Emptied out cache? or something below?

[riverbandit]

This is my first posting on here.Ive been detecting for 35 years.Last week while detecting around an old farm site I found a milkcan 2 foot in the ground .It sounded hollow when I hit the top of it with my shovel.I pried the lid off and the dirt began to fall inside. I could reach down inside but nothing seemed to be inside.Was this possibly someones buried bank and cleaned it out? My shovel broke when i was attempting to pry the lid off.I will update this post after I dig the can completely out. I found a 1944 half dollar,1943 merc dime,1947 dime and a 1819 large cent along with about 85 cents in mixed wheaties and indian head cents over the yard area.I will post pics on next posting.

 

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[truckinbutch]

Sounds like you found one hidiehole for sure . This and the other finds make it sound interesting enough to keep working it hard .
Jim

 

[THingfool]

Welcome to T-net. Too bad the milk can was empty. But you found silver so that's always good. HH.

Ed

 

[krazyace]

From reading some other posts on this site I found out that people used to put something empty like that first to deter people from looking further, then they would bury the good stuff underneath it so I would definitely dig it up and see what is beneath it.

 

[idigdirt]

A good percentage of the stashers never put "all their eggs" in one basket. Keep looking....

 

[GopherDaGold]

How many times would people re-bury an empty cache? I wouldn't. What would be the point?

 

[Old Silver]

From reading some other posts on this site I found out that people used to put something empty like that first to deter people from looking further, then they would bury the good stuff underneath it so I would definitely dig it up and see what is beneath it.

Good thinking. I'd dig it up and have a look underneath.

 

[DFX DAVE in M.D.]

It was a functional underground bank that you could make a deposit or withdrawl with. Try to dig the can out and detect the loose soil that was around the can, perhaps a few stray coins may have fell to the side when a deposit was made. My opinion is this is one of your most common and realistic type cache containers. Everyone else that is convinced of 25 feet deep Caches can concentrate on them and leave us the easy ones, lol.

 

[simonds]

I have to agree with DFX Dave. Probably someone was using it for an in ground bank and emptyed it and heade out. Wouldn't make sense to dig up the can if you were done using it.
Good luck and Happy Trails

 

[cw0909]

river even though the cache may be gone the can be worth a few $

http://dairyantiques.com/Other_Dairy_Antiques.html

 

[riverbandit]

I made it back today to dig ..Empty milk can nothing below. Found 1936 wheaty in yard area. All i can say i was pumped for a couple days. There is alot of yard to search yet. The front yard is solid briars

 

[Mr.Jody]

I would cover this area with a fine tooth comb if possible!

 

[Curtis]

I'm with Mr.Jody...find someone with a 2 box or element detector and go back. They may have sued the milkcan for quick and easy change making or quick withdrawls but left the more significant amount (for long term savings) buried. I would have been pumped too! Any chance in looking over his neighbors property...they propably did the same thing.

 

[jasonbo]

What was the depth of the milk can. I remeber seeing pictures where people used them as planeters

 

[jog]

Last year I was detecting the local county park just up the rd, from me, under a large tree at the entrance to the park I got an iron signal. I started trying to figure out how large the object was and determined that it was about 1ft in diameter. Out of curiosity I dug down and hit it at about 8" deep. It sounded hollow when I wood tap on it. I checked with the park host to see if I could do a little more digging. After getting the OK I dug around the top and found that it was one of those small metal mini drums standing on end. The bung plug was open on the top and with a flashlight I looked inside, just a little dirt in the bottom. I covered it back up and have thought a lot about that little barrel. There used to be an old homestead on this property. I have found some very old coins in and around this area of the park.
Now you guys have got me wondering if I should go dig this up. Nobody is at the park right now and it's under a tree so there is only pine needles.

 

[ZINCLID]

Sounds interesting. I'd dig it out entirely and then search again but it may be that it was already emptied by whomever placed it there--that is, if it ever did have anything inside it to start with. I found an old cast iron tea kettle one time that was about a foot beneath the surface of the ground in a Civil War site and it was full of something. I just knew that thing was full of old coins or valuables of some kind. I carefully removed it from the ground and when I emptied the contents out on the ground it was just a pile of dirt! My ol' heart sank low and I was mighty disappointed no coins or valubles were present...But the old kettle with a piece of one side missing was still a neat find to me.

 

[boogeyman]

Let the what ifin I don't syndrom kick in. If you don't check it out, you'll be what ifin for the next 20 years. try probing down along the sides of the can at a 10 degree angle. if the soil under it is loose, yank the can! I'd be all over the whole area with a fine toothed comb! There could be others buried close by. The owner may have only needed what was in the one you located, forgot where the others were, or something happened that prevented him from recovering the others.

