Treasure Hunter Brent Brisbane has found millions of dollars worth of buried treasure, now he’s on the hunt for more. We talk treasure hunting, finding sunken shipwrecks and the secret to finding buried treasure. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Snacks.

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The 1715 Treasure Fleet

Interview with Treasure Hunter Brent Brisban

Nick VinZant 0:12

Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, treasure and snacks.

Brent Brisban 0:20

People are drawn to this I don't know if it was Disney or Robert Louis Stevenson but ingrained in American thought is the idea of finding lost treasure. He ended up getting swindled by a treasure hunter and the keys to the tune of a quarter million dollars in mid 80s. Money. And it was from 1715. And it was just an incredible, beautiful, beautiful coin. And we ended up selling that coin for $425,000.

Nick VinZant 0:46

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is one of if not the best treasure hunter in the world. He's recovered millions of dollars worth of treasure. And right now he's looking for more. This is treasure hunter, Brent Brisbane, like, how do you get into this?

Brent Brisban 1:24

To be honest, I felt asked backwards into it. It was a dream of my father's since I was a young kid. He grew up having never seen the ocean had never, you know, being involved in any of those kinds of things. But he would go to the Saturday morning cereals, and he would see these swashbuckling Adventures of treasure and things like that. And so he had this lifelong passion. And in 1985, when Mel Fisher found a red coffin off of Key West called the atoll gem, he became world famous and my dad, you know, was gravitated towards it. And he ended up getting swindled by a treasure hunter and the keys to the tune of a quarter million dollars in mid 80s. Much of you know, just calm man, basically that had a boat and said, you know, if you give me this money, I'm gonna go fine, you know, just as much as Mel Fisher fam. And needless to say, it didn't work out, but that never left him. And so in 2010, Mel Fisher's family was selling the rights to the 1715 fleet along the east coast of Florida. And having that inclination and being you know, a printer of sorts, my dad called me up in February of 2010, and was like, hey, you know, I'm thinking about buying this business. But the only way I'll do it is if you partner with me, and you come down here and you run it, and I was thinking, treasure hunting in Florida, like, Yeah, I'll give that a shot. And that's how I fell into it. It really was kind of a crazy circuitous route. But nevertheless, it took me where I needed to go, I guess.

Nick VinZant 2:53

So like, the only thing that I can picture right is what I think about in the movies like, how does this How does this business actually work?

Brent Brisban 3:01

It's nothing like you see on TV, it's nothing like you see in the movies. There are two major motion pictures that were made about our fleet specifically, back in the 70s, you're probably too young to remember a movie called the teeth with Nick Nulty and Jacqueline set. So all about looking for the treasure of the 1715 fleet. And then more recently, you probably may know fool's gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. If you go back and watch that movie, they're sitting in darland, southern ones Leon in the parlor there and they they discussed the 1715 fleet, the you know, origin of the treasure that they're searching for. And and so both of those movies, they're searching for something called the Queen's jewels. It was an artifact or artifacts that were theoretically on our shipwrecks. The story goes that the king of Spain's wife died. And he decided that he was going to marry a woman named Elizabeth Barney's. She was the Duchess of Parma, Italy. And she demanded that he before she even consummate the marriage. So he ordered up all these jewels to be created for her down in South America. And as the story goes, they were on one of the ships. And so that provides the basis for both of those movies. But again, it's nothing like you see on TV, it's nothing like you see, it's really hard work. It's incredibly laborious. It's, you know, people think of it as scuba diving. And scuba diving truly is just a necessary evil to be underwater for work. What we do is we excavate the bottom of the ocean. So we go out and we'll dig a hole. Basically, with my boat, it was about 20 feet wide, and you go down to bedrock, and broken limestone bedrock. It's out there on the east coast of Florida. And that's where the artifacts are buried under multiple feet of sand for five, six feet of sand depends on the area where you are. And so you just swim down there with a metal detector and nine times out of 10 or 99 times out of 100 Honestly, you find beer cans and lead fishing cycles. You know, it's just it's not you know, when people think of us went down and you know, pick up gold and you come up to the surface and everybody suits and it does happen. But it's extremely rare.

Nick VinZant 5:08

So it's not like the treasure like when I'm imagining it, right, like there's this old broken up wooden ship on the bottom of the

Brent Brisban 5:14

ocean with a skeleton at the wheel,

Nick VinZant 5:16

right with a skeleton wheel. There's, there's like a crew member in the back. And there's just like a chest somewhere inside of the ship. But it sounds like more like no, it's actually kind of like underneath the ground, and you gotta go dig it up.

Brent Brisban 5:29

Absolutely. What happened with our wrecks, in particular, they were sailing along the east coast of Florida and hurricane began to blow. And that pushed them into the outer edge of the reef, which is only in about 2530 feet of water. And so once they hit that reef, and the waves just pounded the shipwrecks into 1000s of pieces. And those pieces then were pushed towards the beach, and northward because of the Gulf, the current and the Gulf Stream. And so what happens is these wrecks were dispersed over miles. And over time, you know, they've been out there for 320 odd years at this point. What happened is all of the organic material, all of the, the leather, anything that was natural or organic, is long dissipate. So there is no really chip rack, you don't you know, just scattered debris, and it's along the lines of iron, you know, all of the iron that affects the ship from spikes to the rigging. And then you know, pewters, you know, they had different plates, things like that. All the metals that you find the gold, the silver, you know, which is what we're looking for, but there's LED and the musket balls, the cannon balls, things like that are really all that's left there ceramics as well. But anything of an organic nature, the people, the bones, the wood, the leather is all disintegrated over time. And

Nick VinZant 6:56

so how do you even go about finding stuff? Like what's the process for finding out I guess, not only essentially finding out where to even look

