Anatomy of a Successful Researched Cache Recovery, a to z

[Tnmountains]

Welcome sir.

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Tagged my friends. Post away. Here is one for your collection, One mule load load of 8 Reales.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Hey, SS. I'd forgotten the NELOTS treasure story. My favorite one was where he found that trunk with thousands of dollars in Confederate money inside and started the rumor that he'd found a bunch of money. The local lawman, mayor, and a judge visited him offering their services in "protecting" his find. When he told them it was in Confederate money, they got pissed at him for his joke.

Anyway, chirper97 put down KVM, and then uses his "patented" signature which is misspelled to boot. I believe KVM wrote it as "exanimo".......one word.

I wonder how many people are aware that Karl Von Mueller is the person who coined the phrase "coinshooting"?

He did that to illustrate that folks should keep their mouths shut. Those folks didn't just 'Offer" to help him they took him to court and ordered him to produce the loot. When he showed up with tattered Confederate money they looked at him like he put a turd in the punch bowl.
Don't want to highjack the thread. anyone who wants the skinny on KvM can find several threads here. My personal favorite was "How to Skin a Skunk" telling what to do when the IRS doesn't let you claim your deductions. I'll be posting one story that matches the original criteria requested by the original poster this weekend. After that I will hush my mush and let other folks have their say. siegfried schlagrule

 

[BobinSouthVA]

If I can't reach the people in advance, I show up on their door some weekend with a map in my hands and I use the "I don't THINK I'm lost, but is that cross-street over there where the old store was..." Everyone want to help the lost guy, it defuses most defensiveness right at the door. Of course, it helps when I'm clean shaven and appropriately dressed.

Remember the Wizards 1st Rule - People will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it is true.

That is some great advice, thanks. Often when approaching someone I feel like a salesman and very uncomfortable. I'll have to give that a try.

And love the Terry Goodkind "Wizard's First Rule" reference. Great books.

 

[10claw]

good going there schlagrule--- hurry up,i wanna read that===== tenclaw

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Fridays are spent catching up on my chores from the week, saturdays are mainly honey-do stuff and sundays I can devote to anything i please. There
are many possible examples - want to choose one that won't start a gold rush or lead to additional work on my part. regards, ss

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

As promised ..... The story was that the really ugly old woman had returned from the Alaska Gold Rush rich from serving as a school teacher. Since she was "dumb as a bean" like my nieces used to say and never taught school in our area this led to a lot of speculation.
A little research told me that there were very few schools and very few families involved in the initial Alaska Gold Rush. Schools were mostly in the very largest towns and none of the teachers would have come back "rich" to the lower 48. Even the laundresses would not have been rich. The possibilities fell to merchants (restaurants and brothels); whores; gamblers; miners and widows. In a land of severe female shortages any of these occupations would be possible. A lack of women meant that personality would go a long way and looks were not that important. Knowing the woman's real name wasn't very helpful because many of the seamier occupations did not operate under their real name and it came to pass that her real name was not listed in the census and property records available for Alaska.
I was at a roadblock. I couldn't confirm that she ever had money and she never lived high enough to fall afoul of the property and luxury taxes of the local area. A check of her estate records and will didn't reveal any mention of money or any sizeable bequests. It did tell me that she had no relatives and the friends she listed were all dead now. That meant that she either didn't ever have money or she had spent it all or that she just didn't want anyone to have it.
A search of the local newspapers in the months after her death revealed a flier for her estate auction. There were no clues in the items sold to what her true occupation had been in alaska BUT it did give me the address where she lived. A city directory would also provide that information so this find saved me a research step. A quick drive by the area to assess the relative wealth of the people who lived there when she did revealed that it was a typical working
class area. It was obvious that the house was being torn down carefully so i stopped to talk to the work crew.
The workmen gave me the name of the salvor and a talk with him revealed that he had legal possession of anything removed from the property and when his permit expired. I told him that I had a slim lead to money being on the property but didn't know how much it would be. l offered to do all the searching and split what I found in return for permission to be there in writing. I also offered to search when his crew was not there so that they would not know what was going on.
A search of the yard revealed just regular lost change and amounted to less than $2.00 face value. Moving the search to the inside I found a half basement with a brick floor. Back behind the washing machines was a loose brick in the floor and under it was a pint jar full of barber silver coins.
I checked each room for wall hangers by banging the walls. i checked under the medicine cabinet and searched inside the heat registers. The shelves in the closets and the floors of the closets were also checked. I searched every place I knew or had heard about. The molding was valuable to the salvor but I pulled it up carefully and found a few modern wheats lost long after she passed.
I came to the conclusion that the locals saw a woman not working who managed to pay her bills and jumped to the conclusion that she was rich.
My share was less than $100 and I still have it. If there were any key dates they did not end up in my share. I do not have the equipment or the ability to post pictures. If anyone wants to volunteer publicly to repost a color xerox I'llsend it to them. That way I don't get blamed for the lack of a photo. Taxes were paid long ago. siegfried schlagrule

 

[10claw]

thanks schlagrule: informative and interesting. just proves people can come to wrong conclusions without good info don't it? have a great thanksgiving---tenclaw====

 

[chirper97]

Thanks Siegfried!

Your post is exactly what this thread is about!

 

[Connecticut Sam]

A very interesting story.