BMc

As you may have discovered from internet research, and/or member comments there is considerable source material on the subject matter. I reviewed several print news publications in researching the story. Thanks for reading.

Why did you want to take them apart? Kid stuff I'm guessing. I'm not criticizing, I played with a lot of dangerous stuff when I was younger. Thanks for the good advice!

What shoring?? Lol! There was not so much as a toothpick of shoring that I could see down into the hole beneath my truck's dangling wheels. It reminded me of a "coyote hole" type of adit. At one time, it might have been a stope, (position of ladder beside the collapsed hole), but there was nothing to indicate that from the top while driving slowly along, and it was certainly no "Glory Hole"

While prospecting in the Jackson Mountains of Northern Nevada, I drove up onto a dirt jeep trail which covered an old abandoned mine beneath the trail that I was unaware had been severely eroded and undermined by water from a creek that flowed just beneath the surface of the ground. As I was driving over the top of the mine, the roof collapsed and the rear wheels of my pickup truck fell through, slamming down hard onto the axle. Fortunately, I was towing a backup vehicle and after winching my truck/camper out to a secure spot, I carefully looked down about 10’ into the gaping hole, where I could see an old rickety wooden ladder leaning against a wall. I proceeded to detect the area and dug the usual mining trash but didn’t find any gold. Farther downstream, I found several old expended .50 Cal brass casings and a partial belt of live ammo. Apparently the mountain range had been used for military exercises at one time. Although, It was a good looking area to prospect which I had planned to go back to, unfortunately, it became a wilderness designated area. ☹️ The Jackson Mountains are located in Humboldt County, 56 miles west of Winnemucca, Nevada. Access can be reached from Winnemucca by taking the Jungo Road west for 35 miles to Bottle Creek Road. There are 2 Wilderness Protected areas in the Jackson Mts. North and South Wilderness, divided by Trout Creek Road.

