LUE clue...the Obit of Hardrock Hammond

[Randy Bradford]

View attachment 2052257

Anyone got or have read this book by HRM's wife ?

I have it, haven't yet read it though I'm afraid.

 

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[TTTeller]

Just curious TTTeller, how do you know Hammond had a son named William? I've scraped together a great deal of info on Hammond (no easy task mind you) but don't believe I've ever come across anything about his son.

My apologies. I think I must of hastily confused his (I believe) brother with a son. You are most accurate Randy. No son - to speak of — that I saw.

Unless my notes came through a printing, which I will have to sift through again, I mistakenly spoke.

This is what comes of enthusiasm- apologies again.

I shall not correct the original post… to ensure the thread is followed up with this reply- in the event someone is chasing down this erroneous lead.

 

[mdog]

This was written as part of the introduction to Karl von Mueller's book. Treasure Hunter's Manual #7.

Personal integrity is, of course, the final test of one man's authority in his field. Of K von M, it might be mentioned that several years ago, financed by a group of investors, he and his partner, "Hardrock" Hammond, located and assayed a cache of gold and silver that represented 39,000 pounds of bullion, of vast value. Since then, all members of the investment group have passed on. Neither K von M nor Hammond have touched this treasure, nor do they have any intention of doing so. Supreme Trust, exemplified-two men of all men.

D. H. Moore

The Editorial Group, Ltd.
P.O. Box 521
Palo Alto, California

Does anybody know any details of this find? Also, does anybody know the year this introduction was written?

 

[Ryano]

This was written as part of the introduction to Karl von Mueller's book. Treasure Hunter's Manual #7.

Personal integrity is, of course, the final test of one man's authority in his field. Of K von M, it might be mentioned that several years ago, financed by a group of investors, he and his partner, "Hardrock" Hammond, located and assayed a cache of gold and silver that represented 39,000 pounds of bullion, of vast value. Since then, all members of the investment group have passed on. Neither K von M nor Hammond have touched this treasure, nor do they have any intention of doing so. Supreme Trust, exemplified-two men of all men.

D. H. Moore

The Editorial Group, Ltd.
P.O. Box 521
Palo Alto, California

Does anybody know any details of this find? Also, does anybody know the year this introduction was written?

With introductions like that it’s no wonder treasure hunters were hot on KVM’s trail.

“a cache … that represented”
39,000 lbs ➗ 2,000 = 19.5 tons of gold and silver bullion

I’m sure this has been said before but did the notion of the letters LUE and/or Lloro Uracca Enterrari appearing on the map come first-hand from KVM or is it a “someone said KVM said it” claim? Karl reproduced the map “exactly” in his Manuals; why wouldn’t he include the LUE words for his readers if they are present on the original map? Perhaps the words were on the reverse side ?

If the words in fact are not on the original map I wonder if LUE was a moniker that KVM & associates titled their investment/project.

 

[mdog]

With introductions like that it’s no wonder treasure hunters were hot on KVM’s trail.

“a cache … that represented”
39,000 lbs ➗ 2,000 = 19.5 tons of gold and silver bullion

I’m sure this has been said before but did the notion of the letters LUE and/or Lloro Uracca Enterrari appearing on the map come first-hand from KVM or is it a “someone said KVM said it” claim? Karl reproduced the map “exactly” in his Manuals; why wouldn’t he include the LUE words for his readers if they are present on the original map? Perhaps the words were on the reverse side ?

If the words in fact are not on the original map I wonder if LUE was a moniker that KVM & associates titled their investment/project.