Brent Brisban 7:06

where the shipwrecks were identified in the late 50s, and early 60s, so they've pretty much been known about, you know, people started finding artifacts on the beach. There's a famous story of Kip Wagner, one of my predecessors on the 1715 fleet. He was a painting contractor, he went down to Florida on a job to paint a hotel, and he would walk the beaches in the evening. And he started finding these little black oxidized round pieces that look basically like Oreos, one side of an Oreo, took it home, cleaned it up, and lo and behold, it was a silver coin. And he started asking around saying, hey, you know, where do these things come from? And the locals are just like, oh, people have been finding that stuff out there for years. And he was the first one that really decided, Well, where did it come from? Well, you know why these things aren't organically on the beach in Florida. And he got himself a surplus army mind detector, because they didn't have metal detectors back in the late 50s. And he took this mind detector, and he went out there swinging it along the beach, and he started finding more and more artifacts. And eventually he found that a well that he had determined had to have been done by the survivors of the shipwreck, finding all sorts of period artifacts from the Spanish colonial times around this well, when he decided well, that Rex got to be right out there. So he got himself a surfboard. And he cut a little hole in the surfboard. And he put a window in it. And he started paddling around in the ocean. And after a couple of weeks, he spotted cannons on the bottom of the ocean, and said, you know, this is it. And that really truly was the advent of modern treasure hunting in the state of Florida.

Nick VinZant 8:40

It was funny how something is so hard to find, but then ultimately ended up being right in front of your face.

Brent Brisban 8:45

It's right there. And it was right there. And people, like I said, had been finding this stuff out there. But nobody was inquisitive enough to say where did it come from. And he eventually went to the archives in Seville, Spain, you know, went to the archives down in Cuba, found out where it was that it was this actual fleet. You know, the 1715 treasure fleet consisted of 11 Spanish ships, every one of them went down in this hurricane on July 30, the hurricane began to blow and by 2am on July 31, of 1715 all 11 ships were sunk along the east coast of Florida. And so, you know, is natural as that may sound that, you know, people were finding this stuff and would want to know, you know, want to find more maybe, or at least find out where it came from. He was the first to really do that. And so, by the time I got into it in 2010, we had very comprehensive math and the Fisher organization, were they a gentleman named Bill Moore kind of created a system in AutoCAD to map where we had dug empty holes where you know, if anything was found in that hole, it had a separate color, you know, be it a musket ball or a ship spike or gold coins. And we use those maps to kind of say, hey, you know, gold was found over there. Let's No one looked there. Let's go dig there. And it's really kind of that blind that needle gotta hate that type of approach. But that's, you know, ultimately what we do on a day in and day out.

Nick VinZant 10:05

It sounds like ultimately, like an educated guess like, Well, I think it might be here. But really, we have kind of no idea

Brent Brisban 10:13

if that's exactly right. And I kind of developed a new procedure, which led to my success, to be quite honest with you, you know, what these old timers had done is they would set up on the inside edge of the reef, and they would start digging backwards towards the beach. And so basically, what they did is they took, you know, one or two feet of sand and they pushed it backwards, and then they would check what was there and then they would drop the boat back. And then they would dig through the two feet that they just pushed backwards plus the two or three feet, and that was already there. And so as they dropped back in towards the beach, they just kept piling up more and more things. And it took me you know, a summer I'm saying, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, you know why we keep doing this, you know, we're creating more and more work for each other. And so I started the idea of taking the boat as far back as we could literally till we would bump on the edge of the beach. And then we would start digging. And we would dig four or five, six holes across. And then when we pull forward, and so by the time we got to that second row, all of the spoil from our holes were pushed back into these empty holes that were already there. It took me the digging time cut in half. And it was ultimately the way that we got further back into the beach than anyone had ever gotten before. And that's how we found all the treasure that we found in 2015.

Nick VinZant 11:31

So if you had to put like $1 value on everything that you found so far, what would that be?

Brent Brisban 11:39

Well, the biggest blind we had was a really, truly crazy story. It was on I had been doing this for about six years, I had over a million dollars invested in this crazy operation. And I had about $300,000 worth of treasure at the time. Now this $300,000 was getting me on the Today Show Good Morning, America, you name it. Yeah, a lot of publicity, a lot of attention. Everybody I met, like you're living the dream, and I'm like, I'm going bankrupt. You know, um, 700 plus law. And 2015 was our anniversary season. You know, I had hoped from the time that I got into it, that something good would happen, you know, just you know, from the powers that been, and lo and behold, this is gonna sound crazy, but you can look it up on July 30 and 31st, exactly 300 years to the day the ship sank in a hurricane. I found 350 gold coins worth four and a half million dollars on the bottom, the Atlantic Ocean.

Nick VinZant 12:34

What was that? Like?

Brent Brisban 12:36

It was incredible changed my life. Obviously, it was, you know, I refer to it as being magical. There's a feeling that you get high that you get when this thing happens, that I really can't describe or articulate. It's it's such a special feeling the first night none of us slept, you know, we couldn't wait to get back out there the next day to see what what more was there. And it was interesting, because it was the 300th anniversary, there was a large group from all over the world that had come to Sebastian, Florida to celebrate this anniversary, you know, aficionados of the shipwrecks, and so the night of the 30th, they had a big dinner at a local restaurant where I had to keep my boat. And so we were all there were three sheets to the wind almost certainly had a couple of cocktails to celebrate. And I went up and I had had a table reserved at this dinner, you know, right down in front. And so we're kind of standing in the back watching the proceedings, and the guy that put it on, he calls me up to the front. You know, it's like get up there to the day. And I'm like, hey, you know, I'm sorry, I couldn't be here tonight. I mean, it's kind of stupid. I suppose I'm standing here, I guess you know, that sounds crazy. I'm like, but we had some things happen today. And I'll never forget, Mel Fisher's daughter, her name was Taffy Fisher. And she was there Mel Fisher and a very famous thing. Today's the day because in treasure hunting today is not always the day. And you but you have to believe it. Yeah, it's the only thing that kind of keeps you going when you're, you know, $700,000 in the hole and doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And so she screamed out Today's a day and I spotted Yes, today was the day and the whole room exploded. And so needless to say, the next day, we had a lot of people on the beach watching us and you know, keeping an eye on what we're up to. But it was it was a surreal experience. It was magical. It was a time of great celebration. I was happy for all of my crew, you know, they only work for a sheriff treasurer. They didn't get paid weekly stipend or anything like that. They had come to me, you know, I had previously paid crews. And these guys came to me and they said we don't want money. We want to treasure and so in 2014 You know, they didn't do so well. You know, they worked all summer and then they got you know, couple of silver coins, couple musket balls, that kind of thing, but it really paid off in 2015 and it's an experience I'll never forget.

