From real pirate treasure to priceless archaeological artifacts, here are 10 of the coolest things
found with a metal detector!
10.
Roman Coins
Detectorists spend most of their time searching fields and coming up empty, but occasionally
they’ll find something that makes it all worthwhile.
This is what happened to Dave Crisp, a hospital administrator.
In 2010, he made an amazing discovery in a field near Frome, in the county of Somerset
in England.
Expecting to find the usual discarded metal objects, he started digging on a spot where
his detector had signalled a strong reading, and to his surprise, he uncovered a large
pot that contained a hoard of Roman coins.
In total there were over 52,000 of them!
766 bore an image of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, who ruled over Britain between 286 and 293
AD.
As the first leader to strike coins in the country, this was a particularly important
find- one that was valued at over 1 million dollars.
The coins were sent to the British museum where they were cleaned by archaeologists
and put on display.
9.
The Mojave Nugget
While you may think that the gold in the California hills is long gone, this story shows that
it’s still out there for those who look hard enough.
In 1977, Ty Paulsen was using his metal detector in the Mojave Desert in Southern California
when he discovered something people always dream of- a huge golden nugget.
It turned out to be one of the largest ever found by a metal detector in the US, and weighed
a massive 4.5 kg!
Known as the Mojave Nugget, it was worth a whopping $200,000, and can now be seen on
display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
Unsurprisingly, Paulsen has never revealed the exact location where found the nugget,
but it’s thought to have been from the Stringer Mining District- an area that has been linked
with large quantities of gold discovery over the years.
Who knows, if you get out searching you might make the next big discovery there yourself!
And now for number 8, but first be sure to subscribe and click the bell to join our notification
squad!
8.
Bullet in Dallas, Texas
It’s not just valuable treasure in monetary terms that can be found with a metal detector,
as Richard H. Lester discovered in 1974.
He was in Dallas, Texas, searching for hits on Dealey Plaza when he found a bullet fragment.
Now, this may not seem too out of the ordinary in the US, but this location just so happened
to be about 500 yards away from the Texas School Book Depository, the location thought
to have been used by Lee Harvey Oswald when he shot JFK.
Lester kept the fragment for a number of years, but he handed it over to the FBI in 1976 as
a part of ongoing investigations . They conducted tests on it, which they published the following
year, and while the bullet had the same 4 grooves and right hand twist pattern as Oswald’s
Mannlicher-Carcano, the lands were spaced further apart than they should have been-
meaning it was unlikely from his gun.
No-one suggested at the time that it could have been from a second gunman, but from a
day out with his metal detector, Lester found himself in the middle of the greatest conspiracy
ever.
7.
Spanish Gold Chalice
You don’t have to be an expert to make an amazing find, all you need is commitment and
hard work.
Mike DeMar took a job as a diver with a treasure hunting firm when he was 20 years old.
Sounds like a great job!
They were searching the Florida Keys for treasure from a sunken Spanish ship, the Santa Margarita,
that had sunk over 400 years ago.
The efforts of the company, Blue Water Ventures, had been on-going since 1980, and they had
just begun looking at a new site.
Within a couple of months of working there, DeMar was underwater and his metal detector
pinged.
He dug a bit with his hands and found what initially seemed like a piece of rock, but
on closer inspection turned out to be a Golden Chalice.
The ornate object, thought to be from around the time of the ship, at least 400 years old,
was subsequently valued at over $1 million dollars- more than enough to warrant the rest
of the day off and a toast of champagne with his new colleagues.
The ship had sunk in a storm that scattered the debris in one direction, but another storm
hit and scattered it all across the seabed.
Following this discovery, Blue Water Ventures were confident that they’d make further
finds- although as of yet they haven’t announced anything quite like the chalice.
6.
Iron Age Gold Necklaces
In 2009, David Booth was using his metal detector in a field for the first time, having only
just got it to try out his new hobby and tested it on knives in his kitchen.
Yet, 9 paces from where he parked his car, he made one of the most famous finds in Scottish
history.
Struggling to believe his fortune, he scraped away the soil where his detector had indicated
to reveal four gold necklaces known as ‘torcs’.
They were dated to 300 BC, and were such an important find that historians have reexamined
the ways they look at human society from the time.
The intricate designs are, in some areas, as wide as a finger- and were valued at more
than 1 million pounds- about 1.3 million dollars.
Unfortunately for Booth, the law in Scotland states that treasure hordes belong to the
Crown, rather than the finder or the landowner, so after his moment of fame for his discovery,
the necklaces were passed on to a national museum for further study and to be put on
display.
