Treasure Hunting

The Milwaukee cargo steamship L.R. Doty has been discovered after 112 years of wondering where it has sunk. The L.R. Doty is of great value because the 300 foot long ship was the largest wooden vessel, and the whereabouts of this ship were not known.

Brendon Baillod, the President of Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association spent 20 years of his life researching about the ship, and had remembered a local fisherman reporting that his nets were clashing against a strong object in the shorelines in 1991. He backtracked and took his diving crew down to explore the possibilities of the L.R. Doty being found. Jitka Hanakova, the 33 year old diver who was a member of the research team told the media that the divers spotted the ship as soon as they landed on the floor of the lake. He said that the ship has been well preserved due to the cold and fresh water of the lake.

L.R. Doty ship found 300ft below Lake Michigan's surface after 112 years

It was said that the ship was carrying cargo of corns way back from South Chicago and was headed towards Ontario in 1898 when it sank into the depths of water. When the ship sunk down it was pretty young, just five years old. Besides the 17 crew members out of which none survived the storm, the ship was also carrying two cats namely Dewey and Watson. The corpses of the ship’s crew are still said to present inside the boiler room which is said to be the safest place where one might have gone for shelter.

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Nevada City, CA - Permits have been sought after with this new amazing discovery that led the San Fransisco business man, Jim Sanders into new wealth. Over 160 years has passed since the California Gold Rush, after one evening of metal detecting in his family-owned property, he found a 9 pound gold nugget then following with an 8oz nugget and 10oz.

Nine pound Gold Nugget found in Nevada City, CA

Gold nuggets usually are reported to come in smaller sizes, and since the Gold Rush this is a very large discovery. Sanders believes there is more where that came from after surveying the land.

Local jeweler Terry Mohr hadn’t seen the nugget, but was impressed nonetheless at the reported size, which he said would make it worth well over $100,000.

“I’ve been doing gold nugget jewelry for over 30 years and I don’t know as I’ve heard of a nugget that size being found in this area in all the time I’ve been involved,” Mohr said.

Looks like if you live near Nevada City, CA you should consider getting your serious Metal Detecting Gear on and head outside to see if you get lucky! Good luck and Happy Hunting

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I came across this while surfing the news. Workers who were digging a drain found 62 silver coins buried in the ground. The coins have initially been identified as 13th century Arab coins from the Delhi Sultanate era, from 1206 to 1526.

The workers who discovered them didn’t report the find to authorities… at first. They divided them up amongst themselves, but apparently some were not happy with their share and reported the find to authorities. The coins were confiscated and a team from the Archeological Survey of India is expected in the area today to examine the coins.

You can read the article here at: news.cn

This is an awesome find. I’m sad but not surprised that the coins were not reported at first, but I’m glad they were recovered. It’s another link to the history of the region and that’s priceless. I admit I get a thrill whenever I dig up a find, but anything of historical significance shouldn’t be hidden away, it should be shared with the world. How else will we learn about our past?

Liz

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It’s getting hot out there lately, so I decided I should start coming in and writing blogs again when I stumbled on a story that is truly amazing. It isn’t about metal detecting, but it’s about history - our other favorite subject here at TreasureHunting.com.

The Emory family, prominent tobacco and wheat farmers who settled in Maryland in the 1660s, apparently saved every last scrap of paper they ever wrote on. Talk about a “pack-rat!”

Their plantation home “Poplar Grove” is still in family hands and the mansion is used as a hunting lodge. Washington College has had access to the plantation for years, but only recently did some students begin to sift through the boxes and boxes of paper in the attic.

When they realized what they found - they called for back-up.

Now Adam Goodheart, a history professor at Washington College, state archivists and a crew of student interns are working to collect and categorize the documents. The collection includes letters, maps, financial records, political posters, and printed bills provide a first hand account of life from the 1660s through World War II.

“Historians are used to dealing with political records and military documents,” said Goodheart, “But what they aren’t used to is political letters and military documents kept right alongside bills for laundry or directors for building a washing machine.”

“Look at this: ‘Negro woman, Sarah, about 27 years old, $25,” Goodheart says, reading from a 19th century inventory. “It was as though this family never threw away a scrap of paper.”

Mary Wood, an Emory cousin whose son inherited the plantation in 1998 said “I don’t believe any of us knew these papers were there. We didn’t go there all that often, and when you do, you don’t go up in people’s attics and look around.”

I’d say there’s a great deal of looking to be done from here on out! And I have a feeling we’ll learn quite a bit about the nuances of life in Maryland during those 400 years - things we never knew about.

- Shaun

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Maybe it’s because we loved the movie “Gladiator” so much, or maybe because this was discovered by divers and we secretly hope to one day go on a diving expedition… but this article is just cool.

