Jon Phillips
Hero Member
- Mar 10, 2009
- 535
- 326
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- F-75, MXT, 6000di sl
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
And if that post wasn't long and rambling enough for you...here is another one that deals with "treasure lore" and the "grain of truth" that sometimes hides in them.
I think this thread has had a lot of back and forth between the "faith in supernatural methods and treasure stories" crowd and the "research confirmation only" crowd. While the sometimes conflict has kind of polarized some folks...I think it is a mistake to count either side out, and discount everything they say.
I'm read a few times where BDD has tried to scoff at the researchers for expecting a map with an "X" on it to show up to believe in a treasure...that is paraphrasing, but to me...following a map dowser is EXACTLY that....an "X" on a map...but with nothing to back it up.
But even if you took a map out and randomly put "X's" or circles or whatever on it, or swung a pendulum over it, or just said..."Hey...that looks like a good place to bury a treasure"... there COULD actually be a treasure there...like BDD said...whether it was recorded or not! Whether a dowser says there's one there or not! Whether a treasure book says there is one there or not! Just because it wasn't recorded, didn't mean it didn't happen. You would do yourself a disservice to ignore a spot just because you can't back it up with research.
By the same token....just blindly going after a treasure because someone told you there was treasure there without, at least, applying some common sense to it, if not a little research into the history and possibility of something being there, will lead to a lot of empty holes, and wasted money and effort.
Take Juan Gomez, and the Jose Gaspar stories...If you believe the guys stories, he would have been coming up on something like 130 years old or something! He claimed to have participated in nearly every major part of Florida history...including all three Seminole Wars!! It was not out of the question to have been around before the First Seminole War when some piracy could have been going on, and made it to even the Civil War....Some military leaders actually did....but they were LONG dead by the time Gomez was spinning his yarns. Plus most of the Islands in his stories that were named by Gaspar, had already had those names long before he was supposedly on the scene.
Here is an example of how two actual events, and a misinterpreted letter, plus some wishful thinking, can morph into treasure lore.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/florida/295597-30-them-were-lost-caloosahatchee.html
The treasure story is about the possibility of finding some Colt revolving rifles that "fell off of a canoe" in the Caloosahatchee river....and that they were "packed in grease" and could still be in good condition, and very valuable to collectors. The problem was...they were being used in the field by the soldiers in the story (an actual event). That was fully documented....misfires, hurt soldiers, and all...so the part about being "packed in grease" can be shot right out of the water when you apply common sense, and minimal research to the story. If you discount the whole story right there without digging a little deeper, you would miss the truth of the story, and the chance to recover the "treasure" after all. Although they would more than likely be in poor shape, and only valuable to someone with a love for Florida history, or Colt history.
Digging deeper into the story, it became evident to me, that some fifty revolving rifles (as well as some pistols) were lost overboard, off of a boat, but it was in the Atlantic ocean off of St. Augustine...not the Caloosahatchee river on the west coast. The thread I linked to has the details of how I figured that out, and how the two stories merged into one....and how the "packed in grease" part was more than likely wishful thinking...as well as my sources.
If you discounted the story altogether...you wouldn't have gotten to the truth of it....PLUS...there is still the possibility of some of the rifles that were actually taken at the Caloosahatchee, and not amongst the later recovered ones are still in or around the river at the site of the attack....so besides that possibility....no chance of recovery if you don't have some faith in the possibilities of these stories being true.
AND....If you put your faith in the treasure lore story being a fact...without any research or common sense, you had no chance of recovering the guns that Sam Colt actually lost, because you would be looking at the direct opposite part of the state from where they actually are! (In this case there is the remote chance of finding one of the actual guns taken by the Indians, and not recovered by the military, but that is not the point.)
I think a well-rounded, successful, treasure hunter, does his research, takes all stories into account, and has proven equipment, and techniques.
There is always the chance of happening onto one thing while looking for another...my best find, a cache hidden for thousands of years, was found while I was looking for something totally different.
BDD is right about the fact that it doesn't matter how it got there...if it is there...
And not everything was documented, and can be researched.
BUT...a little research can keep you from digging a lot of empty holes.....
