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Treasure is where you find it. Sometimes it's in unexpected places. Often it takes unexpected forms. Not all treasure is gold or silver, though hunting for gold and silver is a fine pursuit. Finding gold and silver is even better.
Hi, I'm Robertson W. Shinnick. Friends call me "Rob" (but never "Robert"). As a part time coin dealer and treasure hunter, I buy, sell, trade, and collect all sorts of old and fascinating coins. Coins have been in my blood for over thirty years, and they are perhaps my favorite kind of treasure, but certainly not the only sort of treasure I seek. I also work full time in a posh Sea Island, Georgia resort, where the rich and famous come to play. As a Room Service waiter, I have served presidents and kings, movie stars and musicians, plus plenty of everyday folks. It pays the bills but it also manages to be quite interesting at times.
My forum name, "Lord Marcovan", originated in my misspent teenage and college years, when I was a Dungeons & Dragons fanatic and into fantasy and sci-fi fiction (even before that, as a child, I'd cut my teeth on the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien). Lord Marcovan was my favorite among the many characters I created. I spent hours, days, weeks, months, and even years daydreaming about these imaginary characters. Together, in the dark dungeons and moonlit moors of my mind, we slew imaginary monsters and hunted imaginary treasures in an imaginary world. It was a fun pursuit and it did have a creative aspect to it, but when I grew up (which happened much later than you might think) I learned that it is far better to hunt real treasure in the real world, and I realized my time would be better spent developing my own real-life character instead of all those imaginary ones. "Lord Marcovan" survives as an Internet avatar, and though adulthood and real life took their toll on my dreams, a little of his spirit of adventure lives on in me. I haven't lost my propensity for daydreaming, but I have hopefully learned to harness it and find a more sensible outlet for my creativity.
I've always been fascinated by time. And history, and lost secrets, and mysterious places.
I was ever the imaginative child. (I suppose I still am, in many ways). Once, when I was maybe nine or ten, and standing on a dock in Saint Augustine, Florida, I let my daydreams run rampant. I was in a city full of history and no doubt plenty of true treasure, but I somehow became convinced that I saw the edge of an ancient coin sticking out of a mussel shell. The shell was attached to one of the pilings on the dock, and I swore I could see the coin stuck inside. How I decided it was an ancient coin, and how it had supposedly gotten inside a mussel shell, I didn't know, but I stared at it for a long time, trying to figure out how to recover my "treasure". Soon my younger sister became involved, too, and stared down into the water with me. We were convinced we could see the saltwater-blackened edge of the coin peeking out from between the two halves of the shell, as the small waves from the wake of passing boats sloshed against the pilings beneath us. Finally an adult came along and asked what we were up to. After hearing our excited babbling, or perhaps concerned that we were going to fall off the dock, he decided to humor us, and climbed down to pry the shell off the piling for us. Of course it was just a mussel, and the "ancient coin" we had been looking at was nothing but a piece of its shell. Nevertheless, we had convinced ourselves, and even gotten an adult to recover the "treasure" for us. Treasure fever is infectious.
Of course the biggest treasures are not material things, but rather the fine intangible things in life, like our families, friends, and other pleasures.
But let's talk about the material sort of treasure.
We can talk about the semi-mythical stuff like El Dorado, or The Lost Dutchman Mine, or the Oak Island Money Pit- the things I call "Pie In The Sky" treasures, which are as much myth and legend as they are fact.
I would prefer, however, to discuss real treasure here. Treasure you can actually get your hands on. Treasures found, or treasures that can be found by the average person like you and me. Not lost cities of gold, or temples of doom, perhaps. Not even sunken galleons full of emeralds and doubloons that require several million dollars' worth of equipment and a salvage ship to recover. Those sort of things are nice to dream about, but they aren't your average treasure hunting, so let's get real, here.
Let's talk about finding smaller treasures, one at a time. Maybe a single Spanish coin that's a clue to a long-lost 17th century mission burned by pirates. Or Civil War buttons and bullets lost by a famous regiment. Or a rare soldier's belt plate from the War of 1812. Or a some hand-sized fossilized teeth from boxcar-sized giant sharks that went extinct millions of years ago. Or perhaps a mysterious early-15th-century Ming Dynasty medallion given by a Chinese emperor to one of his diplomats or explorers, and found in a place that had been occupied only by Native American tribes, three generations before Columbus sailed the seas! Or, speaking of prehistoric Americans, how about a paleolithic stone projectile point several thousand years old? Or on the less exotic end of things, how about some old marbles, or colorful antique bottles, or bits of broken crockery and clay tobacco pipes from an early 18th century plantation, or tiny gemstones from an Appalachian mountain stream?
I have found all of these things and more in my journeys, and I'm here to share those stories with you. And though I don't get out as much as I used to, I'm not done finding things and trying to tell their stories.
Of course I want to hear your treasure tales, too. Don't be shy if your finds seem humble compared to those of other folks, and you think you've never found anything supremely valuable. Hey, most of us haven't. I've been lucky enough to occasionally find some valuable things, but that's the exception, not the rule. It's a rather moot point, anyway, since the things I find are often far more valuable to me sentimentally than they would be to anyone else, monetarily. After all, they're my treasures. I found them, and there's something special about that. If you have done any kind of treasure hunting, you'll know what I mean. Finding material riches is fine and dandy, but the thrill of the hunt and enjoyment of the finds is far more important. All too often our dreams lead us to unrealistic expectations, and when those come crashing down on the hard ground of reality, they leave us feeling discouraged and depressed. But we should pick ourselves up, dust off our dreams, and go right on chasing the ends of our personal rainbows. Sometimes, just sometimes, one can catch the tail end of a rainbow for a fleeting moment, and then it's gone again. Live for those moments.
The real value of treasures is in the stories they tell, and the journeys they carry us on in the vast interior landscapes of our minds.
Let's share some of those stories here. Fire up that imagination of yours and put it to work finding real treasures in the real world. Let's do a little boasting, too, but without exaggeration or fabrications. Let's offer each other tips, pointers, and suggestions.
Welcome to the Treasure Territory. May it bring you treasure, too. Or at least some entertaining reading, if you're more the armchair treasure hunting type. There's nothing wrong with that- I'm partial to armchair adventures myself, as you may have guessed. But beware: you will begin to feel itchy and restless in that chair, when you're reading about other folks finding fascinating and exciting things!
-RWS/"LordM"
OH. Yeah. The "rules of the road" here. I almost forgot. This "forum owner" stuff is still new to me.
At this stage, I see no real need for a set of forum rules, beyond common courtesy. Obviously, personal attacks and flame wars are a no-no, but beyond that, I don't see the need right now for any other forum rules.
As to your selling stuff on this forum: it's fine by me if you want to sell treasure hunting finds or equipment here. Just put "SSP" (Shameless Self-Promotion) in the title, with "FSH" (For Sale Here) or "eBay" in the title, as appropriate. Just try not to have too many for sale threads going at the same time, that's all.
Thanks!
Oh- one other rule.
DON'T BE SHY. If you have treasure hunting finds, WE WANT TO SEE THEM! No matter how humble or common or boring you think they might be. We can't all find great stuff all of the time, but let's see participation!
ICON LEGEND:
 = This forum's Introduction
Last edited on 06-24-2007 05:14 am by Lord Marcovan
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