Sovereign Hoard in Sleepy Australian Town
? By Alan Hassell
? Published Treasure Hunting Magazine U.K. October 1987
Victoria was part of New South Wales until the gold rush days of the 1850's when it became a separate state. Camperdown is a sleepy little town in the Western District of Victoria.
Apart from the business section of the town, the majority of the income is derived from land produce and tourism, it is probably the last place one would expect to find treasure, but one, at least has been found there.
A popular sport, or hobby for many Australians is to fish for Yabbies, a small crustacean fish with the appearance of a small lobster with very delicate and tasty white meat. Yabbies not only look like lobster their meat tastes very similar and the live in shallow fresh water dams situated throughout the whole of Australia.
In 1925, a town local, out for a meal of yabbies in the old Cobden Dam noticed a flash of yellow in the mud, intrigued, he dug it up. His find was a gold sovereign.
Returning to his fishing, he went about checking his lines, whilst doing so he found another sovereign, then another.
Gold fever took over and he soon forgot about his fishing preferring to search for more sovereigns, finding at the end of the day a total of ninety-one sovereigns.
As the light began to fail around dusk, he jubilantly went home with the intention of returning the following day in hope of increasing the size of his lucky haul.
As he neared one of the local pubs, he decided a few drinks were in order to celebrate the occasion and his good fortune. After a few drinks, he was unable to maintain his silence and confided his find with a few friends.
Word spread like wildfire amongst the locals and the following day many people were out in the field looking for the valuable coins. Over 100 were found that day, and on the third another fifty. All the coins were dated between 1870 and 1906.
It was thought at the time, that they had all been buried in one place and were dispersed over a large area when blasting operations were done on the dam during extensions to make the dam larger.
A local solicitor Mr. Ian Buckland who had a house called Keyham opposite the dam surrounded by palm trees had owned the land. For some unexplained reason Mr.Buckland built a tin shed in the corner of his property opposite the dam and moved into it living there until his death.
It is locally believed he did so in order to keep a watchful eye over his saving, as he didn't trust banks. Eventually the old hermit passed away taking with him the secret of his hidden sovereigns. Around 1918 the dam had extensions done to it and this is when the sovereigns were believed to have been scattered.
Several years were to elapse before the sovereigns were found and then many people turned up in hope of finding instant wealth. In total 291 have been accounted for, although needless to say some people would have pocketed the coins without disclosing the fact.
How many more coins remain to be found is anybody's guess. Cobden Dam is situated about one kilometre from Camperdown opposite the old Buckland home.
Many of the locals know the story including Mrs.Gunner who runs a local toyshop; her version is that she believed they were all found in one tin can. If this is so was there only 1 tin can or several?
The old dam eventually became a dumping ground until the council stepped in and stopped the practice. Although I too visited the site and used a metal detector in the area I was unable to find or locate any of the sovereigns.
Bush and scrub has over the years built up around it and the road beside it has been sealed. However I believe more could be found at the site for the simple reason the sovereigns would act as a bullet from the force of the explosion and bury themselves.
Happy hunting
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