Credible Lost Mine Stories?

[bigscoop]

As Tom of CA noted, lost mine stories are a dime a dozen. So which ones do you think possess some credibility?

 

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[bigfoot1]

none...imagine bustin yer butt...finally locating gold...then forgetting where it was.not happening

 

[bigscoop]

none...imagine bustin yer butt...finally locating gold...then forgetting where it was.not happening

True. Does seem a little routine in treasure lore, that and everyone getting killed but just one - who then suffers to the end sharing his huge secret upon his dying breath. And who discovers a load of gold and mines it for any duration without filing claim? So yea, I'd so most of those are the result of good campfire stories.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

As Tom of CA noted, lost mine stories are a dime a dozen....

haha, yup, that's my quote. If you've been into this for any length of time, you'll have run into no shortage of people who come up and spin fabulous tales of treasure leads. And to answer your question: They're ALL "credible". Bullet proof, absolutely true, beyond doubt, etc.... Of course. How can you doubt a story when it begins with something like "It has been claimed that .... [fill in the blank]"

As an example of how easy it is to put stock in such stories, consider the following two stories, in the next posts on your thread:

 

[Tom_in_CA]

A buddy of mine was metal detecting at a site along the central coast of CA. A curious on-looker watched him for a bit, then approached him to talk to him about detectors. You know, the usual "where can I buy one of those" and "how deep does it go" type talk.

After awhile, the guy started to spin the tale to my friend about a "treasure" in the Santa Lucia mountains, hidden in a cave. My friend listened to all the details, and was drawn into equal fascination. And offering advice on the type detector to take there, etc...

HOWEVER, as the story continued to un-fold, all of the sudden, my friend realized this guy was talking about a story that had appeared in a local tourist trap book. The book was entirely fiction, based on selective tid-bits from old newspapers, but then totally blown out of proportion to have a fun time conjecturing how there "might be treasure involved", etc.... If you were ever to talk to the author personally (like I have) you know they are nothing more than "lore", spun into fanciful "what if?" type stories, that you buy in a tourist shop to have fun reading to your kids or whatever.

See how easy it is to believe in such things? Ok, another example to follow:

 

[bigscoop]

Yep....agreed, most are simple products of creative writing. But are they all?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

2nd true story of how treasure lores begin:

A friend of mine was working an old-town sidewalk demolition tearout. Each day the workers would tear out several more store-front's length of sidewalk, and fill it back in with new cement right after lunch, all -in-the-same-day. So my friend had to work the naked dirt in the short amount of hours that the soil was exposed, before the new walks were laid in. And since the project was multiple blocks long, each side of the street, the project went on for several weeks, to cover the length a little at a time.

And as the project continued, the workers began to be curious. They'd come over at the end of each of his hunts, and see what his latest finds were for each day. And my friend passed out common IH's, buffalos, etc.... as "well placed bribes" to keep them chomping at the bit to turn a blind eye to his daily presence there

One such day, my friend found an old looking owl-shaped amulet (like a lapel pin type thing). He rubbed it, and it showed gold color. He noticed that the eyes had some sort of red stones. As he showed it to the workers later, he mused that it "might be gold" (on account of the color). And that the red stones for the eyes "might be rubies". And then mused that it "might be 1870s or '80s (based on the age of commensurate coins he'd been finding in that stretch). The workers passed it around to each other to look at and handle, fascinated with this latest find!

That night, my friend went home to sort and clean that day's finds. When he got to the owl pendant thing, he figured out that it was only gold plated. Not real gold. And as for the red stones? Just glass chips. Turns out the thing was just 1920s worthless costume jewelry. So he pitched it in the trash.

The next day he was out there again. This time however, he noticed a worker on a tractor watching him intently. Every time he'd glance that worker's way, he could tell this worker was studying him , curious etc... Eventually that equipment worker got up the nerve to walk over and talk to my friend. My friend could see that it was a new worker, who hadn't previously been on the job prior to this day.

The worker asked my friend what he was finding. It just so happened that on this particular day, my friend had found nothing but a few pieces of junk. When he told the worker he wasn't finding anything, the worker then proceeded to tell my friend how there had been another md'r there the day before, who was finding "all sorts of gold and silver coins!"

My friend was shocked. At first he thought that perhaps someone had come after he'd left, and found something he'd missed! So he pressed the worker for details on this "mysterious md'r who'd scored all this gold and silver". During the course of the details that the worker was giving, a curious clue came out: "a gold owl". At that second, my friend realized that this worker was talking about HIM! So he corrected the worker and told him:

"No, it was only a few silver coins [not "tons"] and no, there was no "gold coins", (only a few IHs, early wheats, and a few barbers & seateds, total for many days combined). And "no, the owl wasn't gold, it was only gold plated junk from the 1920s" etc....

As the worker listened to all this, he sternly disagreed. He knew for a fact that what he was talking about was iron-clad true. How did he know? Because the other workers, that morning, around the water cooler, had told him! They'd "seen it with their own eyes". So upon my friend breaking the news to him, he merely assumed that there must be another hunter, another owl, etc..... He refused to believe there wasn't "gold and silver galore" being found, and that, therefore, it must be someone else.

