Treasure Hunting

There’s a lot of news that comes out of the various oil-ridden countries in the middle east, but no matter what your opinion of these countries are, I think we can all agree that their history is interesting and the opportunities for treasure abound.

Archaeologists in Jerusalem National Park discovered 264 ancient gold coins. They were minted during the early 7th century and is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem. Minted in the 7th century means that these coins are 1,400+ years old!

You may remember hearing about a well-reserved gold earring with pearls and emeralds. Well, this hoard was found in the same place, in what used to be a car lot. But long before the area was a parking lot, it was a building that dates back to the end of the Byzantine period. The excavation of the building is still in the early stages, and archaeologists say “Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building. It seems that with the buildings collapse, the coins piled up there among the building debris.”

For pictures of the coins both BEFORE and AFTER cleaning, as well as a picture of the collapsed building/parking lot, visit CNN Online.

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This time it looks like an anonymous donor hit The Salvation Army of Great Houston. Earlier today a Canadian gold coin, valued at around $930, was dropped into a red kettle station outside of a Sam’s Club store.

It was wrapped inside of paper with a tiny note which was also wrapped into a dollar bill. The note only said :A child is born. Jesus!”

From Channel 6 KFDM news:

“”We’ve all been wondering if we were going to receive any gold coins this year. Donations have been slow and we understand that people aren’t able to give as much as they have in the past, but this donation really lifts our spirits and brings the true joy of the holiday season to our Christmas,” says Carr.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this year, The Salvation Army of Greater Houston has been aiming to reach some $2.5 million in donations to help fund its many year-round programs and services, which include disaster relief, emergency response, youth programs, senior programs, rehabilitation, financial assistance, counseling, housing and Christmas assistance. This task, however, has not been an easy one.

Red Kettle donations are down 16 percent; while mail campaign donations are registering decreases of 20 percent, in comparison to the same timeframe last year.

“Hopefully this donation will inspire others to give generously,” Carr concluded.’

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Wow… okay, first of all, this is one seriously old coin. Minted only 67 years into time as we know it, this coin is possibly the oldest thing we’ve reported on at TreasureHunting.com.

Second of all: This coin was found by sifting through dirt dug from the side of a mountain where a temple used to be. It’s an unauthorized project in Temple Mount, Jerusalem, begun in 1999, that has caused extensive an irreversible archaeological damage to the ancient layers of the mountain.

40,000 volunteers have participating in this giant sifting project and over 3,500 coins have been discovered in the dirt so far. But while many of them go back to the Persian era, this is the first coin found that was actually minted right there and is the oldest.

This ancient coin does have what looks like fire damage. Experts believe it was the same fire that destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D. The coin is worth a “half shekel,” the face is decorated with a branch of three pomegranates and ancient Hebrew letters reading “holy Jerusalem.” On the flip side, the letters say “half shekel.”

Go to Haaretz.com for a picture of this old coin. Reminds us of something made in playdough,… very old and odd looking. What do you think?

- Shaun

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It is officially one week until Christmas day,… it’s warm here in Central Florida but that doesn’t mean we’re without the holiday spirit.

I was looking around for some good treasure news and found something I thought very heart warming. It looks like two 10 ounce gold coins were dropped into a Salvation Arm kettle this week.

The gold coins are smaller than pennies but worth more than $100. This is the first time in several years that anything besides regular currency has ended up in this specific kettle, located in front of a Starbucks in Napperville, IL.

Here’s some excerpts from the article located at local newspaper, The Napperville Sun.

Tony Hall, major over operations in the greater Aurora/Naperville area, said about 40 bell ringers at 50 locations have raised $107,000 so far. The organization’s total fundraising goal this year is $220,000 – $40,000 less than the total amount raised last year.

“A lot of it was the economy … also the election year,” Hall said. “Also, we had some flooding in our area. We were trying to be realistic.”

The coins were likely donated between 4 and 8 p.m., the time slot during which ringers man the kettle each day outside Starbucks. Whoever dropped them also affixed a note that said “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Salvation Army … from the general,” Hall said.

It’s a typical note for the mystery donations. Salvation Armies throughout the country have found valuable coins in kettles over the last 20 years, often accompanied by notes signed by the “general.”

Sage said the organization will get them appraised by a gold dealer and donate the money to social services in the area.

To the various “Generals” around the country, thank you for parting with your treasures this holiday season. It’s been a difficult year for many people around the country and we’re happy to report good news such as this. And as much as we love gold, we love helping others even more.

- Shaun & Adam

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Being good friends with a few sales people at Kellyco and owners of Minelab metal detectors, Adam and I have heard a lot about these after-market coils known as “Excelerator Coils.”

They come in all shapes and sizes, and generally fit the higher end Minelab and White’s metal detectors. Our Kellyco friends have told us repeatedly how great they are but we don’t own one. Well, after getting requests and questions for more information from our blog readers on these coils, we decided to do some research.

The latest from the designers of the Excelerator coils is the SEF Coil. Dubbed the “Butterfly” coil by the participants on the forum Find Mall, the SEF’s come in 10 x 12″, 15 x 12″, and the gigantic 18 x 15″. Those all sound pretty massive, but from what we hear these coils are worth their weight in gold. Below is a sample of the field test report from a White’s MXT user:

Field tester Don Echols in Virginia reported finding “35 bullets on a site that produced only 8 in the same amount of time with a different coil.” He states: “Several of the bullets were in the 4″ to 5″ depth range and gave a good sound as well as a good VDI reading” with his White’s MXT detector. Don also noted ‘The novice or rookie hunter may have a difficult time with this coil, but if they stick with it, I’m sure they can add to their collection.”

