Treasure Hunting club presents at UTS Speakers’ Forum, Barrytown

Wednesday’s UTS Speakers’ Forum introduced the popular hobby of metal detecting to the Red Hook community, and was put on by the Barrytown Metal Detecting Club. The presentation included a look at the various types of metal detectors available on the market, how they work, and how someone can begin to enjoy the exciting outdoor pastime of ‘treasure hunting’ with a metal detector. One guest brought his metal detector which he didn’t know how to use. Various objects were buried in a sand box and he

learned how to detect them, and now he can’t wait now to go out and find buried treasure!

Henry teaching Carl how to operate a detector

Henry Christopher explained how he used to dig holes in his backyard on Long Island hoping to find buried pirates treasure, until his Dad would come home from work and get angry for digging up the lawn. He fast forwarded to his years at the Washington Times as a graphic artist, responsible for designing the Civil War page each week. That got him interested in a different kind of treasure—Civil War artifacts. He bought a metal detector, joined the local club in Hagerstown, MD, and began to find Civil War artifacts in fields all around his home in West Virginia.

On display were an assortment of relics from members of the club, including Civil War bullets, artillery shells, buttons, old coins, and many interesting artifacts from the Barrytown historic Hudson River estates which were once owned by the descendants of Robert Livingston.

The most prized find of one member of the club was a very rare 1789 George Washington inaugural button. Only 30 are known to exist, and they are each worth into the thousands of dollars.

Henry Christopher told the story of his adventures into underwater metal detecting, where he used to find diamond rings in the ocean and in lakes around his home. One day when his daughter was around 6- years-old, the family went to a nearby state park to swim in the lake, and he brought along his metal detector. He asked his daughter, Enryka, what she would like him to find in the lake, and she said, “Papa, find me a heart ring.” In just a few minutes, as she watched from the shore, he found a gold child’s ring with two hearts and a diamond in each heart!

On another occasion, he found a huge man’s gold ring with 15 diamonds in the water at Virginia Beach, VA. It was appraised at over $1,400. It is so big that he humorously calls it his “Mafia” ring, thinking that only a rich Mafia member could have lost such a ring! Numerous other diamond rings were found in lakes over the years which went to his wife, Katsuko.

Metal detectorists are sometimes considered by archaeologists as no more than “grave robbers” because they think that they are just interested in finding “treasure” and selling it for a profit. Actually, metal detectorists are very interested in history and telling the story of that history through the relics and artifacts they find. They carefully record where they found certain artifacts, and often put them on public display or go to schools to give presentations about the historical significance of the dug artifacts. They are also often called to help find lost jewelry, property markers and other things buried or lost in the ground. Just the other day, one of the Barrytown club members found a high school ring lost by the sister of a prominent member of Red Hook, which she lost on the family farm over 40 years ago! Was she delighted and grateful to get that ring back!

UTS Speakers’ Forum guests

Each Forum is filmed and broadcast on the local TV station Panda. Past forums can be viewed by going to the PandaTV website and looking up the schedule of shows which are live streamed all day through the internet.

To learn more about this exciting hobby, contact Henry Christopher.