A lot of things that people threw away in the past are valuable now, Kyte said.

The hunters also search for lost items in older areas where houses have been torn down, Kyte said. Parks and schools also prove to be likely places to find missing paraphernalia.

Utah Treasure Association member John Urses of Murray prefers hunting for gold four hours away at one of his 14 placer mine claims in Osceola, Nev. Urses said when he goes to the ghost town, he usually makes a weekend trip out of it.

The gold he searches for is free gold and doesn't have to be removed from the rock. Occasionally he finds a gold nugget. The largest one he has found is about the size of a quarter.

"For an old man, if you find a gold nugget, he gives out a yell, because that's fairly rare," Urses said.

But when Urses can't make it to Nevada, he scours the land around the Salt Lake Valley with his metal detector looking for coins, keys, jewelry, etc. He owns a metal detector and mining supply store in Murray.

"I metal detect a lot, but I don't have one thing I collect metal detecting," Urses said.

Holt prefers collecting old bottles. He started searching for bottles when he was 16 and considers a bottle to be collectible if it was made before 1915. When he was going to college, he started collecting information on the history of the early bottles he treasured.

"I also purchased a metal detector at that time and before and after school, I would search the large parkways by the university for buried treasure," Holt said. "Buried treasure is buried treasure. It's much the same."

These days Holt doesn't dig like he used to. Instead, he searches for bottles to buy and trade on the Internet. He also is in charge of the annual Utah Bottle Show and manages the utahcollectors.com Web site.

"It's a simple Web site where collectors can show off or buy, sell trade," Holt said.

Kyte's collection includes myriad artifacts from bottles to tokens to coins to cannon primers. Although he said he's found a lot of interesting things, his favorite artifact is an 1853 United States $2 1/2 gold piece he found at an old pioneer encampment in Utah.

"You wouldn't think $2 1/2 would be the size of a dime, but it is," Kyte said of the token he now wears around his neck.

Montgomery's favorite find is a $5 gold coin he discovered last year.

"They don't come up very often, that's the first one I've ever found," he said. "I was pretty excited."

Montgomery said he enjoys finding trade tokens from towns that no longer exist.

"They are kind of like last remnants of the town," he said. "They actually prove that they existed."