New treasure hunter here
Rockdogz
Posts: 145 ✭✭✭
I have been lurking for a few weeks and just ordered my first detector - an Ace 250 from Kellyco. Living in a newly developed area of SoCal, I'm not sure what kind of opportunities are nearby - although I do plan to scout out the local parks for jewelry finds. I was wondering about the ghost towns I see on the way to Las Vegas - do you think there are possibilities there and how do you go about contacting property owners for permission?
Thanks!
Tom
Thanks!
Tom
0
Comments
Old Western ghost towns DEFINITELY offer some great potential, but I would imagine the problem is getting proper permission to search. Sometimes, if an area is truly abandoned, it is difficult to even determine who or where the property owner is, and in situations like that it is tempting to "just do it", but watch out! Getting caught detecting without permission in places where there are archaeological resources can get you into big trouble. But of course you knew that, obviously.
We've got quite a few CA folk here, so you'll fit right in. They even have their own treasure hunting forums (as do I, now). But this little corner of the 'net is still Home Sweet Home for me.
We look forward to seeing your first finds soon. Get out there and use that thing! Don't be disappointed if you fail to start out with Spanish colonial coins or chests of gold. Just make those baby steps. Beginner's luck can certainly happen, but if your luck runs like mine did, you'll have to work hard to learn your machine, and to get those first interesting finds.
If coinshooting will be your chosen path, here are some early milestones to shoot for:
-First coin (of any kind)
-First obsolete coin (Wheat cent)
-First obsolete coin (non-Wheat cent)
-First silver coin
...and so on.
Another milestone you can pass multiple times is your oldest-dated coin (it will likely be a humble Wheat cent from the 1940s or '50s at first, then maybe back into the 'teens or 'twenties, then you'll break into the 1800s eventually, with an Indian cent or Barber dime, perhaps!)
My oldest-date progression went something like this, over my first several years of detecting: 1926...1899...1875...1871...1829...1776...1658.
Of course, you can do much more than just coinshooting with a metal detector.
I wish you luck in hunting for jewelry in the parks. You might do OK and you might not. Beaches and swimming holes and lawns near swimming pools are good places to find jewelry. Certainly there is gold and silver jewelry to be found in parks. Remember to dig those middle-of-the-range signals, even well down into the pulltab range, if you want gold. You will find a lot more aluminum trash if you do this, but you'll have to dig lots of aluminum trash if you want to get the gold, since they give similar signals. Tiny pieces of gold like nuggets and small earrings will probably register even below pulltab range, and they are frustrating, difficult quarry to hunt, since you'll get lots of itsy-bitsy rusty-crusty pieces of nails and crap like little balls of tinfoil down in that lower range.
What about parks - do you generally find that you need permission to hunt/dig there? Or does it vary?
Tom
<< <i>Living in a newly developed area of SoCal, I'm not sure what kind of opportunities are nearby - >>
Welcome! Like you I lurk here alot but have only posted a few times...
No matter where in Southern California you are located, even a newly developed area, I can guarantee there are spots within a few miles that warrant checking out... I spent many a day walking the Bautista canyon between Anza and Hemet California looking for artifacts of the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition through the area near the San Jacinto mountains. While I never found anything definitly confirmed to the expedition I did find a Spanish sword hilt that is now in the San Jacinto city museum as a possible relic from that expedition. If you are more interested in coin shooting, SoCal was much less densly populated than the east coast at the turn of the century so just look at a map and start googling the town names nearby, this will give you dates of settlement/incorporation etc. being less populated meant that more people would congregate in one small area. Unlike the eastern US many people would have to travel miles just to reach a church and often made a day of the affair with picnics, dances and festivals. The men folk would talk about crops or cattle etc and as one oldtimer once told me this was the time when the men there would clean their finger nails with a pocket knife (think of a coin caught between the blade and the handle as it was opened and a coin tumbling to ground) there are many churches (often overlooked by T'hrs) that date back to the original sites of small congregations before there were any walls. There may be more older coins on the east coast but they seem to be more spread out and not as condensed in small areas as in the west (just my observation). Also there is a lot of BLM land there where you can try your hand at nugget shooting, and some of the land has old settlements or homesteads on them. As long as you do not disturb the buildings or the ruins contained on the lands you can prospect/treasure hunt on any BLM land.
Sigh... I wish I were back in SoCal right now, I spent 30 years of my life there and know the desert as well as anyone I guess. The neat thing about the area is that many coins dug (except in watered parks) look like they were dropped yesterday instead of 75-100 years ago. The quantity may be lower but the quality is better.
Happy hunting and let us know what you find where!
Rick
1836 Capped Liberty
dime. My oldest US
detecting find so far.
I dig almost every
signal I get for the most
part. Go figure...
<< <i>What about parks - do you generally find that you need permission to hunt/dig there? Or does it vary? >>
Just about any park (city or county park) in LA, Orange, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties is wide open. A permit isn't needed and permission isn't required. Just be good and fill your holes. A few parks are off limits like Balboa in San Diego.
Here's some tips on those ghost towns along I-15 to Vegas and out in the wilderness. If your going to hunt them do so during the So. Cal rainy season. You won't need dynamite to recover you targets, and you won't take the chance of getting snake bit. Definitely seek permission from the owners of the property. Folks are very twitchy about trespassing even out in the desert. Some of those sites are property owned by various clubs. A large number of them are actually mining claims and you definitely don't want to get caught on someone's mining claim without permission.
Hunting in the Natl Forest campgrounds can be rewarding. Although very trashy.
A good place to hunt is the So Cal beaches from March to October. It's not so good during the winter. Lots of goodies dropped daily all up and down the coast from San Diego to SLO.
Desert Rat is another CU forum member who lives in the desert. He and I live close by and hunt together occasionally. Drop me a PM and we'll see if we can get together. The rainy season is coming up.
G Man
What Bentfork said
I have hunted a few times up near Death Valley (not in the park) and I know there is stuff to be found at Ballarat Ghost Town, I just haven't found it yet
Drop Gary or myself a line sometime and maybe the three of us (and anyone else) can trek up to Ballarat for a day.