All Kinds of Treasure

4-11-2009

Mike Harvey, Lawrence McKelvey, Eddie Bradley, James Vogt

At our club meeting on April 7th one of our members let us know about a new club trying to start up in the Gadsden, AL area that he had seen announced on TreasureNet's clubs forum. Three of us decided to go to their meeting Saturday morning to find out what they were about and to offer our help with forming the club. Afterwards we planned to meet up with James to do a little detecting at the old Army reserve area on the back side of the mountain from Ft. McClellan.

SOUTHEAST TREASURE HUNTERS,
A NEW CLUB FORMING IN GADSDEN

After making some wrong turns, Lawrence and I finally found the meeting site at Alabama_Prospecting_Supplies. Mike beat us there and had set up a display of some of his relic and bottle finds. There was a lot of excitement and talk about research and treasure hunting for Civil War relics, coins, bottles and gold prospecting. There was even some talk about organizing and ideas for the club. They seem like a good bunch of guys who are all excited about treasure hunting. Here's a couple of pictures Lawrence took at the meeting.

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Their next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 28th at 7 p.m. I'd like to attend if I can get off work in time. If you're interested in finding out more about the club, the contact_information on TreasureNet. They also have a discussion forum set up at http://www.southeasttreasurehunters.com/ . But you will need to sign up before you can enter the forum.

A SHORT HUNT AT FT. McCLELLAN ARMY RESERVE

A little before 1pm the meeting ended and Mike, Lawrence and I got in our cars and headed across back roads toward the reserve area. After a fast food lunch to go and at least one missed/wrong turn we got to the hunt site. We had picked up a burger for James and while he was eating we were getting our gear out and ready to go.

Getting started mid-afternoon, we only had a few hours to hunt, so we headed into the woods to see what we could find.

Though we were looking for coins and military paraphernalia, there were other treastures to find in the forest on this nice Saturday afternoon. The woods were full of new, green leaves and the dogwood trees fairly glowed with brightness even though the sky was completely overcast. 

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Another find I made is treasured by many wild mushroom hunters. Though I've never eaten one, Morel mushrooms are supposed to be very tasty when sauteed in butter. I found the one on the left and it has seen better days and shouldn't be eaten. The right picture I pulled off the net to show you what they look like when ready to pick. There are some "false morel" species that are poisonous, so I wouldn't recommend picking them to eat unless you really know what you're doing.

(Click images to enlarge)
 

Well, to continue reporting our coin and artifact hunt, we enjoyed ourselves even though our time was short. Mike had to leave first, but he had some success, as you can see below.

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James had already been hunting for a few hours before we arrived and already had a couple of silver dimes. Well, he ended up with a handful of pennies and 3 silver dimes.

In addition, he had made some nice finds at the same general area the previous week and sent me a picture of these added to the 3 dimes found today. (Hope I got that right.)

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Lawrence found a few pennies and a fly button.

And in addition to my "nature" treasures, I picked up a few pennies and a silver quarter.
 

Now, get out there and find your own treasure!

Eddie