Treasure hunters show off their finds



By Christopher Nichols

TAUNTON, MA — The Silver City Treasure Seekers held their third annual New England Treasure Show on Saturday, featuring a variety of historical artifacts that have been found across New England.

The Silver City Treasure Seekers was founded in 2001 as a hobby metal detector club. Members range from students to retirees and hail from Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island

“Our aim is to recover, preserve and share our love of history with others,” said club president Joseph Baker.

The Silver City Treasure Seekers meet the first Friday of every month to share finds, invite guest speakers, hold raffles, trade stories and declare the Find of the Month. For three of the past four years, the club has hosted this expo, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School.

“Once a year we host this New England Trade Show, and it’s an opportunity to have a liaison with like-minded hobby clubs throughout the New England area and showcase our finds to the public,” Baker said. “We invite anyone who’s interested in the hobby... or just local history.”

One vendor at the expo, Hank Phillips, of Hudson, N.H., displayed multiple tables of artifacts he has gathered in his 17 years as a treasure seeker.
Among the many items in his collection are a set of buttons, buckles and coins belonging to Edward Hilton, one of the first settlers of New Hampshire, according to Phillips.

“He was the first fish merchant to arrive from England, and he moved to New Hampshire with his brother William Hilton,” Phillips said, adding that he also researches his finds in addition to treasure seeking. “So Edward and William were some of the first settlers of America.”

He also boasts in his collection a ring that he believes belonged to Captain Samuel Wadsworth who was killed during an ambush in King Philip’s War in 1675.

“He was ambushed by like 500 Indians, and 27 Englishmen were killed,” Phillips said. “When we went up there, we found lots of musket parts, gun parts. It was obvious there was a battle.”

He is still trying to independently verify if the ring did in fact belong to Wadsworth, but he said the ring has been dated to the same time period.
The New England Treasure Show also featured raffles, food and items, such as metal detectors, for sale.

More information on the Silver City Treasure Seekers can be found on their website www.silvercitytreasureseekers.net.

Courtesy; Taunton Gazette

O I wish I could attend would be great to see those finds.

I think it is a great idea for a reasonable state but here in Florida we would all end up in trouble at the least or in jail with little to no equipment left in our inventory. Could you immagine us showing off some Spanish shipwreck finds? I think there would be a line of official looking suit-pirates lined up to question us all about our recoveries.

I used to be in a Maryland Treasure Hunting and Detecting Club and had a great time attending just that type of meetings, gatherings and local hunts. But don't try it down here. We once had a waterfront hunt with dive gear with all sorts of prizes for recovering artifacts from the water. Could we do something like that down here? Not likely! We would all likely end up facing charges. Florida would rather have the artifacts remain lost to the world and never seen again. That is, unless they get to recover them and we just get to hear about them. We would never live to see any of the recovered items because they would remain in some secluded warehouse being desalinated, cleaned, catalogged, inspected, listed by location - size - color - value and finally stored alongside Indiana Jones' finds in that storage facility somewhere in the forgotten world of storage buildings belonging to unknown people in an undisclosed location.

Still, I wish you all the best and hope you have many years of continued success and enjoyment from your hobby.

P.S. The link to their site did not work.

I agree White Feather Florida is Treasure Hunters Dream but any big find is a long line of lawsuits and litigation issues. Better off taking here and taking there.