The Curse of Oak Island: TOP 3 BIGGEST FINDS FROM SEASON 10

In just a couple weeks, Brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, along with their faithful team, will be back for the monumental season 11 premiere of The Curse of Oak Island. For people across the globe, the belief that this team will finally solve a 228-year-old treasure mystery has never been higher. Now, as we all gear up for what promises to be the most exciting and historic season yet, we’re counting down the most epic moments that the fellowship shared this past year.

Number three: Analyzing the Lot Five Barter Token

“All right, next target, we ain’t got to go very far.”
“Thanks, so yeah, just digging old mate coming out of there.”

A couple months after Gary found the Roman coin with Rick, he and Jack Begley fared well once again with a curious non-ferrous target.

“See my end please, please, please be a coin.”
“Oh wow! Oh, woo, we got a lead barter token, most likely used as a form of currency several centuries ago.”

Now, it wasn’t made of silver or gold, but as we all know, lead artifacts found on Oak Island have sometimes proven to be the greatest clues in helping to solve the mystery.

“Stay with me, acorns. Emma, hello, what have you got? What you got, Emma?”

“You’ll see two different tones—there’s a white layer, a light layer, and a dark layer.”

When archeometallurgist Emma Culligan analyzed the token, her initial take on its possible origin was more than compelling.

“The initial mineral that I found that it matched to is a sample found in the mines of Iran. But when it matches a sample, it doesn’t necessarily mean it comes from that exact mine, but anything that lies on the same geological belt, which goes across Italy, near France, Spain…”

Dr. McFarland: “I know you did ablation on this. Uh, yeah, but when chemist Dr. Chris McFarland conducted isotope testing on the lead, his laser-focused findings made for an unbelievable moment.”

“This was a pretty easy object to analyze ’cause it was flat, you know, which is good. But I shouldn’t say it was easy to analyze because it has a very thick altered crust on it. It’s been down there a while.”

“I would say, without a doubt… when you say ‘a while,’ what is that? Can you ballpark?”

“Not tens of years, you know, hundreds of years would be my guess.”

“But the biggest result is that isotopically, it looks very similar to the Cross.”

“No way. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“No, not me either. Uh, I was not expecting that. The Lot Five token was an exact compositional match to the 14th-century lead cross, meaning that both came from Southern France, a region where the Knights Templar held a stronghold until the early 1300s.”

“The lead in the disc apparently matches virtually identically with the lead from the lead cross. That is a head-scratcher and another very significant thing that could tie the Templars here is if we find the Y…”

“All those other W’s are going to fall right into place.”

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Number two: Rick and Marty’s First Descent into the Garden Shaft

“It’s an exciting day.”
“Yep, Roger. Hey, how’s it going, guys?”
“Good, how are you?”
“Good, good, good, good.”

Faithful acorns know that the genesis of what would become The Curse of Oak Island began when Rick Lagina was just 11 years old, growing up in northern Michigan. He read a five-page story in Reader’s Digest entitled Oak Island’s Mysterious Money Pit. That one brief write-up of the fabled treasure pit and the questions of what it might contain would captivate both him and his younger brother Marty for nearly 50 years until they could take over the hunt themselves.

“We have all kinds of emotions running through us, you know.”
“Oh, I think so, I think so. It’s going to be a moment that we’re going to remember the rest of our lives.”
“Yeah, absolutely.”

After more than a decade into their quest, once the garden shaft reconstruction was nearing completion during season 10, Rick, accompanied by Scott Barlo and Roger Forah, got to make his first descent underground in The Money Pit area.

“It’s intensely emotional to be underground in The Money Pit where so many people who have come before us had that same experience. And I think life is all about shared experience.”
“Wow, beautiful.”

“I believed in Oak Island since I was a little boy. As a little boy, I dreamt of treasure and hidden wealth and booby traps and underground tunnels.”
“Wow, and now that I’m underground in The Money Pit, I’m in awe. This is astounding.”
“Oh yeah.”

[Music plays]
“Yeah, this is pretty amazing.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“This is what is astounding. You’re looking at history.”
“Right.”
“To see how that wood has been preserved, it’s unbelievable.”
“It’s amazing. It’s quite remarkable.”
“Yeah, it is. You look at the shaft and you think, my goodness, people long ago, they didn’t have cranes. It’s a testament to their will, to their desire, to their belief that where there’s a will, there’s a way. And there was certainly a will to their enterprise, not only the searchers, but the original depositors as well.”