- Shaun & Crew

The BBC News is reporting that “divers in France have found the oldest known bust of Roman dictator Julius Caesar at the bottom of the River Rhone.” Found near Arles, a city founded by Julius Caesar, the bust dates back to the town’s foundation in the year 46B.C.

It was found with other items including a 6ft marble statue of the god Neptune that is from the first decade of the third century A.D., and two smaller, bronze status.

This bust is a favorite of ours here at TreasureHunting.com because it is so life-like; wrinkles, lines, a bald head. Apparently this is typical of the realist portraits of Caesar’s republican era.

Luc Long, the archaeologist who directed the excavations, said “all the busts of Caesar in Rome were posthumous. I suspect the bust was thrown in the river after he was assassinated because it would not have been good at that time to be considered a follower of his.”

A group of republican senators assassinated Caesar in 44BC. On the Ides in 44 BC, a group of senators called Caesar to the forum for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. However, the petition was a fake.

As Caesar began to read the false petition, Tillius Cimber, who had handed him the petition, pulled down Caesar’s tunic. While Caesar was crying to Cimber “But that is violence!” the aforementioned Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator’s neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm, saying in Latin “Casca, you villain, what are you doing?” Casca, frightened, shouted “Help, brother” in Greek.

Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenseless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around sixty or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times. According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.

Some of the objects found in the river will be displayed in a museum on ancient Arles, the culture ministry said.

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The H. L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink a warship, although the submarine was also lost during the process. Owned by the Confederate States of America during the height of the Civil War, it demonstrated both the advanteages and the dangers of undersea warfare.

H. L. Hunley, almost 40 feet long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, launched in July 1863, and shipped by rail to Charleston, SC on August 12, 1863. On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1800-ton steam sloop USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor, but soon after, Hunley also apparently sank, drowning all 8 crewmen. Over 136 years later, on August 8, 2000, the wreck was recovered, and on April 17, 2004, the DNA-identified remains of the eight Hunley crewmen were interred in Charleston’s Magnolia Cemetery, with full military honors.

There is apparently some discrepancy as to who first discovered the resting place of the Henley, and at Hunley.org it is reported that “best selling author Clive Cussler established the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) and spent 15 years searching for Hunley. The world’s first sub to sink a ship in battle was finally discovered on May 3rd, 1995 by NUMA archeologists Ralph Wilbanks, Wes Hall, and Harry Pecorelli.

“With a magnetometer, the Cussler crew located a metal object off the coast of Sullivan’s Island. After diving in nearly 30 feet of water - they removed three feet of sediment to reveal one of the Hunley’s two small coning towers.

“At first we thought we only had a piece of old debris,” said Hall. “But while groping through the silt my hand came upon the hinges of the hatch cover.”

“The NUMA team towed the magnetometer behind a boat as they criss-crossed the water guided by a set of grid-like coordinates. Using this method, Cussler and his team discovered many other shipwrecks in their search for the sub, including Confederate blockade runners.

“As if stuck in time - she lay on her starboard side with the bow pointing almost directly toward Sullivans Island - four miles away. The same direction she was heading that historical, fateful and mysterious night.”

For the last several years teams have been busy excavating the H. L. Hunley, and have found the remains of all the crew members aboard when she sank and a plethora of artifacts. “The tiny sub and its contents have been valued at over $40,000,000, making its discovery and subsequent donation one of the most important and valuable contributions ever to South Carolina.”

For more information visit Friends of the Hunley.

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About 1,000 ancient Roman relics were discovered in the country home of a wealthy engineer who lived just outside of Rome. The relics were traced by archaeologists to one of Emperor Trajan’s first century villas.

To give you a little perspective on that, Emperor Trajan ruled from the year 98 A.D., to 117 A.D. He’s best known for his extensive public building program, which reshaped the city of Rome and left multiple enduring landmarks such as Trajan’s Forum, Trajan’s Market and Trajan’s Column. His legacy as a Roman emperor is comparable only to that of Augustus Caesar - who I’m sure you’ve heard of. Check out the map on the left to see exactly how extensive the Roman Empire became under his rule.

In fact, every new emperor after Trajan was honored by the Senate with the prayer “felicior Augusto, melior Traiano,” meaning “may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan”.

The relics that were recovered were being used as decorations in the engineer’s weekend residence, and they came from the walls of Trajan’s hunting retreat in Arcinazzo Romano.

The raid that revealed the relics took place more than a year ago and just became public this March.

Just more proof that every relic founds teaches us a little bit more about history. Hope ya’ll enjoyed the lesson.

- Shaun

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If you consider yourself a metal detectorist of any caliber then you have an extensive collection of pull tabs. If you’re anything like me, you wonder where the heck they all came from. So I did some digging around online to see what I could find about them and got a pretty good history lesson.