I thought that if we knew the year that D. H. Moore wrote this introduction, we might be able to get some idea of when the assay was made. From the introduction, it seems the cache was still there, at the time the introduction was written, also, all the investors were dead. I was wondering if there was a Victorio Peak connection, because it seemed like there were several deaths associated with that legend. If Hardrock and Karl did the assay several years before Moore wrote the introduction, than all of the members of the investment group died within the span of several years. Sounds strange, or really unlucky.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

I thought that if we knew the year that D. H. Moore wrote this introduction, we might be able to get some idea of when the assay was made. From the introduction, it seems the cache was still there, at the time the introduction was written, also, all the investors were dead. I was wondering if there was a Victorio Peak connection, because it seemed like there were several deaths associated with that legend. If Hardrock and Karl did the assay several years before Moore wrote the introduction, than all of the members of the investment group died within the span of several years. Sounds strange, or really unlucky.

The introduction you quote is dated 15th December 1966. Hardcover copies of THM #7 were available in the fall of that year. Based on what I know about book publishing at that time, it is safe to estimate the Introduction was written in the spring or early summer of 1966,

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[mdog]

The introduction you quote is dated 15th December 1966. Hardcover copies of THM #7 were available in the fall of that year. Based on what I know about book publishing at that time, it is safe to estimate the Introduction was written in the spring or early summer of 1966,

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

Old Bookaroo, thank you very much.

If the assay, by Hardrock and Karl, was made several years before D. H. Moore wrote the introduction to Treasure Hunter's Manual #7, than that should put the find and assay sometime between 1958 and 1963.

Has anybody heard any rumors of big finds during that period of time?

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Old Bookaroo, thank you very much.

If the assay, by Hardrock and Karl, was made several years before D. H. Moore wrote the introduction to Treasure Hunter's Manual #7, than that should put the find and assay sometime between 1958 and 1963.

Has anybody heard any rumors of big finds during that period of time?

Based on very limited information, my guess is the plant referred to is the LUE - the "natural Fort Knox."

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Randy Bradford]

So many questions...

Keeping in mind, there's very few things I won't share that I have...those are all personal correspondence that I was asked not to share. However, there's a lot of stuff...personal and merely really obscure, that I'm happy to share because it could be found just as easily (or just as difficult-ly?) by anyone else who put in the leg work. Keep that in mind...

This comes straight from a letter from Karl von Mueller to Michael Paul Henson dated 10 December 1983:

"I do want to correct some misconceptions about the LUE treasure. The term LUE was coined by me from three words that appear on the original map. The three words, whether they are Latin of Spanish, have been interpreted to mean ‘Tomb of the Missing Padre’ or ‘Grave of the Weeping Magpie’."

Needless to say, the "Tomb of the Missing Padre" interpretation strikes me as profoundly odd because linguistically it has no foundation.

From the same letter, Karl wrote a bit more about the map's origins and how he came by it...more than he'd shared before (that I'm aware of):

"The map was published in an Arizona historical publication around the turn of the century and some years later was published in a booklet by a writer/publisher in Durango or Grand Junction, Colorado. I have the booklet but don’t know which carton it is stored in. Hardrock Hammond got the original map from a family in Gila, Arizona and brought it back to Los Angeles and we copied it and he returned it to the owners. We figured it out mathematically and got into the Black Lake area. It has been figured out mathematically and astronomically, which actually means that both methods are mathematical."

My assumption here is that the pamphlet he is referring to is the Robert O. Burch, "Spanish Trail of Gold"

Karl later (in the same letter notes:

"I have one of the silver bars that came out of another caching area that is still be worked. Since he is now gone and beyond the reach of Big Brother, I can tell you that I believe that Bill Mahan of D-Tex fame got into one of the LUE caching areas."

This is significant to me because it's one of the only times silver is mentioned as part of the LUE cache(s).

Karl mentioned a recovery with Montana Larry, or eluded to it several times. Karl also for a time sold silver necklaces through the NPG, primarily silver arrowheads. I long suspected Karl had used those arrowhead necklaces as a way of liquidating that silver. Imagine my surprise when this same letter yielded the following:

Of course, the people who are smart enough to figure out the map are not going to advertise it if they recover any of the gold or silver. The huge cache of silver that Montana Larry and I recovered in New Mexico was not LUE material. As you probably know, I melted some of this silver down into arrowheads and sidewinder rattles and distributed thousands of these objects at cost as a curio. This wilver [silver] was 95% silver, and 5% gold, with traces of other metals. We also cast Fr Garces crosses and distributed them far and wide. Father Garces was martyred in Arizona in the 1500s. There is an interesting story behind some of these arrowheads. I had a company in San Antonio cast about10,000 of these for me and one of my friends ran an assay on one I gave him, and he told me that it assayed out at almost 1000-fine silver. Then, I discovered that this caster was extracting the 5% gold content and casting practically pure silver arrowheads. He was ripping me off, but good, so I quit him and went to other more dependable casters to get the job done.

