Treasure Hunting America - Episode 108

today on treasure hunting America will visit with Randy Smith a man who loves hunting for Civil War relics every officer with every regiment was mandated to turn in a report every week where is he what's he doing it's not that hard to find these places not still you've got to get out there and cover some ground but once you start hitting those bullets so you know you're in the area then we'll travel to Fresno California where Phil Foster and his five-year-old son hunt for treasure in the local reservoirs and my son got to an age where he actually understood that there's metal in the ground and this machine will tell you that there's metal right there I think he's kind of hooked too he'll ask me if we can go out pretty regularly now and finally we'll join Richard Brooks of Portland Oregon who searches for jewelry and coins in the city's old-time parks in Laurens Park is an old Portland Park it has been hunted quite a bit but there are still things in the ground here that have never been found all coming up on treasure hunting America hello and welcome to this episode of treasure hunting America I'm your host mark Hendricks over the next half hour we'll share some amazing stories of everyday treasure hunters across the country our first treasure hunter is Randy Smith Randy's exposure to metal detecting began by learning from his father who's best find was a loaded 18th century Spanish flintlock pistol this made a huge impression on Randy and what treasure lies just under the ground waiting to be found actually my dad started the hobby for our family back when I was like nine years old and he really got addicted into it and all of them virtually all of our vacations were had some metal detecting involved in weekends and evenings and stuff and so I started early I was like I said nine years old it's just the things that he would find would be really interesting to me and that just kept me you know going into it and staying involved with it so it's it's been a lifelong hobby for me it just kind of grew old me you know I started seeing some of the things he was finding and it was fascinating and interesting and stuff so like father like son I want to get out there and do what he's doing and then I started finding things and it just kind of became an addiction from there and it's just something I've done always it seems like and you're out and outdoors and then you're together and you know if you have a kind of a competitive relationship with somebody well then this is just like fishing or anything else you want to try to outdo the next guy so it and just it's real funny Randy lives in Tulsa Oklahoma a great hunting ground for ghost towns oil boomtowns and Civil War relics Oklahoma area is a fantastic area for metal affecting a lot of history a lot of Indian history settlers the old boom created a lot of ghost towns that you know went away you know in later years so it's a lot of opportunities for metal taking a lot of outlaw history where there were robbing trains and banks and and burying the money so it's just a great historical place to medli tech as most of the country is when you think of for Randy his passion for metal detecting starts first with a love of history old houses like this one built in 1881 is an excellent place to mentally TechEd a few weeks ago a friend of mine noticed some construction out here in front and medley tech did he found this old bust could be a top of a cane or a doll we're not real sure what it is but it's certainly an interesting item so remember to keep your eyes open for places like this it's an excellent place and remember not to throw things away that you're not sure what they are they could be valuable I've always been interested in history and this is basically you know just a looking glass into history it's always fun for me to try to think of well this artifact what is it first of all you know what were the circumstances why it's here who did it belong to and it's just like a big riddle this is a really old Park that I'm hunting and there's a lot of trash a lot of trash in the ground so I'm trying to pick out the the good signals and they read higher on the screen that tells me that their coins and I'm gonna try to ignore a lot of the tin foil and and bottle caps and pull tabs and you know you survey the area where you get started you kind of look well you know where things happen out here 100 years ago you know you look at the size of the trees you look at the rocks and you kind of visualize you know where the people congregated and that's where you want to concentrate when we return Brandi will show some of his best Civil War finds and share about fellow treasure hunter Garth Brooks welcome back to treasure hunting America with his residence in the Midwest Randy Smith has wonderful opportunities to hunt for his favorite artifacts Civil War relics some of my favorite metal detecting is the Civil War relic hunting what I try to do there is find out the roads and the trails where the soldiers would move up and down and of course where the forts were but in between these forts you know they would move back and forth between forts and about every 13 miles which is about as far as they could go in a day then they would have to camp these places on these roads became regular camp sites that they would use over and over and over so they're just loaded with artifacts loaded with history and relic hunting is kind of a combination of all types of hunting because you find all types of stuff you find coins just like a coin hunter would then you find the military items you find spoons and forks and just all kinds of things that old bottles that night yourself they're out usually out in rural areas which is real peaceful and nobody to bother you you know and nobody looking over your shoulder and and it's just really enjoyable to spend a day out there in those kind of areas this is some Civil War bullets that this the typical finds what you might find in an old Civil War campsite you know the bullets and the buttons and things of that nature so this is this is just a variety of the different types of bullets that you might find they're not real valuable six seven dollars a piece there are some rare ones that can be worth you know hundreds of dollars but typically this is the kind you find this here is a exploded Civil War cannonball and I found this at the Battle of Cabin Creek which is also in Oklahoma actually had two battles at this particular site this particular piece is interesting because it still has the the fuse which was set to a timer and when they fired the Cannonball then it had so many seconds and once the time ran out then it would explode and inside of this cannonball it was hollow and it had a whole bunch of smaller