Any commercial treasure hunters here?

[tenacious]

I have been offered a position with a treasure outfit here in Florida. I am being paid a fixed daily rate which is pretty attractive. I will also earn bonuses for anything of value found. That being said, I have no idea at all about the treasure industry except what I've seen on t.v.. I understand that it is some pretty hard work and long days. I don't know if its possible to earn a living doing it. Is anybody in the industry and willing to give me the pro's and con's and some insights on what to expect or not expect in doing it.
thanks in advance!

 

[DennisS]

What kind of fixed daily rate do they pay

 

[covediver]

sorry this is off topic, but I ordered a bunch of out of print adventure novels on treasure hunting last night and couldn't help. a paid treasure hunter. you have the job that every schoolboy who does scuba dreams of doing as well as a few of us that have not seen the inside of a school in a number of decades. I hope your reality squares with my imagination. whether or not it does, I do wish you all the success.

 

[Jared0425]

Not quite into the "treasure" part of the industry, but we do hunt down wrecks. Remember that unlike other industry, this type of thing has a limited amount wealth and finds. Even in the Caribbean I would estimate that 1 out of every 500 wrecks would be worth anything, very rarely do you get finds like the Atocha or Nuestra or the Central America. Even rarer still is some of these treasure ships being in shallow water range. Many Spanish convoys disappeared in deep open ocean and you have to ask yourself if you have the equipment to run surveys in deeper water and have the ability to investigate the wreckage. Deep water may offer intact wrecks that would appear like they do in the cartoons. I do recall one sidescan image of a Spanish galleon off the Azores in 6000ft of water with her masts up and very intact hull! Do some studying on the health effects also, are you going to be diving like commercial divers or are you going to dive regular gear? I wish you the best in this profession.

 

[tenacious]

sorry this is off topic, but I ordered a bunch of out of print adventure novels on treasure hunting last night and couldn't help. a paid treasure hunter. you have the job that every schoolboy who does scuba dreams of doing as well as a few of us that have not seen the inside of a school in a number of decades. I hope your reality squares with my imagination. whether or not it does, I do wish you all the success.

That is exactly why I asked this. The whole concept is nuts to me, I never thought it would be possible for me. I met with one of the guys yesterday and am meeting the crew and launching the boats tomorrow. The guy I met has been doing this for 21 years all over the world. I never even considered it being a possibility when I got into diving. I figured it was a club of good old boys that you needed to have a family member or real close friend in high places to get in. It sounds like I lucked out and was at the right place at the right time for once. Thank you, I will keep you posted.

---------- Post added June 19th, 2014 at 04:54 PM ----------

today we launched the boat and I got a ton more information on the company and the process. A few months ago they towed a 30 foot wide glider along the coast with a helicopter that had essentially a giant metal detector on it. I wont pretend to know how it worked but the images it produced were awesome. They claim that this method is much more accurate and sensitive than underwater equipment. They overlaid the data collected by that glider and known artifact find sights. This gave them some interesting areas for us to search. They also have some very advanced underwater detectors to further narrow down our dredging areas. They did a very small test run on one of the hits and got some anchor chain that they estimate to be around 80-100 years old. Not exactly lost Spanish treasure, but proof of concept none the less. They are banking on their ability to use their technology to look deeper in the sand than previous hunters and hopefully pick up some things that were missed by others.

From what I gather, this is sort of a test run for the company in order to prove their technology is as effective at finding treasure as they think it will be. Our search areas are a mix of new targets found by the glider and previously excavated sights. With this technology, they hope to eliminate some of the guess work and time wasted on excavating sights with little or no metal objects in them.

The company has been around and in the marine industry for 40+ years however treasure hunting is new to them. They are adapting knowledge and technology that they have come up with in their normal marine business and are now applying it finding treasure. They are already in the process of securing leases in areas that are virgin compared to where we will be searching here. I am very excited to see what tomorrow brings. We will be hunting on some interesting target areas, and hopefully we come up with some shiny things. I hope I can get some sleep tonight.....