Ok, now figure this: If 100 yrs. from now, that new worker's observations were put into a book or article somewhere, what would it say? It would say there's "gold and silver under the sidewalks" and that "some guy back in 2001 was scarfing up on valuables", blah blah blah. And when you go to "check the facts", it would seem iron-clad true. Because:

a) there was eye-witnesses! They handled it with their own hands !!

b) these are duly appointed city public work's guys, authorized to be behind the yellow tape and barricades. Not just some outsider with no authority, say-so, etc....

c) And if someone 100 years from now reads that, let's say they go to city hall for permission to "dig up the sidewalks". The city replies "no". Well THAT TOO is just FURTHER PROOF of the CERTAIN treasure under the sidewalks. Why ? Because certainly the city is hiding the fact that they must know of the treasure there, and wants to keep it for themselves, right ? (I smell a conspiracy, don't you?)

And notice this "he said she said" game happened in the course of a SINGLE NIGHT. So imagine how much goes down over 100 yrs and multiple people.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... most are simple products of creative writing. But are they all?

Nope, they're all iron-clad true. Just ask the faithful.

All you need to do is throw in some faded newspaper clippings, and an artist's depiction of a miner posed next to his burro, and then ............ IT HAS TO BE TRUE.

 

[bigscoop]

But, this post is about "credible" stories. Not the first one on the list yet. I figured by now that the Dutchman, Sublett, Adams, would at least have some faithful followers putting those possibilities on the list.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.....I figured by now that the Dutchman, Sublett, Adams, would at least have some faithful followers putting those possibilities on the list.

Well that's a loaded question. Because what are you going to expect ? OF COURSE there's going to be "the faithful" who will insist that the lost pearl ship of the desert, Oak Island, Dutchman, Sublett, Adams, blah blah blah are true. You don't even need to ask. They will defend them to the hilt.

 

[Boatlode]

Seems like there are too many witnesses for the Lost Dutchman not to have some truth to it.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Seems like there are too many witnesses for the Lost Dutchman not to have some truth to it.

Ok. Then to draw an analogy, what about the "eye-witnesses" in my story in post #7 ? Must be iron-clad true then, right? Can't argue with eye-witnesses, now can you ?

 

[Argentium]

Perhaps the answer to the question lies in another question : What makes a lost mine story credible ? A definition of "credible"
in the context of a "lost mine story" , would have to include the existence of a mine , the location of which was known to someone
or some number of people- after which it became unknown or lost . In terms of credibility we tend to lend credence to a story if
the story is told similarly by many rather than by a few . If the aforementioned mine yielded a fabulous treasure of some kind ,
the discoverer/s would most likely try to keep the story limited to the least no. of people possible , so as to reduce the chance
of risk to life and property . Following this logic , the most "credible" lost mine story should be the ones that are lost to history.
The ones you didn't hear about ,and almost nobody else did either.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Seems like there are too many witnesses for the Lost Dutchman not to have some truth to it.

Sure - some truth. But maybe the reason the "Dutchman" never went back is because he knew it was played out.

 

[chlsbrns]

I had a mine but lost the map now I cant find it. Now I make multiple maps just in case. I tell people encrypted stories about the location and hand out maps to writers just in case I die so they can write books about my lost mine. Gezzzz I might be a legend in a hundred or so years!

 

[bigfoot1]

I lost a whole mountain.I was hiking in the most beautiful place on earth.Little furry fuzzies were bounding and frolicking about under the end of a triple rainbow.Then I woke up in my bed.Question....who knocked me out,carried me home and put me to bed?Why did they take off my clothes and wipe the exact part of my memory that related to the directions to my magical forest.Maybe it was an alien abduction,dunno,but my perfect forest is lost forever.
sigh.

 

[bigscoop]

I heard of a tale of a lost mine once and I know it's true because a Leprechaun told me about it. It was called, The Rainbow Mine.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I had a mine but lost the map now I cant find it. Now I make multiple maps just in case. I tell people encrypted stories about the location and hand out maps to writers just in case I die so they can write books about my lost mine. Gezzzz I might be a legend in a hundred or so years!

And it will be iron-clad bullet proof true ! I'll help right now, as a matter of fact, for that future generation: "Chlsbrns lost mine story is true". There. It's in print.

 

[Msbeepbeep]

IMHO there's a tad of truth in most all lost mine stories, just not the tad you want! "It was a hot and dusty day...."
The best lie is one that comes closest to the truth, it's harder to decipher, because your never sure what part is true.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

msbeepbeep, whenever this subject comes up, someone is sure to say something like what you're saying: They want SO HARD to believe it's true (lest you be "left out"). So they acknowledge there legend, embellishment, fiction, etc... thrown in, and conclude as you have: "you have to study it, to sort out fact from the fiction".

In doing so, they have fallen hook-line-&-sinker into essentially saying: "The treasure is most definately there, just gotta sort the clues out". So you see, at NO TIME is it not "bullet proof iron-clad" true, even when saying an admission like that. It's just a way that when you point out to them an absurdity, or alternate explanations to the facts, etc.... NONE of them have any weight to them, to disprove the silly notions. They just chalk that one point up to the "ones to sort into the silly file", while the story itself, in their minds, is never proven as silly, doesn't exist, etc....