round balls so these had a what the called canister shot so a bunch of these balls were inside the cannon the cannon ball in it and did a lot of damage this here I just found just last month and it's a bayonet Union soldiers bayonet and I found it in a campsite and I actually was able to locate where the actual tent was of this particular soldier and you know we dug down about a foot and just kind of estimated the actual area of where the tent was and we found the fireplace the ashes were still there found a couple of Indian had pennies in the fireplace then I found an old whiskey bottle and inside of there I found the bayonet and then over in the corner I dug a button and the button still had the wool from the soldier's coat on it and then I dug another button I wound up digging 20 buttons out of the corner of this tent and so it was obvious that that's where he laid his coat and he he moved on to another site he left all these artifacts in the tent and we found him this here if you don't know it probably doesn't look like much but it's actually a a Confederate officers button off of his uniform so it's very rare there wasn't that many of them out there and it's it's probably worth four or five hundred dollars so when it comes to relic hunting the Confederate Army the stuff is rarer than a Union Army so therefore it's more valuable and they weren't as well-equipped as a Union Army the Union Army had a lot more stuff so therefore it's more common and so it's not worth as much so the ultimate find is a Confederate belt buckle could be worth upwards of twenty thirty thousand dollars for the riding belt buckle there is a very good written record of the Civil War every officer with every regiment was was mandated to turn in a report every week where is he what's he doing you know it wasn't just a matter of them going out then wandering around till I ran into the enemy they had strategies and they but they documented everything they did so these are all open to the public it's called the official records of the Civil War and you can find those you go to e history WWE history comm and then click on the official records of the Civil War and then you can search by areas you know Arkansas Missouri or you can search by battlefields things of that nature here's an example here's a memo that Brigadier General has sent to the upper command and it says hold if possible if necessary I will transfer my whole force to Point Pleasant well there's your research tip right there you look up you find out where Point Pleasant is and you know you've got the entire force that is right there so that's the opportunity to find a lot of neat stuff well it's just a very rewarding addicting hobby it's not only rewards and the artifacts and the valuables that you might find but it's just good clean fun you get outside you get outdoors you enjoy nature you you're not sitting on a couch and you know just doing nothing it and if you have that sense of curiosity then you're gonna like mentally texting because that's what it's all about I like to think of its kind of like an electronic fishing the does take patience you know you're not gonna find something valuable every time you dig a hole so you've got to have patience but you've got to have that burning desire to find something good and when it happens for you once then you're like I said you're addicted and this is my best fight to date which is the 1715 Spanish gold Escudo was an ounce of 24 karat solid gold minted in peru coming along the the florida coast the hurricane sank the ship and there was thousands and thousands these scattered all along that area you know that's where they got the name the Treasure Coast if you go to the Atlantic side of the Florida coast that strip of land through there's called the Treasure Coast and that's where it came from is right here Spanish treasure they're probably the most exciting thing I've ever found from Garth Brooks to the thousands of others hunting for treasure in America once you start you just can't stop I met Garth Brooks he came into my store and I was interested in metal detectors and he was actually digging a pond on his property he actually lived in Oklahoma now and dug up an old coin when they were digging the pond so like the bug got him he got interested he came in he bought some metal detectors for him and his kids and stuff when they just went out there and had a ball after decades of hunting Randi offers some pretty simple advice to those just getting started in this hobby spend as much time deciding and figuring where you're gonna medal eat act as you actually do mentally technique if you just walk out the door and go the first place you come to that's easy and and it's very accessible and you know you've got to figure that probably some other people have done the same thing in that same spot so if you spend a little time finding that off-the-beaten-path place that nobody else has took the time to research and find that's when you're really rewarded and that's when the hobby really becomes fun is when you're in a place and you're fine and stuff yeah you know just good thing after a good thing and that's that's done through research it's I mean it'll happen occasionally by accident but but the people that are really successful are the ones that spend the time and researching and finding out where to go I know people that have found a single items that are worth thirty and forty thousand dollars it's no guarantee that you're going to go out there and strike it rich and actually very few people ever strike it rich but you know just I I've known people that have bought cars and boats and and put their kids through college all off things that they found with metal detectors so it's absolutely rewarding monetarily as well as other in other ways when we return Phil Foster will share about his five-year-old son's interest of metal detecting and how owning a coin shop has its advantages in treasure hunting welcome back to treasure hunting America our next treasure hunter is Phil Foster whose interest in metal detecting was inspired by the gold coins other treasure hunters were bringing into his family's coin shop to sell my family owned owns a coin store and we've always sold metal detectors and people would buy these metal detectors they go find just these wonderful finds they find coins jewelry they bring them in to me and it just made me think this is something I want to do too I started asking my father you know I need you to take me out I want to I want a chance at this I want to I want to see if I what I can find when filtered 16 a whole new world opened up for hibbett treasure hunting targets when you have a metal detector in your back seat you start looking for things to find you know you you look at things in a whole