Treasure Leads You Can Find

Been awhile since the last post, and being that I am in Facebook Jail (suspended until 5PM today from posting in any groups) for some unknown reason, I thought it would be a good time to blog.

Anyways, treasure leads are easy enough to find, if you know were to look, and how to go about finding them.

For example, during the fur trade era, to my understanding, every capsized canoe belonging to the HBC of bales of furs and goods was recorded.  (I am not sure about the canoes of other companies, nor independent traders.) Those bales of goods and furs are now sitting in the middle of various rivers. Due to the fast moving water in some of these rivers, the bales are sitting on rocks, as the rushing water tends to clear silt away, and the fur bales are packed thus that they remain intact. 

So, theoretically, if you were to search the HBC archives, as well as archives for the North-West company, as well as do a ton of reading of various true fur trade tales, you may well be able to find the location of those lost bales. 

Some time ago there was a Manitoba University prof who that did just that. He ended up diving for one or some of these bales, and recovered at least one, if I am recalling correctly. 

Imagine finding a bale of trade goods, all of which are highly collectible and worth some good money! Even a bale of furs would be a real find, a solid piece of history you can touch. 

So, what are you waiting for? 

Get researching!

Treasure Leads - The Cons

There should be a common thread you have noticed with all the treasure leads I have presented to you.

You hadn't already heard of them....

Or at least most of them. 

If you had heard of them, it could have been from myself, or you got a vague mention of the stories that accompany them. 

None of them are well known, unlike 1000s of other leads out there, which can be found in various books, magazines, YouTube, etc. 

I could easily present some of those more obscure ones to you as my own, and you would likely be none the wiser, unless you decide to spend an hour on Google digging into them. I prefer to be straight, on the up and up about the leads I have, and that they are unique and relatively unknown. It does add to the mystique of them, as well, no?

Plus, mine are all basically here in Manitoba, my home province. Manitoba really is under rated for treasure hunting, and has some fascinating history that is largely ignored.

One incident that falls into the category of lost treasure waiting to be found is about $380,000 worth of gold on the Dawson Trail in 1868, here in Manitoba. At the time the shipment was worth $10,000, and was the payroll for soldiers at Fort Garry.

It is not very well known, and there has been no well publicized searches for it, to my knowledge.  But, it is something that appears often enough in the public eye, and information on it is available to the general public. 

You can chase it, if it has not already been quietly found and has made someone moderately wealthy.

I believe that given time and money, most of these treasures I have listed can be found.

However, money is not always in ready supply.   

Some of the leads require heavy equipment, special permissions, significant travel, specialized skill sets, among other factors.

Some will require luck, and much time.

Others require combinations of the above. 

None of them are cheap ventures. If it is not money being spent, it is time....and, as the old adage says time is money.

I have worked on a few of these leads more than the others.  The most work has been done on the Mad Trapper case, with the Norse leads coming in a close second.

I'd love to get the railway china, which could be profitable. However, I do not scuba dive.  But, a miniature sub might work. Anyone have one handy?   If I had some sort of TV backing, I know of a company who might actually provide the use of one, in exchange for the publicity.

Digging up the locomotive would be cool, just for shits and giggles and to say I had done it.....but really,  the market for a rusty locomotive is pretty limited. I do have a couple homes for it in mind, but they are both museums, and their pockets are not going to be deep. A donation is more a museum's thing. Would be worth a pretty penny just in weight for scrap, but it is unlikely even that will outweigh the costs of going after it.  Corporate sponsorship by one particular company might be the way to go, but to get it, I'd want to have the site 100% determined, and evidence of the same to present to them.

The dugout canoe would be a significant archaeological find, but going after it could require some heavy equipment, and getting that equipment to the site would be quite the feat all on its own itself.

The James brother's artifacts would be a cool Canadian/American history crossover, but the trail is quite cold.

The airplane engines are not a 100% for sure, though I am sure other artifacts would be found that would make the dig worthwhile. There is a wild card in this lead, which is something I have not mentioned. You see, some of the materials put into the landfill site could be of a dangerous nature (IE: hazardous chemicals, potential for explosive ordnance).  I know there would be support for this venture from at least one source, but it would be support by way of knowledge and connections, not financial.