Taking the coil out with his MXT to a different, more common soil location, Don reported: ‘The coil was reaching down at least 10″ for tiny bullets and easily getting the larger ones at a foot. The shallow targets sound and read good, but the deep items are inconclusive. To dig, or not to dig, is up to the user - I almost always dig and it pays off.”

For the full field test report, visit Excelerator Searchcoil Field Test Report Page at Kellyco.

Now the other Excelerator coils are JUST as worthy of attention and even easier to handle on the end of the metal detector. They’re round, with DD technology for more precision in the field, and come in 5″, 6″, 8″, 10″, 12.5″, 14″, 16.5″ and 18″ increments. Below a testimonial from a White’s MXT user:

The Excelerator 6″ DD search coil, made for the White’s MXT, is an awesome search coil. I took it out today for about 4.5 hours and I did not experience one problem with it. It pinpointed like it had a rifle sight on it. The VDI number were accurate with every target I dug, whether it was a quarter or a bottle cap. I dug targets at around 6″ through out the day and I feel that had there been targets deeper the coil would have sought them out. I did not find a lot today, but i can tell you with certainty that if there is something to be found this coil will find it with ease. I think this coil is really going to be in demand by White’s MXT user.

For more information, visit the Excelerator Coil Report Page at Kellyco.

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Our sponsor, Kellyco Metal Detectors, often passes along good news to us but this article is one we are really excited to pass along. Lots of people have been looking for reviews and field tests on these new machines out from Teknetics and we finally have something to share. After reading what Mike in Alabama has to say about this machine I’m thinking we’ll have to try one out. This latest series from Teknetics certainly LOOKS promising, but now we actually have some information to back it up.

I’ll paste in the first portion of the field test report but please visit Kellyco’s Teknetics Gamma Field Test Report page to see all the great photos and read the rest of the review. It’s just too long to put in this entire blog. Many thanks to our friends at Kellyco!

My name is Mike Bearden and I live in north Alabama. I have been metal detecting since 1969.

I have used just about every brand of metal detector offered to the public in the last 30 odd years and really enjoy metal detecting and field testing different product lines.

Kellyco sent the new Teknetics Gamma 6000 to me to see how well it will perform in my area which is heavily saturated with iron ore and red clay.

I live in the middle of the iron ore belt that stretches from 150 miles north of my home and on down below Birmingham, Alabama.

This ground has proven to be very tough to tame for MANY of the high end detectors that I have tried here over the years.

Just to give you an idea, those gold/red stones in the picture below are iron ore typically found in my yard and throughout the surrounding counties. This place is LOADED with it and if you drag a shop magnet around on the ground, these stones actually stick to it like metal. It’s found on the surface and as far down as anyone cares to dig.

After receiving the Gamma 6000 I opened the box, zipped through the 24 page manual and then put it together, installed the battery, turned it on and got familiar with all of the settings.

I selected four tones over the default setting of three because I like to hear as much difference between targets as the detector will allow.

The overall sound quality is pretty good and the adjustable volume is extremely loud when maxed out when real metal detecting headphones are used, however, a 1/4″ to 1/8″ adapter is needed to accomplish this unless you have a high end set of 1/8″ plug-in detecting headphones lying around.

Of course go to Kellyco’s Teknetics Gamma Field Test Report page to finish reading this field test report and to see all the pictures Mike provided. And if you have any report of your own please feel free to comment. We also take requests for reviews and field test reports, so please pass those along also.

- Shaun & Adam

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I thought this was interesting news to those of us who follow WWII news…

The Australian government has committed to donate $4.3 million to locate the sunken World War II hospital ship, the Centaur. Sunken by a Japanese submarine off of the south east coast of Queensland in 1943, the ship had 268 people aboard - all of whom went down with the ship.

This is good news for the families who lost a loved one aboard this ship, as there will finally be some closer and understanding to what has happened. We’ll keep this post updated with news as it comes to us.

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This is something Adam and I have been wondering about recently - what the heck is up with modern day pirates?! They’ve been running around Somalia, going after oil tankers and cruise ships. Just recently a cruise ship outran them!

Seriously: we don’t know what to think of them. Obviously they’re no good. But otherwise,… a few questions…

And this is just silly, but really - what do these pirates look like? Are they “swashbuckling?” What kind of hats do they wear?

I think that modern civilization has so completely romanticized pirates that the term almost doesn’t even apply anymore. These people are hijackers…

Anyway - all this started from an article I found at The Daily Vidette at Illinois State University. Read it. It’s a good explanation of what’s going on today.

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I found this event pretty interesting and I dig that it’s accessible to everyone…

Check out eBay from noon on December 4, 2008 to December 15, 2008 - The state of Massachusetts is auctioning off the contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes!

As required by state law, safe deposit boxes that have not been maintained for seven years are turned over to the Treasury’s Abandoned Property Division

The treasury then attempts to locate the owners or their heirs. If an owner is located, the property is returned. If not, the personal property is appraised and put up for public auction. Any proceeds remain available for rightful owners to claim.

Some of the items available for auction include gold and silver, rare currency, such as paper money and coins from around the world, and jewelry such as rings, pendants, gemstones, pocket watches and wristwatches.

Keep an eye on events like this. When it’s cold outside we have to resort to online treasure hunting and this event looks good to us!

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