 

[maipenrai]

If you found the milk can with your detector, at that depth, then you should be able to find any other can that might be buried, since it would probably be at the same depth. Never can tell, but I think if someone has one cache, then there is probably another, and the same type. Good Luck!

 

[TheRandyMan]

My friend and I were recently hunting for 3 known gold caches and were hunting along a tree line of huge old trees behind an old homestead circa 1890. The trees were probably 80 to 120 years old. Just at the base of an old western red cedar I got a huge signal from my Etrac which sent it into "Overload" mode. Usually very big iron or big iron close to the surface. There was a thick mat of humus from the leaves, needles and fine root structures which took a long time to cut through with the Lesche, about 4 or 5 inches down...Clink! Oh...I have a love/hate relationship with that sound... . Turned out to be an old pickle jar I had broken but it was empty. Then another type of mason jar was found at a 90 degree angle to the pickle jar. This pint sized Drey Mason jar was intact and sealed, but nothing inside. While removing these another huge iron sound was detected and a rusted intact collar of an old dairy can was below the mason jars.... WHEEEEEE! I am thinking "C'mon mother-lode!" But alas it was not to be...only pieces remained below the collar. After digging down to about 2 feet, the pieces of metal diminished. Bummed out...but once this was found, we had a clue on where the others might be...

Checking below the tree line, I got a another huge signal that sent my Etrac into "Overload" mode. 1 to 2 inches under the soil a nice old horseshoe turned over easily. When I thought about it later, the pointed ends of the horseshoe seemed to be pointed at the treeline where 4 trees were circled with a middle area about 2 by 4 feet open between them. I was sort of headed back that way already and when I put my coil in the center area of those trees it overloaded again. I started digging, carefully this time, and about 6 inches down I hit metal. At first it seemed to be a tin box but as I cleared the dirt away it showed concentric circles and eventually the border which was perfectly circular. It lay flat in the hole about 12 inches in diameter. Depression era tin trashcan lid? I could not find anything like it on the web. I was amazed and anticipating something very good under it so I called my friend over. "Should I get the camera?" he asked. "Naw." Being disappointed before I just wanted to actually find something this time. Carefully putting the tip of the Lesche under the edge of the metal "lid" I turned it over...nothing visible but smooth, flat earth...almost as if it had been patted down and smoothed out.

Ugh...

Etrac coil back over the hole...dong! dong! Coin sized sound but I am in relic mode so probably iron, I think...sure enough a 3 inch square head nail... Rechecked the area, nothing more. Looking back I see that the site is directly in line with not only the tree line but the other cache site that was empty as well. Hmm...Looking to the other end of the tree line there was a large, very old Dutch Elm. Huge girth and maybe 200 feet or more of branch spread. Going over to it, my friend and I started to detect around the base the of the trunk. He soon gets a signal, I came over to check it out and got a mixed signal that matched the mason jar lid and, for the first time that day, a gold coin type of signal. We start to dig and lo and behold we immediately run into a HUGE root. 8 to 10 inches wide and round. Cleaning out all around it, other smaller roots but still of significant size. We quickly determine that the signal is pint mason jar sized and about 2 feet down and DIRECTLY UNDER THE HUGE ROOT and trending back under the tree itself. Apparently as the tree grew it pushed the cache down under its roots. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..... So, stuck for now as we need to find a way to get at it without killing the tree.

But the story shows me that people do indeed leave things intact after finding caches...in this case, we believe the first cache was probably found by a daughter of the initial property owner who had told his 2 daughters and 1 son that he was going to hide a cache for each of them and leave them clues to find them. The one cache we know of that was found was $400 face value in gold pieces. My own personal theory is that once that cache was found, the other one was quickly found after that since it was not far away and in the same tree line. However, the 3rd cache could not be recovered as it was deeper having been pushed down by the tree growth. The cache finder put everything back as it was, maybe so as to not upset the father if he came to look for them and see if anyone had found them?

Anyways, that is the sad story of my recent cache hunt...any ideas on how to get that cache out without killing the tree?

 

[boogeyman]

Have you thought about adding one of the folding pruning saws to your kit? I've got one in the trunk of all my vehicles tool kits along with a 24" crow bar, and one in my kit for hunting in the boonies. Good to have if you're stranded etc. Don't weigh much & lots quicker & neater than the teeth on the side of most diggers.

If the tree is as old as you think and the root is not the tap root, shouldn't stress the tree much if any. I cut several roots from a buddys that were starting to push the sidewalk up three years ago. Didn't hurt em at all. Just got through transplanting three from my front yard to the back (3-4" dia trunks). They're doing pretty good (fingers crossed) ask me again after fall & this winter