The lead most realistically to get worked on (or finished) this year, considering my current financial and time situation is the Mad Trapper case.

This one requires time, though there are a few things I'd like to do that would require travel time and cash.  There is a site he may have been, at which there will be spent ammunition, and I would like to obtain that spent ammunition. If they are 45 casings, I would also locate the one of the spent 45 shells he left behind in his battle with the RCMP and posse at his cabin. I could them compare the two to see if the Manitoba site is one he definitely was at.  Could be a neat metal detecting outing for sure! 


So, what leads shall I follow up in the New Year?   

Any wealthy benefactors or Television production companies out there that want to back a treasure hunt or 3?

The Manitoba Runestone - Treasure Lead #6

No idea what a runestone is?  Click here to find out.

Yes, I have a lead on a Norse runestone...here in Manitoba!

It, like the Kensington Stone discovered before it, was found tangled in roots of some trees a farmer was taking up while clearing land for cultivation.

This stone was said to be sandstone, which doesn't bode well for preservation, being as stone that would soon weather after the inscription was carved....except this stone's location made it the ideal candidate for preservation underground.

You see, it was located at a spot that would have been lakeshore of one of Manitoba's largest lakes.

If you are familiar with those lakes, you will realize that come winter and spring, the ice can move ashore under certain conditions, and would effectively bulldoze the stone. 

This action would have likely tipped it over and as fate would have it, it seems to have been covered up either at that time, or gradually by further seasons of similar ice and wave action/erosion. The location it was found at is now roughly a mile from the current location of the shore. BUT, when you take into account isostatic rebound, it is located on what used to be the lake shore during the period the Norse could have theoretically traversed the lake system, 900 to 1400 AD. 

Don't bother going looking for it at its discovery site, though. It was removed, and shortly after broken in two pieces. It was then in assorted private hands.

However, I have traced it to its last known location. Just a matter of doing some door knocking now. This might just be the first treasure I do locate out of the ones I have already listed....or I may find out it was discarded, destroyed due to the owners not knowing what they had. 

Not looking forward to it being that particular outcome.

Either way, there is a photograph of the stone out there, and if you have heard of said stone, and know of where I can get a crisp copy, I'd be grateful for the assistance. 

Following Your Inner Child

Time to move on from those digital cats.

I am always looking at this business as what it is, a business. To me it is not a hobby, a flight of fancy, or a temporary situation. It has been 25 years, after all.

In that thinking, I tend to be attracted to other entrepreneurial thinking & musings of successful entrepreneurs. 

In that line of thinking, I came across a Ted Talk video the other day.

You probably will need to watch it to follow my line of thought and musings below. You might be able to follow without watching it, but, if you don't watch it and you are confused by my musings below, that will be why.

As a child, I loved the idea of being a treasure hunter.

Episodes of Jacques Cousteau's adventures that featured shipwrecks and other assorted treasure kept me fixated and after them my my imagination ran wild.  (It was on the 1 of 3 channels we did get on TV when I was a kid....Yes, I was so deprived!)

 What became of that kid?

Well, if you have ever read my blog from the beginning, you will already know that I basically ended up in the business by accident, after becoming unemployed (after almost 2 years before that employment paying for a computer education which was not what it was sold to us as, and which I did not use....)

Though, maybe my ending up in this business was simply fate.  

That first 25 cents forced into my hand as a child clicked a switch in my ultimate destiny.

So, I am a treasure hunter, but not in the fanciful way I initially pictured.

However, after seeing that video, I am inspired more to follow some other paths, or rather, another path more seriously, though carefully.

You see, I have accumulated leads which are to far more fantastical sorts of things, things that are off the track of what I normally pursue in my efforts to eke out a living. 

Maybe I need to pursue my true passion...true treasure hunting. 

What do I mean? What kinds of leads do I have? 

Well, they is fodder for my next blog postings.

Stay tuned!

The Big T.O.P. List - The Weekend Garage Sale Picker!

