 |
Every town has one, the oppressive dark shape of an old deserted house that the kids are scared of. Rumors of ghostly sounds and lights. That is what I have been thinking about lately until I get my chance to cache hunt the old property. Folks who died off years ago and an overgrown house that gives you a shudder when you pass it. I know of an abandoned home like that with rumors of buried treasure too. I have spent some time lately thinking of all of the places to hide a cache of money in or around that old house.
I will bring along the usual and include a pry bar and electric hand drill. In case of brick fireplaces I will bring the chisel and large hammer, and my large coil for the yard. I think that I will take my Tiny Tec also(a hand held probe) to inspect where I can't reach.
Cache hunting is one of the most exciting forms of metal detecting and as I have mentioned before, folks as a matter of practice buried their money or hid it in the house regularly. The 19th century here was wild and threats came from every side, even after the turn of the 20th century there were few people who trusted banks and with good reason. Banks were not insured and money was lost from a number of reasons. Most folks used and relied on currency that they trusted. Gold and silver coins were preferred and the beginning of the 20th century opened the door to a troubled time. World war one and economic instability gave way to the great depression where many changes were tried and many failed to stabilize the country. One of the new laws mandated the return of all gold coins to be turned in for paper money at the bank and it became illegal to own gold. Many folks simply would not turn in their gold coins and yet they could not use them here so they buried them in the yard or secret cache. Many remain today waiting for the diligent treasure hunter to ferret out their hiding place.
Getting a little bored hunting for coins in the park? then its just time for you to expand your horizons and sample the other types of treasure hunting. Once you find an old abandoned house to search and obtained permission then the adventure begins. Now all we have to do is decide where to look.
When searching the house it might be a good idea to wear a filter mask over your mouth and nose to avoid breathing the old dry dust in the house. Sweep your detector across all floors, walls, and look especially around the windows and doors. Observation may save you time in the long run when you look for places where there are more than usual hand prints around one board or scratches where it has been removed. Look for hidden places like under the stairs or space you can't account for like a false wall. A cache may be hanging in the space between the wall boards by a string or wire and it might contain paper currency, deed, or will. Look for just a little end of wire or string and your detector may be of no use to you in some cases and you will have to rely on your instincts. If the house has had electricity then look into all electric boxes, outlets, phone boxes, and the ceiling light. Sweep the ceiling and attic if the house has one. Remember in the attic along the roof is a great place to drop a cache down between the wallboards. Fireplaces are the first place someone would put something so scan it very good and look for loosened mortar where a brick may have been removed or replaced with newer mortar.
Many families just cached their own money where the others couldn't get at it. Especially large families so it might not be unusual to find several small caches. If a person went to his or her cache frequently then it is likely to be closer to the house or in the house. If the cache was large and not opened often it probably was farther off on the property, that is if the house was on a large estate or farm. Simply because in the early days before detectors folks who looked for caches would just dig up the yard but often gave up at the thought of digging everywhere.
Next search the grounds. Use your detector in all metal and remember that early caches were often put in iron Dutch ovens or glass jars with zinc tops, but they may be buried in tin cans so you will have to dig everything and be persistent. Check up under the house especially in and on the large timbers and at least all around the edges and as far as you can reach. Anyone who drug themselves under the center of the house would have left a path in the dirt that was visible and may still be there. It is far more likely that it would be at the corners of the house or under the beams. Porches are close and easy to use to hide a cache and scan posts and especially the top and bottom of the posts where a hole could be drilled and the post replaced easy. Check the outside of the fireplaces and especially the very top where it would be easy to drop a cache into the flue on a wire or hide one behind a brick. Detect the yard and look very good around trees, stumps, and rocks. Look up into large trees for hiding places like a natural cut or broken limb that has decayed and recessed into the trunk of the tree. Look very good around old out houses, tool sheds, chicken houses, and barns and remember not to walk over the pile of rubble that is left of the trash pile where the folks burned their trash, one of the more clever places to bury treasure. In the field check the fence posts around the bottom for metal because locating your cache when you bury it is one of the hard things to remember and fence post number (??) maybe the year of a birthday could be easy to find again. More likely would be cross fences on the inside of the property instead of the boundary where someone else may observe the cache hider.
Work the property as a grid and leave no stone unturned using your keen observation for very old trees or large stones that would be a more frequent hiding place. Look for any small mounds that might indicate where a large cache was buried and the earth mounded up. Look for remains of slightly depressed walk paths that end abruptly in the field.
Working these old abandoned houses can be a little scary and maybe dangerous also if a floor gave way or more likely if you fell through into an old septic tank. I have seen two of these old places where someone has fallen through into the septic tank and I don't think I would like to ever have that happen to me! There is often a connection with buried treasure and rumors of ghosts so think twice when you hear about haunted houses. The rumor may have been started long ago by someone who wanted to search the place by himself. A word of caution, when you are probing into the dark old house and hear footsteps in the next room; but then you don't believe in ghosts do you...
