Urban Prospector finds treasures in the most unlikely places in St. Louis
Emanuel Taranu, a self-described “humble carpenter and urban prospector,” was searching for treasure in the Delmar Loop on April 20 when RFT photojournalist Zachary Linhares met him. And at “in the Loop,” Linhares found him literally searching for debris along the tracks of the Loop Trolley. A dangerous mission perhaps, but Taranu has experience in tackling it.
He talked about his beginnings, the most valuable item he ever found, and what he learned from years of searching for treasures in forgotten places. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell people a little about what urban prospecting is?
City exploration is simply a matter of looking in unexpected places where lost items such as people’s jewelry might end up. So there are all sorts of ways to do this. But basically you’re looking for cracks where rainwater will wash away heavy metal objects up to that point, and you’re just looking for that collection point. It’s as easy as cleaning a filter and seeing what you find.
What is the most money you made from a city exploration expedition?As a child I always did this with my father. We tried it. He is also a treasure hunter. He usually goes treasure hunting with a metal detector. So I’ve been back at it recently.
But it is also a kind of archaeological project. So the nice thing about it is that people are paying more attention to the built environment. And ask yourself questions about what was here before and how it came to be this way? These are the questions you need to ask to find good, good websites. And so I recently found a 10-carat engagement ring, a vintage ring, in an antique sewer. It’s a beautiful storm drain. It has a brick barrel vaulted ceiling and a wooden deck, which is cool because you can take a metal detector there. But yes, the ring has a tiny diamond in a white gold setting and it’s a 10 carat bar from the ’60s.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into urban exploration?
All the treasure hunters in the country will be so mad at me. I would say: keep your eyes open where other people don’t normally look. If you see signs of heavy metal objects getting stuck there, that’s a good thing. Typically you will see screws, nuts and bolts. You’ll obviously see a lot of pennies. So you start with the most common one, and it’s a numbers game so you know you’re looking, thinking and planning enough to find a good spot. And yes, look for a place where rainwater can optimally drain to a central collection point to make things easier for you. So I was in the county, on Watson Road, and there’s a huge hill and all the shops, all the parking lots, they all lead into this one tunnel, and I found stuff there from the ’60s. I found a buffalo nickel in another drainage tunnel. You can’t find that on the surface. These were minted in the 1930s.
What life lessons or wisdom have you gained from treasure hunting?
That’s a good question. I mean, I’m a big critic of the built environment. So what did I learn from treasure hunting in general? I mean, it teaches me to ask questions about how we got to where we are. People made choices that we all live with – individuals made those choices and that’s how we got to the streets we have. We have car traffic, a lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and so pedestrian deaths occur in a city. This results in a lack of public transport.
So yes, I think paying attention to public spaces was an exploration of my curiosity about the built environment.
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