The Quest for the Golden Treasure

Machine translation of the original editorial information.

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Inside this issue

1. 24 · Mysterious treasure hunters
2. 34 · Four Dreams Come True
3. 36 · Hitler Youth knife with a family tree

Dear readers,

The first issue of this year’s Detektor revue magazine (marked as 1/2020) has left the printers and is on its way to your letterboxes. As always, we’re giving you a sneak preview.

In the opening feature, ‘Artefact of the Month’, Miroslav Filip will present his discovery of an extraordinary seal under the heading ‘The Mystery of the “Twelve Guilds”’. ‘The Quest for a Golden Treasure’ is the title of an article in which the treasure hunter Silver describes how, as part of the Preventive Archaeology programme, he was searching one of his favourite sites and stumbled upon what was literally a golden treasure. Below are the eagerly awaited results of the 11th annual Author’s Competition for prizes, along with the announcement of the 12th edition. In his article ‘The Age of Data’, Stahad explains how even such an everyday find as a seemingly ordinary pocket knife can harbour an interesting story. In this issue, you will find the third instalment of our new column ‘Let’s Save History’, in which we follow how treasure hunters are helping to preserve our archaeological heritage. A find that is truly ‘Vimperk-style’ – that is how Ren titled her article. The magazine follows the trail of two printing blocks found near Vimperk, which led it to a local native who made the town famous throughout the world. Ignorance of the law is no excuse (not even for treasure hunters), so we have titled the interview with Mgr. Stanislav Kapl on the legal provisions a treasure hunter should be aware of before heading out into the countryside with a metal detector. In this issue, we present the second part of the series. Below is an article by treasure hunter Lukáš Vašek entitled ‘The Joy of the Bush’. Lukáš recalls how he felt as if he were in a dream when, from a single overgrown patch, he began repeatedly pulling out a host of interesting finds from the Second World War. Josef Procházka once again invites you into his world of mysteries – this time, in the article ‘Mysterious Treasure Hunters’, he sets out on the trail of the Vlachs searching for the gold of our ancient ancestors. In our regular column ‘Archaeological Snippets’, we present, amongst other things, these new discoveries: a Mayan palace over 1,000 years old and anchors from the ships of the conquistador Cortés.

The story of how he built a detector and then a box nicknamed ‘the beehive’ so that he could compare the performance of various devices is told by – who else but – Zdeněk Jarchovský, in an article laconically titled ‘The Box’. Ivo Tomáš, a collector and expert, answers your questions about button finds in the regular column ‘The Button Collector’s Advice Corner’. In the early days of his searching, Jiří Pernica had four ‘treasure-hunter’s dreams’; two of them came true in a single day in the form of an exceptional find, which he shares with you in the report ‘Four Dreams Come True’. In the article ‘Hitler Youth knife with a family tree’, PetkoZberatel presents another unique item from his remarkable collection. Do you have any other hobbies apart from treasure hunting? This is another question we asked treasure hunters in your favourite poll. Once again, those interested in the history of weapons produced by Czechoslovak manufacturers will not be disappointed – a study by the military technology historian Jan Škarka focuses on another outstanding product from Škoda: the 7.5 cm M.14 CH mountain gun. And, of course, we mustn’t forget the short story to round things off: ‘Good Times’ – that’s what Bobo called his literary piece on a highly topical subject.