Treasure Hunting America - Episode 109

today on treasure hunting America will travel to Grants Pass Oregon to meet with Frank Cerrone who's gained the reputation of an expert treasure hunter in the old days they used to bury their stuff before they went to sleep at night and then have a campfire on top of it bar that variant behind a log or a tree and because they were afraid of being robbed bushwhacked Indian attacks and there was so much disease and stuff and people that were famished around hard times a lot of them didn't make it through the night and nobody knew where they buried their stuff it's just waiting to be found now I'm gonna look for it then we'll meet Dennis McDaniels who first found out about metal detecting while playing on a baseball team I was playing in the outfield on a slow pitch League there were some people out metal detecting out past me and I got fascinated watching them trying to play the game at the same time and after the game I walked over to one of the gentlemen that was detecting and watched and dig up a couple coins rang and then he showed me some of the other items he had found so I got bit by the bug for metal detecting all coming up on treasure hunting America hello and welcome to another episode of treasure hunting America I'm your host mark Hendricks for the next half hour we'll share some amazing stories of everyday treasure hunters across the country our first treasure hunter is Frank Cerrone Frank began his interest in gold prospecting during high school but didn't really get started in metal detecting until his wife lost her wedding ring only a few months into their marriage she came home one day crying she said I lost my wedding ring she had mowed part of the yard the night before with a self-propelled pushed mower so I started thinking I wonder if she lost it in the yard so like a smart man I am I went out there and got on my hands and knees for 45 minutes and crawled around where I could tell she mowed and then I realized I had a metal detector in the closet for years that I never even really used and then I metella tected the strip where she was and I didn't find it then I thought what if it was outside of the zone when she mowed it being on her left hand maybe it fell right outside I found it we both went straight to the park and we were taking turns and we got into our first fight metal detecting I'd start digging getting a coin then it would be her turn and should take the Machine away from me so within a week we had two machines and now we got six machines that was 1996 yeah so I'm fairly new at it really I've only been doing it less than 10 years and I averaged close to 5,000 coins a year as soon as you come to visit us you're meted by a gold miner holding a nice one ounce nugget up there gives you inspiration that you know you're coming to a treasure hunters house up above him is a bunch of gold mining stuff I found metal detecting on private property where there used to be heavy duty mining operations an old hand forged pick the old shovel and a pan an old wooden handle frying pan and a dinner plate the old saw blade used to cut the firewood for a bucket line dredge that shut down in 1943 and it was originally steam-powered so they had to cut the wood if they wanted to dig the gold so some poor guy was cutting wood every single day just to find gold and here's our camp Town Katie our guard dog and her mining cabin of course is an old miner cabin and it's a it's complete it's got a swinging door on it and the old wood stove pipe coming out so she stays warm when the weather's cold we got her because one year I was metal detecting up in the mountains on my mining claim and I had my headphones on and you don't hear a heck of a lot and I looked up and I had a cinnamon bear charging right at me and thank God I read a lot of books on what to do if a bear charges you and I hope you all know you don't run you stand still you make yourself look as big as you can as soon as I did that the bear stopped about six feet from me he got up on his back too and started roaring and growling at me after about a ten minute standoff he walked away when I came home I told my wife I gotta get a dog so because of that I got myself a mining dog now and I've never had a problem with a bear sense cuz she barks like crazy and they go the other way when I was in high school I knew I was gonna earn my living 100% outdoors I was not gonna punch a time clock I was not gonna wear a suit and tie none of that was gonna affect my life and it never has I've earned my living outside ever since the day I got out of high school I loved looking for stuff here's an old token from Apollo 11 when they walked on the moon 1969 and I found this here in a yard it's got the astronauts walking around it looks like he's got a metal detector that's one reason I really like this one I don't know what he's probing for up there but I like them right off the bat this is my Carmel mission holy water bottle and it's really cool and it has a date on one side that says 1776 on it this is Carmel mission and I had an appraiser appraise that at $300 and I've had people try to buy it off of me nope not gonna sell it I'm keeping this one because I know I'll never be able to replace it here's an old Masonic penny also made right here in the United States and it's from the Ole Miss onyx and I didn't know what this was it has a log it has an axe in it it has a bird flying with a olive branch in its mouth it's as American as apple pie and when I took it into the coin shop I said what is this thing it says one penny there's no date he knew what it was and he told me it was an old Masonic penny so those people were making their money so be it I found one of their coins when we return Frank will take us out on the river to hunt for coins and jewelry don't go away welcome back to treasure hunting America from gold prospecting to Park hunting Frank Cerrone really enjoys his time in the outdoors and one of his favorite places to hunt is in the water I like it because I'm always nice and cool and I like being in the water being a miner anyway and you're in your own world to fish the crawdads and the coins the jewelry and all the good stuff and then all you got to do is just move some rocks fan the bottom and whatever it is is looking right at you it's normally quick easy and fun basically we're on a false bedrock right