Club hunts

Thirty years or so ago (That long! I can't believe it!), club hunts were popular here in the Midwest. The kind of hunt where you pay to dig for silver and gold coins, tokens for prizes and that sort of thing. I haven't been to one since the late '80s, when I belonged to a now-defunct club that put on its own hunt near Kansas City. We were not a big club, but our one-day hunt always drew 100 people or more.

Are club hunts still popular? I looked online and saw that the Indian Territory hunt in Sapulpa, Okla., is still held every year. That was a big hunt back in the day. Are there other well-known, well-attended hunts these days? Anybody here go to them?

The problem in most cases is silver coins cost so much to seed the field that entrance fees become cost prohibitive and well seeding with clad is not welcomed by most. Indeed at least in our area seeded hunts are becoming smaller each year and not as popular as years gone by...

Yes, you could buy a lot of silver dimes for a $10 entry fee when they were selling for 3.5 or 4 times face.

I just checked the Indian Territories website. This year, the hunt drew 81 adult entries and 15 children's entries. The 81 adult entries were the total for all six adult hunts. So there couldn't have been more than 40 or so people in the main hunt. That's nothing like what it used to be down there.

Each entrant into the main hunt paid either $50 in advance or $65 the day of the hunt. If you'd entered all of the adult hunts early, it would have cost you $180.

Would take a lot of silver to make up to 180.00. Its fun but instead of going to one in Blacksburg this past spring I took the money and bought Morgan dollars. Weather was not the best so only a moderate turnout. Sponsor lost money and states he doubts he will do it again. I know it is suppose it to be fun and there is hanging with folks of like mind.

It was fun. You got to talk with a lot of interesting people. If you were agile and good with your detector, you usually had little trouble earning back your entry fee just in coins. If you got really lucky, you won a metal detector. At the main hunt of a big event like Sepulpa, your tokens might give you a shot at a mid-range detector and a top-end detector, which the club would buy at a discount from a sponsor. Some of the other token prizes were decent, as well.

Eastern and Western Treasures magazine has a club hunt section in every issue. Might check there for some leads in your part of the country

Bill, up here they still have seeded hunts, BONES has a few every year in April, the two clubs I belong to have natural hunts, they try to secure a field and have a hunt with up to 50 members, with the new machines, there is always something good dug up, the last one I went to was a combo, they seeded it with club members donating coins and we dug some good stuff that wasn't planted

Caretaker, what part of the states or Canada are you in?

I'm in Maine, we have a cyber club, Im in 2 clubs, ones in Maine the other in New Hampshire