Casino chips, cellphones, rusty coins, and even a ring that looks convincingly real were some of the "treasures" found recently during a hunt at the bottom of the 19-year-old lake at the Boardwalk complex in Gqeberha.
Treasure Quest Treasurers co-owner Henry Clapton says the company was offered an opportunity to search for any valuables in the lake although the beautiful ring turned out to be costume jewellery.
The process of draining the Boardwalk lake started in February this year to make way for the planned multi-million rand redevelopment project.
Clapton says two of his friends Ryan Maggs and Westley Clarke were up to the challenge of searching for any lost items and jumped into the semi-drained water with their detectors and got to work.
He says the search took about two weeks to complete with Clarke and Maggs spending two to three hours at a time, after hours, in the water.
Clapton said the task was labour-intensive as they had to sift through tons of rubbish to find any valuables and that the metal detectors picked up anything from keyrings to pieces of foil and bottle caps.
So did they strike gold?
Clapton said unfortunately not.
There were only one of two rusty silver rings that broke apart.
"There were no big gold chunky rings that everyone was hoping to find. I felt a bit sorry for the guys who worked so hard as we thought they would get some reward for their efforts."
Looking at the positives, Clapton said there were plenty of usable coins and the experience was still very rewarding.
He said coins worth close on R3 000 in total were recovered and that this money was used to cover travel costs to and from the Boardwalk.
Clapton said usually ‘valuables’ found are kept for a year or so before they’re thrown out, but because the Boardwalk is going through a lot of changes, the business wanted to try and preserve the "treasures" found as they are part of the city’s history.
He said he would keep the items together with photos and display them in his treasure office in Walmer.
Interested residents could call his offices and arrange a viewing of the items.
"Nobody has been in that lake with a metal detector since it was built, so some of the items recovered have been lying in the sediment for the best part of two decades," said Clapton.