I don't know if anyone has seen this this or not, but I believe it speaks well of the MD community and tends to offer some insight and enlightenment on a variety of interesting subjects. "In 1540 Spanish Conquistador Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived (in what is now NM) from Mexico in search of the fabled Cibola, or Seven Cities of Gold. He claimed the area as the “Kingdom of New Mexico,” a part of the larger empire known as New Spain" Coronado also wandered through the Panhandle area of Texas and into Kansas searching for the mythical land of Quivira, also (reportedly), a city of gold" "Coronado’s exact route has long been a matter of debate (and dispute) among Historians and Archaeologist Experts" The following summary taken from news articles, describes the discovery and pinpointing of the exact location of a Coronado campsite in Texas by a metal detector hobbyist and "establishes that the previous estimations of Coronado's route of travel, was off by about 100 miles or more! "A campsite of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, the first European explorer to wander through West Texas, has been located south of Floydada, Texas in Blanco Canyon. (N/E of Lubbock) An archaeological dig under the direction of Dr. Donald Blakeslee, Professor of Anthropology at Wichita State University in Kansas, is in progress. Dr. Blakeslee believes the site, located on privately owned property, is where Coronado camped for 2 weeks in 1541 before leading a small detachment in search of Quivira, in northeast Kansas" "An encampment of 300 soldiers, 1,500 Indians and servants, 1,000 horses and thousands of other animals should have left a lot of detritus in two weeks" Dr. Blakeslee reminds us, though, that the Indian trail through the canyon has seen use for 11,000 years. His own dig has found metallic items linked to Indians, Comancheros, Ranald Mackenzie’s army, and pioneer settlers. Thus, a Spanish chainmail gauntlet plowed up in the 1960s in a Floyd County pasture, though persuasive, is not definitive proof of Coronado’s presence; other expeditions could have passed through the region. However, Dr. Blakeslee states that certain finds are uniquely indicative of the Coronado expedition. The most important are metal points from crossbow bolts. Coronado’s campaign is the only one known to have carried crossbows. The site in Blanco Canyon is called the Jimmy Owens site, to honor the Floydada municipal employee who discovered the site and spent much of his spare time exploring it with a metal detector. Of the 40 bolt points that have been recovered, Owens found most of them in only one afternoon, and many of those were found near the surface. Dr. Blakeslee had given a talk in the Panhandle region, stressing the search for Coronado and the idea that crossbow bolt points might be found. Jimmie Owens in Floydada, influenced by the talk, began his metal detector forays into Blanco Canyon and began turning up unusual copper and iron points. Owens, an avid metal-detector buff who first reported the metal points, described the canyon in his laconic style: "It's like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates down there. You never know what you're going to get." Owens came forward with his points and Dr. Blakeslee confirmed that the points fit the general pattern of those from a confirmed Coronado encampment in Albuquerque. Unlike many collectors, Owens had the courage to come forward and show his material to archaeologists, which led to the recognition of the site. Owens died a few years after the discovery, but was hailed as the key player, a metal-detector buff credited with being the first person to have located evidence, (crossbow points) resulting in positive confirmation of an additional Coronado camp site, and significantly altering the previously accepted Coronado exploration route. As a result, the site was was named for him. At the beginning of the dig, the archaeologists were being informed that the crossbow points had been coming from about 10 inches down in the soil. In other words, If there was a site there, it was buried under sediment that had accumulated on the canyon floor. The problem was, NO artifacts were being found by the so called experts, the archaeologists! “Astonishingly, the metal artifacts were only being found by the talented metal detector buffs (Owens and fellow Artiste)’’ At lunch, the concerned archaeologists pointed out that not a single archaeologist had witnessed a cross bow bolt head come out of the ground. Could the whole thing be a fraud? About that time Jimmy Owens came by with his metal detector, and went over an area where he had found a concentration of metal objects from various periods, and while we were standing there, he detected and dug up an iron awl of a type made in Europe and traded in the area, probably in the early 1800s. No doubt, there was a native village site in the canyon, and it clearly seemed to have been a gathering spot in ancient times. And, after another day or so, all suspicion was removed when the metal detector artistes starting turning up a few more copper crossbow bolt heads in the presence of the archaeologists. The experts were forced to admit that "Artiste" was no exaggeration. Amidst the many signals of ranch debris in the valley, Jimmy Owens could guess with accuracy whether he had a bolt head, whether it was copper or iron, and how far down it was! All of the recovered artifacts have been donated to the Floyd County Historical Museum. Date(s) of discovery 1993-1995.

Thanks Rob! Appreciate all your help over the years as well!

While nugget hunting in the Bradshaw Mountains of central Arizona, I met a Polish gentleman from New York who was a Gem dealer/vendor who had been attending the Gem and Mineral show in Tucson. He said he had recently found out that it was possible to find gold with a metal detector, and was now out trying to detect for nuggets using a Garrett Ace 250 coin machine. Not surprisingly, he had become highly frustrated with his detector due to the hot, mineralized ground where he was trying to detect. He came up to me and, (in broken English), politely asked what he was doing wrong, since all he could hear was static and popping sounds in his earphones. I said, "Welcome to the Bradshaw's", and gave him a brief explanation about mineralization in the soil, ground noise etc. He had neglected to eat anything in his haste to rush off and find gold, so while he was eating a sandwich I'd made for him, I put away my Minelab, got my GB-2 fired up and proceeded to give him a crash course in gold detecting and let him use it awhile to prove to himself that he could find small pieces of lead, bird shot etc. He was so thrilled, he went into Phoenix, bought a GB-2, came back out and after I helped him set it up, he presented me with a large, beautiful (3 long point), Herkimer Diamond Crystal, and a can of lunch meat! I thanked him and encouraged him to keep trying, then headed back into Prescott Valley to see Kevin Hoagland who, at the time, was managing JW's Prospecting Supplies. Since I was away from home and traveling on the road, I gave the Crystal to Kevin to put in his safe, along with some outdated camera equipment I didn't have room to carry around. Some time later, he casually mentioned that a lady friend of his had admired it, so in the same spirit of appreciation that it had been given to me in, I passed the Crystal on to him for all the prospecting advice and guidance he had provided since the day I first walked into his shop carrying a Fisher CZ6a coin machine, complaining that all I could hear in my earphones was static and popping sounds. He had just smiled and said,"Welcome To The Bradshaw's"!

