"One man's trash is another man's treasure." So the saying goes, but for the Puget Sound Treasure Hunters Club, everyone's trash is their treasure. Well, maybe not all of the trash is technically treasure - the market for old pull tabs, beer cans and other detritus that would set off a metal detector isn't exactly booming - but if it's "historical trash," as veteran club member Ed Chumley refers to it, then it's worth its weight in gold, if not necessarily made of gold.

Chumley, an Army and Air Force veteran, dug up a lot of treasure over the last few years since his wife gave him a metal detector for his 80th birthday, but out of all of it, he says his greatest find is a broken handsaw from the 1870s.

"It doesn't have a handle on it or anything anymore, but I think that's the neatest thing I found so far." Chumley said.

Army vet Dennis Bullis once uncovered a 14-karat gold ring weighing at least an ounce, but it's the old Upjohn medicine bottle full of Mercury silver dimes that he counts as his greatest find. (Prior to 1945, dimes featured the face of Liberty rather than FDR, and she was often mistaken for the Greek god Mercury, hence the name.) In a case of trash becoming treasure, each of those dimes, in addition to being worth over a dollar in silver and copper, could fetch anywhere between $1.50 to $8,500 apiece depending on their year and condition. (That's right, long after you're gone, your change jar might be worth a fortune.)

Of all the club members' finds, coins are by far the most common. On any given hunt, every club member can expect to find at least one coin. One club member accumulated over $1,000 in spare change in just under two years. People have been losing their loose change since we started minting coins, and back in the days before paper money, it was even more common.

Marine Corps vet and former JBLM contractor Brian Feierday undoubtedly has the coolest misplaced bus fare in the club's history - a 2,000-year-old Celtic coin he found in Colchester, England.

"I like to find old pieces of history," Feierday said.

He also likes to find wedding rings. Feierday and the club gained local media attention last year when a newlywed couple contacted the club for assistance in finding the bride's wedding ring after it fell into the water beneath Katie Downs Waterfront Tavern in Ruston Way. Feierday, together with fellow hunter Tom Everson, found the ring after two days of searching and returned it to the fretful bride.

It's all in a day's work for the club, which has grown to almost 100 members since its inception in 1972. They offer their services free of charge as a goodwill gesture to anyone who reaches out to them.

"If we can come across a ring and get it back to its owner," said Pres. Per Tvedt, "that's the most successful kind of hunt."

For more information on the Puget Sound Treasure Hunters Club, or to get their help finding your lost treasures, please visit sites.google.com/site/pugetsoundtreasurehunters.