Treasure Hunting

This new book “Relics & Reminiscing: Diary of a Lowcountry Digger” was written by an award-winning journalist for the Times and Democrat, Richard Walker, about his favorite hobby of 30 years - relic hunting. I thought it was a great follow-up to my last article, and really shows how perspective has changed for this hobby.

“The book is a compilation of my efforts of providing a historical record of our area through years of going out in the woods fighting the rain, fighting the elements and wildlife to provide that record,” Walker said. “It’s fun, but for me personally, I think if we have a record of where we’ve been, we’ll know where we’re going. I try to preserve some of that for future generations.”

Walker generally targets average, everyday home sites instead of those sought by archeologists to preserve a record of how ordinary people lived. Walker said he can tell whether a family was wealthy or poor judging by what he finds at their home site.

“For the most part, the places we find are the lower- to middle-income-type residences,” Walker said. “Each site is a source, and we have to put together the pieces of that story.

“You can find one or two pieces, and that’s not a complete picture, but once you’ve worked the site for three years, sometimes you get a better picture of who lived there.”

Walker said he has always been interested in history, and his favorite movie growing up was “Treasure Island.”

His relic-hunting journey began in 1976. Walker was 12 years old and equipped with a metal detector and shovel he borrowed from his dad’s tool shed. The only thing missing was a map pointing out the hidden items he dreamed of locating.

“I had left that part out,” Walker said. “I just wanted the machine, and I wanted the shovel.”

A lot of research goes into finding a worthy site, Walker said, and the library was one of his best sources. He also made telephone calls, placed ads in newspapers and wrote relic hunters in- and out-of-state, sending an average of five or six letters a week. Many were helpful, replying with useful information about sites he could try.

Shortly after Christmas 1976, Walker got a call from Gordon Walker (no relation), an employee at a local newspaper who saw his ad requesting relics. The man shared his experience about Civil War relic hunting and gave the younger Walker directions to a nearby Confederate site.

During his first trip to the site, Richard Walker found a Hotchkiss shell sabot and said he was hooked.

“Just the thrill of picking up this piece that had laid there for 150 years was so exciting,” Walker said. “To me, an artifact is probably the best time machine there is. It beats movies or books or anything else.

“To hold a piece that was last held two or three hundred years ago is baffling.”

Nearly a year after finding his first Hotchkiss shell, Walker learned one of many lessons about relic hunting — don’t throw items away until they can be identified.

Walker’s most significant find was unearthed nearly 20 years ago during a search for what he and his relic-hunting companions called the “Lost Brigade,” a movement by one of Sherman’s brigades made up of the 25th Indiana and the 32nd Wisconsin. For years, Walker hunted the Edisto River in the area in which the troops should have been and came up with nothing.

On May 4, 1988, he decided to make another trip to the Edisto swamps to find the Lost Brigade. During this hunt, his detector gave a signal that rang out like a siren, Walker said. He carefully dug into what was a Springfield bayonet and later discovered an eagle breastplate and another Springfield bayonet.

“Relics and Reminiscing” incorporated detailed records of each of Walker’s trips, including the date, participating hunters, the site, grid patterns and what was found. His records indicate more bayonets, 16 dropped three ringers, bore cleaner minies, another breastplate and 20 dropped minies found from his discovery of the Lost Brigade.

Walker has taken some 487 relic hunting trips in the last 30 years. He admits some of the pieces he’s found may be valuable, but their historical importance is greater.

“If I sell a piece, and it loses its context, then we all lose,” he said. “Anyone whose history is related to this area suffers.”

Sounds like a smart man and a seasoned relic hunter we could all learn from. Let me know if you read this book. Go to The TandD.com for the rest of the article. Or pick up Relics & Reminiscing: Diary of a Lowcountry Digger on Amazon.com

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I get a lot of emails from beginners who are searching for “the best places to use a metal detector” or “where to metal detect in (insert your town here).” The only answer I have is this: Research, research, research. Check the local census records, find out if there were any revolutionary or Civil War battles fought in your area, and look for records of old settlements, homesteads, stores and such.

Now, most people try to avoid buying books about possible hunting locations because their theory is “if someone wrote about it, chances are it’s probably hunted out already.” My answer: yes and no.

One that I whole-heartedly recommend (this is the second post I’ve included it in) is “Buried Treasures You Can Find” by Robert F. Marx. It has over 7,500 locations listed around the U.S. that are rich with history, and while it might not have all-original ideas for hunting, it is an excellent jumping off point for research.

Another great book to go hand-in-hand with “Buried Treasures You Can Find” is “Metal Detecting Previously Hunted Sites” published by Whites Electronics Inc.

Also try to snoop around online for hints. Anywhere people lived and traveled to is great for metal detecting. One interesting blog is Travel, Highways and History which focuses on U.S. History and Highway projects. It’s a great place to get ideas.

Furthermore, check out U-S-History.com, which has easy to reference information on the various eras, old maps and informative tables.

And while you’re at it, go to The History Channel Online - You wouldn’t believe how well they’ve organized and cataloged history. I recommend starting off with a search for “Metal Detector” on HistoryChannel.com, you’ll get a lesson in gold mines, civilizations, types of money, and early monetary regulations.

The internet brings millions of facts and tons of data to our fingertips, so it should come as no surprise that it’s hard to dig through. Just keep looking, learning and researching.

