What's been your most stunning treasure hunting expirience?

Back in the 1970's a group of my friends and I went THing at a ghost town in Nevada called Aurora.  We had fun metal detecting the old town and found an assortment of old coins, medals, tokens and a big jail key right under the old jail that use to stand at the spot [ we were using Sanborn Fire Maps from the 1800's] while camped there a miner drove in and we had coffee and he started digging and sifting near by.  He found a seated liberty half dollar from the 1860's in almost uncirculated condition, then a gold wedding band.  Every time he found something he would let out a hoop and a hollar and my friends and I would run over to see what he found.  Well that night around the camp fire he told us that he came to this old ghost town every now and then looking of treasure.  He told us that the last time he was here about two weeks ago, the Sheriff was here and wanted him to help put an old dead guys bones back in the casket and rebury him.  Someone had dug up the grave in Boot Hill and took the brass handles off the casket and probably the stiffs jewelry too.  The miner declined so the law man had to do it himself.  Well while this miner was telling us this story I looked over the miners shoulder and low and behold I saw a man walking with an old fashioned lantern holding it up and out in front of him and the guy was headed for Boot Hill.  It was pitch black out that night and the hair on all our heads stood up as we saw this grave robber going for it.  He was probably four hundred yards away.  We decided to leave the guy alone even though we were armed, but we did sleep with our shootin irons loaded and close by that night.  My 100lbs dog was picketed out in front of my tent.  Nothing occurred that night and I don't even think we checked out the grave yard to see if another grave was dug up.  But as I was leaving I stopped and looked at the grave stone that the miner told us about and it was a man who use to be a Senator for the state of Nevada around the turn of the century.  My friends and I would go back every late spring or early summer and find old bottles and what have you.  Never gave the grave robber another thought.  Then the price of Gold shot up and big mining companies came to almost all the old gold mining areas and destroyed the ghost towns on purpose so as to discourage visitors such as ourselves.  I went to make a formal complaint one time but found out Nevada gets most it's revenue from Gambling & Mining...so the law looks the other way.  I feel like Yosimite's Sam when I think about all the great ghost towns that were destroyed by Greed and disregard for the law.

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Spent days, Week, Months talking my mother into buying me a $50.00 No Name BFO detector from the back of a Rag Magazine.  1972 or 3 I think.

It came in the Mail and in thirty minutes I had it out in the front yard.

3 Feet from the front step, I found a 1953 Silver Quarter.

I was DOOMED every sense that day.



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