Buried Silver Cache, or Is It?
As part of The Ring Finder network I receive a fair share of calls regarding lost rings, well of course, it is probably the most common lost item of value, hence the name “The Ring Finders”, and the item most would like to see back in their hand or on their finger. But what many people don’t realize is that there are many other services we Ring Finders offer such as property searches for homeowners, insurance companies, banks etc.
Did your parents bury something and never tell you about it or told you but you can’t find it? Maybe a previous owner of the property buried something? You never know what is in your back yard? There is a history to your property whether it is 5 years old or 100 years old and the items that lie beneath can recreate that story.
Recently I received a call from an older woman who was a little distraught about her husband who was spending a lot of time digging holes in the forest behind the house, insisting that he buried a cache of silver approximately 30 years ago. The story goes something like this; The gentleman decided he wanted to bury a bunch of silver and supposedly he had. He picked a location in the forest on his property and after burying the silver marked it with a broken piece of concrete. At the time he had a different wife than his now current wife. Fast forward 20 years and his current wife has a pet possom. Not the cutest pet but I’m sure it was quite the conversation piece. Well sadly it passed away and she decided to bury him in the forest. After digging a grave site in the forest she buried her possom and found an interesting piece of broken concrete she used as a headstone.
For 20 years this man would occasionally see his broken piece of concrete and was reminded of the treasures that lie below until one day not long after the death of the family possom noticed it was gone. A bit concerned he went looking and finally figured out where it had gone. So now his treasure was no longer marked.
Another 5 years go by and he has a backhoe on the property for some driveway work and took it into the forest and began moving dirt in an attempt to find his buried treasure but with no luck. Another 5 years go by and he is more concerned and gets serious about finding this cache.
This is when the wife calls me with her concern. I told her I should have no problem finding it for them and she says if there is really anything there. If it is really there? I question and she believes it is all in his head. I said I would be happy to come and give it a try and she says she will talk to her husband and have him call me. We must have his buy in on this! A few days later I receive a call from the guy and the next day we are standing face to face and he is telling me the story. A few minutes later I begin the search for his lost treasure! We have the vicinity but looking at an area approximately 40’x 40’ and he is not sure how deep he buried it, but thought it was deep, also the ground had been heavily moved 5 years prior with an excavator, to where some places easily had another foot of dirt on top and some less.
A good hour into it and I am starting to question whether it exists. The wife gave up and was now inside and the man was getting a bit discouraged. There were quite a few large ferns in the area and I proceeded to hit those again as I knew they were keeping me from reaching parts of the ground and 30 years prior may not have even existed. Well it was in one of these ferns where I finally got a very weak signal and decided to dig out the fern. Once removed and my coil was on the ground the signal became stronger, but still on the weak side. I’m thinking that a cache of silver should boom in pretty good on the detector but I dug and dug and dug until my shoulder was on the ground and my arm was fully stretched when I felt plastic. As I dug more, now with my hand I starting feeling hard objects and out came a bag of silver. It was full of the tiny fat 1 oz bars. I held it up and the man was silent for a moment with a look of confusion on his face and he blurted out “the damn things must have had babies”. I said what? He said he buried big silver bars not these little ones. I reached in the hole and dug some more. Out came another bag of larger bars, then another bag. Well because he couldn’t remember what he buried I had to dig quite a bit more and use a probe to get down in there and make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind.
A total of 87 ounces was pulled from the ground. We were both estatic and he could not wait to go show his wife. It was a great day with both ups and downs but ending on a nice big up. Whether you know something is in your backyard or not, there is always something there. It may not be a cache of silver but there are items there. What is in your backyard? Call your local Ring Finder!