Nick VinZant 14:56

So how does that work in terms of like, who gets what Right, like do you have if you find finders keepers?

Brent Brisban 15:02

Okay, my company has a federal Admiralty claim over the shipwrecks. So the ultimate control of these racks is the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. And that was earned basically fought for by Mel Fisher, my predecessor he filed a case in 1979. And what you do maritime and admiralty law is very old, archaic, and it really hasn't been refined on that well, so you go into federal court and you sue the shipwreck. Okay, so you launch a lawsuit against certain unidentified shipwreck located at such and such location. And then you have to put out a public notice that anyone that's got a claim to these shipwrecks needs to come forward in this case and state their claim. Now what constituted you know, public notice in 1979 was a, you know, advertisement this big in the Fort Pierce newspaper. So your kingdom of Spain was unaware of this these proceedings, and they did not ever see nowadays they would, and they would ultimately get the rights to these racks. But because they didn't intercede at the time, the state of Florida was the only other intervening part. And it went all the way to 1983 was a settlement that was reached between Mel Fisher and the state of Florida. And under the terms of that agreement, we have permits with the state of Florida, which enable us to go out there and do what we do. And in exchange for that, we agreed to donate 20% of what we find to the state of Florida to put in their museum to study to lend out the universities, those kinds of things for archaeologists. And so it's basically you know, finders keepers situation for me, no one else, you know, if they go out there, it's it's illegal to do so, particularly within these areas, but anywhere else in Florida Water, it's illegal to hunt for treasure. And the state law in Florida is if you bring up anything over 50 years old is considered an antiquity and therefore belongs to the state of Florida. So in the case of my racks, you know, I own them in, you know, exclusively other than this state donation. And then as far as my crew, we worked out a percentage ahead of time of what they would gain, if, in fact, we found anything. And in 2015, we did and they all did very well.

Nick VinZant 17:14

So for like throughout the industry, right? Like if you looked at treasure hunting as an industry, are there a lot of people doing this?

Brent Brisban 17:22

There may be, but they're very quiet about it. If they are, it's virtually illegal Now to do this anywhere in the United States of America, the US signed into international treaties, and submerged cultural resources act, and different things. Whereby, you know, if we lose a nuclear submarine, we don't want China going out there and picking through it. And so as a result of this treaty, it basically says that if any ship can be, you know, proven that it's, you know, owned by a any kind of, you know, nation that it belongs to them. And by virtue of sign the United States signing on to this treaty. Basically, it made treasure hunting like this illegal throughout the United States. There's a perfect example, there's a company called Odyssey out of Tampa, Florida. And they found a wreck called The Black Swan was out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, not many countries, territorial waters, and they spent millions of dollars going out there and using ROV because it was so deep to pick up all of this treasure, they brought it back to Tampa, and they went into federal court, much as Mel Fisher did in 79. And they tried to claim this well, Spain came along and said no, that's all. And ultimately, the United States courts gave it all back to Spain. No finder's fee, no thank you. They said to you know, jumbo planes from the Air Force over and they picked up all of this silver and gold and took it back to Spain. And so that's basically the law now that control. And so it's incredibly rare and incredibly difficult to find a permit in the United States to actually go out and salvage historic shipwrecks, particularly of Spanish origin.

Nick VinZant 19:08

Can people is this though, something that like, you could do this illegally. And it's enough of a kind of a draw, that somebody might kind of do that way and then try to sell it on the black mark.

Brent Brisban 19:20

I'm not naive enough to think that people don't. But it is an incredibly difficult process. As I said, you know, in the case of ours, you know, all the gold that I found, was under multiple feet of sand. And so you have to go out there and you have to be able to excavate that sand. And so the way we do that is Mel Fisher pioneered a device that they call a mailbox. It's basically an aluminum tube that you swing down over the propeller of the boat, and you use the engines, the force of that water to below the standard way to excavate and so these boats are very noticeable. Anybody you know, we ain't around four points to off the bat to off the stern. And it's really obvious if somebody's out there. You're doing this. And so I'm not naive enough to think that people don't swim around with metal detectors. But what I consider the low hanging fruit to things that are laying on top of the reef, for the most part have been picked up over the last 50 years. And there are certainly other areas of Florida where people do this as well. But they're, you know, really is no legal way thought we'd have to think that anybody that is doing it is doing it, you know, on the download.

Nick VinZant 20:25

So the name of the fleet is the 1715 fleet. That's the name correct.

Brent Brisban 20:30

15 plate fleet. Plata, basically was the Spanish word for silver. And so you know, it was mostly silver. And that's the name of the fleet that has become known as today. And the reason that they were able to determine where it came from Kip Wagner and the, you know, old timers that were doing this, when they went to Seville, Spain, they found a map made by an English cartographer named Bernard Roman. And he had, you know, charted the east coast of Florida. And he made a little notation across from the St. Sebastian river. And it said, opposite there's river parish, the admiral commanding the 1715, playfully. And that's how they were able to determine what this fleet was, and then go into the archives research how many vessels that was how much gold and silver had on it? Who were the captains? Who were the, you know, those sorts of things? And that's, that's where the story generator originated.

Nick VinZant 21:25

So how much more invaluable is do you think is down there?

Brent Brisban 21:30

To be honest, no one knows, no one has any idea. There are crazy, crazy numbers thrown around, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. If I was to be perfectly frank, I don't believe that's the case. I mean, worldwide, maybe there are, you know, but you know, the, the shipwrecks that we're, you know, there's millions and millions of shipwrecks all littered all over you. Very few of them were carrying, you know, vast hordes of precious cargo, like these, you know, what had happened was that Spain had, you know, basically colonized, you know, central South America, Mexico, and then they enslaved those peoples and put them to work in their minds. And so they were producing this gold and silver down there. And then they were shipping it back, you know, through Havana, Cuba, on its way back to Spain. And so the vast majority of sunken Spanish treasure is either off the east coast of South America, or Central America, around Cuba, or the east coast of Florida.

