finding mason jars

[clubhouse baker]

I'm new to this forum and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I recently purchased a tract of land in the mountains of North Carolina. Several of my neighbors have told me stories about a man who settled the land back in the 30’s and would bury gold coins inside mason jars. At first, I thought they were pulling my leg, but I've had several neighbors confirm this story. One older gentleman said that his daddy saw the coins because this old settler confided in him and wanted to tell him where the stash was buried, just in case something happened to him. His daddy declined because he didn't want to bear that responsibility.

Apparently, this old settler was on his death bed when his friend asked him where the stash was buried, but he was too ill to fully explain the location. All he could utter was "sssss". When he passed away, many of the neighbors at that time searched the land, and even took apart his house looking for the jars and coins but came up empty handed. The house is long since gone, but I've been told roughly where it stood. Last night another neighbor of mine was asking me about it and said that several people before me have used metal detectors but still couldn't find it. They are all convinced the stash is still buried somewhere.

I have some ideas; maybe the old man was trying to say "spruce" because there are some very large spruce nearby where his house stood. There is also a stream that’s located behind where his house was located. Maybe he was trying to say that. He could have been trying to say “cellar”. There are remnants of a stone cellar close to where his house was, but I have to believe someone has already searched that. Who knows?
My question is where do I start and with what equipment? I've never used a metal detector before. So, should I rent one at the local rental place, or should I purchase one? I also found an online business that rents them as well. This is a 40-acre tract of land, so who knows what else I could find, if I make a hobby out of this. I should also point out that while cutting down trees for firewood, I have stumbled across quite a bit of iron and metal junk. Back in the day, they would just throw this stuff over a small bluff, along my driveway. So, I would expect to find a lot of junk along the way.

I'd appreciate your advice. Thanks,

 

[WV62]

Just some thoughts, first I would buy a good detector and get ready for a long search. Then I would spend some time learning to use it, for the most part it is not just turn it on and go find stuff. The guys on the forum may give you some good ideas as to what detector would do the job.

Now this is not a hard rule, but a lot of times people would bury their gold and silver within a clear rifle shot of the house (clear line of sight). Nothing worse than walking 3 miles back in the woods to get your gold and all you find is empty hole. LOL

I would start the search from the old home site and grid off the areas as you work them. I would say you will need to take out some of the trash to make sure it is not masking the gold.

Look the area over for markers like rock that can be move by one man, old fence lines. Could be the guy didn't go out and dig a new hole every time he wanted to hid something.

It's all a guessing game,

Welcome to the forum

Ron in WV

 

[still looking 52]

This sounds like you could have a lot of fun just trying to find the gold even if it takes you a long time to find it. You'll have a lot better chance of finding it if you enjoy each time you go looking for it, this way you won't get burned out and give up after a while.
Definitely grid off each section of the land into areas that you can manage starting at the old house with your metal detector and move out from there.
Most likely the treasure will be buried near a place that has some kind of marker not in the middle of some field.

 

[vlad]

I will always have a horizontal loop unit with a big loop with me, but primarily my first detector in hand for a caches will be
a "2 box" pipe locator. Two reasons: its wider and deeper scan, and it will miss small items like nails, tabs, (single coins) and other items: generally it hits
on baseball sized and larger target. (It will hit a large piece of wire such as a coat hanger)
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71cspilyeFL._SX425_.jpg
Whites makes ground cancelling models that can be setup for ferrous, or nonferrous.
However, they are harder to pinpoint with: checking location axis and estimating size/depth is much easier with a horizontal loop.
And gold like aluminum will read higher on a TID the bigger the target (on your coin hunters.)
(It can be carried higher above uneven ground or ground with brush & high weeds w/o losing sensitivity.)

 

[BigTony]

Clubhouse, I love stories like this they get you excited every time you go detecting.

Old man who lived alone, then try either behind his home - a vantage from bedroom window; or if he sat on the front porch - try flower garden in front of house.

Most of all this is simply a good tale, so look but don’t go crazy if you can’t determine that he actually had money to bury.
If you can research and determine he had a good income and didn’t spend it then you might get lucky big time.