different light so when you see an old abandoned house it's not just an old abandoned house anymore this is a place you might bring some treasure out one time I found an old water valve from the Hanford Water Company didn't mean a lot to me at the time I found it but you know the Hanford is a nearby town to where I live here in Fresno and there's a needle turn-of-the-century valve I don't know you know something like that's worth a lot of money but it's not always it's not always about the money sometimes you just find neat old things you're always scoping for the best places to hunt sometimes it'll be that that lake with you know where the people have been around dropping things and other times it's a house that looks like it's a hundred years old all you can see is the chimney standing there and things that were dropped there I mean they've been there a long time and you're the first person that's seen these things who knows how long those things would have been there if you didn't pull it out right into right now even though phil was younger than most when he first started in this hobby his five-year-old son is now showing interest in finding treasure my son got to an age where he actually understood that there's metal in the ground and this machine will tell you that there's metal right there you know and I think he's kind of hooked to you'll ask me if we can go out pretty regularly now I think he's wonder what's down there - I think you wonder what you know what we're gonna find today many treasure hunters keep most of their hoard for sentimental reasons but because Phil's family business is a coin and jewelry shop he views things a little differently when I find an old coin I'm actually oftentimes tempted to put it out for sale here in my store we also buy and sell jewelry so it's I'm kind of lucky in that way where I get to just come to work the next day and turn in what I found some people save at all it can be really neat to have somebody just lay out years worth of fines in front of you I've never really felt the urge to do that as much as a professional seller and buyer of coins Phil has some good advice if you find an old coin to the ground when people find coins the first instinct a lot of time is to clean them up you know they're covered in dirt if you have anything rare you're not gonna want to scrub it up it actually ends up hurting the value collectors like them original I'm not saying people want the coin with a bunch of dirt on it but you there are proper ways to take care of coins so you can go into a good reputable coin store see if you have something rare and ask them what should be done with that coin should it be cleaned or or should it be left closer to the state it is now for Phil there's still a lot to be discovered and his goals are high at what he'd like to find the machines don't find diamonds but they do find gold rings and sometimes gold rings have large to that's the main thing I'm looking for when we return well visit with Richard Brooks who hunts ol parks and find silver and gold jewelry friend of mine who was working with me brought in his metal detector and he was looking for a lost item for somebody we went out and started looking for it and he started finding coins and to me it was interesting I decided to stick with it so it wasn't too long later that I went out and rented a whites 6000 metal detector and I used it for about a week and I was hooked what kept me going was the the throw of the search for looking for something that was lost in the ground and it was more for the silver coins possible gold coin and the jewelry okay we our target will go ahead and try to hit it here hopefully it's not a rock well we lucked out on a piece of jewelry how about that huh silver I have no idea right now what this is he's got some kind of a hasp here with a hinge on it so I don't know but it is a piece of silver jewelry I've learned that research is very important and I've done to the Oregon Historical Society I go to Motorama County the library and pick up books on the history of Oregon they are priceless really they're our place - never been hunted it's just that you have to find them now the maps aren't there the old maps if you can find some of the old maps that go back to the turn of the century wonderful these are some of the items that I've found through the years metal detecting and I'll just show you a couple of this is the half carat diamond ring that I've found in the so wood parking strips it's in very very good condition this is the Silver Eagle that was found in Washington Park under a tree next to a mole trap and it's kind of a favorite with me that was my first real ring find here's one gold ring was found at Catlin Gabel school out on the soccer field and that's an area where there's tons of jewelry in the soccer fields they get to play in soccer and things fly off the fingers or out of the pockets well many Hut old Parks homesteads or their own backyards richard has a favorite area most people might overlook the favorite areas the parking strips the loop strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road for some reason that seems to hold very very old stuff coins jewelry I think they're loaded because people when they get into their car and getting out of their car they pull their keys out of the pocket and if there's a if they've taken a ring offer they've got a coin in there it's going to come flips out rock down they don't notice it and it's lost we come by we search we find them at this point at his metal detecting history Richard is looking to pass on his knowledge and expertise to the up-and-coming detectorists I don't think there can be any secrets in metal detector you want to pass everything that you learn as you go to the new people when we're teaching the beginners the new people how to do it right thanks for joining us for this episode of treasure hunting America be with us next time as we explore more stories of everyday treasure hunters around the country until next time I'm mark Hendricks happy hunting treasure hunting America is sponsored by whites electronics manufacturers of the world's finest metal detectors for over 50 years whites has been building metal detectors in the USA for treasure hunters around the world for more information visit their website or call the number on your screen you

Channel: CompelMedia

Views: 32,515

Rating: 4.5959597 out of 5

Keywords: THA, 108, rich, social, media, development, production, video, marketing, webisodes, case, studies, how-to, television, series, documentaries, tourism, commercial, trade, show, product, fundraising, factory, tour, facility, training, instructional, retail, treasure, hunting, america

Id: voBsrcrEsuA

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2011