Posted on 09/19/2020 11:40:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Finding a rusty treasure chest full of gold coins is the ultimate fantasy for fans of metal detecting, and it seemed to be happening Saturday to a woman vacationing in South Carolina.
Angie Moore of Atlanta says she was out with her dad “experimenting” with a metal detector when it indicated something big in the sand outside the Marriott Grande Ocean in Hilton Head.
“So, I started digging,” Moore told McClatchy News. “We finally cleared the top of it off and ... it was one of those moments where you can’t believe what you’re seeing. The wooden chest had really degraded so as I attempted to lift it, part of the wood came off and we got our first glimpse of ‘gold.’
Divers found proof last year that a shipwreck 40 miles off the coast of North Carolina is the steamship Pulaski which exploded and sank in 1838, killing half its 200 passengers. BY BLUE WATER VENTURES INTERNATIONAL, HISTORIC SHIPWRECK RESEARCH AND RECOVERY. Seconds later, Moore realized she’d been had by a joke that was likely years, if not decades, in the making.
“We went from, ‘OMG, it’s a treasure chest full of something gold’ to ‘Oh wow, those are toy coins,’” Moore said.
It remains a mystery why someone went through the trouble of hiding a chest of play money (it was a foot down), but Moore says she and her 81-year-old father, Harry Moore Jr., saw the humor in it.
“Best thought I can give you is that we found a treasure chest!” Moore said. “It doesn’t matter to us that it had fake coins in it. It was a great find for us. And, it’s even sweeter to know that some family with kids probably buried it for us to find one day.”
It’s not far-fetched to imagine finding treasure on local beaches, due to the hundreds of sunken ships off the coast. Multiple shipwreck recovering operations are ongoing off North Carolina and South Carolina, and backers have reported finding 18th-century coins and gold watches worth thousands of dollars, according to McClatchy News.
Other oddities, including World War II mines and parts of space rockets, have also been found washed up on beaches in the Carolinas.
Moore says she was out Saturday trying to reacquaint her dad with a hobby he dropped a decade ago, and the chest definitely made for a father-daughter bonding moment. In fact, she decided to keep it and the coins for sentimental reasons.
“Finding this has absolutely just made him so happy. We will keep it for that reason alone,” Moore said.
She posted news of the chest on the Low Country Metal Detecting Club Facebook page, and learned she was not the first to find a box of something strange on a local beach. The South Carolina-based group has more than 1,600 members.
“I found a chest a few years ago on IOP (Isle of Palms), but it was filled with goodie bags for a child’s birthday party,” one person wrote on Facebook.
20 years ago there was an ATM for my bank at my client with a USPS stamp machine next to it. Every week I got my check I put $20 in the stamp machine, got just a few stamps and pocketed $19 in Susan B. Anthony coins that I tossed into a drawer at home. Looked like I had a treasure chest in my bedroom dresser.
Now I think I have 3 quarters in my pocket. But a guy wanted to borrow a quarter for a soda. Or I’d have FOUR!!!
I was expecting the contents of Al Capone’s vault (Jerry Rivers joke).
FYI,that explains people wandering around in the middle of the night with flashlights. ;)
.
Shiver me fake timbers.
Heh
I was expecting: “And then the government swooped in and took it all!”
The title sounds like your typical YouBoob click bait teaser.
All I ever find is boots with feet still in them.
Eww.
[All I ever find is boots with feet still in them.
Eww.]
“Timerider”
Helicopter scene
Geoke caching at its finest. love it. Bet this was perpetrated by an older quatro-chan. (no-one gets this)
Augustus St. Godiva?
I suppose the hotel knows they’re doing this or it would be theft.
They will when you brag about it by posting it all over the internet.
Just keep it and shut up.
I was going to make a joke about them being made of chocolate when I saw that headline.
So has the State confiscated their treasure yet?
>>Other oddities, including World War II mines
That escalated rather quickly.
“The name of the game is ‘Treasure Hunt’ where you may be lucky to find gold treasure or CERTAIN DEATH!”
This family walks away with the sad trombone.
Thirty some years ago when I bought my first plot of land, the first thing I did was start exploring it with my dad's metal detector.
I found an entire "Job Box" type of tool box, buried in about two foot of loose dirt.
Not long before buying the property, the adjacent 40 acres had been logged and apparently the tool box had been buried under the various branches and debris from that logging.
There was some rust, but very little.
In the box was a Milwaukee 3/4 inch drill, a hydraulic cable cutter and various other tools, etc.
The best thing in it was a complete (72 pieces) set of impact sockets.
It was made by Cornwell and the price of that similar set today is nearly 700 bucks.
A good way for me start my retirement and a good return on my investment in the land.
I advertised it, but never got a response and my lawyer told me it was a valiant effort to return the property, but with no response in nearly two years, I owned it.
And so I did...and I use every one of the tools on a nearly weekly basis.
I remember that! Now when they open such “treasures” on live TV they have made sure there is something inside, or planted something beforehand. Remember the Treasure Chest of the Andrea Doria? It was said they planted the money inside.
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