I'll have to keep looking, but I know somewhere I have a direct reference from Karl saying he first cracked the LUE in 1958...and hints, I believe, at a recovery.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Karl had the following posted about him in both Treasure Hunter’s Yearbook 1970 - ’71 and 1971 - ‘72 by A.T. Evans. My assumption is that he put the entire biography himself and submitted it (hence, its autobiographical).

"Solved the LUE map, 1957, for one location. Map has since been solved for seven possible locations; four of them have been worked and treasure removed."
Compare this to the obituary for Hardrock Hammond from July 1968:

"Among his more notable accomplishments in mining and treasure hunting he is credited with establishing the firm of 'Hammond and Associates' which located the 'Ajo' treasure cache, the LUE treasure, and the Rosarita treasure cache in Baja California."


Karl wrote a feature length article on the Ajo treasure in his original version of the National Prospector's Gazette Volume 3, No. 2 dated March-April, 1957. This is significant because it was the same time Karl was still in California, and hence the time when he was still regularly in proximity to Hammond. Karl wasn't in California long, so it's important to recognize that his timeline is at least consistent.

From Treasure of the Valley of Secrets, pg. 7, we get the most common story about the LUE origins (where Karl is concerned, at any rate):

There is an incredible disparity among the ranks in the field of treasure hunting, and the Valley of Secrets is another proof of this statement. I first heard of the so-called Valley of Secrets about 1954 or 1955 while discussing treasure and mining with some of the members of the Valley Independent Petrologists at Canoga Park, California….
At about this very same time, Hardrock Hammond had come into possession of the LUE map and several of us were busy copying it (it had to be returned to the owner after we had copied it.) and although we had no idea whatever then that the LUE map was a treasure map, and we were occupied in attempting to discern what the original purposes and intent were as far as the LUE mapping were concerned…. (Pg. 7)

Karl moved to Bellflower, California...not sure when but he began publishing the original NPG in October of 1954. NPG originally focused primarily on mining and rock hounding, with an emphasis on the Uranium boom that was impacting the American southwest at the time. He'd later buy Treasure Hunter News in 1955, primarily for their mailing list, and incorporates more aspects of treasure hunting into the NPG going forward.

 

[sdcfia]

So many questions...
. . . .
This comes straight from a letter from Karl von Mueller to Michael Paul Henson dated 10 December 1983:
. . .
"The map was published in an Arizona historical publication around the turn of the century and some years later was published in a booklet by a writer/publisher in Durango or Grand Junction, Colorado. I have the booklet but don’t know which carton it is stored in. Hardrock Hammond got the original map from a family in Gila, Arizona and brought it back to Los Angeles and we copied it and he returned it to the owners. We figured it out mathematically and got into the Black Lake area. It has been figured out mathematically and astronomically, which actually means that both methods are mathematical."
. . . .
"I have one of the silver bars that came out of another caching area that is still be worked.
. . . .
This is significant to me because it's one of the only times silver is mentioned as part of the LUE cache(s).
. . . .

Yes, always more questions when it comes from the LUE story or from Charles Dean Miller, and here's a couple more.

The "LUE Map"s origin is alleged to have come from a family in "Gila, AZ". A diligent search of all my sources, including the USGS coordinate list for all named places in Arizona (current and historic USGS data), fails to mention a populated place called "Gila, AZ". This implies that the identification of the map's actual source in the letter is in error. Could it have been some other place in AZ - Gila, ?? , AZ? Or another place in AZ with an entirely different name? Or, most interestingly to me, was the family in Gila, New Mexico instead?

