Treasure Hunting

That’s right. I said it. A gold, U.S. coin worth up to $15 million has been discovered by an Egyptian couple as they cleaned out their apartment.

It’s okay. Jealousy is a perfectly natural emotion and nobody will judge you here.

So what coin was it, you ask? Well it’s a rare double eagle gold coin. First minted in 1850 and used to settle accounts between banks and other financial institutions, it is almost unheard of for one of these coins to be unearthed now-a-days. But alas, the Egyptian couple was cleaning out their apartment and discovered an old box that had once belonged to the husbands grandfather. Mohamed Ismail and his wife Fatima were throwing out old clothes and broken furniture that had been stored in a closet when they stumbled upon the box.

The first thing Ismail did was send the coin to experts, hoping that he would get a few dollars for it. He’s a simple tailor and the extra cash would have really helped the family. You can imagine his shock when the experts told him that his grandfather had left him a “unique coin of American historical value.”

Specialists believe that the double eagle coin found in Egypt could be part of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1933 collection of coins redesigned by famed American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and given to King Farouk of Egypt as a present.

How his grandfather got it, nobody knows. But one thing is for sure - I’ll be cleaning out my closets tonight!

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This morning I found a story about a great find that ends in tragedy - that is, if you consider losing a hunting partner and good friend a tragedy (and I do).

The Yorkshire Post is reporting the story of Metal Detectorists’ Charl Richardson and Richard Hunter. They were good friends, frequent hunting buddies and treasure hunters who often searched North Yorkshire together. Together they found an amazing find of great historical significance - A silver medieval seal that portrays the murder of former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170!

Now most of us would do everything short of flipping out if we found something that old. And who better to share that news, excitement, fame and possible fortune with then your loyal hunting buddy? Unfortunately that’s not the way it worked out for Carl and Richard.

Carl claims sole ownership of the seal he says he discovered in a field belonging to farmer John Wray in August or September of 2006 while he was out with his mother.

Meanwhile, fellow detectorist Richard is the one who reported the find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme at Newcastle Museum. He says he was with Carl when the seal was found and said that they had a “gentleman’s agreement” to share anything they uncovered that day.

Since both refuse to give the seal to the other, or share it’s ownership with one another, the seal will go to the British Museum where it will not be released until ownership can be established without a doubt.

A lengthy and costly legal process is in store for both the men and the seal. Meanwhile, it’s already cost them a friendship.

For a more uplifting story about two hunting partners who understand and respect their friendship more than a valuable find, check out an earlier post we made about how a Penny Is a Dream Come True. And check out our article about Britains Portable Antiquities Scheme for more information about how submitting an item works.

In the meantime, treasure your friends more than your finds and have fun - together!

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I promised myself I wouldn’t post about our friends across the pond and their mega-finds for awhile, but the story of bus driver Tom Peirce was just too good to resist sharing.

Amateur treasure hunter and self-confessed “metal detector fanatic” was combing a field he had stumbled upon after taking a group of school kids out for a day at a farm near Swanage, Dorset. After asking the farmer/land-owner for permission to search the two-acre field, Peirce returned with his friend Les Keith and within a few minutes his metal detector started sounding off.

Buried 10 inches under the farm land was a partial axe head. Digging even deeper revealed even more. Over the next two days Peirce and Keith uncovered nearly 500 bronze age artifacts, each one over 3,000 years old and one of the biggest hoards found in Britain!

In total, the loot is worth over 80,000 pounds (over $150,000.00), and the 60 year old bus driver will be splitting the proceeds with the farmer/land-owner, Alfie O’Connell.

What really drew me to share this story was Peirce’s quote “You do it as a hobby - you don’t do it for the money but if you strike it lucky then so be it” - and that is so true. This is a hobby; it’s fun, invigorating, exciting. It give history buff’s an excuse to research another time and era. It gives environmentalists an excuse to clean up the earth. It gives the rest of us something to do! Getting rich is just a bonus.

Happy hunting everyone! Spring is on the way!
- Elizabeth

Check out the full story at www.DailyMail.co.uk.

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If you inherited a unique and significant relic from a dying culture and no one knew you had it, would you give it back?

Marilyn Lewis of Port Townsend, Washington had the opportunity to answer that question last year when she inherited a Shaman’s mask with the faint inscription “Taken from a medicine man’s grave on King Island.” Her answer to the question: “yes.”

The story goes like this: In 1898 Lewis’ great uncle Nate traveled by steamship from Seattle to Alaska to try his luck in the Gold Rush. After spending three years there, working as a bartender and apparently not finding any gold, Nate went back home. He kept notes from his time in Alaska but no mention was ever made of King Island. In 1927 Nate gave the mask to Lewis’ father, Bill. For the next four decades the mask remained in the Lewis family. Until last year when Bill passed the mask on to Marilyn, asking if she would find where it came from.

Online research led Lewis to an abandoned Inupiat Eskimo village, littered with crumbling homes perched high on stilts. The people of King Island have long since re-located 80 miles southeast of the Bering Sea island to Alaska’s western coast, and all that remains of their culture is struggling to survive in the city of Nome. Lewis personally took the wooden mask with red-ochre face, beaked nose and black painted hair, to Alaska and delivered it to Tribal Coordinator of the King Island Native Community, Charlene Saclamana.

Saclamana said: “It gives me and my family something tangible from our past. We’ve lost so much of the culture. We were eager to have the mask back in our possession. We never had anything that well preserved from the island.”

Currently, the mask resides in an Alaskan museum and will be included in an exhibit featuring the style and ingenuity of ancient Bering Sea Eskimos. It serves as a significant piece of history and stands as a symbol of hope for King Island culture.

Would you have put as much effort into returning a relic you inherited? And where would you have started your research? Check out the original article and learn more about the King Island culture at Anchorage Daily News Online.

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This doesn’t have much to do with metal detecting, but I think it’s safe to say most MD’ers have an adventurous spirit. Web Urbanist has a post today showing what they call the 7 Underground Wonders of the World. The list is truly amazing, with hidden catacombs, underground churches, and even tunnels under Disney World (Magic Kingdom).

Moscow, Russia

Orlando, FL (Disney World)

Take a few minutes and visit the site to read all about the 7 locations and the mysteries behind them. If you’ve been to any of these, let us know your thoughts.

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I was reading a post by Carl Schroeder from Kalalau’s Korner about risks with cochlear implant. He starts the post with a metal detecting story that I thought was very interesting, and I’d never heard it.

The story goes, President James Abram Garfield was shot in 1881 at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Depot. Three weeks later, Alexander Graham Bell was summoned to the White House. Apparently, Bell had a new invention that was similar to a modern day mine detector. He was called to probe the wound with it to find the bullet, but was unsuccessful in his attempts. It turns out, Bell was placing his detector in the wrong location. The bullet had entered the right side of the spine, but it traveled downward, and to the left. The bullet ended up having a cyst grow around it, making it harmless, but due to the repeated surgeries with unsterilized tools, Garfield suffered infection, blood poisoning, and pneumonia causing his eventual death.

I’m not so sure this is really Bell’s fault. Useless Information has more details in you’re still on the fence about this event.

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