Nick VinZant 22:25

Now, when you look kind of worldwide, you know, obviously the United States has pretty strong rules about and we talked about that. But are there places in other countries where like, oh, no, they're really doing this pretty actively. They're? Well,

Brent Brisban 22:37

you know, there is a rack that was found, it's, I believe, it's called the San Jose. And I want to say it's off the coast of Ecuador. I'm not 100% of that. But, you know, it is a government operation now. And they've taken over the, you know, the finding of it, some, some individuals found it, but then the government took it over. And so they are, as far as I know, actively savage in these records. But as far as you know, any permitted operations that are really truly legal and aboveboard, that there's a small operation going on in the Bahamas, the Bahamas, have had a long history of treasure salvage, and then barring the Bahamas, their politics are very crazy in the, you know, the government turns over every couple of years. And so they go back and forth. But there is an operation down there. Now, a friend of mine named Danny Porter is the one that basically runs the operation. And there's, you know, salvaging to this day and finding some truly amazing artifacts. Now, unfortunately, the generally looking, you know, they've got permits for a wide swath of the ocean, but the main rack that they've been working is a rack that was found years and years ago. And so, you know, there's not a, you know, a mother lode so to say that they're going to really stumbled across at least in my belief, I'm sure they do, but they're picking up incredible and amazing artifacts along the trail.

Nick VinZant 24:01

Is Spain, like the only people that were doing this is like everything, or is everything just a compilation of they were doing it and they had the records for us to potentially

Brent Brisban 24:11

know was primarily Spain, you know, back in the from the 1500s. Through, you know, the 1700s Spain was the dominant maritime power in the world. And in the the explorers, you know, from Columbus, you know, right on down the bizarro. Bizarro is one that went down to South America, basically conquered the Inca took over their minds took over all their gold and began giving it back to Spain. So like this coin here, was made in Lima, Peru in 1711. And so we find a lot of gold from Lima, Peru, a small amount from Cusco, Peru, and Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, and so the Spanish, you know, they had colonized, you know, basically the West and they were bringing up there valuables and sending them back to Spain. And there was no one else really doing that at the time. And so yeah, all of the treasure out there is basically Spanish origin.

Nick VinZant 25:09

So that the coin that you held up, like how much would that individually be worth?

Brent Brisban 25:14

This coin is what they call an eight scudo. So it was the largest denomination coin that they made. It weighs about an ounce. So an ounce of gold is worth about $2,000. But this coin is anywhere from 20 to $25,000.

Nick VinZant 25:28

Just keeping that in your house,

Brent Brisban 25:30

I keep it in my wallet. And people think I'm crazy. I tell them, It's my business card. But yeah, actually, you know, bring it out and drop it in people's hands. And, you know, it really is a visceral experience. When you drop it into somebody's hand and they feel the weight of it and they look at it. It's it brings them to kind of a magical place of you know, touching lost treasure. And thinking about where it's been like if you think about it, you know, this coin was made in Lima, Peru, was put on a ship on the west coast of South America, sailed up to Panama, unloaded, put on a mule, hiked across the Isthmus of Panama, put on another ship that then took it to Havana, Cuba. And then you know, shortly thereafter ended up in a hurricane on the bottom of the Atlantic coast and along the east coast of Florida.

Nick VinZant 26:16

The history of it is fascinating, right? Like, where has this stuff been? Who has touched it? How did it get made? Like it's

Brent Brisban 26:22

it is and that's what really draws people in. Because you can sit and think about it like that journey I told you of this specific coin. And if you think about it, this is a little context that I tried to give to people, which people always are kind of blown away by this treasure sank in 1715, it was sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean 17 years before George Washington was born into some context of what was, you know, what America was, you know, the room really no settlements in Florida, other than St. Augustine, the Spanish had a settlement there. And so it was basically the eyes Indians, were the only inhabitants of this area of Florida, when all of this treasure went down?

Nick VinZant 27:03

Um, are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Absolutely. How much does it cost you just to essentially look for the treasure,

Brent Brisban 27:12

you know, we spent, I bought my boat, I probably put maybe $120,000 into buying and building this boat. So you know, obviously, that's a variable, you've got fuel, you've got metal detectors and crew costs, you've got Dockage, and all those sorts of things. So I can't put a specific number on it. But I would say on average, you know, we're between 50 and $100,000 a year. And that's just for my boat. Now, our operations are kind of unique in that we allow others that want to go out there and do this to work our racks and our permits. So if you've got your own boat, and you've got your own crew, and you want to go out there and do this, you know, we sign what we call sub contracts with people. And basically that gives them the right to go within our permitted areas and search for this treasure. And the deal is if they find anything, we split it 5050 After we make that donation to the state. So you know, I've got operations where you know, Mike Pirna is one of the best treasure hunters that are is out there. And he probably spends less than 10,000, maybe $12,000 a year on his operation. And the last four or five years, he's found the most treasure of anybody. So it's wildly disparate, you know what people can spend, you know, you can outfit it with as much technology as you want. But, you know, at the end of the day is really about digging holes and seeing what's at the bottom.

Nick VinZant 28:30

But is there enough to be found that somebody could make like a decent living if they were being successful, or just like I did.

Brent Brisban 28:38

But it's a rare, you know, the occurrence most people don't make a lot of money. You know, there have been years where subcontractors have made money, good money, there's a family called the students that went out there. And then 2015 They found the most valuable coin that I had ever been a part of. And you can put some pictures up of it. It's called the tricentennial royal, a name that I came up with because it was from 1715. And what a royal is, it's the same as this coin, same way. But as you see this coins, very imperfect, you know, it's misshapen around at the time, all they cared about was the weight and the purity of the gold. So they would clip the blank, they would file the blank, get it to the right way, eat it smack in between two dyes and whatever came out came out. But these Royals were perfect examples of the coinage of the time. And they were made for the king of Spain himself. And so they were made his presentation pieces. They're extremely rare and they're extremely valuable. We found nine of them in my board on the anniversary but the Smiths earlier in that season found one and it was from 1715 and it was just an incredible, beautiful, beautiful coin. And we ended up selling that coin for $425,000 for one ounce of gold.

