Very Early Metal Detector

On Sunday while at a flea market I found a copy of Parade Magazine dated January 1965 and while having a browse through it later at home I came across an article on Laffite's lost Hoard, Laffite won notoriety in the early 1800's in South America as a privateer plundering Spanish galleons, long story short he later hid treasure on islands in and along the gulf of Mexico.

In later years many people tried to discover the whereabouts of his hidden plunder, some items such as silver ingots were found but not much else, many of the islands were dug up treasure seekers but little found but by far the most interesting part of the article that attracted my attention was this bit.

Late in the 19 century a treasure hunter named J C Wise came across some aged documents which seemed to give the best clue yet to the treasures whereabouts, the documents which historical authorities said were genuine, it went on to say that Lafitte took the last of the treasure which included a chest containing gems, silver and gold, he buried it and buried it on a sand flat on the Lavaca River.

The documents went on to record that Lafitte had set a brass rod over the site of the treasure and then departed.

It then says, "Wise now set to work building a contraption which consisted of a large box containing various wires and oddly shaped pieces of glass, it was supposed to emit a series of whirring sounds when near metal."

"To the amusement of the locals, Wise carried the box with him as he crawled over innumerable sand and mud flats in the Lavaca basin, when the box whirred he would dig furiously, only to uncover objects like horseshoes and nails."


It seems that this is the earliest I have heard of a metal detector being used, and many of the comments seem very familiar to the issues we still face today when detecting, horseshoes and nails.

au-fever

Horse shoes and nails ?? I'm an expert at finding them buggers
And nice to see not much has changed in all these years

I'm pretty sure they were used in WW2. My grandpop who served wanted to get a hold of one because he was convinced they would be able to find gold nuggets.
Rest of the family didn't believe him....oops.

Wow! History says it was Dr Fisher that invented the 1st detector. Look's like history is wrong again.
Cheers for that snippet AU great info mate.

Pete