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.

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 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?”

“So you’ll see two different tones:
there’s a white layer, a light layer, and a dark layer.”
When archo-metallurgist Emma Culligan analyzed the token,
her initial take on its possible origin was
more than compelling.

“The initial mineral that I found
matched 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.
It could be anything on the same geological belt
which goes across Italy near France, Spain.”

Dr. McFarland, I know you did ablation on this,
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
because it was flat, but I shouldn’t say it was easy—
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!”
“Not me either!”

I was not expecting that the Lot Five token
was an exact compositional match
to the 14th-century lead cross,
meaning 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 Ws are going to fall right into place.

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,
where 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
captivated 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.”

And 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,
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.”

“And now that I’m underground in the Money Pit,
I’m in awe! This is astounding!”

“Oh yeah.”
[Music]
“Yeah, this is pretty amazing.”
“Yeah, it is!”
“This is astounding.
You’re looking at history.
To see how that wood has been preserved
is unbelievable! It’s amazing! It’s quite remarkable.”

“Yeah, it is!”
“You look at the shaft and you think,
my goodness, people long ago 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 ft,
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 we get to the bottom,
the secondary feeling is,
hey, I’m underground in the Money Pit area.
I 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!”
“Oh yeah! We didn’t nail them in yet!”

“Wow, there she is! The ground! Jeez, Roger!”
“Wonderful!”
[Music]
“Close for…”
[Music]
Close Number One: The Garden Shaft’s Greatest Hits

“Hello gentlemen! Rodney got… Rodney 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.”

Representatives from Dumis believed they may have encountered
a tunnel some 10 ft 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 you guys down there.”
“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
in 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 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.’
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 5 ft above something?
He might be able to detect it.”
“That’s a great idea!
After all, the trace evidence of gold
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