I made many trips through the area seeking elusive Blacktail deer above Lake Mendocino. Beautiful country.

I'm guessing it would have to have been a package deal. I knew he was joking? and pretty sure he realized I was as well. The wife seemed to get a kick out of seeing her husband put on the spot though. I got the idea that this was just a funny routine type of interaction between them.

Thanks Doc! Great Find for sure!

Has anyone ever seen a 1909 S VDB Lincoln Head Cent? Held one in your hand? Found one in your pocket change? Finding one like that used to be on my bucket list (in the 6th grade) One day it actually happened! Walking home from school with two of my numismatists friends, I casually reached into my pants pocket to check my small accumulation of change for the day, to see if I had acquired any collectible coins. In those days, it was still possible to find an occasional valuable penny or two in circulation. Lo and behold, there it was! A 1909 "S" Victor D. Brenner Lincoln Head Penny! I was shocked and elated, and showed it to my friends who were suitably impressed and envious (for about half a second), until reality set in with the realization of one minor detail. We all knew where it came from and we knew it wasn't mine! I took another step, then turned around and started walking back to the candy store we had just left, to return the coin to kindly Mr. Jameson who had mistakenly given it to me in change. We knew he would be heart broken for the loss of his most valuable coin and we felt at least partially to blame for the costly mistake he had made. After all, Mr. Jameson was the only person in our small town who owned a metal detector and we pestered him almost daily to see, not only this special coin, but any other coins that he had found while detecting or had received in change at the store. Because of our persistent nagging, he had placed the 1909 penny where he could easily reach it in his coin tray and show it to us. But it just so happened that he had placed it along with some other collectible Lincoln pennies in the tray adjacent to the regular pennies he routinely gave back in change. When we arrived back at the store, several students were standing around whispering to each other. Someone said, "You won't believe what happened. Mr. Jameson lost his 1909 penny!" I went up to the counter and stood silently in front of the tearful Mr. Jameson waiting for him to notice me. He continued to frantically sift through the pennies in the cash register drawer searching for his prized possession. To get his attention, I noisily lifted the lid on a candy jar sitting on the counter and took out a single piece of candy. I held the candy in my hand and laid the missing penny on the counter. Finally, Mr. Jameson paused and looked down at me standing there; looked at the candy, then picked up the penny. The surprised look on his face and the gratitude in his eyes was easily worth as much to me as the penny was to him. He rewarded me with free candy the rest of the school year, which I shared with my friends. Mr. Jameson continued to generously share his passion for detecting and coin collecting with us by letting us see and handle all of his rare pennies which included a 1914 D Lincoln cent and several others. However, he did wisely remove them far away from the other pennies in his change drawer and he never lost another coin as far as I know. I have occasionally thought about the incident over the years and the irony of once having bought a 1 cent piece of candy with a 1 cent piece that would now be worth a few hundred dollars, still makes me smile whenever I think about it.

Thanks Jeff, but I am sure you are much more qualified for that position than I am.