In the early 1960’s the Pittsburgh Brewing Company introduced “Iron City Beer” in ‘self-opening cans.’ The concept was pretty novel – just pull up on a tab and you had an open can of beer in your hand! No accessories like a ‘church key’ or bottle opener neccessary - imagine that! These early pull tabs were known as “zip tops” and were disposable. But because of the rough edges of the aluminum, the cans often left people with cuts on their fingers, lips and even noses.

But the revolution had begun! By 1965 the design was changed to the ring style, which I’m sure every metal detectorists has seen his or her share of. The ring style was even easier then the zip top; just put your finger into the ring, yank forward and have your beverage with less potential for physical injury - even better!

Needless to say, the swift evolution of the zip top to the ring tab revolutionized canned beverages. By the mid-60’s over 75% of all cans produced in the U.S. had a pull-tab opening.

But for all their convenience, the pull tabs were an environmental and metal detectorist’s nightmare. For 10 years people opened cans, ripped off the pull-tabs and threw them to the side because they were encouraged to - there was nothing else to do with these removable metal pieces. Pets and wildlife died from ingesting them, as did a few people who dropped them into a can and accidentally choked on them. They wound up everywhere – from beaches and parks, to playgrounds and garbage disposals. People routinely cut themselves in a time when hand sanitizer wasn’t in every woman’s purse.

Ten years after the “ring” version of the pull tab was introduced, an answer to this environmental and safety nightmare finally came. The “stay tab” style was introduced in 1975 by the Falls City Brewing Company, and they were here to stay – literally. These ring-style-stay-tabs are what we can see on every can of coke and beer in the grocery store today. Unfortunately, they don’t stay quite as well as the designers would have liked. But at least this style doesn’t force people to throw the tab aside… they actually have to do a little work to get it off.

Thankfully, metal detectorists like you and me pick these up as we go… cleaning the beaches, parks and playground for the future, all in the name of a healthy hobby. Personally, I think we live in a disposable world now-a-days, and I wonder when we’ll figure out that convenience comes at the price of our environment. But that’s another conversation, meant for another day. In the meantime, keep picking those pull tab’s up, and thank Pittsburgh Brewing Company for the introduction of your most frequent find.

For more history of cans, specifically beer cans, see Brewery Collectibles Club of America. Also look at RustyCans.com for a great history of cans in general.

- Shaun

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I’ve found several common threads that link us Treasure Hunters together, but perhaps my favorite is our sense of adventure. Since it’s Presidents Day I thought I would share the history of one of my favorite and most adventurous presidents - Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

Historian Thomas Bailey perhaps said it best when he labeled Teddy as “a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialists, a great showman.” There is no doubt he was an adventure-seeking man, and us self-confessed ‘history buffs’ can set aside politics and appreciate Teddy’s endless quest for knowledge.

In March 1909, Roosevelt left for a safari in east and central Africa. His party landed in what is now Kenya and traveled to what is now Democratic Republic of the Congo before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book “African Game Trails”, where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.

In 1913 and 1914 Roosevelt went on another adventure, this time to the Brazilian jungle. His book “Through the Brazilian Wilderness” was quite popular and describes all of the scientific discovery, tropical scenery and exotic flora, fauna and wild life he encountered.

To honor the adventurous spirit of Teddy, here’s a list of some of his “Presidential Firsts” which show his true spirit was that of a Treasure Hunter:

~ Elizabeth ~

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On June 30, 2005 the fate of the early American silver dollar coin changed forever. A 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar was graded by Numismatic Guaranty Corp. as an MS-64 and sold for $1,150,000.00.

Did your mouth drop open when you read that number? So did mine!

Now 1804 silver dollars are expected to command that much attention as well as that kind of money due to their scarcity and demand. But, as the article at Numismaster.com says, ‘to say that a price of more than $1 million for a 1794 dollar was unusual would be putting it mildly.’

1794 is, without a doubt, historic but there may be 135 known to exist and a few of those in Mint State. Coins with over 100 examples known don’t usually bring in more than $1 million. But the rise in value for the early silver dollars didn’t stop with the 1794 Flowing Hair.

A 1795 MS-65 brought $230,000.00 and later a 1776 Continental Dollar graded MS-64 brought $126,500.00. Shortly thereafter an 1802 bust dollar graded MS-65 sold for $247,250.00. What this means is that Bust dollars ‘have apparently found an audience of collectors and that audience is willing to pay top prices for the best early dollars of the U.S.’

To read an excellent and engaging history of how America first came to issue silver dollars, check out the full article at Numismaster.com. The article also details the creation of the highly coveted 1804 dollar, and explains why you’ll never dig one up.

Articles like this make you want to run out to those Colonial sites you know about and spend a few days combing every inch, huh?

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