Sewer Treasures!

I had a cousin that lifted the lid from a sanitary sewer stuck his head in and lit a match. Decapitated him as neat as a gillotine! You might say he lost his mind! He was 15 years old, R.I.P. Monty
 

Monty said:
I had a cousin that lifted the lid from a sanitary sewer stuck his head in and lit a match. Decapitated him as neat as a gillotine! You might say he lost his mind! He was 15 years old, R.I.P. Monty
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HOLY CRAP. (please pardon the pun)
 

its true, in both the storm lines and the sanitary lines, people lose coins down both. Personally i have found a silver washington quarter. also had a buddy bring me a "gold coin" out of a sewer which turned out to be a corroded but shiny 1901 indian head.

i have heard from a good source that if there is a defect such as a missing brick in the bottom of an old sewer that coins like gold and silver will get lodged in there. (since theyre so heavy) makes sense. some old brick sewers date back 100 years. they were all built by hand, brick by brick, back in those days. some of the old brick work is actually quite impressive.

but its too dangerous and too disgusting to purposely try to collect coins out of old sewers. you could literally be killed by deadly gasses. before anyone goes into a sewer they need to get "shots" to protect from hepatitus, tetanus, a few others. most old manhole steps have rotted away and are now rusty, cruddy "spear points" of rusted iron. one could give way or impale you with a sewery coating.

please do not mess with the sewers, trust me!! the coins are ruined by the corrosive sewage anyways.
 

Please listen to moonshine,
Sometimes in my work I have to hook a new sewer drain line into a main line. There is methane gas in there. IT IS NOT WORTH GOING INTO A MANHOLE. It could be a DEATH TRAP. Do not mess with them if you aren't qualified to do so.
 

Drove a Honey Wagon at a Mountian RV Park,kind of like a Crap Vacuum truck for cesspools.Found a gold chain that caused a clog in the noslle.When the truck was full I dumped it in open pits on a hill top.made a riffle ramp out of a mid 40s truck bed and some angle iron and dumped into it like a sluice box.Found more treasure.Decided to check all the P traps(sideways S shaped pipe under the sink) and found mens Gold ring with 9 rubys set in it.Posted this story on a dumpster diving thread and noone ever posyed again, thought it must have grossed um out and ended the conversation.
 

Monty said:
I had a cousin that lifted the lid from a sanitary sewer stuck his head in and lit a match. Decapitated him as neat as a gillotine! You might say he lost his mind! He was 15 years old, R.I.P. Monty
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Sh%& Happens!
 

I need to look in my dictionary. I think the definition for 'treasure' may have changed......I can see the caption on the Detectorist's business cards now, 'It may be your S#@T but it's my BREAD and BUTTER'.
 

I am a Master Plumber in the state of Colorado, so I would please ask you readers to listen to me.
"SEWERS ARE VERY DANGEROUS" I have seen where people have poured gas into storm drains! You could be blown up if there was a spark! If you didn't die from the fumes. Methane is in almost all San. Sewers. We use a sniffer before entering any confined space.Please don't search in such a lethal place! I didn't cover the medical aspects of sewers! There are lots of better places, and I would hate to see anyone get hurt :( Beware!!
 

This is not the first time I have heard of this. I saw a post a few years back, on another board, about a guy who works at a sewer/water treatment plant.

He posted photos of gold and diamonds that the filters caught. He seemed to have a good number of finds.

Too nasty for my taste but it just proves treasure is everywhere.

:P
 

I took a course in water treatment plant operation once. A discussion came up about money being flushed (which apparently happens a lot during police raids on drug dealers.) The instructor said that if any bills happened to survive their journey through the pipes, they were pretty much fair game if any of the plant operators wanted to fish them out when they reached the sewage plant.

For the heavier stuff, I can see a new field of TH technology being developed: Sewer ROV's! It'd be safer than going down, though it would take some engineering to figure out how to keep the camera lenses clean.

(It's late. I really need to get some sleep.... ;)
 

exanimo redux said:
One of my favorite Honeymooners episodes was when Ralph received a summons from the I.R.S. He was sweating bullets worrying about what he could have done wrong. He took Norton to the meeting with him and found out that he forgot to sign his tax return. Norton then confesses to the I.R.S. agent that he once found a dollar bill floating in the sewers and never claimed it on his taxes. :D
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LOL!!!!!!!!!Norton was the best!!steven.
 

