Ellie Baba said:
Hi Group,
Treasure Hunting is a profession, no doubt about it. ..... Just like any other trade one must start at the bottom end of the scale and start as an apprentice who must spend x amount of years learning from a professional of the craft. Later on you would become a Journeyman or receive a title indicating to all that you are actually a bonafied treasure hunter. Who are the Journeyman and who are the apprentices? We each have to decide for ourselves and we must do it honestly.
.... Treasure Hunters typically fail at finding any treasures as they want to keep their secrets and take them to the grave which eventually happens. There is the problem related to greed and trust. ..... And yes, most of them never found any treasures either....
Notwithstanding the proper use of technology to locate unseen anomalies, techniques which must be learned through experience and can be taught, I assume you are referring to aquiring certain other skills such as historical research, discovery and recognition of clues found in the field, and interpretation of all this in order to locate and recover 'treasure'. Yes, I guess to some extent these things can be taught too. However, as you've alluded to above, most of the 'best' THer's have nothing tangible to show for their decades of hard-earned expertice, Mel Fisher being a lonely exception. Even today, the man who is ardently trying to prove himself the 'world's greatest treasure hunter' continues to fail at his flagship site in Oklahoma. A member of his inner circle, one of the most brilliant friends I've had, died this week having never found a dime, but with incredible knowledge of things most of us would be slack-jawed to hear.
Bottom line? Those who recover treasure seem to be chosen by the powers above for the role. They either stumble into it or are give proprietary information by someone in the know. All the study, research, hard work, learning at the side of a journeyman, miles of hard trails, etc. (walking the walk and talking the talk), may give you knowledge of how the game is played, but is no guarantee for success. As they say, many are called but few are chosen.