GOLD, GUNS, and DETECTORS - THE REST OF THE STORY . . . I wanted to bump this post to include a funny part of the story which was not in the original post. After I had dug the nugget out of the tailing pile, and placed it in a Bandana in my pocket. I walked up an intersecting canyon on the way back to my vehicle, carrying my detector, digging tools and, an S&W snubby Mod 642 hammerless/stainless .38 Special revolver, tucked into my hip pocket. A short distance later, I encountered a young man in his mid 20's up to his elbows digging into the side of a creek bank with a long handled garden shovel. His 5 gal bucket was full of dirt he said he planned to take home and pan out. The man's attractive wife was sitting in the driver's seat of a pickup truck looking out the window at him, while his two kids, a boy and girl about 9 and 10 years of age stood in the bed of the truck watching the family dog run around in circles, barking and chasing its tail. The wife greeted me cordially and I said hello, then stood watching the man remove the last shovelful of dirt from the hole in the bank. She offered me a Pepsi from their cooler which I gratefully accepted and thanked her for. I turned back to chat with her husband who was staring at my detector and asked if I had found anything. I pulled out the Bandana and dropped the nugget into his hand for him to look at. He said, "Wow" and glanced down at the exposed grips of the .38 revolver in my hip pocket then said, "You would probably shoot me in the back if I took off running with your nugget, huh?" I smiled politely at him and replied sincerely, " No sir, not necessarily, but I just might take off with your wife, your truck, your 2 kids and your dog!" His wife was grinning down at us now, waiting to see what her husband's reaction would be. The man considered it for a long moment then handed the nugget back to me, which I returned to my pocket. Suddenly, he slammed his shovel to the ground, and shouted up at his wife, " Dammit! This is bulls$it! I told you I needed a metal detector!" She shouted right back at him,"You had your choice between a detector and a 30.06 and you chose the 30.06!! He griped back at her for a bit, then calmed down and offered to buy the nugget from me. He said "I know that's over an ounce and I will pay you $400.00 cash for it" (Gold was $350.00 per oz then) By that time, I was laughing so hard I just told the man, "Sir, it's not even close to an Oz. I do appreciate the offer, but I really don't want to sell it. Thank you anyway!" I thanked the lady again for the Pepsi, said goodbye to the kids, petted the dog, and left the man mumbling to himself about how he was sure it was over an ounce, and grumbling at his wife because she wouldn't let him have a detector.

Thank you! It varies based on location. The wind can cover and uncover anything that gets buried.

Thanks, but I don't consider it to be generous at all. The incredibly stark natural beauty of the deserts of the West and Southwest are vast and indeed fascinating. There are endless opportunities for exploration and discovery. I camped, explored and detected for a month and didn't see anyone else detecting. A few ATV riders only. I definitely plan to return and try to concentrate harder on finding gold. The scenery makes it difficult sometimes though. Lol!

Thanks Tom! Some of the photos of building remains are from Planet Mining District, La Paz Co. AZ. Some of the photos are of mine shafts etc on the North side of the Crossman Peak area, East of Lake Havasu City, AZ.

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty! Great Job!

When I first started out hunting silver coins, I routinely ended up finding "clads" and maybe an old Wheatie or two. When I stopped hunting coins and concentrated on nugget shooting, I started finding silver coins. That's not all bad I guess, but it can be distracting. The historical allure of old silver coins can have a tendency to divert attention away from gold. Especially if no nuggets have been found, and suddenly you find silver coins. In that case, I invariable seem to find myself gravitating toward old deteriorating buildings and evidence of habitation, and straying away from the more likely areas I should be seeking in order to find gold. And therein lies the problem. Fortunately, one that I have been increasingly learning to live with.

This is what can happen when your brain gets overloaded with data and details of various Gold detector types, struggling with a comparison of their features, and trying to decide which one to buy. In the early 1990s, While prospecting and camping in the Bradshaw Mountains of Central Arizona, I awoke early one morning, looked out of my camper window to the surreal snowy landscape and in the twilight of sleep, the following vignette flowed onto the page . . . This is a True Story about a Gallant Blue Knight, the Beautiful Gold Princess and the Wicked Iron King. Once Upon a Time in a Land called the Iron Kingdom, The Beautiful Gold Princess was being held prisoner by the Wicked Iron King; an Evil Sorcerer who was jealous of the Princess's lustrous beauty. He kept her hidden in a rusty quartz dungeon deep beneath his mighty Bradshaw Castle. All the Knights of the Realm sought to find and Claim the Beautiful Gold Princess but their Prospects were in Vein. The White Knight, The Green Knight, and even the Fabled Black Knight were left powerless and unbalanced in the treacherous mineralized underworld of the Iron Kingdom. One day, from a land down under, a Dauntless Blue Knight came to the Bradshaw Castle, swinging a wand with, seemingly, magical powers. The Gallant Blue Knight was determined to free the Beautiful Gold Princess from the bonds of her rusty restraints.The Wicked Iron King used his evil black sand sorcery to mask the Princess's beautiful golden voice, but the power of the Blue Knight's magic penetrated deep into the matrix of the Castle, and canceled the din and static of the Iron King's Magnetic Minions. The soft clear voice of the Beautiful Gold Princess then guided the Blue Knight to her rescue, and happily forever after, her shining beauty was admired by all throughout the land. Who said Fairy tales don't come true? Minelab. The next best thing to Magic!!

