|
| |
METAL HEADS
2005-07-16 |
Forget what Mom says. Sometimes, it's OK to play in the dirt.
Steve Burris of Post Falls has been doing it for 25 years and on a trip to Alaska last June, he unearthed a treasure.
It was the second weeklong trip Burris had made to Clark-Wiltz Mining, an 18-square-mile plot of land at Ganes Creek, Alaska, where metal-detecting junkies pay to hunt for the uncovered remnants of heavy prospecting done by miners in the area 70 years ago.
Spring runoff had uncovered a lot of big rocks. One gray mud-covered stone made Burris' Goldbug 2 gold detector signal loudly.
"There'd been a lot of people in there," he says. "They might have thought it was a big piece of junk or something. When I lifted it up and grabbed a hold of it, I knew it was gold. It was pretty heavy."
Just under 34 ounces, actually. Burris had picked up the largest known gold nugget found by a noncommercial miner in Alaska.
"I couldn't believe it," he says. "That thing was right on top of the ground."
| 
Clay Soliday of Reardan, Wash., looks for buried coins, jewelry, historical artifacts and other treasures at the bottom of the Spokane River near Q'emiln Park in Post Falls recently. Hundreds of local residents have taken up the treasure-hunting hobby. (Holly Pickett/The Spokesman-Review)
| This winter, Burris traded the heart-shaped nugget measuring about 4 inches across and 2 inches thick back to Clark-Wiltz Mining for gold coins and a free trip there next summer.
Like most treasure hunters, Burris keeps his finds in a safety deposit box at a bank.
Not all metal detecting expeditions are as successful. But Burris is just one of hundreds of people in the Inland Northwest who face the elements with detectors in their hands and headphones over their ears looking for treasure.
It might seem like a strange way to pass the time. But for Lucile Bowen it's therapeutic.
"I just love to break my fingernails and dig," says Bowen, 80. "It's a sense of gambling, you don't know what you're going to get."
Bowen was a charter member of the Northwest Treasure Hunters Club and the original owner of Bowen's Hideout ? the favorite shopping location for any local treasure hunter.
On patrol as a police officer in Spokane about 40 years ago, Bowen's husband, Harry, stopped to talk to a man who had a cigar box full of Indian head pennies and coins he'd found metal detecting.
"That's all it took for Harry," Bowen says.
That's about all it took for Dick Turner, too. He got started 15 years ago after watching a fellow detectorist turn up a bucket of silver coins in the yard of Turner's 1904 Reardan home.
He traded in the tools of his former hobbies - radio-controlled cars and golf ? for a metal detector.
Turner bought Bowen's Hideout in 2000 and moved it from the Bowens' basement to a tiny Sprague Avenue shop where a 2-square-foot display table shows some of his treasures. Inside a circle of rings are a few antique toy cars, some knives and pins and a brass hand bail he found in some dirt removed from Manito Park that turned out to match an old sword a friend found the next day.
These are his favorites. He sells most of his finds.
"It's the only hobby that I've ever had that's had a return," Turner says. "When you get done at the end of the day, you should have enough money to buy you a coke or something. Or a hamburger. Or batteries."
Those can come in handy. While the novice can start out with nothing but a metal detector and a pocket, seasoned hunters don't leave home without a scoop for water hunting, headphones, chest waders, a wet suit, small probes, a trowel, a mini detector and a treasure pouch or apron.
The least expensive detector Turner sells is White's Prism II for $199. The most expensive is a Minelab for $3,995, designed for desert gold hunting.
"That's for the serious Joe," Turner says. "I'm not that serious."
The least expensive model identifies a coin, indicates what kind it is and zeros in on its location. They increase in price with extra features, like depth finders or how well they find gold.
Of course, what you find depends on where you look.
"It's getting tougher to find good sites, so a guy's got to spend a little time in the library," Turner says.
Anywhere people have gathered, metal detectors are likely to sing, Bowen says. But new hunters are cautioned never to leave holes and always to get permission.
Popular sites include schools, beaches, construction zones and for the boldest of hunters, outhouses.
Finding indentations where old privies once were anchored, some detectorists probe the ground to see what's at the bottom. Finds range from coins to bottles to a 14-piece set of silver flatware an acquaintance of Turner's found.
Turner has never done it. But his father-in-law has three old outhouses on his property that have often tempted Turner to become a privy digger.
"I think about it every now and then," he says.
But some treasures are better left unfound.
| Metal Detector Basics
? How does that funny looking tool sense treasure underground? There are many kinds of detectors, but most work on a two-coil magnetic system known as Very Low Frequency.
? A transmitter coil pulses a magnetic field into the ground. Different kinds of metals produce magnetic fields with varying frequencies. When the metal detector passes over a metal object, a small current with the same frequency as the object's magnetic field is picked up by the detector's receiver coil.
Sensors analyze the current's signal, identifying the metal based on its frequency and judging its distance below ground based on the strength of the signal. The detector usually signals success by sound.
? For more information about metal detecting or the Northwest Treasure Hunters Club, contact Bowen's Hideout at 534-4004 or 1917 E. Sprague or www.bowenshideout.com. |
Jessica Wambach
Staff writer
July 16, 2005
Spokesman Review
Reprinted >> original here
|
|
home | detectors
| scoops | pans
| contact
| view cart | check
out
Bowen's Hideout has been in business since 1966 featuring Garrett, Fisher, Minelab, Tesoro, and Troy Metal Detectors. We also handle Keene Engineering products - a manufacturer of portable mining equipment, Dredges, Sluices, Gold Pans, Classifying Sieves, and related tools and equipment. Not only do we supply you with equipment of your choice, we offer you continued instruction and help when needed. We pride ourselves on continuing the service after the sale.
BOWEN'S HIDEOUT
1917 E. Sprague Avenue - Spokane, WA 99202
509.534.4004 - 888.229.7089 - bowens@bowenshideout.com
To subscribe our email list, send a message to: news-subscribe@bowenshideout.com
To remove your address from the list, just send a message to: news-unsubscribe@bowenshideout.com
copyright © 2001 - 2007 Bowens Hideout
admin | mail | stats
|