Best of luck,

Tony

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Clubhouse-baker : Vlad is right : If your goal is to find "mason-jar" sized objects, then : Get yourself a 2-box detector. Like a TM-808 that he shows. They only find objects that are soda-can sized or bigger. Otherwise you will be FOREVER digging scores of pesky smaller things (tabs, coins, nail, foil-blobs, etc....). Even if you "set your mind" to pass small items, you will always-ever be digging a bunch "just to be sure". A 2-box unit is the perfect discriminator for all such pesky singular coins, rings, foil-blobs, nails, etc..... It only finds can and jar sized stuff.

If you find yourself getting domino sized objects, simply hold it a bit higher off the ground.

But as for your initial story itself : Be aware that all-such treasure stories are a "dime a dozen". And they all sound *so good*. They're all bullet-proof true. But .... be aware that most of them are just telephone game gone awry. And with each-telling, are always told in "first person-present-tense", such that they retain their bullet-proof first-person-present tense status. This is because no one can resist a good treasure story. And they are never doubted "lest you be left out". And the human psyche always dismisses other explanations as to the camp-fire origin, because ..... no one wants to be "laughed at all the way to the bank". So, with each re-telling, they simply get more iron-clad true !

And as for the past persons (if that part of the lore is true) that looked for it with detectors .... Notice that the lore says that they came up empty handed. How do you know that's true ? If the initial story was/is true, then what's to have stopped those past md'rs from simply staying mum about their finds ? Notice that this possibility doesn't enter the story. Only the "no one's ever found it" part of the story. Why ? Because of the human instinct to bolster treasure stories. Anything that might dissuade the treasure story, is promptly left out of the re-tellings. See ?

 

[woody]

These "helpers" are good but if you are not out swinging, nothing is happening. If others hear the same info they could beat you to it.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

... If others hear the same info they could beat you to it.

Also, those "others" will undoubtedly ..... like the O.P. did ..... re-tell the story to the next set of ears. Who ..... like the "others", will likewise pass on the story . Treasure stories are so-much-fun after-all. And with each re-telling .... get the various details added, and become all-the-more "first-person-present-tense". Can anyone here say : "telephone game" ?

 

[clubhouse baker]

" If your goal is to find "mason-jar" sized objects, then : Get yourself a 2-box detector. Like a TM-808 that he shows."

I looked up this detector online and at $730, I'm concerned about limiting myself to finding only larger objects for that kind of money spent. On the one hand, it would prevent the "false-positives" of buried nails or other debris. But then again, there might be some other interesting finds if I purchase a more traditional metal detector. Likewise, if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I would have spent $730 for nothing. I don't think I'm willing to do that.

This may sound like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but hear me out. If there's a chance that these buried mason jars are around the spruce, or the mountain spring (remember, the old man could only utter the words "sssss" on his death bed), then perhaps I could rent a metal detector, and if I get a signal, use a metal probe to feel for glass underground. I recall seeing something online about people looking for old bottles on abandoned farmsteads. The use metal rods to probe the ground where the farm dump or the outhouse was located. So again, maybe I could limit my initial and less expensive search to the grouping of spruce and spring using this method?

The reason I've keyed in on the spruce is because there are very large and old Norway Spruce growing nearby where the old cabin was located. These are non-native trees. They had to be planted because they don't naturally grow in this part of the mountains. The settler passed away sometime in the 40's. That's about how old these trees are. Furthermore, he was a nurseryman according to the locals. The called him a "shrubman". So it's likely that he could have planted them. These large evergreens are all dying now of old age and are all located within 50 feet of where his house would have been located.

This all sounds far-fetched as I'm typing it, but what if he buried the jars by the spruce. It's a tangle of thickets that could have been overlooked by others.

 

[vlad]

If the area is overgrown it can be held high and still hit.
It might minimize the ground cutting to be done before searching.
One of the things I have noticed is people tend to pile junk around big trees near farms and cabins.
You can count on doing some digging to clean out some signals-especially if you think its not a wild goose chase.
(But the thing about that "uttering ssssss," it seems Bogart did that in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." And used more than a few
times in pirate movies, like "Treasure Island" with Jackie Cooper, and most recently "Black Sails.")