Nick VinZant 29:55

So I mean, man, are you selling it then like at auction? Are you true? way to get in for the price of gold or how does this kind of work

Brent Brisban 30:02

basically, private collectors are the ones that are the most enthusiastic about it and so you know, it's really wealthy people with you know, probably too much money that you know by these points for hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And then the more mundane run of the mill coins as you know, something that we call basically a bogey to Bogota to scudo which is a quarter of an ounce, they sell anywhere from you know, six to $8,000 and people you know, some of them if they're nicer and they have unique dates and things like that you go for far more but you know, what people do with a lot of those is they make jewelry out people love to hang out for as pendants you know, women particularly earrings, those kinds of things. So we do know as I said donate some to the state of Florida for their museum, but the vast majority of this whole the private

Nick VinZant 30:47

collectors biggest treasure ever found is yours. The biggest treasure ever found or is there another one that's the no that would have to be the

Brent Brisban 30:55

Atocha. Okay, in 1985. I mentioned earlier, Mel Fisher, my predecessor, he found a wreck off of Key West called the Etosha. And it was estimated to have $400 million where the treasure on him at the time. Now again, in treasure hunting, you know, numbers can be greatly inflated. And I don't believe anybody thought for under a million dollars a Charizard. But you know, they, you know this because they're still trading hands and on one at Silver coin from the Bucha sells for $2,500. So more than the an ounce of regular gold. And you know, so you know, those coins are still on the market today, the Fisher family is still out there actively salvaging utopia, you know, they haven't had any returns like that. 85. But, you know, they find really amazing artifacts,

Nick VinZant 31:44

the biggest treasure still out there is there one that you would say like this, there's I can't

Brent Brisban 31:48

put my finger on any specific one. But to find one of these, you know, plate fleet vessels, or you know, Spanish racks that are loaded with treasure, as a virgin rack would be amazing, like this one that I told you about that in South America. I mean, I believe that will probably be the you know, the biggest fine in modern times, simply because it's all intact, you know, the deeper the wreck that the you know, Odyssey group found out the middle of the Atlantic, the wrecks all kind of in one general specific area, and went down more like you think of a ship intact, that sank to the bottom. As opposed to what we do, we're picking up pieces that are scattered for miles and miles and miles. So there's no you know, generalized mother mode. It's just we're picking up piles here and there from different things. You know, like all the gold coins I found in 2015, we theorize probably came from a chest. So you know, all the wood you'll gain was long gone. And all these coins are scattered in about a 20 by 20 foot area. But as far as a big something to shoot for, I couldn't really put my finger on any specific rack or anything like that.

Nick VinZant 32:58

I guess if people knew about it, they would probably have found it already.

Brent Brisban 33:02

I get calls from people all the time telling me they know right where it is. And I like to tell people that I don't know a treasure hunter in the world that knows where treasure is, and isn't out there going like this, you know, trying to get and so there's a lot of con artists, I'll be perfectly frank to get drawn to the treasure industry. It's an easy sell. You know, people are drawn to this. I don't know if it was Disney or Robert Louis Stevenson but ingrained in American thought is the idea of finding lost treasure. And so to be able to sit in a bar and pull up one of these coins and say, hey, you know, you give me 10 grand, I'm gonna go find a million dollars for this stuff next summer. It's a really easy style. And unfortunately, that draws income. And I made it my mission, once I took over to try to weed those people out and not let them out there because it just gives a bad name to everybody. It's basically a con and I just didn't want to

Nick VinZant 33:54

be a part of best movie or TV show about treasure hunting worst movie or TV show about

Brent Brisban 34:02

I would say, deep is my favorite. It's the first radar movie that my father ever took me to. Again, it was his fascination with this kind of thing. And really, I think came out in 1977, which would have made me nine years old. And he took me and my brother to see this because he had such a passion for it. And I really enjoy that movie. The worst? You know, I have to say, Me, you know, Black Sails. You know, it was an interesting story about pirates in the Bahamas. And all that was true as far as their actual, you know, they use our fleet again and that is the basis of their storyline. They're looking for the one of the ships from the rack and Arcana Leamas the ship that they use, but the Orca Lima didn't really have any treasure on it. And so you know, it's, you know, obviously I'm getting into the weeds and being very specific about it, but yeah, those would probably be my To

Nick VinZant 35:00

obviously, you know, you find like what I think most people think about is like treasure, which I think like silver or gold, but what else? What else? What other kinds of things do you generally find when you find stuff like this find

Brent Brisban 35:12

every single thing that you can think of from life on a ship at that time. So, it may be rigging, you know, dead eyes, the rope was, you know, pushed through the sea on the side of ships, which are basically, they wouldn't round pieces that have, you know, three holes in it with ropes going through them. They had iron around them, which would fix them to the rail. So we find a lot of iron, we find cannonballs, we find cannon, we find musket balls, we find arguments we find, you know, silverware was made of silver at the time, we'll find silver spoons and silver forks and plates, you name it, we find jewelry, a lot of rings, you know, and it's amazing how small the Spanish word that time, I mean, a ring that we find will not fit below my knuckle on my pinky, even the mens rea, because they're such tiny people. So everything that you can possibly imagine, you know, the olive jar is basically it's up. All jars are ceramic, with a hole in the top of it. And I refer to that as the Tupperware of the time, you know, any liquids and grains and things like that they were transporting and put into one of these earthen jugs with cork on the top of it. And so we find broken pieces of pottery out there. And so, you know, anything that you can imagine that was on one of these tabs, we find sword handles, you know? So, you know, it runs the gamut. But yeah, the goal is whatever. But

Nick VinZant 36:40

is there a market for all the rest of that stuff?

Brent Brisban 36:43

Absolutely. Yeah, people are fascinated with the idea of sunken ship racks. And so I know the fishers sell, you know, musket balls, little LED basketballs for $15 apiece and their museum. I take mine and I hand them out to people that come to my half, you know, stuff like that. Anybody I meet, I'm like, Are you gonna take a little souvenir, broken pieces of pottery as well and out the you know, people that come by, so it you know, it just kind of depends on your perspective. I've never been solely focused on the monetization of these artifacts. I like to share it. But obviously the goal, you know, I did my best. And

Nick VinZant 37:17

that's pretty much all the questions we got, man. Is there anything that you think we missed? Or what's kind of coming up next for you? How can people get ahold of you find out more that kind of stuff.