On a side note....it would be impossible at this point to try to recover any of those missing Colt rifles....State property and all.....It's best we let them rot away to nothing...you know...for the future generations...public patrimony and all that.
I think this thread has had a lot of back and forth between the "faith in supernatural methods and treasure stories" crowd and the "research confirmation only" crowd. While the sometimes conflict has kind of polarized some folks...I think it is a mistake to count either side out, and discount everything they say.
I'm read a few times where BDD has tried to scoff at the researchers for expecting a map with an "X" on it to show up to believe in a treasure...that is paraphrasing, but to me...following a map dowser is EXACTLY that....an "X" on a map...but with nothing to back it up.
But even if you took a map out and randomly put "X's" or circles or whatever on it, or swung a pendulum over it, or just said..."Hey...that looks like a good place to bury a treasure"... there COULD actually be a treasure there...like BDD said...whether it was recorded or not! Whether a dowser says there's one there or not! Whether a treasure book says there is one there or not! Just because it wasn't recorded, didn't mean it didn't happen. You would do yourself a disservice to ignore a spot just because you can't back it up with research.
By the same token....just blindly going after a treasure because someone told you there was treasure there without, at least, applying some common sense to it, if not a little research into the history and possibility of something being there, will lead to a lot of empty holes, and wasted money and effort.
Take Juan Gomez, and the Jose Gaspar stories...If you believe the guys stories, he would have been coming up on something like 130 years old or something! He claimed to have participated in nearly every major part of Florida history...including all three Seminole Wars!! It was not out of the question to have been around before the First Seminole War when some piracy could have been going on, and made it to even the Civil War....Some military leaders actually did....but they were LONG dead by the time Gomez was spinning his yarns. Plus most of the Islands in his stories that were named by Gaspar, had already had those names long before he was supposedly on the scene.
Here is an example of how two actual events, and a misinterpreted letter, plus some wishful thinking, can morph into treasure lore.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/florida/295597-30-them-were-lost-caloosahatchee.html
The treasure story is about the possibility of finding some Colt revolving rifles that "fell off of a canoe" in the Caloosahatchee river....and that they were "packed in grease" and could still be in good condition, and very valuable to collectors. The problem was...they were being used in the field by the soldiers in the story (an actual event). That was fully documented....misfires, hurt soldiers, and all...so the part about being "packed in grease" can be shot right out of the water when you apply common sense, and minimal research to the story. If you discount the whole story right there without digging a little deeper, you would miss the truth of the story, and the chance to recover the "treasure" after all. Although they would more than likely be in poor shape, and only valuable to someone with a love for Florida history, or Colt history.
Digging deeper into the story, it became evident to me, that some fifty revolving rifles (as well as some pistols) were lost overboard, off of a boat, but it was in the Atlantic ocean off of St. Augustine...not the Caloosahatchee river on the west coast. The thread I linked to has the details of how I figured that out, and how the two stories merged into one....and how the "packed in grease" part was more than likely wishful thinking...as well as my sources.
If you discounted the story altogether...you wouldn't have gotten to the truth of it....PLUS...there is still the possibility of some of the rifles that were actually taken at the Caloosahatchee, and not amongst the later recovered ones are still in or around the river at the site of the attack....so besides that possibility....no chance of recovery if you don't have some faith in the possibilities of these stories being true.
AND....If you put your faith in the treasure lore story being a fact...without any research or common sense, you had no chance of recovering the guns that Sam Colt actually lost, because you would be looking at the direct opposite part of the state from where they actually are! (In this case there is the remote chance of finding one of the actual guns taken by the Indians, and not recovered by the military, but that is not the point.)
I think a well-rounded, successful, treasure hunter, does his research, takes all stories into account, and has proven equipment, and techniques.
There is always the chance of happening onto one thing while looking for another...my best find, a cache hidden for thousands of years, was found while I was looking for something totally different.
BDD is right about the fact that it doesn't matter how it got there...if it is there...
And not everything was documented, and can be researched.
BUT...a little research can keep you from digging a lot of empty holes.....
On a side note....it would be impossible at this point to try to recover any of those missing Colt rifles....State property and all.....It's best we let them rot away to nothing...you know...for the future generations...public patrimony and all that.
. Sheets of gold on the drill bit?