Well, I have personal and ongoing experience with this..

#1 Never EVER go into a manhole or even put your head below grade level into a manhole. Hydrogen Sulfide gas is odorless and colorless, it can come from any organic material breaking down, and it attacks the nervous system so fast you won't have time to speak before you are down and out. If your weight is over the hole you are going in. If the HS2 doesn't get you the lack of oxygen will! Filter masks do no good if there is not enough oxygen there to sustain life. Throw in the exhaust fumes, gasoline fumes, solvent fumes from cleaning outfits..chemical fumes for numerous extraction processes.. even from xray film processing and you don't want to take the chance.

However... Every once in a while the jetter trucks will show up with a load from a plugged sewer or stormdrain. Usually caused by willow roots,which will go hundreds of feet to find water, or sometimes a line break. They do trap and hold a lot of stuff. The last load I spent 4 hours on gave me $17.42 in clad, 5 rings, 8 earrings 4 cellphones 3 credit cards.. and one bowling ball. 30 lbs of diapers, piles of keys, marbles, corn,lettuce, prophylactics, dead rats,you name it, ti will be there. Most of the new coins are almost gone after only a few months in the sewer.

In amongst the coins was a really black 1888 dime and a 1906 one dollar gold coin. Gold and Silver DO discolor in sewage water, it is not Tarnish but a Patina that forms. One of the rings I found this year was an 18k White gold wedding band that is listed in the Zales catalog for $2250.00

Las Vegas treatment plant guys used to fight over who got to go clean the bar screens after a major drug bust.. One of them told me he netted over 1k dollars in greenbacks that were thrown down the toilet during a bust.

Rubber gloves, eye protection, old clothes, disinfect, disinfect, disinfect! Even if you see clear looking sewer water do not trust it! I once, by accident, waved a torch over a cup sized spot of clear water on the concrete floor of a basin we were working on. The water was suddenly full of wriggling cooked 4" colorless worms!

You haven't lived until you are trying to unplug a 2.5 inch line at a pump, and when you reach in and pull out the rags you find a hypodermic syringe and needle laying between two of your fingers..with the needle against your rubber covered palm....

Sewers and stormsytems are nothign to mess with. They will kill you dead dead dead.

Grant
State Certified Level 2 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator
Telemetry Specialist
Treasure is where you find it! If you got the gonads to pick it up! :P
 

I don't think it would be worth it. Too many risks as many people with first-hand knowledge have stated above. Deadly gases, disease, etc. And for storm sewers, there's always a chance of an unexpected rain shower. About two weeks ago here in St. Paul, (2) private contractors got swept away while working on the main storm sewer line. They got swept all the way into the Mississippi and drown. Not worth it to me. Maybe when I was younger though.
 

What about septic tanks? Many areas that originally had septic systems have now converted over to sewers. The septic tank systems are being phased out in suburban neighborhoods. We have an old septic tank in our back yard that is no longer used. I remember as a kid in the 70's. my friends mother flushed a couple of thousand dollars down the toilet because she thought it was "drug" money. They had a septic tank but its probably rotten by now. But many jewelry items are lost down the sink and heavy solids, I believe, would be in the bottom of a septic tank. I wonder how long the contents in a septic tank, if no longer used, would be safe to dig in?
 

GrantWA said:
Well, I have personal and ongoing experience with this..

#1 Never EVER go into a manhole or even put your head below grade level into a manhole. Hydrogen Sulfide gas is odorless and colorless, it can come from any organic material breaking down, and it attacks the nervous system so fast you won't have time to speak before you are down and out. If your weight is over the hole you are going in. If the HS2 doesn't get you the lack of oxygen will! Filter masks do no good if there is not enough oxygen there to sustain life. Throw in the exhaust fumes, gasoline fumes, solvent fumes from cleaning outfits..chemical fumes for numerous extraction processes.. even from xray film processing and you don't want to take the chance.


Grant
State Certified Level 2 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator
Telemetry Specialist
Treasure is where you find it! If you got the gonads to pick it up! :P
Click to expand...

Hydrogen sulfide is not odorless. It is more commonly known as "rotten egg gas" because of the strong smell. It is however very flammable and is deadly in small concentrations. Not trying to be picky, I am just a froofreader by nature and loved my chemistry classes in college.
 

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