Karl von Mueller [Charles Dean Miller]
The Treasure Hunter’s Manual #6 (Grand Prairie, Texas: 1961) Wraps and hard cover, numbered on the title page; "Special Printing Of the Sixth Edition"
This might be the single best book published on treasure finding. “The Old Man” wrote a unique guide.
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Over five decades after the first edition saw the light of day, it is difficult to fully understand how ground-breaking this book really was. Here, for the first time, were the written secrets of a professional treasure hunter.
In typical fashion, KvonM provided “Answers to The Six Questions About Buried Treasure Hunting: What, When, Why, Who, Where, and How?" Then, in great detail, he wrote about “Instruments and tools,” “Clothing,” “Publicity and secrecy” (easily this chapter alone is worth the price of this book!), “Research,” “The law and treasure hunting,” “Taxes,” and much more.
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Karl never lectured. Most of his hard-won knowledge and lore is passed along by telling stories. This not only makes his books as easy to read as they are informative (because the stories are quite interesting, and well-written) it means there are many layers to his writing.
THM #6 and #7 need to be re-read and re-read. You will learn something every time you do it!
No one knew it at the time, of course, but one of the most interesting aspects of THM #6 is that a few years later Karl would write a completely different book on the same subject:
THM #7!
This is NOT the much more common RAM reprint – This is the original “Special Printing, published in a restricted quantity, incorporates Appendix B which will be found in no subsequent printings of the Treasure Hunter’s Manual.” Although it was when 8 States (Boulder, Colorado) reprinted it.
Appendix B includes Karl’s “Ghost Town Guide,” a fascinating “25 Exciting Treasure Locations” (long since lifted; but there is much to learn here if you can read between the lines); and the notorious “Roster.” This last list caused some problems for a few of the folks included.
Karl’s useful Bibliography is here (it was replaced when Garrett reprinted this book). A number of times Karl wrote “Most of the really valuable and helpful treasure books do not have the word ‘treasure’ in the title.” Yet most of his did!
The original B&W photos are all here. And – no surprise here! – the information on building your own treasure detector is presented. Charles Garrett saw no point in teaching treasure hunters how to build their own metal detector! Additionally, of course, this wouldn’t help today’s th’er, as the technology has changed so much since the mid-1960’s!
This is a masterpiece!
Good luck to all,
The Old Bookaroo