Why would this be interesting? Because Gila, NM is at the mouth of Bear Creek, where thirty miles upstream is the Pinos Altos/Santa Rita mineralized region - the source of great mineral wealth, including documented native gold and silver from the Anglo period. And, interestingly, staggering amounts of cached native gold and silver allegedly harvested in the mid-16th century by Europeans, whose original base was at a place shown on early maps as "Todos Santos" (which I believe was established at the historic Kwilleyleka native ruins, a half-mile south of the mouth of Bear Creek).

I've fully documented what evidence exists for this treasure story at length elsewhere, but the point here is that this letter now puts an idea in my noggin that the "LUE" legend may indeed be based on a truth that exists not where Miller pointed folks for years, but much further south. The Todos Santos caches, just like the LUE caches, apparently, are alleged to be gold and silver, and truly massive. A coincidence? Maybe, if you believe in coincidences. I don't. Miller has always been an intriguing but questionable source in my mind. Like all folks with a big secret, I assume he kept his best cards up his sleeve.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Yes, always more questions when it comes from the LUE story or from Charles Dean Miller, and here's a couple more.

The "LUE Map"s origin is alleged to have come from a family in "Gila, AZ". A diligent search of all my sources, including the USGS coordinate list for all named places in Arizona (current and historic USGS data), fails to mention a populated place called "Gila, AZ". This implies that the identification of the map's actual source in the letter is in error. Could it have been some other place in AZ - Gila, ?? , AZ? Or another place in AZ with an entirely different name? Or, most interestingly to me, was the family in Gila, New Mexico instead?

Perhaps he meant Gila County? That's not far from Apache Junction and Phoenix. Seems to me I once read the man he got the map from was in Phoenix, but he may have been referring broadly to the area rather than Phoeniz specifically.

Alternatively, there is also a Gila Bend, AZ.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Karl had the following posted about him in both Treasure Hunter’s Yearbook 1970 - ’71 and 1971 - ‘72 by A.T. Evans. My assumption is that he put the entire biography himself and submitted it (hence, its autobiographical).

"Solved the LUE map, 1957, for one location. Map has since been solved for seven possible locations; four of them have been worked and treasure removed."
Compare this to the obituary for Hardrock Hammond from July 1968:

"Among his more notable accomplishments in mining and treasure hunting he is credited with establishing the firm of 'Hammond and Associates' which located the 'Ajo' treasure cache, the LUE treasure, and the Rosarita treasure cache in Baja California."


Karl wrote a feature length article on the Ajo treasure in his original version of the National Prospector's Gazette Volume 3, No. 2 dated March-April, 1957. This is significant because it was the same time Karl was still in California, and hence the time when he was still regularly in proximity to Hammond. Karl wasn't in California long, so it's important to recognize that his timeline is at least consistent.

From Treasure of the Valley of Secrets, pg. 7, we get the most common story about the LUE origins (where Karl is concerned, at any rate):

There is an incredible disparity among the ranks in the field of treasure hunting, and the Valley of Secrets is another proof of this statement. I first heard of the so-called Valley of Secrets about 1954 or 1955 while discussing treasure and mining with some of the members of the Valley Independent Petrologists at Canoga Park, California….
At about this very same time, Hardrock Hammond had come into possession of the LUE map and several of us were busy copying it (it had to be returned to the owner after we had copied it.) and although we had no idea whatever then that the LUE map was a treasure map, and we were occupied in attempting to discern what the original purposes and intent were as far as the LUE mapping were concerned…. (Pg. 7)

Karl moved to Bellflower, California...not sure when but he began publishing the original NPG in October of 1954. NPG originally focused primarily on mining and rock hounding, with an emphasis on the Uranium boom that was impacting the American southwest at the time. He'd later buy Treasure Hunter News in 1955, primarily for their mailing list, and incorporates more aspects of treasure hunting into the NPG going forward.

