Yes, I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts on this thread. I'll bet metal detector sales skyrocketed right after that was made public.
There have been many different type of tribes or people. We think about all of the American Indians or the Mayans, Incas, etc. Many of them mined silver and gold and built temples and many other things. There are many ideas of who lived in the Americas and that they continually moved about. In Mexico and South America, thee were many "temple" built to worship in. They were adorned with many precious metals. Our archeologists have only touched the surface. There are so many things that have been found, there are not enough museums to display them. So what do they do with all the things that are donated to them. They label them and then store them in their warehouses. I believe that if I found a hoard of gold coins or any other precious metals, I think that it would benefit me better than to store them in a museums "attic" where no one will ever see them because they will never see the light of day.
I used to metal detect when I was a kid, from 14 to 16 years of age. I found absolutely none of what any of you found. The most valuable thing I found was a broken rusted out Timex watch that looked like it had been run over by a train.
I been following this thread. I know there are much more defined parameters in European countries where the history spans millennia rather than decades. I happen to live in a state rife with history and I do some metal detecting, though I haven’t had any cool finds to speak of..... I did look up the local law and it reads, “Historic or prehistoric artifacts may not be removed if discovered while using a metal detector.”...... Thing is, the term “artifact” is not defined. So is a large cent an artifact? Is a box of fifty double eagles an artifact? Myself, I believe it is intentionally not defined to keep the metal detectorist off balance. Myself, I never felt very appreciated while detecting and our local laws tend to echo that...... I do believe that metal detecting laws differ from state to state.... Just my take on the whole thing.
Nice finds! But I wouldn’t exactly call them historically relevant so in that case you should keep them.
How many pages before we hear what you found I heard a story from a guy at one of our coin meetings. This guy is in his 30's that claimed he new a guy in his 80's that found a chest on a beach in Mexico (think Spanish pirate movies) when he was in his 20's filled with gold bars, coins and jewels. The 30 year old guy was talking about bringing in some of the gold coins for a show and tell the next meeting. He never showed back up to another meeting.
Oh my bad I didn’t mean to imply that I found anything. Sadly I didn’t. But I am going out metal detecting for a few days somewhere I think there will be a pretty good chance of finding some pre-1900 coinage. I was just curious what I am allowed to legally keep and at what point any finds have to be reported.
That depends entirely on what the laws are, where you are. While they are similar in many states, they are different in some.
Here is a link to the laws for some [most] state's parks rules & laws. http://www.fmdac.org/state-park-regs.html As for Federal lands: only one law: DON'T DO IT. If you are found on Federal land with a detector can and probably will be arrested. You may lose your car, and will lose your detector. So, just stay away.
I mentioned earlier that there were not enough museums to display all the "finds", let alone study them. They haven't finished studying the things that were found in the 50's. They just catalog them and store them. I doubt that there are many things that have not been recorded or entered into a computer. You have to remember, there have been people on this beautiful world for thousands of years. It would take an army of archeologists just to search these past thousand years. Many countries don't want the archeologist to come into their country and destroy their "sacred" places. Isn't the Noah's ark supposed to be on Mount "Ararach"? (My spellcheck didn't have a correct spelling.) I understand that the location of the ark is guarded by the country's army. Many countries are "older than sin" and they don't want to know if the legend of Dracula is true or not. Now, if each country had a department that approves of people looking for "bootie", maybe they will let you come into their country to look, and when you find something that is worth something, they will take it from you and put it into their "storage". No matter how you look at "finders/keepers", if you find something of value, they will take it away from you and sell it so they can "fund" their agency. I don't remember the exact detail, but a skeleton of a dinosaur was found on private property by some dinosaur bone hunters, that went to the courts of the land to determine who the "bones" belong to. It was finally determined that since the "bones" had been their for so long ago when their weren't any landowner at that time, that the bones were the property of the country. The judicial arm of the government took possession of the bones and bestowed the bones to the closest museum. I asked a question long ago in this thread, has anyone found Jesse James' gangs coins that were buried in the caves and the surrounding land?