A true story about Metal Detectors and caches-I may have posted this story in the past.

[Gilaoro]

In 1971-72 I was still in the USCG and stationed in Port O'Connor Texas . I was still a dealer for Whites Metal Detectors.  I had met a man in Port Lavaca , TX who was into was into collecting  old bottles and telephone line insulators. Since he ran an electrical business and had a bucket truck no old insulator was safe from him , he always carried new ones to replace the ones he took of course. He had 4 apartments above his electrical shop that he rented to employees.  SO about 5 AM one Saturday he called me and said " Max if you have a MD in stock bring it to town I have a cash buyer for you, needs it NOW. So  I loaded it up and took it to town. The guy was an employee of his and had saw the pictures of some of the coins and stuff my friend  and I had found, he was newly hired and was a Mexican from deep in the country. He had never saw a MD before and had asked if it would find gold coins ?  With an affirmative answer he told my friend he wanted one now! He said he knew where there was some gold  hidden and no  he didn't need any help , just show him how to work the machine !  My friend and I both advised him  there was a learning curve to metal detecting and not to expect to dig anything but trash for a long time! He said show me how to work it here's cash, about $379.95  as I remember  the sales price. I took him to an old house next door that my friend owned that had a yard full of trash but we had found silver coins in the past there. So with minimum instruction he was satisfied and paid me, I told him that if he wasn't satisfied with it I would take it back but not at the new price it it was not damaged. So he took off at about 8:30 .  About  5 PM Sunday my friend called me and said he's back and wants to sell the MD back to you  and you better come quick and see waht he found !  Well I drove back to Port Lavaca saying to my self I should have never sold it to him ! When I arrived my friend had him at his kitchen table and  told me he was having difficulty keeping him there that he had quit the job and was going back to Mexico. Then they uncovered a bowl on the table, it was about 2 quarts of dusty, covered with chicken manure $20 gold pieces ! XX My heart( after nearly having a stroke}. He would not let us count or touch  them an any way . The ones we could read the date on appeared to all be in the 1920's. He told us the story: His Great /Great grand father was a farmer on a river to the west that had required a ferry to cross  and the ferry had been in the family  for many years and all the tolls that they had received he took to a bank once a year and got it changed to $20 gold coins.  He had been told the story all of his life and though that since he was now in the states he would look for it , having a map he looked on the weekends and surprisingly found the house still standing but abandoned. The family had told him that they thought the old man had buried it under the house which stood on brick columns. The house had many owners over the years and the chickens,dogs,pigs and who  knows what else had roamed freely under it. He had soon realized that he was going to be caught by the ranch owner who owned it so he could only  search at night and he tried to search on Sundays. It had been in an old enamel cowboy coffee pot and wasn't very deep. He offered the metal detector back to me , said he didn't think he should cross the border with it , I said keep it and give me one of those gold coins, he said no they belong to the family, he would not sell us one or allow us to weigh them or anything  he just wanted to pack his clothes and leave , since his employer and my friend was both a county Judge and ex sheriff  I don't think robbery was a factor. He would not take any repaymrnt for the MD.

 True Story but all 1st partys are dead but me and I never knew his name or exactly where he was from but I kept that detector for  years thinking it was some lucky machine!!

Max

 

 

 

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Edited April 20, 2020 by Gilaoro
Repetion of words

[nugget108]

Great story !!

[Gilaoro]

Thanks, I have met many people in my time and my friend in Port Lavaca Texas  got me into many of them , he was a heck of a guy and had grew up hard and retired a millionaire.  He had no adversion to calling me at 3 Am for an adventure or location of a new insulator or bottle digging spot since he was so well known in the area all was open to him , I just tagged along.

Max

[pairadiceau]

Another fine tale, thank you Max.  Keep em coming.  Stay well!

Jeff

[Gilaoro]

Thanks Jeff,  We can't all be depressed all the time , my story's are mine but they are as true as I can remember them!

Max

[BMc]

2 hours ago, Gilaoro said:

Thanks, I have met many people in my time and my friend in Port Lavaca Texas  got me into many of them , he was a heck of a guy and had grew up hard and retired a millionaire.  He had no aversion to calling me at 3 Am for an adventure or location of a new insulator or bottle digging spot since he was so well known in the area all was open to him , I just tagged along.

Max

Unbeatable stories of a life well lived  . . .

[matt]

Reading your story is a great way to start my day. Thanks Max!

[Morlock]

Great story Max. Keep them coming.

[Gilaoro]

Thanks Guys!  Here is  a quick story about my Port Lavaca friend before I met him. In his younger days he was a Port Lavaca policeman. One afternoon he stopped a fellow for running the only traffic light in town in those days. Well he said the fellow resisted him and they got into a hell of a fight ! He told me that the guy was the toughest guy he had ever come across and this from a man who grew up as a teenager in the West Texas oil fields roughnecking and laying pipe lines by hand, all with pipe wrenches , no welding. Anyway he told me they fought all over the street and the only thing they had left on was the waistband of their shorts and they were both bleeding bad. Finally the mayor who was in the crowd watching the fight stepped in with a pair of handcuffs and they got him to jail. Who was he I asked? OH' he told me he was some guy from Cut And Shoot Texas up near Houston named Roy Harris.  I asked him do you know he fought Floyd Patterson for the title ? Yep he said, he lost that fight too , someone must have cuffed him!

He often told people he was the "Judge West of the Brazos"

[Au Seeker]

32 minutes ago, Gilaoro said:

Thanks Guys!  Here is  a quick story about my Port Lavaca friend before I met him. In his younger days he was a Port Lavaca policeman. One afternoon he stopped a fellow for running the only traffic light in town in those days. Well he said the fellow resisted him and they got into a hell of a fight ! He told me that the guy was the toughest guy he had ever come across and this from a man who grew up as a teenager in the West Texas oil fields roughnecking and laying pipe lines by hand, all with pipe wrenches , no welding. Anyway he told me they fought all over the street and the only thing they had left on was the waistband of their shorts and they were both bleeding bad. Finally the mayor who was in the crowd watching the fight stepped in with a pair of handcuffs and they got him to jail. Who was he I asked? OH' he told me he was some guy from Cut And Shoot Texas up near Houston named Roy Harris.  I asked him do you know he fought Floyd Patterson for the title ? Yep he said, he lost that fight too , someone must have cuffed him!

He often told people he was the "Judge West of the Brazos"

Max, sounds like your friend was lucky it was Roy Harris he pulled over instead of Floyd Patterson!!