"Ajo Treasure: A huge cache of 500 to 700 fine gold and silver slugs were [sic] discovered in 1929 by a trio of mining men nr the U.S.-Mexican border SE of Ajo, Ariz. John E. Johnson, last of the trio, passed away in 1963 and took the secret with him. [NPG]." The Encyclopedia of Buried Treasure Hunting, Karl von Mueller (1965).

"NPG" as the source is, of course, The National Prospector's Gazette.

Randy - I hope you reprint the Ajo Treasure NPG article here. I would certainly like to read it!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Randy Bradford]

"Ajo Treasure: A huge cache of 500 to 700 fine gold and silver slugs were [sic] discovered in 1929 by a trio of mining men nr the U.S.-Mexican border SE of Ajo, Ariz. John E. Johnson, last of the trio, passed away in 1963 and took the secret with him. [NPG]." The Encyclopedia of Buried Treasure Hunting, Karl von Mueller (1965).

"NPG" as the source is, of course, The National Prospector's Gazette.

Randy - I hope you reprint the Ajo Treasure NPG article here. I would certainly like to read it!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

Seems likely I typed it up at some point, I'll have to dig around a bit...I did find this photo and mention of it from A.T. Evans "The Prospector's Club" newsletter:

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Seems likely I typed it up at some point, I'll have to dig around a bit...I did find this photo and mention of it from A.T. Evans "The Prospector's Club" newsletter:

Howdy, Randy!

As always - thank you! I hope you can locate it in your archives!

Do you have a complete run of the "original" NPG? That would be quite a resource!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Puff the Tragic Wagon]

"Ajo Treasure: A huge cache of 500 to 700 fine gold and silver slugs were [sic] discovered in 1929 by a trio of mining men nr the U.S.-Mexican border SE of Ajo, Ariz. John E. Johnson, last of the trio, passed away in 1963 and took the secret with him. [NPG]." The Encyclopedia of Buried Treasure Hunting, Karl von Mueller (1965).

"NPG" as the source is, of course, The National Prospector's Gazette.

Randy - I hope you reprint the Ajo Treasure NPG article here. I would certainly like to read it!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

“E” for Eugene?

 

[sdcfia]

“E” for Eugene?

Ha ha - of the Big Lue Mountains fame? Hopscotching the Big Kahuna all over the Southwest. That look-at-me photo seems to be a stage prop. "They never went back" takes the cake, or should I say, offers a slice to all. This guy has to be the hardest working pitchman in the lost treasure business. Don't forget to apply invariable human nature to all treasure tales.

 

[Puff the Tragic Wagon]

Ha ha - of the Big Lue Mountains fame? Hopscotching the Big Kahuna all over the Southwest. That look-at-me photo seems to be a stage prop. "They never went back" takes the cake, or should I say, offers a slice to all. This guy has to be the hardest working pitchman in the lost treasure business. Don't forget to apply invariable human nature to all treasure tales.

A prime example of Brandolini's Law.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Ha ha - of the Big Lue Mountains fame? Hopscotching the Big Kahuna all over the Southwest. That look-at-me photo seems to be a stage prop. "They never went back" takes the cake, or should I say, offers a slice to all. This guy has to be the hardest working pitchman in the lost treasure business. Don't forget to apply invariable human nature to all treasure tales.

"KvonM" did more to build and popularize the sport of treasure hunting that exists today than any other figure. He took it from a shadowy, even secret, realm into the public light. His books remain just as valuable today as they were when they were written and published some sixty years ago.

I don't pretend to be neutral - I met him and worked with him and I continue to admire the man and his good work. I carefully watched him at a Tulsa treasure show decades ago. He was as kind and courteous to the four-flushers and blowhards as he was to the genuine, down-to-earth treasure hunters that, happily, comprise the majority. I very much doubt he ever came across a fellow who needed a helping hand who didn't receive help.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Old Bookaroo]

“E” for Eugene?

You changed what I posted, yet kept it in quotes.