5.
Pirate Treasure
Edward Rowe Snow was a historian, author and keen detectorist.
In 1947 he bought what he believed was a treasure map that belonged to the pirate Edward Low.
It was a simple image sketched on a scrap of paper, but had the words “Island Haute”
written on it.
Snow deduced that this meant the map led to Isle Haute, a small island off the coast of
Nova Scotia in the Bay of Fundy.
In 1952 he set sail to investigate the locations marked on the map and, staying with the lighthouse
keeper, began to search the area with his metal detector.
On the first day he found a large iron spike and what appeared to be broken rib bones of
a human, so he continued to see what else he could find.
The second day after digging in a different area, he discovered eight blackened discs
in the soil which, turned out to be Spanish and Portuguese coins made from gold and silver.
It’s possibly the only known time that a pirate treasure map has actually led to the
discovery of any treasure.
Some think that there’s more on the island that’s still to be found.
4.
Crosby Garrett Helmet
In 2010, an Irish detectorist made an incredibly rare find when he was exploring the fields
near Crosby Garrett, in the county of Cumbria in England.
The anonymous searcher had been looking at the fields for the previous 2 years but had
only found Roman coins and other small artefacts up until that point.
Well, that’s not bad either!
That all changed in May of that year when he unearthed a Roman cavalry helmet, thought
to be from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD.
Further research in the area found that the site had been a Roman settlement, and evidence
of earthworks and a Roman road were found.
The helmet was found in 67 different pieces that were put back together before going up
for auction in October, 2010.
The initial estimate was immediately exceeded and, in the end it sold to an anonymous bidder
for $3.7 million- pretty good for an afternoon’s work!
3.
The Hand of Faith
The Golden Triangle in Australia is a region that connects three towns in the state of
Victoria, and has been the site of a great deal of gold in the past few centuries.
It’s also the site of the discovery of the largest golden nugget still in existence today,
and the largest one ever found with a metal detector.
The largest ever found was 3 times the size of this but was melted down.
Known as the Hand of Faith, this peculiar shaped object was unearthed by Kevin Hillier
in the Spring of 1980, on his first outing with his new machine near the town of Wedderburn.
At first his metal detector was giving off such strange readings that he thought it was
a glitch and wasn’t going to dig, but he changed his mind at the last minute.
Good thing too because he found the nugget resting vertically, about 12 inches beneath
the surface!
The Hand of Faith weighs just under 25 kg, and was sold to the Golden Nugget Casino chain
for slightly over $1 million- where it can be seen proudly on display at their casino
and hotel in Biloxi, Missouri.
If you are super interested in seeing it, make sure you check their website because
it changes location every now and then.
2.
A Meteorite
In 2012, Jason Lyons finally fulfilled a dream of his.
Obsessed with meteorites, he began a mission to find one of his own.
He was so determined to find one that he enlisted the help of his grandfather who built him
a homemade metal detector.
After years of searching, and thousands of uninteresting finds, he found his first piece
of space rock, and the first one ever known to be found in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
The 2 pound meteorite had fallen to earth about 10,000 years ago, and is described as
an “L6 ordinary chondrite” – the most common type of meteorite to hit the earth’s
surface.
Upon confirmation by the local university that this was, in fact, a meteorite, Lyons
was so excited he ran around the house screaming.
It was a testament to his hard work, and proof that if you do enough research and put in
the effort, you can find pretty much anything you are looking for.
1.
50,000 Celtic Coins
This is one of the most valuable things anyone has ever found.
Reg Mead and Richard Miles had been searching a farmland on the British island of Jersey
for 30 years, knowing it to previously be the site of a Celtic settlement.
In 2012, while searching underneath a hedge, the detectors went off and, they began to
dig.
They found something truly astonishing.
In a mound of clay 3 feet below the surface they found a stash of over 50,000 silver coins-
all of which were dated back to 25 BC.
On one side of the coins was an image of a horse, and on the other side was a depiction
of the Greek god Apollo.
It’s believed the trove was hidden on the island by the Coriosolitae tribe, from Brittany
in France, to hide it from approaching Roman legions.
Archaeologists were called in to help recover all of the coins, and in total they were valued
at over 10 million pounds- the equivalent of about 13 million dollars at today's exchange
rates.
The coins were taken to a local heritage center to determine who was the rightful owner.
Since the pair were responsible for finding them, the detectorists were in line for a
significant prize and will go down in history books for their find.
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