Central Texas Treasure Club: March 2024

Sunday, March 31, 2024

CTTC Regular Monthly Meeting - Tuesday, April 2nd

Remember our next regular monthly CTTC meeting is Tuesday, April 2nd. Lots of prizes will be given away! We'll also reveal the Silver Dollar Treasure Hunt #2 site for all Members who attend, we'll set a date for this year's April Surprise Hunt, we'll get the ball rolling for our annual CTTC Open Hunt in October by ordering coins for our fund-raising CTTC Gold Coin Raffle and preparing Hunt flyers/registration forms. This meeting will be Members' last chance to contribute a few of their best finds for our second CTTC display for the Brownwood Public Library so clean those finds up and turn them in to our Co-Huntmaster Caiden Tyler at the meeting. Visitors are always welcome and invited to attend our monthly meetings!

Jay Longley, President, Central Texas Treasure Club

Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/468623476667619

We'll be giving away one of these new Treasure Wise 3-in-1 Digging Knives at Tuesday's meeting. These are the best digging tools in the world! I've used mine since 1982.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Treasure Hunting Tip!

Read all the old treasure hunting books and magazines you can get your hands on! I'm appalled daily when I read comments and replies to posts, from beginners wanting advice, on most Facebook metal detecting groups. I'd estimate that 70-80% of what I read is not only bad advice but it's detrimental to our hobby. I try to correct some of it almost every day but it's an impossible task to refute it all.

I'm thankful that I started detecting back when we took our advice from real experts and early leaders in the field when they wrote books and articles for magazines. I've followed that solid advice throughout my treasure hunting career. That's why I never have any problems coming to terms with most landowners whose property I want to search and why I've never been asked to leave or even had my retrieval techniques criticized when detecting parks and other public lands. I have been observed by a few police officers and park employees, from their cars, over the years but they never get out of their vehicles and often just drive away after a few minutes of watching me while I'm detecting and retrieving targets.

There's one vintage book that I believe is essential for every beginner and serious treasure hunter to read - "The Treasure Hunter's Manual 7th Edition" by Karl von Mueller published in 1966. You can find a few copies of this classic book and vintage treasure magazines on eBay.

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Here's the back cover Introduction to my First Edition copy of the book:

"The Treasure Hunter's Manual" covers the complete activity of buried treasure hunting from start to successful completion. Details and examples are given on where and how to get leads, development of the facts through research, how to proceed with the actual search, and how to dispose of the treasures you find in the most profitable way.

The author, Karl von Mueller, is no mere student or researcher of the subject. For more than thirty years, he has been an active and successful treasure hunter. Everything contained in "The Treasure Hunter's Manual", is the product of first-hand experience, and the techniques for locating buried treasure are the ones that he has used in his own successful ventures.

First and foremost, this book is a guide for those who are, or wish to become, active treasure hunters. However, the armchair adventurer will find plenty of excitement here, too. von Mueller is a master storyteller, and his adventures have given him plenty of good stories to tell. You will find that the truth about buried treasure is far more interesting than any fiction you have read."

Our next regular monthly CTTC meeting will be Tuesday, April 2nd, at the old Early Chamber of Commerce Bldg. at 104 E. Industrial Blvd. in Early, Texas beginning at 6:30 p.m. Visitors are always welcome and invited to attend!

Jay Longley, President, Central Texas Treasure Club

The following is a post I made 5 years ago. Our Central Texas Treasure Club doesn't allow our Members to use shovels in public parks or other public areas. This old post explains why.

I just posted this in response to a shovel-happy post on a detecting forum.

"Never use a shovel in city parks or on public property. When I started detecting, 50 years ago this summer, we were all taught how to retrieve our targets cleanly using only a long-blade flat-head screwdriver. We were also well-aware of the Metal Detecting Code of Ethics and most of us followed that Code religiously. As a result, for my first 10 or 15 years in the hobby, detector bans in city parks or school yards were unheard of. In the early 80's, after I wore my granddad's screwdriver out, I purchased a 3-in-1 digging knife and I've used the same knife ever since. Shovels should only be used out in the country, on private property with permission of course, when looking for buried caches or large relics. The popularity of shovels in the hobby is the #1 cause of detectors being banned on public property. Keep it up and you'll soon see one of these in every park in your town or city. And don't give me that foolish argument about needing a shovel because of hard soil. The dirt doesn't get any harder than it is in my area of central Texas when it's dry."

Jay Longley, President, Central Texas Treasure Club