Emanuel Taranu, a self-described “humble carpenter and urban prospector” was hunting for treasure in the Delmar Loop when RFT photojournalist Zachary Linhares came across him on April 20. And by “in the Loop,” Linhares found him literally hunting for detritrus in the tracks of the Loop trolley. Perhaps a dangerous mission, but one Taranu is experienced in handling.
He shared how he got started, the most valuable item he’s ever found and what he’s learned through years of searching for treasure in overlooked places. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell folks a little bit about what urban prospecting is?
Urban prospecting is just looking in unexpected places where people's lost items like jewelry might settle. So there's all sorts of ways to do it. But basically, you're looking for cracks where rainwater is washing heavy metal objects to that point, and you're just looking for that collection point. It's as simple as, like, cleaning out a filter and seeing what you find.
What's the most money you've pulled from an urban prospecting expedition?So I used to do this with my dad as a kid. We dabbled in it. He's a treasure hunter too. He normally hunts with a treasure metal detector. So I'm back into it recently.
But also, you know, it's kind of an archaeological project. So part of the beauty of it is paying closer attention to the built environment. And asking yourself questions about what was here before and, like, how did it get to be like this? Those are the kinds of questions that you need to ask to find good, good sites. And so recently, I did find a 10-carat engagement ring, a vintage ring, in an antique sewer drain. It's a beautiful storm drain. It's got a brick barrel-vaulted ceiling and wooden decking, which is cool because you can take a metal detector in there. But yeah, the ring has a tiny diamond in a white gold setting and it's a 10-carat baton from probably the 60s.
If somebody’s wanting to get into urban prospecting, what advice would you give?
All the treasure hunters in the country are gonna be so mad at me. I would say keep your eyes open where other people don't usually look. If you see signs that heavy metal objects are getting stuck there, that’s a good thing. Typically, you're gonna start seeing screws, nuts and bolts. You're gonna see a lot of pennies obviously. So you're gonna start with the most common, and it's a numbers game, so you know you do enough searching and enough thinking and enough planning you can find a good spot. And yeah, look for a place that has maximum rainwater drainage to that one central collection point to make it easy for you. So like I was in the county, on Watson Road, and there's a huge hill and all of the businesses, all the parking lots, they're all feeding into this one tunnel and I found stuff there from the 60s. I found a buffalo nickel in another drainage tunnel. You don't find that on the surface. Those were minted in the 1930s.
What sort of life lessons or wisdom have you've gained from treasure hunting?
That's a good question. I mean, I'm a big critic of the built environment. So in general what have I learned from treasure hunting? I mean, it teaches me to ask questions about how we got to be where we are. People made decisions that we all live with — individuals made these decisions and that's how we ended up with the streets we have. We have the car traffic, we have the lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and that's how we end up with pedestrian deaths in a city. That's how we end up with a lack of public transportation.
So yeah, I think paying attention to public spaces has been an exploration of my curiosity for the built environment.
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