Good Yard Sale Treasure Hunt

    This past weekend was a pretty good treasure hunting one in a strange way.  My significant other is the antique hunter and yard sale shopper extraordinaire.  I am more the coin and ring hunter, although I've developed a decent eye for antique styles, vintages, and marks over the years. Anyone who spends time pursuing the hobby of treasure hunting in all its forms has "inventory" collected up at home. So when a neighbor announced she was having an impromptu yard sale, we jumped onboard, a good opportunity to sell off some stuff and clear some space.  We didn't set up a lot of stuff, and it was a girls thing, so I was dispatched off to do the yard sale hunting, while she conducted the sale.  Perhaps a  bit perverse, but she didn't want to miss a Saturday's worth of sales, and I was ordered out.

  So off I went, and once I scored a $20 Hartstone checked mixing bowl at a moving sale for $1, the blood was flowing.  If you are into antiques at all, you know you can never know everything, and you can't be an expert in all fields.  At another moving sale, I pulled a porcelain doll out of a bin of junk. The person running the sale had no idea, and thought $1 sounded fair, so the doll came with me too.  Dolls are one area I know nothing about, but since she was in good shape, with porcelain head and hands, I figured she's worth more than that.  Things slowed down after that as the heat of the day rose.  I finally met a nice lady who just wanted to move some items.  I got a nice framed print and a wood dough bowl for $1 apiece, and a hanging corner cupboard for $2 (behind the blue pitcher).  We kind of lean towards colonial things, so these were all good captures.  Finally, as the morning wore down, at a sale with mostly household stuff and perfumes, I saw some old glassware on a table and inspected the blue carnival glass pitcher. Good shape.  "Are these cups a set with the pitcher?"  "Yes, $10"  Hem, haw, but don't put down the pitcher, "OK". done.  The blue punch cups are not actually a set with the pitcher, but they are all the same grape leaf pattern.  The cups are worth $8 a piece on Replacements.com, and I knew the pitcher was worth a few dollars since we have some experience with carnival glass.  Looked it up, it's worth $15-$35 on Ebay.  Not bad. 

   Wife was happy, guess I've still got it LOL.  It's all treasure.

How To Find Coins in Machines

I've been keeping up with the daily walks at lunchtime, although it's been in the 90's several days this month. Since I am walking, I am also always on the lookout for stray coins. I'm still surprised that there are so many coins out there in the wild. I've been able to find $5 to $8 consistently over the last few months.  I keep a jar in my desk and add coins to it that I find every day on my walks. Here is a link to a short article I wrote about strategies that I've been using successfully to find coins in machines.  You won't believe it until you try.  I just shake my head sometimes when coins come tumbling out of a machine.

I have to also say that I KNOW there are coins heading into my pocket if I just keep looking.  I know that because it's a rare day that I don't find any.  For that reason, I don't worry about it, I know they will come.  Interesting, but so far I haven't been proved wrong.  
Read the entire article, How To Find Coins in Machines. 

Treasure Hunter Digs Up 52,000 Roman Coins Worth Over $1 Million

A treasure hunter armed with a metal detector struck it rich in England recently, digging up a pot filled with over 52,000 Roman coins dated from the 3rd century AD. The pot weighed 350 pounds.  The finder, Dave Crisp, dug up a few of the coins, but then called archeologists.  The pot and contents have been transferred to the British Museum to be cleaned and catalogued.
Under Britain's Treasure Act, the finder and the landowner will split any proceeds of the sale of the treasure. Experts have not yet figured out why the coins were buried, or how they got there. According to Roger Bland, a coins expert at the museum, "No one individual could possibly have carried them to the field in the pot, it must have been buried first and then filled up." Not a bad day's work for that treasure hunter!  Read more here.

