There are few greater thrills than finding hidden treasure, or something that hasn't been found for many years. With the rising prices of gold and silver, it can be profitable also. Can you still find treasure today ? Of course, like anything else, it takes practice. An active coin hunter can find about 5,000 coins a year. Think of all the change that ends up under your couch seat .

 Bob Howard of central California. He gave up his day job at HP to go full time into prospecting.

Always be sure to get permission for metal detecting on private land , fill in you holes and gather and throw away your trash. Most National parks are off limits in the U.S. Some unusually places to try your metal detector are the backbones of old books. There are two types of metal detectors, the Beat Frequency Oscillator and transmitter receiver detector. A Beat Frequency Oscillator is a more general purpose metal detector for coins and placer and nugget detecting. The smaller the search coil diameter, the greater response, but the search area grows shallower. Most coils are 5 to 6 inches in diameter .The longer an object has been buried, the deeper it can be detected .The best technique for using a detector depends on the minerialization of the soil, how much metal is in the area and dampness of the soil. If an area is mostly  free of minerals, the detector is usually held an inch or two off the ground. Some employ a scrubbing technique, where the coil touches the ground in more mineralized ground .You will get much more penetration, but the coil will wear out faster .Smaller coils are used for pinpointing .When detecting, it is best to let your coil overlap about 25 % with each sweep, at about onr foot per second .

Treasure Leads in Louisiana

Natchitoches

Treasure worth millions of dollars is said to have been buried by the Murrell gang during the Civil War.

Lake Salvadore

 A dregging crew in 1962 dug up gold coins at the mouth of the bayou leading into Lake Salvadore .

Honey Island

Favorite hideout for outlaws such as Pierre Rameau.

Calcasieu River

 In 1929 $75,000 in gold coins were found near the mouth of the Calcasieu River

Dixie

Gold coins were found in the old bed of the Red river

Breaux Bridge

Gold coins have been found, believed to have been part of many caches buried by slaves who stole it in the .

Atlanta

Town was a base for the wess gang.

Jefferson Isle

Many caches of Mexican coins found here .

Shell Beach

Gold coins foun washed ashore in the 1930s

Calcasieu and Mermenteau Rivers. Lafitte was known to use these rivers and a number of caches were made

Calillau Island

Reportable the location of a cache hidden by the pirate Gambi.

Algiers

Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion trained here at an abandoned, some of whom hid money for the invasion here that has not be recovered .

Famous Lost treasure Sites

The Lost Dutchman Gold Mine

A very rich gold mine hidden in the Superstition Mountains, near Apache Junction, Arizona, east of Phoenix, Arizona in the United States.The mine is named after German immigrant Jacob Waltz ("Dutchman" was a common, though inaccurate, American slang term for "German ."about 180 kilometers north-west of the Superstition Mountains . A "Dutchman" was allegedly discovered dead in the desert near Wickenburg in the 1870s alongside saddlebags filled with gold.members of the Apache tribe are said to have a very rich gold mine located in the Superstition mountains

Oak Island

Oak Island is a 140 acre (57 ha) island in Lunenberg County on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada.Oak Island is noted as the location of the so-called Money Pit, a site of numerous excavations to recover treasure believed by many to be buried there.

Jean Lafitte Treasure

Deep in the southwest corner of Louisiana lies a region once famed in American history as the "Neutral Strip." This forty-mile-wide stretch of wilderness and marsh land, principally in present-day Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, become a geographic entity in 1806 when the boundary between Spanish Texas and the United States was in dispute. In that year Spanish General Simon Herrerra and the American General James Wilkinson of Louisiana concluded the "Neutral Ground Agreement," whereby the Strip was left unoccupied by troops and law enforcement officials of either nation, and the agreement remained in effect until 1821.

Although a few legitimate land hunters settled there, the Strip soon became notorious for harboring the lawless elements and social outcasts of two nations, that ilk of humanity to whom piracy appealed and who became indispensable to the slave-trading and buccaneering activities of Jean Lafitte. It was also destined to retain its share of Lafitte legendary and folklore for most of a century.

Using Metal detectors

Many people use consumer metal detectors to look for coins on the beach. Most metal detectors are good to detect metal only within a foot or so below the ground. The detection depth depends on the type of metal detector, type of metal in the buried object, size of buried object, type of metals in the ground, and other objects in the ground.

There are five major types of hobbyist activities involving metal detectors:

    * Coin shooting is looking for coins after an event involving many people, like a baseball game, or simply looking for any old coins. Serious coin shooters will spend hours, days and months doing historical research to locate long lost sites that have the potential to give up historical and collectible coins.

    * Prospecting is looking for valuable metal like gold and silver.

    * Relic hunting is very similar to coin shooting except that the relic hunter is after any type of historical artifact, relic hunters are usually very determined and dedicated not only to the research and hunting that they do but also to preserving historical artifacts. Coins, Mini� balls, buttons, axe heads, and buckles are just a few of the items that are commonly found by relic hunters.

    * Treasure hunting is looking for valuable items in general.

How to use a metal  detector on youtube

How to pan for gold

metal detecting on a beach

Jean Lafitte