- Adam in St. Cloud

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WARNING: The novel being discussed in this post is slightly absurd, with odd scenarios and sarcastic humor. But it’s about a thrift shop owner and how the items in his store hold souls, so I thought it would be neat to share. End warning.

I picked this novel by Christopher Moore up a few weeks ago and didn’t think to post about it until today. It’s about a man named Charlie who owns a thrift shop. His wife passes away unexpectedly and he becomes involved in a new sideline business of retrieving the souls of the dead or dying to protect them from the forces of the underworld. In other words, he becomes “Death.”

You folks are thinking “So Liz,… why are you telling us about this? It sounds kinda creepy!”

Well, you’re right. That kind of plot does sound a little creepy. But the book is written with enough humility and sarcastic humor to make it a really fun read. And the concept of how souls move about Earth is pretty nifty.

The concept is that a soul goes along with a person until they die. It’s then attached to an object that person really cared for when they lived. The person is then re-born, and goes along life without a soul until they reach the point in their new life where they died in the last one. Then they pick their soul up and do it all over again.

Charlie - the thrift shop owner - is responsible for making sure that the ’soul-items’ get safely from one person to the next. This is an ideal job for him since he owns a thrift shop and sees people’s formally cherished and used possessions come and go. And thus, he is “Death.”

See,… it’s not that creepy.

Can you think of any one object that you’ve loved and would like to see in the after-life?

We’ve all found things we’re proud of… maybe it was more “meant to be” then we know.

Either way, this is a fun book and it makes you appreciate a thrift shop a whole lot more!

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I heard about this book earlier this week and thought it might be fun to share with you folks. “Black Man Under the Deep Blue Sea…” is a memoir written by Tony Wells, a commercial diver who’s traveled the world looking for sunken treasure.

During his career, Wells survived plenty of dangerous excitement, including two near-drownings, a deadly diving disease, illegal imprisonment and several treasure hunts for sunken gold. His memoir is written in a friendly, unassuming tone in which he happily recounts deep sea adventures and the wisdom they granted him across 19 countries.

“My message is that no matter what race or gender you are, don’t let ignorant or jealous people put you down or tell you what you ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ do,” Wells says. “Anything is possible, so if you want to do something, just go out and do it.”

Tony Wells resides in Saint Petersburg, Florida. He is also the author of “Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure in Southeast Asia.” He has participated in several treasure hunts, most notably a two-year search for a 500-year-old Portuguese ship. It was during another treasure hunt that Wells and a friend found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and were illegally detained by some corrupt policemen in Indonesia until a hefty bribe freed them from jail.

For an authentic read, full of truly exotic adventure, plenty of nail-biting suspense and honest humor, look no farther than “Black Man under the Deep Blue Sea” to take you into incredible excitement, far beyond the realms of ordinary life.

Check out “Black Man Under the Deep Blue Sea: Memoirs of a Black Commercial Diver in Southeast Asia” on Amazon for only $19.99 - ISBN# 9781424174225.

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Here are a few books that we thought you might be interested in. Yes, reading takes away from your time metal detecting, but you might find a few tips that will help you on your next outing.

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  The Urban Treasure Hunter: A Practical Handbook for Beginners
  From Publishers Weekly
  Tompkins Square Park, in New York City’s East Village, has produced coin recoveries dating back to the 1830s. A construction site in Philadelphia recently yielded ceramic perfume containers and embossed pipe bowls from the 1860s. “Urban treasure hunter” Chaplan explains how to find, unearth and identify valuable artifacts like these in this how-to manual. He provides information on dealing with curious onlookers and fitting into a neighborhood (in “upscale” areas, dress like a jogger; in “tough areas,” wear camouflage items and worn jeans), covers legal issues, provides a surprisingly scholarly and in-depth lesson in archeology and details how and where to search for and clean old coins, bottles and historical and prehistoric artifacts (he also gives tips on how to cash in on this hobby). Chaplan peppers his text with quotations from fictional and real adventurers, from Sherlock Holmes to Rudyard Kipling, and includes do-it-yourself instructions for building a sifter and even setting up an electrolysis device for cleaning unearthed metal objects. Chaplan’s enthusiasm enlivens the extensive, solid factual information, and although his comparison of urban treasure hunters to history’s swashbuckling explorers is a bit exaggerated, stories of his own hunting experiences in the greater New York area, as well as tales of discoveries of booty in unexpected places, prove his point that adventures and buried treasure are closer to home than most would expect.
  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.




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  Buried Treasures You Can Find: Over 7500 Locations in All 50 States
  From Customer Review
  This book is great. It has many great places to look for treasure in every state. The author has done years of research to find many old ghost towns, buried treasure stories, and many other places. It gives tips on metal detecting, but seems to have been paid by Garrett Metal Detectors to advertise and show their detectors in this book. It also informs you how to find good places to look. This book is a masterpiece and very interesting even if you are not going out to look for lost treasures of yesterday.




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  Treasure Hunting With Metal Detectors
  Product Description
  Metal detecting has opened a whole new vista for the treasure hunter. With these tools a treasure hunter can find what the old hunters had missed and could not find. Various methods of recovery are covered in Gerry Edwards book including the cleaning and preserving of your valuable finds. In depth research on how to use a metal detector in the recovery of treasure are covered in this book. Tried and true methods of the author are revealed with his results as a testament on how to recover what the old timers missed.

If you’ve read these books already, we’d love to hear what you think of them, or if you know of a book that should have been included, tell us about it in the comments.

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