Yard Sale Gold Treasure

Well, it is finally Spring. After such a long Winter we thought it might not arrive.  And with Spring comes yard sale season.  Time to clean out Winter's clutter and make a few dollars. This is a great time of year for treasure hunting also.  You can find all kinds of treasures being sold in driveways and front yards.  My better half is the pro in this type of treasure hunting.  Although the season has only just started, she came up with this great jewelry last week.  The two bracelets are 14k gold, really nice, and cost $1 each. What can I say, if she paid retail for them they wouldn't be treasure, right?  The necklace and earrings are unmarked and are costume from the 1940's or 50's and were the same price. 

The gold mesh bag was today's find for a dollar.  It is is perfect condition, and has a row of diamonds or rhinestones across the top. Very nice, maybe 1930's vintage. We are just researching it now.  You just never know what is out there.  As Mel Fisher used to say, "Today's the Day!"

Visit a Gold Mining Ghost Town

Any treasure hunter dreams about ghost towns from time to time. Just don't get caught in one after dark!   The State of California has preserved an authentic gold-mining ghost town named Bodie that you can visit today.  I drove to Bodie several years ago and it is truly a neat place to visit.  The state has preserved it as it was left almost 100 years ago, with bottles still on the bar in the saloon, and boxes still on the shelves in the general store. Bodie boomed in the late 1870's when gold was discovered, and went from a population of 30 to over 10,000 in less than 4 years. Then big gold strikes were reported elsewhere, and the fortune seekers rushed off to stake their claims in places like Tombstone, Arizona. Bodie's Main Street, pictured here, once had 65 saloons on it, and all the mayhem that you can imagine.

Bodie is preserved as a State Historic Site today, so there's no treasure hunting allowed, but it is rich with memories and history.  Bodie is located between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe in eastern California.  For additional info and Bodie Photo gallery click here. Definitely visit if you have the opportunity.  Bodie is a piece of American hiistory you won't see elsewhere.

Surprise Sweepstakes Win

Well, the treasure is coming in but kind of slowly.  No matter, it's still coming in stea1dily. I dug up a 1945 silver quarter at an old house site that was under construction. I have to get back there with the Ace 250 but it's been raining for 4 days straight so I need to let the mud settle a bit.  CRH has been slow but steady.  After the big snowmelt, the street finds have slowed a bit, but still coming in as well.  I was surprised to receive a sweepstakes win in the mail today from a sweepstakes I entered several months back.  It was a Dollar General sweep and one I considered very winnable. Only open 30 days, many prizes from $100,000 grand prize down to 400 4th place prizes of a $50 DG gift card.  Lo and behold, as you see in the photo, I won 6th prize of a $10 DG gift card.  Ha ha, that wasn't even listed in the rules! Oh well, I'll take it. Treasure comes in all forms. 

Melting Snow Gives Up Treasure!

Well, one of the silver linings of the snowy Winter of 2009-2010 is that the ice and snow has been piled around vending machines and parking meters for several weeks.  I've heard conjecture in the past that piles of snow would reveal coins when they melt, but I hadn't had the opportunity to test that theory until now.  The big thaw isn't here yet, but the snow has been receding enough that I was able to start checking.  I'm happy to say that it's true!  There were coins everywhere as the snow melted.  It was a lot of fun to walk down a row of parking meters and find a coin or two under every other one. I didn't realize people drop so many coins at them, but on the other hand, their fingers are cold or they may be wearing gloves.  Once the coin goes into a snowbank, it's pretty much gone. 

After being surprised to find 69 coins during my walks in January, I was amazed to come up with 90 in February, including the 20 I found in airports, which I talked about in an earlier post.  That's the equivalent of a couple of times out with the metal detector.  Since it's been so snowy and frozen, I wasn't able to get out with the detector at all in February, so I'm happy that moneywalking finds have picked up.  I got a big surprise in a vending machine when I pushed the return button and a silver 1964

quarter fell out.  I knew the sound said silver but didn't believe it even after I had the quarter in my hand.  You just never know what's going to appear while treasure hunting. As Mel Fisher used to say, "Today's the Day!"