here it's hard like cement your coins jewelry you're sliding right along it and then there's pockets and grooves that it all falls in I've gotten eight coins out of one pocket so far is the best I've done and one spot and what I'm trying to do is find those pockets and then when I do boom pay dirt or I find a bunch of nails mixed in with coins that I've been finding a lot of nails nuts of books down here too so that's part of the thing every time I find a nail I slide it into this little device here I take it out of the swimmin hole it's about loaded with stuff right now all the junk I find I remove so that kids don't step on it and get hurt it's a nice public service all the good stuff I throw on this side so everything over here coins jewelry over here is all junk too so I always end up with maybe 30 40 coins in the water hunting unless you're in a real popular spot then you could probably hit a hundred or so but I've got three or four pieces of silver and a piece of gold out of here so far today so it's been a good day this was found at a swimming hole but I was hunting on the banks with this one last year this ring was six inches deep and a hard pack it's a ring I gave up on and walked away I couldn't get through the hard pack I was bending my digging tool and after about 20 steps I stopped and I turned around and went back and I dug more in about another inch this ring popped out of the ground one of the funnest rings I had to find was this one this is a home it's sixteen karat gold it's the weirdest thing this was in 15 feet of water and when I found this ring I started blowing bubbles underwater because you know I yell in my own weight there's a nice pile of cobbles here whenever you start getting a pile of cobbles off of this hard slick false bedrock stuff starts building up okay good signal it's probably a pull-tab or a corner that's better than a cold tab or a quarter small little silver ring it's tarnished it's probably been there a year or two but that's what it's all about silver one of the big dangers you got to pay attention if you're in a river or a stream of any size where objects can float down every so often you got to look upstream a couple years ago I was in the water about waist-deep having a good time and all of a sudden about a 20-foot log went right by me I mean within three feet of me and I started hoofing it for the shore thinking if there was any branches on this and there was just gonna whack me well there wasn't thank God but that taught me a valuable lesson to pay more attention around me I always listen for the boats you can hear the boat motors and when a boat comes along you've got to stop and stand up straight and take your machine out of the water because there's such a wake sometimes that I've actually got pushed three or four feet to the side from the yacht who's that don't slow down when they're in a swimming area when they should slow down from time to time Frank has been approached by people who don't at first appreciate all the benefits of him hunting on the river I've had people come up to me before when I've been water detecting shallow water detecting and and they'll come running and yelling and screaming what are you doing digging in the swimmin hole what are you doing looking for stuff people lost they'll call me names and I'll reach into my apron because everything I find I put in my apron I have found bullets I have found pocket knives in the open position I've found cans that have rusted so bad that if you've stepped on them you're gonna go the doctors to get a tetanus shot and you show these people the stuff you're pulling out of there and in cleaning it up for them and then their attitude changes and then they realize oh my god you're actually doing a nice service here there's a good signal that's a quarter 1946 that's not too bad and they're still still stuff down here to rough it up a little I can see the edges shop that's yeah oh yeah named 819 246 that will clean up nicely it's kind of black and icky but that's a walk at half dollar in the same hole as a quarter of it their last exact same time when we return Frank will share about one of his most favorite sites to hunt old homesteads and pioneer camps welcome back to treasure hunting America as you've been able to see Frank's enthusiasm for metal detecting is contagious even though he's been doing it for a short time some new areas of hunting for Frank are homesteads and pioneer camps what you need to do is look for landmarks where the house was when you start detecting looking for an old house when you start finding square nails you know you're in the building site area basically try to imagine how big the square was that the house was and then look for anything that stands out that would have been visible from a window look for big rocks maybe you'll see a patch of daffodils blooming where they shouldn't be blooming anything that tells you where somebody did something I have found more home sites from flowers blooming than I have from talking to people because when you find store-bought flowers in the middle of nowhere you know somebody had lived there and planted another hot target for treasure hunters is finding an old pioneer campsite where those coming West would put down for the night in the old days they used to bury their stuff before they went to sleep at night some of them would build a campfire and they'd have their stuff because you're talking gold and silver coins most of the time the fire is not going to bother that it takes 1900 degrees to melt gold so they've just buried their stuff and then have a campfire on top of it or they bury it behind a log or a tree you'll act like they're going in the bathroom if there was groups of wagon trains or whatever all of them buried their stuffs before they went to bed because they were afraid of being robbed bushwhacked Indian attacks and there was so much disease and stuff and people that were famished on hard times a lot of them didn't make it through the night and nobody where they buried their stuff it's just waiting to be found now I'm gonna look for it some of the other old things I did detecting some old spots was finding old Chinese coins because the Chinese were gold miners too and their coins aren't dated they have symbols on them from the Emperor of that time and this one here is from 1736 to 1795 so that's how long that