bring a camera to a photo shoot.....wait for it.....with dead batteries.

 

[markinmichigan]

Tom, don't know you personally, but you seem to be very meticulous, a dead battery? Good story.

Mark in MIchigan

 

[bmattioli]

The Garrett Ace 250 is a favorite of mine.. Not "chintzy"

 

[metaladdict]

The Garrett Ace 250 is a favorite of mine.. Not "chintzy"

Yeah Ace 250 is a decent machine!

 

[MasonDixonMding]

Thanks for the good story.

 

[too_pointer]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing with us.
too_

 

[maxxkatt]

I did a lot of research back in the late 1980's on gold and silver caches in North Georgia mountains around gold diggings and home sites. It was very common to bury money in sight of a window if a home so the owner could keep site of the cache site as much as possible.

During the great depression post hole banks were common because of widespread bank failures. They would bury the money next to a fence post hole in sight from a window in the most often used room like the living room or kitchen area. Never found any buried caches. But would always find some small gold when I used my Fisher gold bug to locate birdshot and buckshot in the small streams, since both being heavy would be a likely place for gold. Also easy to spot because after 100 years or more the lead shot would have a very white patina on it.

 

[longbow62]

I've often wondered if I have ever swung over a container of buried coins and didn't dig because it was a large loud signal. I have no idea what a jar of coins would sound like. I guess it would max out the I.D. on whatever detector you were using. Besides that you would be able to get the coil over a foot off the ground most likely. Yeah I doubt I ever dig a cache of coins up.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've often wondered if I have ever swung over a container of buried coins and didn't dig because it was a large loud signal. I have no idea what a jar of coins would sound like. I guess it would max out the I.D. on whatever detector you were using. Besides that you would be able to get the coil over a foot off the ground most likely. Yeah I doubt I ever dig a cache of coins up.

Longbow62, you bring up a good point of discussion :

There were more caches found (like the bread & butter type , not the legend-class-type ones) back in from about 1960 to 1975-ish. Ie.: In the wimpy BFO to all-metal TR era. The machines at that time were doing good to get a coin to a few inches. But shucks, they could pick up a soda can, or jar, or hubcap sized item JUST FINE !

But as machines got more sophisticated , sensitive, and whizzbang disc, & TID, then hunters today will tend to pass that "large junk". Because sure as heck, it's going to be some farm implement junk, or a soda can, or sprinkler head, etc.... As opposed to the old days where everything sounded the same, and .... you had no discrimination.

This is why a 2-box machine (or wimpy old BFO from the early to mid 1960s) is actually a better cache machine. Because even though our modern machines get a soda can or hubcap to the SAME depth, yet : A machine like a 2-box machine doesn't even hear small items. Thus : The perfect discriminator against pesky individual coins, tabs, nails, etc.... You ONLY hear the big stuff.

And I know that when someone is using a standard machine for cache hunting that he will try to tell himself that he is going to mentally ignore and pass the small stuff. But it never works out that way. Instead : Nagging doubts will have him perpetually spending all his time checking beeps "just to be sure". Doh !

 

[rreahard]

Another great story! Thanks for sharing, Tom!