The Widow’s Cache
By B. Greene
I have just received Bob Greene's exciting account of this "thrill of a lifetime." Due to the nature of his business, the site had to be worked with discretion before Bob could go public. But now, for the first time, the entire story can be told.
Bob first learned about the Model 301 last summer when Thomas of Electroscopes® came to speak to his treasure hunting club. During the meeting, Bob and three other members agreed to be joint owners of a Model 301. When Bob's turn came to use the instrument, he read the operating instructions and went to an old schoolyard to practice.
After tuning and getting acquainted with the proper use of the equipment, he was ready to start searching. In just 45 minutes he found his first silver coin - a 1943 quarter in very good shape. Still no yet convinced that he had a real find, he pursued another signal a short distance away, and found a 1942 silver dime. Then he received a signal that was quite a distance from the first two coins. About 150 feet away he uncovered yet another coin, a 1926 dime.
By this time he was sold on the Model 301. What a tool! Each find was nine to 12 inches deep, and the 301 pinpointed the search area to a three-foot square. Bob tracked down each target with a Garrett A.D.S. 7, which did a great job verifying the Electroscope®'s recoveries.
At this time Bob had to return the Model 301 to his partners but, having realized the capabilities of the Model 301, he started asking everyone for leads. One of his friends had heard about a widow who was looking for her decreased husband's money. We all know about false leads, but he took the time to visit the woman and check out the story.
After talking to her, he was convinced that there were turn-of-the-century coins to be found. He and his partners worked out an agreement with the woman to split the find, with Bob retaining one-third.
Anxious to get started, Bob set the 301 in the silver mode and started to hunt. At first he found just silver coins. His partner was happy to continue to search for the coins with his metal detector, but Bob wanted to work in another direction with the scope and look for a cache. He switched to the gold mode of operation, turned up the discrimination, and started scanning in another direction. He got a strong signal, which he tracked using the Electroscope® pinpointing method. Still working with the Model 301, he boxed in the concentrated search area to a three-foot square. With his Garrett, he made the final pinpoint and started digging a small hole.
At about 10 inches deep he found a one-foot long iron plate - but no coins. At first he was confused, but past experience told him to recheck the hole. Using the search coil he got another signal. He started digging about 12 inches, BINGO! He found a jar filled with coins!
Bob and his partner were so excited they ran back to the woman with the find. Imagine their surprise when she said that there had to be more jars since her husband had been saving for years. Bob and his partner hadn't even thought of looking for more than one jar.
Immediately they returned to the site and sure enough, the Electroscope® continued receiving more signals. Soon jars #2, #3, #4 and #5 were recovered! Some of the jars had over $200 in coins and one jar contained five $10 gold pieces; Bob received one-third of his find.
Understandably, Bob said it was hard to relate in writing how he felt as he left the widow's house. All the way home, he and his partner talked about the cache they had recovered. He was elated about his find but convinced there must be more treasure to recover with the Model 301.
Since then, Bob has found one more silver cache and has leads on other finds to be retrieved after agreements have been signed. These do not count small hits of one or two coins which have added up to $80 in face value alone, not considering valuable dates and additional gold pieces. Not bad for less than a year's time. I'd say Bob's Electroscope® has paid him many times over.
We often dream of finding treasure in the field. Bob's story proves that if you have the right lead and the right equipment, treasure can be found.