Brent Brisban 37:26

But I can, you know, go to Brent brisbane.com, I do some speaking engagements. And you know, that sort of thing. I gave a TED Talk back in 2015, about my experiences. After we found the treasurer, and then 1715, fleet, treasurer, 1715 treasurer, fleet.com is the website for the company. And if you're interested, you know, to become a subcontractor. And I'll be honest, I get a lot of calls from a lot of people that all want to do this. And I usually tell them, they're crazy. They don't know what they're talking about, because it is extremely hard. And you know, usually people come and they spend a lot of money and they go away, hang me or anybody else and put them out there. Because it's just not as easy as it looks on TV. And so we do welcome people, I mean, calls from Navy SEALs, and you know, one of the most important things I will tell you about this, it's all about metal detector, I would tell these Navy SEALs, have you ever used the metal detector? And they say no, I'm like, I've got no use for you. I mean, we're digging sometimes, where I found my treasure was 20 feet off the beach and six feet of water. So you don't mean to be stupid. You know, you need to be a scuba diver to be breathing underwater. But you don't have any technical, you know, aspects of scuba diving that you need to know. It's all about metal detecting. And that's who I would hire, I would hire guys that we saw on the beach that are out there swinging a metal detector all the time looking for different things. You know, they're fascinated by it, they live it, they really breathe it. Those are the people that make good trades. And the average person just wants that moment of coming, breaking the surface and holding up that gold coin and saying look what I found. That's not what it's about. It's really hard work digging through broken shells, turning over big heavy rock cutting up your fingers cutting up your knees. It's it's not at all romantic.

Nick VinZant 39:07

I want to thank Brent so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have linked to him on our social media sites were Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description if you want to see how they find this treasure and what this treasure really looks like. The YouTube version of this episode will be live on September 7 on our YouTube channel at 4:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. What's the most valuable thing that you've ever just found?

John Shull 39:50

I mean, it's money. But it's I found a $50 bill once outside of a movie theater

Nick VinZant 39:57

did you try to find to the right It owner was or did you just immediately pocket it and move on?

John Shull 40:03

Yeah, no, I just pocketed it. Because with money, it's, I mean, unless somebody's you know, staring at it and coming back up to you saying, Hey, that's mine. I mean, it's kind of hard to pinpoint it.

Nick VinZant 40:16

I think I've found 100 I think that I was in Vegas and found 100. It might have been a 50. But I think that it was 100. And that's the most valuable thing that I've ever found. I did find

John Shull 40:28

a an earring, but I'm pretty sure it was just a non real diamond. And I just threw it away. So

Nick VinZant 40:37

you just threw somebody's thing away. You literally put it in the trash.

John Shull 40:41

You know, I mean, I picked it up. I waited there for a few minutes. Where I found it. Nobody came up to me, then let me there's so many businesses. So what was I going to do? Walk in, not throw it in the trash walk into every business? No, just like put it down on a railing or something like now there's no chance of anybody finding that? Well, I found it in my city, in Madison Heights, Michigan. So I

Nick VinZant 41:06

Oh, you finally admit that you don't actually live in Detroit? Thank you

John Shull 41:12

mean, or was a mass? Maybe it was?

Nick VinZant 41:15

Oh, now he's trying to backtrack? What amount of cash do you find on the ground before you're like, Oh, I found something? Like how much money does it take for you to be pretty excited that you found money on the ground?

John Shull 41:25

I mean, it's always great to find something I don't want to make it seem like if I find $5 That it's nothing but I mean, if I find a 20 I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, if

Nick VinZant 41:35

I found $1 I'm feeling pretty good. I'm like, oh, that's $1 I litter. That's the only time you don't really have to work for money. Do you ever you ever find it on the ground? Otherwise, you got to do something one way or another?

John Shull 41:46

There's that coin thing that if you find a coin heads down? You don't pick it up? Do you do that? Or if you see a coin, you pick it up? Regardless?

Nick VinZant 41:54

I'm not picking anything coins off the ground? I wouldn't I have no, I don't do that at all.

John Shull 42:00

Would you ever pick up food off the ground?

Nick VinZant 42:04

No. Have you picked up food off the ground? Although I have always thought that if I was like a waiter or something like that, like some of that food, like you know what you really didn't need. You took like two bites out of that burger. I could cut the back half off and eat it. I really do feel like that's a waste. I really think that like, Hey, does anybody I have always felt like that in a restaurant had been like, hey, you know, I didn't eat this. Does anybody want this? I hate wasting food. I was

John Shull 42:31

talking to a co worker of mine who used to wait. And so that that was the most disheartening. Part of working in that industry, for him was all the food waste at the end of the night. Other people that would just order order a hamburger, like you said, not touch the fries and eat a quarter of the burger and then throw it away.

Nick VinZant 42:51

But if somebody was okay, if you were at a restaurant, and somebody just kind of came up to your table is like, look, hey, I didn't eat this. I took two bites out of this. Do you want the rest of this? Would you take the food?

John Shull 43:06

I mean, I'm going to say no. But I, I would want to say yes.

Nick VinZant 43:10

Yeah, that's how I feel like I feel like I would have to say no, because I'm probably there with somebody who's going to judge me and shamed me into making sure that I don't get it. But internally, I do feel like yeah, I'll take it.

John Shull 43:25

I mean, I mean, listen to bytes, and you're given me you know, whatever it is sure. If I have a couple of beers in me, I wouldn't even hesitate. I'd probably take it out of your hands before you even asked me.

Nick VinZant 43:36

Yeah, if it's a sandwich that's cut in half. And they, if it's already cut in half, if it is already kind of separated in any way, I would have no problem with it. Right? Like, hey, I ate two of these pancakes. But I got another one here. That's untouched. Do you want this? Like, yeah, I'll take that. If it's untouched, if I can segment it in a way that is untouched. I'm completely okay with it.