 

[still looking 52]

Renting a metal detector is ok if your going into this hunt for a short quick answer but you could easily buy a new one for around 500$ (middle grade) and not have the pressure of rushing.
This way you could clear each section around those spruce trees and take your time and after you find the treasure you could sell your detector and only have about half that investment.

 

[clubhouse baker]

"(But the thing about that "uttering ssssss," it seems Bogart did that in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." And used more than a few
times in pirate movies, like "Treasure Island" with Jackie Cooper, and most recently "Black Sails.") "

That's kind of funny that the sssss line has been used before in movies. I should point that out to the next neighbor that mentions that "clue" to me, and see how they react.

I appreciate the advice about the renting vs. buying. There is some buried junk along a portion of that part of the property. I'll give it some thought.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... I'm concerned about limiting myself to finding only larger objects for that kind of money spent. On the one hand, it would prevent the "false-positives" of buried nails or other debris. But then again, there might be some other interesting finds if I purchase a more traditional metal detector......

clubhouse-baker : I've been down the exact road you are on. And had the exact same logic rationales. It basically went like this :

a) A 2-box detector and a traditional metal detector will each get a jar or box sized item, to the same depth.

b) Thus why limit yourself with a 2-box machine, that can only find objects can-sized or larger ??

c) You can simply "have the best of both worlds" by using a standard machine. Right ? After all, who wants to risk passing individual coins ? etc....

d) And ... shucks .... with a standard machine, you can always simply mentally reject all the smaller foil, coin, tab, and nail signals, right ? And can focus instead on only the larger "overload" signals, right ?

But trust me: It never works out like that. If you are in a landscape where a house stands or stood, it will be littered with the usual debris. And you will spend forever and a day "2nd-guessing" small vs large. And digging scores of them "just to be sure". Bear in mind that a jar at 2 ft. deep *could* sound like a coin at 6 inches deep. You will forever have nagging doubts. But the 2-box machine will simply not see the smaller targets. And actually, if you super fine-tune the TM-808, it will, in fact, get objects down to about the size of a domino or silver dollar (albeit not very deep). So I actually found myself holding it up a tad higher off the ground, so as not to be bothered by smaller objects like that.

As for the cost : If you are as certain as you appear to be, as to the truth-of-this-story, then the cost should be easily surmountable, eh ? You might also try with some local rental yards (Powers Rentals, United Rentals, etc....). Sometimes they have pipe-locators, that are about the same as the TM-808.

 

[Tahts-a-dats-ago]

One other potential option is the Garrett GTI 2500. It can be had with their Eagle Eye depth multiplier package - meaning you can have one machine that can be used for finding larger items as well as individual coins (just change the coils out).

I did have a GTI 2500, but not the two box coil. Mine had the 9.5 inch imaging coil only. I thought the GTI performed quite well and was deep in all metal mode. The machine is a bit on the heavy side though.

 

[vlad]

Its no deeper that a large loop and is heavier, bulky, and more expensive(.....and that noise with each step.... )
(With all the things Charles G. made from the 60's on why he never produced a dedicated 2-box I do not know.
I have seen photos of him and others from books of his Ram Publishing using 2-boxes made by Fisher.)

 

[u2robert]

Damn Vlad is breaking out the heavy artillery

 

[cw3]

I just went on a call just like this. Dug 16 hours in two days found 1 silver ring. Dug about 1000 lbs of junk. House was last lived in in 1950.

Just rent a tractor with a loader and scrape the top two feet of junk off then detect it.

 

[still looking 52]

Man, I love this post! Everybody on here has that treasure hunting blood and this post has our blood pumping.

 

[clubhouse baker]

Well, I'm going to give it a shot with the TM-808. Winter is beginning to settle in up in the mountains, so I'm not sure how much digging I'll get in before it gets too cold or the ground freezes. I will take your advice and start with some kind of grid pattern, then probably put a flag or wooden marker wherever I hit on something. Then return to those areas later. I do think it's a long shot, but the local neighbors seem convinced that there's gold in them thar hills, and so far, they have been pretty down to earth people. I think this is a better alternative than wondering what might have been over the years. Plus, I plan on building a small guest house where the old settlers cabin once stood. It will be on a slab foundation, so I should look now before it's too late.