Yes, I know, this blog posting is late in coming....I also got distracted and did a "non picker types related blog post" in between...ooops....my disorganization is showing (more on that "little" topic will be covered in later postings)

It is summer here in Manitoba, and things have been hectic. Summers are just way too short here in the prairies. 

I tend to try to pack a years worth of outdoor work into just a few scant months. Plus, I need to keep up with indoor projects  (and general "life") at the same time.

Also, with summer comes garage sales & yard sales, of course. 

Garage sales and yard sales are pretty much synonymous these days. I have seen "Yard Sales" in garages, and "Garage Sales" held in yards. 

The terms are essentially interchangeable. It is all semantics, really.

That brings with it the "weekend garage sale hobbiest pickers."

Let's just call 'em WGSHP's for short, okay?  That will save my achin' fingers some work....!

So, these "pickers" are probably the "lowest" on the totem pole of picker types.  

No, no, no,  I am not saying they are "scum" or anything of the sort, they are just the lowest level at which I would consider someone to actually be able to legitimately use the word "picker" as a part of their "title".

The individual who is a WGSHP will determine by their actions if they deserve respect or not. Heck, everyone on this earth should take that thought to heart, really...

But, this blog is about picking, so I will stay away from the oh-so-tempting philosophical rant running around my brain (for the time being, anyway.)

WGSHPs do just what the title describes. They run around to garage sales on the weekends and buy items for resale. Whether they resell them online, at auctions, to dealers, at flea markets, to fellow collectors (and on and on) is all irrelevant.

The source of their merchandise is garage sales, pure and simple.

The sources of any picker's merchandise can generally be determined by the types of stuff they don't find.  If you put a pile of a picker's picks in front of them, and lined them up in a long row, you would soon see how the merchandise runs the gamut, as to the picker's picks' quality, type, age, size, etc, etc, etc. The list of differences is an entire lifetime long, really.

For example, a WGSHP may come up with the odd advertising sign, maybe a mint boxed tin toy now and then, some new/old stock inventory once and awhile, a primitive piece occasionally (if that is even on their radar), a valuable painting, etc. 

But, what you will notice is that they do not have a regular influx of certain items that a "professional picker" tends to bring to the market. 

There will/could be a regular influx of Swanky Swigs, Starbucks Coffee mugs, china, 1970s mod items, 1980s funky retro items, 1990s collectible toys, and a long laundry list of other items that can be found at garage sales with regularity.

I am not knocking these items or categories, don't get me wrong! 

Have you seen what some of the modern Starbuck coffee mugs sell for on eBay? 

Heck, it is enough to give you coffee mug envy!

The WGSHP is a part timer...well, an "occasional timer", really. Their buying activity is pretty much limited to those weekend garage sales. They might drop in to the odd auction, the odd thrift shop, and even some antiques & vintage shops. 

They might actually spend a dollar or two in those places, too. Their collecting habits might be the very fuel for the garage sale picking they do. 

Many collectors finance the acquirement of parts (or even their entire) collections in this way, using the profits from their garage sale hunting to add to their collections. 

Oh so many collectors start out going to garage sales in the first place simply as part of their hunt for the objects of their personal obsessions. On one of those outings, they see something that they know is SO absurdly cheap that they can not resist buying it, even though it is not something that they want themselves.  

After that, and maybe even during the moment they spot the bargain.....

....they figure out that they should SELL it to a dealer, fellow collector, scrap gold buyer (etc!). 

They end up grinning ear to ear after they have resold the item(s) for a "handsome" profit. With that profit they treat themselves to a purchase of a  piece that previously caught their bottomless collecting heart, but the contents (or rather lack of contents) of their wallet blocked their acquiring it to fill that empty space. 

With that little space filled.....

A Weekend Garage Sale Hobbiest Picker is born!

Will he/she grow, expand their horizons, mature? 

Some do, some don't.

Those that do mature become one of the many other "Types Of Pickers" in this world....and now you k now where the "T.O.P" of this list comes from....

So, are you a WGSHP? 

Yes?  

No?

If you answered no, keep reading this blog for more T.O.P postings! 

Heck, if you answered YES, you should keep reading, too!
You may end up deciding you want to change your picker title!
Or you just want to be entertained...it is all good! 

Safe pickin', folks!