guy was alive and in charge this goofy little one here was 1821 to 1850 I found four or five of these at the old mining camps and they're not worth a lot of money but the thrill of finding him was incredible I went to Alaska metal detecting last year cost me $2,500 to go to a mining claim the metal attack $1,100 for airfare as soon as we got there there was 15 of us I was the first guy to find a nugget I found this right off the bat for Frank his ultimate fight isn't necessarily hidden treasure the ultimate treasure hunting fine for me would be my wife because if she wouldn't have lost her ring I don't think I would have gotten so involved and found out a passion that I didn't even know I had but hidden treasure is on Frank's mind too and so is his ultimate Barry fund there's lots of one-room schoolhouses all over this state and I've detected four of them one of them has a story with the Lost Bell that the kids stole and buried in the 1950s and so that's always in the back of our minds what if what if and there's like I said there's so many of those out there it's it's ridiculous sooner or later I'm gonna find myself an old Bell Dennis McDaniels got started in metal detecting by watching others find coins and jewelry in the local city baseball field since then he's gone on to a mess quiet a collection of rings coins and antiques I was playing in the outfield on a slow pitch league and the field that we were playing and it was a very large field and there were some people out metal detecting out past me and I got fascinated watching them trying to play the game at the same time and after the game I walked over to one of the gentlemen that was detecting and watched in metal detect for a while and watched him dig up a couple coins rang then he showed me some of the other items he had found and I got sort of excited about that and I went out and bought a little $90 inexpensive metal detector found a few neat things and sort of got bit by the bug for metal detecting I went up to whites I bought their very best metal detector I've been hooked ever since it's a fascinating hobby my wife and I average all three to four hundred dollars a year in coins and that's just hunting in local parks and schoolyard picnics are real good people out there playing frisbees and throwing things and the rings can slip off their fingers and watches can slip off this is just some of the rings that we've located over the years and when a customer comes into my shop to look at metal detectors and they see this display of rings this almost is a surefire sale item right here they look at this and are amazed by the amount of rings that one can find and on occasion I have come back home with four to five rings in one day it doesn't happen too often but it's exciting when it does currently we're hunting at the Fern Ridge lake in Eugene Oregon and at this time they're draining the lake to do a little work on it this type of an area is real good to hunt in because the water level goes down exposes the ground where people have been swimming for years and the opportunity exists to find lots of coins and jewelry actually it's amazing how many rings and earrings are lost by people swimming in the water their hands get cold and rings come off this Park has been pretty productive over the years with especially in this little pond area here a lot of people sit here with their children and play and now we're getting a reading here indicates that it's a quarter oK we've got it in the sand scoop here 1944 silver quarter I think everybody is curious about things that are in the ground when they see somebody metal detecting and they think I wonder what he's finding and they can help them up and ask and when you explain what the possibilities are of the things that you can find especially if you can pull something out of your pouch and show them what you're finding it it instills need to want to go out and find things metal detecting can be more enjoyable when you have somebody to hunt with my wife and I have been hunting together for 10 or 15 years and it's been a been a great hobby gets us out of the house out of the garden just out in a real relaxing atmosphere nice fresh air I'm getting a really nice signal here indicates that it's a pretty shallow target on my shallow targets I take my little bullseye unit which I wrap with tape to keep a little clean yeah I'm getting a shallow reading right there current dime it looks like that it's all rusted and corroded looks like a little oxidation on it see there's stuff out here just you just keep hunting and plugging away you're gonna find a lot of nice targets these are some of the coins that I found over the years along with my wife this page right here Chinese and Japanese coins just different kinds of coins is Canadian Mexican Spanish New Zealand Australia you have to learn the machine in order to get the most out of it you have to learn the sounds that it makes when it goes over a certain type of object like a pull-tab or a nickel they sort of have their own little signature everything is dependent on the size of the target also you get a small target of one type of metal opposed to the same tar same size of Melbourne bigger it's all going to give you a different signals and my years of hunting I've had pretty good success honey in volleyball courts they people are diving if they have shorts on with money in their pockets it sort of falls out pretty easily and I'm getting a good reading right here it says a penny about an inch an inch and a half deep I'll just use the bullseye here to pinpoint again this is indispensable for finding this kind of a shallow target yeah I got the pin pointer right there yeah I just came up as a penny just as indicated which is nice for Dennis finding treasure is great but being in the outdoors and getting the exercise is his greatest reward the exercise aspect of it I like it because you're getting down on your knees and getting up getting down getting it up good for your stomach muscles in your leg muscles pretty good shape myself but if this is helping me stay that way 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 Weitz 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: 27,965

Rating: 4.9142857 out of 5

Keywords: THA, 109, 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: Z8EG4ZW1Y1c

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2011