BRISTOW, Okla. — As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. In Bristow, one man’s treasure is lost artifacts.
His name is Chandler Thompson. He’s 22 years old and has a thing for digging up history.
“It’s just incredible to take something that meant a lot to somebody at one time, and it can mean something to mean now,” said Thompson. "Growing up also Indian artifact hunting, just to hold something that hadn’t been held by a human for four thousand, six thousand years is… you always think about those people."
Thompson’s unique hobby is metal detecting, which was inspired by his late grandfather. Although the two only spent three years together, Thompson’s grandfather left quite the impact.
“My mom has his treasure box, is what he calls it, in her closet, and he’s got hundreds of coins in there and other artifacts,” he said. “I just liked looking at them and thought it’d be cool to find some myself.”
That started it all.
Thompson got his first detector in 2017, but really started taking it seriously in the last year and a half.
“I remember the first old coin that I found in a place he had detected before, and it was… I kind of teared up thinking that grandpa 30 years ago was standing in the same place, digging up the same coins,” said Thompson. “I didn’t get to share it with him, but I get to share it with him now.”
Over the last year and a half, he’s started his own box of treasures.
It contains coins, jewelry, bullets, toy soldiers, even old makeup compacts, and more, all of which could have been forever lost without Thompson and his detector.
But the joy Thompson gets from putting detector to soil is twofold.
“The most important thing to me is the people I meet really doing it,” said Thompson. “Going up to some random house, knocking on the door and you’re friends with those people by the end of the day.”
To chronicle his finds and efforts, Thompson has started a YouTube channel.
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