John Shull 44:00

I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't know about the pancake thought process. But I mean, even if someone gave me like, a burger that I two bites out of it, and I had to cut it, I would cut it I'm fine with that. I have no issue doing that.

Nick VinZant 44:13

The only thing with the burgers you could say well they touched the other part of it. What I mean it people at barbecues and stuff like there's foods is just sitting out there for hours and everybody's okay with that.

John Shull 44:24

I will say this about germs is that I used to not care at all and then the pandemic happened. And now I find myself washing my hands, using you know, antibacterial soap, like actually trying to fend off germs.

Nick VinZant 44:38

You mean like doing what you did actually supposed to be doing your entire life.

John Shull 44:42

But now you know, we're getting sicker. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't you know, whatever it is what it is.

Nick VinZant 44:47

Yeah, it is what it is. Okay. All right. Let's go and do some shout outs.

John Shull 44:50

So some shout outs I was talking about

Nick VinZant 44:53

I would definitely take pizza man. I see people leaving sometimes like a half empty pizza and like that's fucking ridiculous. Give that to them.

John Shull 45:00

Don't worry. I mean, why not just take it home at that point? That's what I don't understand.

Nick VinZant 45:06

Maybe they're on a date. I had a very big discussion once with a friend of mine about he thinks, or he thought I should say that the reason that he didn't get a second date was because he asked for it to go container. Do you think getting food to go on a date? cancels your prospects for getting a second or third or another date with that person? Like if a man gets it to go container? Is he shutting down his date prospects?

John Shull 45:34

I don't think it matters. I don't think I think at that point that the Knights obviously coming to an end. And I think the decisions already been made. I don't think it would matter to the other person. Whether you got it to go or not i If anything, I think it shows a little restraint. Or a little discipline that you're willing to box up food and take it home.

Nick VinZant 45:57

I don't know. I could see it early on in the dating process. I could see getting it to go container early on in dating as a little bit of a he didn't need all his food. He got it to go container. I can see some judgment. I can see it.

John Shull 46:15

I mean, you're talking to the wrong person, though. I'm the I mean, let's not forget I was stood up choice and had to box up to very nice steak dinners, and take home.

Nick VinZant 46:27

Sounds like a good deal to be honest with you.

Brent Brisban 46:30

Paid for all of it.

Nick VinZant 46:33

Oh, they got the dinner and then laughter Oh, that's the worst. Yeah. Well, at least you got well, you technically got both dinners then. Yeah, but everybody really is a win win for you. If you think about it. Once you get past yourself. You're crushing self-confidence,

John Shull 46:49

but everybody knows that. Leftovers are not the same. Like if you get a steak at a steakhouse, the leftover steak the next day is not it's not anywhere near when it was first made.

Nick VinZant 47:02

Yeah, some things you can't really heat back up. I would make an argument that Italian food is generally better the second time around the front, you put it in a slow saucepan, heat it up, I'd I would actually cook spaghetti. Cook it all the way through. Let it cool down. Then reheat it in like a frying pan. It's way better. I'm gonna do that tonight.

John Shull 47:28

Oh, yeah. Well, we are three hours. I was gonna say it's getting kind of late to have dinner but we are three hours apart. So. Yeah. All right. All right. Let's get to what people care about. Here's some shout outs. Let's start off with Landon whole Isaiah Lopes Toby Fenderson. I liked that name Toby. Lot of good Toby's in the world. I feel Val curry. Who I feel like I know but I I'm guessing I don't know. Because I

Nick VinZant 47:58

the name is familiar. You don't know a lot of vowels. Yeah, generally, but I feel like I have heard that name before.

John Shull 48:05

Carter Cummings. Cory Rodriguez. Brendan Murphy. Joe DeRay. Susan Perry. And Rob Moser on Alright, let's see a couple of bloggers. Who would you rather be a part of or have by your side in a in a fight? The Power Rangers or the Mighty Ducks?

Nick VinZant 48:35

The Power Rangers they've got super powers. What are the Mighty Ducks gonna be? They're a bunch of children. They're gonna get their ads.

John Shull 48:43

I'm not gonna lie. The I don't know. The question seemed a lot better when I was writing it down.

Nick VinZant 48:48

Yeah. How many children under the age of okay. Do you think how many children seven and under Do you think that you could fight off? You think you could beat 10 children?

John Shull 49:00

Yes.

Nick VinZant 49:02

But but you don't get to like hit one. And then the rest of them get a message. They learn nothing from what happened to their fellow competitors. Right? Like they don't hold back just because you just rocked Little Timmy.

John Shull 49:15

No, I mean, I think by sheer I mean unless unless they're not going to go down easy. Like

Nick VinZant 49:22

you're talking seven year olds man. Now. Okay, so I have a seven year old boy who if I'm not paying attention, he can get me like if I'm kind of were kind of like paying attention. And I'll usually be like down on my knees in the basement or something like wrestling around with them. If I'm focused on the other one, and he'd like bowl charges me and I don't see it. He can knock me down. So a seven year old is capable of taking you down if you're not if you don't see it coming. I'm saying that that's that's you're talking about a 40 to 50 pound person.

John Shull 49:56

I just feel like 10 It would be doable 20 No Oh,

Nick VinZant 50:00

yeah, I don't think he could do 20 I would say tend to. Yeah.

John Shull 50:04

10 I think I think I could do and if you give me a weapon, not a gun, or something like that, but if you give me like a stick, or a chair, I go up to 15.

Nick VinZant 50:14

But here's the other thing, though, dude, are you really just going to haul off and like deck a seven year old? Yeah, like you're gonna just uppercut some, like six year old kid. Like Mortal Kombat?

John Shull 50:25

Yeah, if they're coming at me.

Nick VinZant 50:28

I don't think you could do that. I don't see you got to you got to factor in the fact that you're not gonna be able to go 100%.

John Shull 50:34

I mean, I'm sitting here thinking like, well, 10 of them. If I choke out the first couple, well, then we're down to seven or six. And then if I punch them out, then now

Nick VinZant 50:44

you're not busy, because you're not going to be able to choke them out, right? Because there's nine other ones going to swarm. Yeah. So you got to be it's got to be like, it's got to be quick hits, you got to take them out fast. Are they gonna put you down? I mean, we got to get violent. And I don't know if you could do that with a child.