“And speaking of depositors and their possible deposits, I’m excited to go down there. I really, really am, and maybe very close to the treasure, the actual treasure of The Money Pit.”
“Exactly.”

Since evidence of gold was detected in the garden shaft during its reconstruction, once it was completed down to the bottom depth of 82 feet, Marty got his first chance to experience what he had only read about as a child.

“This is a long way to home.”
“Yeah, the main feeling is a bit of awe as to the people who 100 years ago, 200 years ago, maybe 400 years ago. It’s amazing to me what human beings can do.”

“All right, the first thing I want to do is look up.”
“Holy crap!”

When they get to the bottom, the secondary feeling is:
“Hey, I’m underground in The Money Pit area. Wonder what I’m next to?”
“I just can’t help myself, I got to take a look.”
“Absolutely, here let me help you.”
“Oh, these just roll off.”
“Yeah, yeah, we didn’t nail them in yet.”

“Wow, there she is, the ground.”
“Jeez, Roger, wonderful.”

[Music plays]

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Number one: The Garden Shaft’s Greatest Hits

“Hello gentlemen, Rodney got bags of goods. Any sign of any wood in it?”
“Nothing big. Let me just ask you this, you were pretty sure you were on wood. Are you still pretty sure?”

“I’m like 99.9% sure I hit wood on the north side, just before winter forced the team to halt their search operations for the year.”

Representatives from Dumis believed they may have encountered a tunnel some 10 feet below the bottom of the garden shaft. Rick: “You and I got to go down there. We haven’t explored the bottom yet to see where the tunnel is.”
“So let’s go get suited up.”
“I want to go down that shaft.”

This prompted Rick and Marty to make their way to the bottom of the shaft together in order to investigate.

“Now, let’s go on the damn shaft.”
“Okay, let’s go. Are you leading?”
“I’ll lead.”
“Are you guys ready to rock?”
“Yeah, we’re going to figure it all out right now.”
“Yeah, it’s like a childhood fantasy, isn’t it?”

“I mean Rick and I, 60 years later, are going way underground in The Money Pit area, and we’re in a position that other people were in over literally hundreds of years trying to find this treasure.”
“And I’m there with Rick, who has been enamored of this thing since he was 10, and here we are doing it together as brothers.”

“All right, big brother.”
“I know, this is really quite an inspiring…”
“Yeah, it really is quite a trip back in time. It’s pretty amazing.”
“This is where things would fall.”
“I know how Gary always says things fall to the lowest point, right? If there’s anything to be found in the shaft, it might be there.”
“I think it’s worth running a metal detector.”
“Yes, but also, what if we’re five feet above something? He might be able to detect it.”

“That’s a great idea.”

After all the trace evidence of gold that was detected in water and wood samples during the reconstruction of the garden shaft:
“All right, mate, coming down.”
“What do you think, Gary?”
“Oh wow, what a ride.”
“Oh my God, this is fantastic.”

It was time for the metal-detecting ninja to see what he could find at the bottom, and it made for one Bobby-dazzler of a moment.

“We’re looking at two different things. Rick’s idea is that we are at the base of the old shaft, and if those guys dropped anything, it’s here.”
“Yeah, yeah, and then the other thing is, what if we’re close to something big?”
“Yeah, right, there’s that too.”

“All right, we got to move that board, you and I.”
“Do that over here, clear it over there.”
“Okay, there’s a hole. It’s two feet deep.”

“Okay, well, where does Muk’s treasure, mate? We’ll see what’s down there, mate.”
“All right, extend it a little bit.”

[Music plays]

“That’s the best-sounding target.”
“That’s a non-ferrous.”
“Yeah, really?”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s a screaming large hit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that sounded really good.”

“We know where it is.”
“Just as importantly, the level of excitement when he describes a non-ferrous hit is through the roof. And that’s why it’s so frustrating not to go after this target, but we’re at the end of the year. I wish there was more time.”

“Gary, you’re the man. You’re the man.”
“That was so much fun!”
“You guys are grinning from here to there.”

[Music plays]