Buried treasure: it’s a real thing
November 3, 2021
Sheila Harris
When Clint Scyrkels, owner of GNG Underground (an excavation business), received a call in response to his ad in The Barry County Advertiser from a homeowner in the Shell Knob area, he was intrigued by the lady’s request, but also uncertain of what he might be getting into.
The elderly woman, who asked that her name and location not be published, asked Scyrkels if he could help her find some items that her deceased husband had buried on their property.
“I wanted to help,” he said, “but I had no idea how or what to charge for a job that could very well be open-ended.”
Finally deciding to charge an initial flat rate, plus an hourly rate if the job went beyond an agreed-upon time, Scyrkels showed up with his excavator, prepared to dig for buried treasure.
The homeowner believed that the items had been buried between the house and garage, although she didn’t know the specific location.
When Scyrkels arrived, he discovered that some manual excavation with picks and shovels had already been conducted in the past, in an area about eight feet square by three feet deep.
“I set to work with the excavator in an area beyond the pre-dug square,” he said, “but I was startled when I saw the homeowner walk back into the house. I thought, if there were actually buried treasure in her yard, wouldn’t she want to stick around and watch me work? She didn’t know me, so how did she know that I wouldn’t keep the treasure for myself if I found it? That’s when it occurred to me that maybe there was nothing buried in the yard at all and the whole thing was a goose-chase.”
Within 30 minutes, however, Scyrkels’s efforts yielded pay-dirt in the form of a portion of PVC pipe, capped at both ends and tucked near the foundation of the garage.
The PVC cache contained the family heirlooms the homeowner was looking for and she praised Scyrkels for his work.
As for Scyrkels, he was startled to discover that the homeowner’s husband had passed away six years ago.
“I had the impression that he had died fairly recently,” he said.
After repairing the homeowner’s yard, which included filling in the site where previous digging had occurred, he left with a sense of great satisfaction.
“Not everyone actually finds buried treasure,” he said.
Sheila Harris
When Clint Scyrkels, owner of GNG Underground (an excavation business), received a call in response to his ad in The Barry County Advertiser from a homeowner in the Shell Knob area, he was intrigued by the lady’s request, but also uncertain of what he might be getting into.
The elderly woman, who asked that her name and location not be published, asked Scyrkels if he could help her find some items that her deceased husband had buried on their property.
“I wanted to help,” he said, “but I had no idea how or what to charge for a job that could very well be open-ended.”
Finally deciding to charge an initial flat rate, plus an hourly rate if the job went beyond an agreed-upon time, Scyrkels showed up with his excavator, prepared to dig for buried treasure.
The homeowner believed that the items had been buried between the house and garage, although she didn’t know the specific location.
When Scyrkels arrived, he discovered that some manual excavation with picks and shovels had already been conducted in the past, in an area about eight feet square by three feet deep.
“I set to work with the excavator in an area beyond the pre-dug square,” he said, “but I was startled when I saw the homeowner walk back into the house. I thought, if there were actually buried treasure in her yard, wouldn’t she want to stick around and watch me work? She didn’t know me, so how did she know that I wouldn’t keep the treasure for myself if I found it? That’s when it occurred to me that maybe there was nothing buried in the yard at all and the whole thing was a goose-chase.”
Within 30 minutes, however, Scyrkels’s efforts yielded pay-dirt in the form of a portion of PVC pipe, capped at both ends and tucked near the foundation of the garage.
The PVC cache contained the family heirlooms the homeowner was looking for and she praised Scyrkels for his work.
As for Scyrkels, he was startled to discover that the homeowner’s husband had passed away six years ago.
“I had the impression that he had died fairly recently,” he said.
After repairing the homeowner’s yard, which included filling in the site where previous digging had occurred, he left with a sense of great satisfaction.
“Not everyone actually finds buried treasure,” he said.
