In early August 2013 I was contacted by an elderly couple asking for my help. It seems that 30 years ago they had buried a cache of silver bars on their farm but for the last several years, as memories fade, they were unable to find the exact location of their treasure. They had spent many months digging in the most probable area and had even been helped by a friend with a metal detector.
I agreed to help them in their search and drove to their farm about a 2 hour drive from my home in central British Columbia, Canada. Not knowing what to expect, I took my 3 Minelab detectors and one other brand. After a discussion with the farm couple we settled on the most likely location a 20 ft. by 20 ft. area next to one of the farm buildings. The cache was reported to have been buried 2 ft. to 3 ft. deep but the type and size of the container was uncertain. I decided that the best detector for this search was my Excalibur II. I searched this small area for approximately 4 hours in pinpoint mode hoping to hear a deep target but any larger target was masked by a very great amount of nails and junk metal. After much urging by the owners to continue, as they felt that we were in the right area, I decided to rake off the top 6 inches of soil with a garden hoe in order to eliminate the trash. I again scanned with the Excalibur II in pinpoint mode and this time heard the gentle increase in threshold that often indicates a deep target. Removing a foot of earth, the signal became stronger and I had to widen out the hole to accommodate the 10 inch coil. At 2 ft. with a strong signal we were getting very excited.
Finally at almost 3 ft. my shovel hit the top of a metal box. Cleaning the earth away I could see a green box with a handle and after another 10 minutes of digging to loosen it I lifted out an old rusty ammo box. We got the lid off and looked at over 1000 oz. of pure silver bars that had not seen the light of day in 30 years.
You can only imagine the excitement and gratitude of the owners having their treasure returned to them. Thank-you Minelab for a great land and water detector, the Excalibur II.
Sydney - British Columbia, Canada