I've been told that you can also detect through a sheet of plywood but I haven't personally tried it.

Thanks! And speaking of tossed: Back in the 90's, I responded to a friends request to help a lady who had lost a large gold - diamond ring in the backyard of her residence. The grass was knee high and the lady's fiance/ soon to be husband, didn't want to cut the grass for fear of damaging/destroying the ring. Turns out that the lady had a fight with her fiance and had thrown the ring out of a window of the house! I didn't charge him anything for finding the ring and he happily gave me the sheet of plexiglass that he bought for me to flatten the grass with! Ain't Love Grand!

I am now. Back when I found these items, I was using a Multi Kruzer, a GB-Pro and a Shadow X 5.

No pain/worries. Don't know if you can see the barely visible 925 inside the ring. The button is all metal, maybe plated brass?

The "cloisonne" button does have an enamel plated look to it. Other than that, I have no idea other than it looked old and quaint. I'll dig out those items and see if I can get a better pic.

A well dressed business lady walked into J.W.'s Prospector's Supplies in Prescott Valley one afternoon carrying a metal detector, and laid in on the counter. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. Kevin Hoagland the store manager, said, "How did it go" "Not well", she said. The lady had rented the detector the day before and left a sizable deposit for it, but said she couldn't get it to work. She had rented it to search for a diamond studded gold earring in the shape of a horseshoe that she had lost when she was bucked off her horse near the stables close to her home in Chino Valley. It was her favorite set of earrings, worth a few hundred dollars, and it had been a gift from a special person on a special occasion, so it was the sentimental value that bothered her most about the loss. She was genuinely distressed and sad about losing the item, and seemed to blame herself because she couldn't stay on her horse when he started to buck! Kevin said he was sorry that she was unable to get the detector to work, and she quickly acknowledged that it wasn't the machine's fault, and that she understood she was inexperienced in operating a metal detector. Kevin told her not to worry about the rental fee, he wasn't going to charge her anything, and he expressed sympathy for her loss, and for her difficulty with the detector. Kevin and I looked at each other and being on the same wavelength, shared a knowing smile as I piped up and offered to help the lady search for her lost earring the following day if she would like the help. She was elated at the offer and an appointment was made to meet the following morning at the horse stables. Upon arrival, I was more than a little concerned about what I saw. The trail that she had been riding on when bucked off, was being shared by off road ATV vehicles that had massively churned up the sandy terrain. At that moment, I wouldn't have given a plug nickel for my chances of finding an earring as small as a dime in the torn up sand heap, as evidenced by the deep ATV tire tracks that I was looking at. I asked her to show me the area where she thought she had been bucked off and after walking several yards and looking around a bit, she said, "I think around here somewhere". I asked to see the remaining ear ring so I could place it on the ground and hear what it sounded like in my ear phones. I took the ear ring from her, leaned down and started to place it on the ground but decided against it. Instead, I said, "Hold out your hand" I dropped the two earrings in her hand which surprised her, as much as I had been surprised when I saw her lost earring right in front of us on top of the ground in plain sight! She was overjoyed at getting her earring back and offered to pay me for the service, which of course, I declined. As it so happened, she was a professional masseuse, and she offered me a "treatment" which I also graciously declined. She then asked if I had anything against hugs?? Heck, call me an opportunist if you want to, but after all the difficulty and disappointment she'd been through? I just didn't have the heart to turn her down . . .