John Shull 50:58

But now you're talking about stamina too, which is another thing that I don't think people realize.

Nick VinZant 51:04

I think it actually would be about five I think, unless you were really just gonna like, Be ruthless.

John Shull 51:13

I mean, if I'm in comprised five to 10, if I'm in the if I'm in the field of battle, and they know what they're up against, ensure that all bets are off. Now if I'm like at the school playground or something, and Little Timmy is coming up to me, just the horse around no course I'm not gonna throw him into the side of the school than stomp on his chest,

Nick VinZant 51:35

I would say to maybe provide a little bit of context of this. So I have a seven year old and a four year old. And I'll get a little tired. But that's like containing yourself to make sure that you're not like hurting them. But you they they'll get you. I think five is a lot more than you would think. Think five strong seven year olds are gonna give you a little bit trouble.

John Shull 51:59

You know what, I'll just bust out my cell phone, and then then it's over. All eyes.

Nick VinZant 52:05

Distract them. That's how you do you play YouTube videos. And then that's gonna Yeah, there you go. Let's use your use your stuff. Okay. Well, obviously the answer is like, I would rather have the Power Rangers on my side.

John Shull 52:17

Give me like, I tell you, man, give me Goldberg. The bass brothers. I mean, not worried. Elio esta vez

Nick VinZant 52:24

they're gonna get bashed.

John Shull 52:26

Oh boy. I've always thought though that kind of brings up another point to me is that I've always thought the Power Rangers were a little overblown, little overrated.

Nick VinZant 52:37

It's fictional dude. Right? Like, it's a TV show.

John Shull 52:41

Yeah, but they can be overrated, which they are.

Nick VinZant 52:44

It was a big thing for a moment. It was legitimately big like it never carried into I don't think any of the subsequent seasons. And I don't think it ever carried into any of the 15 different offshoots that they had, but they were a big deal when they came out initially. That first season was That was big was a game changer.

John Shull 53:02

Can you name the original five colors of the Rangers?

Nick VinZant 53:07

Black, Yellow, Blue, Red. Green. And then they also had a white one.

John Shull 53:17

I don't know. I don't know if that's right. I feel like there's a pink ranger in there. Or there is

Nick VinZant 53:21

that's the one I forgot pink. Oh, I forgot the pink one.

John Shull 53:25

Well, anyways, let's just move on. Zero getting coffee. And it's September. You know, early September. How do you feel? If someone in front of you order something pumpkin flavored? In the beginning of September too soon, right time?

Nick VinZant 53:44

Oh, my honest answer is I pay no attention to what other people are doing. If that's what you want to get. That's what you're gonna get. Now, if it looks appetizing, to me, that's the only reason I'm not going to be it's not going to change my choice. It's not going to change how I feel about them. And I'm pretty sure that you can kind of tell what somebody is going to order before they get up there. Right? Like if you're ordering a pumpkin spice latte in the beginning of September, September. I know what you look like.

John Shull 54:10

You want to you want to characterize that?

Nick VinZant 54:12

I don't think that I don't think that I need to go into any details. But if you're ordering a pumpkin spice latte in the beginning of September, I know what you look like. I also know that you probably spent a lot of time looking for Taylor Swift tickets.

John Shull 54:27

Well, you're you're really like putting out two huge fan bases there. I will say this about Taylor Swift and the phenomenon that has become her is I didn't get it. But now my foregoing on five year old, has learned some of her songs and will not stop seeing them. And it's just I mean, she she transcends ages. Like her songs are catchy. Yeah.

Nick VinZant 54:53

I think that they are catchy. But I think that ultimately what Taylor Swift does and what that audience ultimately is, is essentially Silly bringing women back to high school.

John Shull 55:02

I mean, I agree to disagree because I feel like that's what the boyband era is for and was for.

Nick VinZant 55:09

But the boy band is more like teenage girls first attraction. That's the big thing about them. Like those are the first boys, that teenage girls really like?

John Shull 55:20

Well, let's stay in the music beat for a second because, okay, we lost, we lost to two musicians within 24 hours. So obviously we're recording this Monday comes out on Wednesday, so it'll be a couple of days old by then. But we love Jimmy Buffett. And we lost the lead singer of Smash Mouth. All within a couple of days of each other, which I know you were a huge Smash Mouth fan.

Nick VinZant 55:47

What is the big Smash Mouth song? I honestly can't think of it. I mean, I know their music, but I don't know what the song is. So they had

John Shull 55:53

they had the I'm actually looking them up because I know they had the Shrek song. I'm a believer. Oh, okay. They had all star. And then they had to walk in on the sun as well, which I think was their first big hit. So anyways, moving on to Jimmy Buffett, I will say this with all due respect to him, because obviously he's passed now. I never understood nor did I like, like his music, I could care less that he was on a boat and played Island songs and I never cared was not for me.

Nick VinZant 56:33

I don't think it's necessarily about his music as much as it's about the experience that he provided and the feeling that he gave the people of just relaxing, having a good time taking life easy. I think his concerts were a lot of fun. I think that that's basically what it really was. It's kind of like the Grateful Dead in some ways, right? Like the concert is an experience and a lifestyle.

John Shull 56:55

That's fair. That's it's actually a great way to sum it up. Listen, I think there's no better way to honor Mr. Buffett

Nick VinZant 57:04

Oh, our way okay, I see as you go then with the within we then with candle of the month I like how you somehow transition from to posthumous famous musicians in the candle of the mind. As if that's okay. All right. So here's it's time. How do we do the horse? Horse, I can never do the horse.

John Shull 57:32

And that's not bad. That's not bad.

Nick VinZant 57:36

candle of the month, the outlaw candle connoisseur Rides Again.

John Shull 57:42

Someday we're gonna get that like kind

Nick VinZant 57:44

of bored duck in my teeth.

John Shull 57:46

So this one was actually an accident that I stumbled upon. A coworker of mine gave me this and said that they didn't want it. No, it was on the candles. And I said, Okay, well, I'll take it. And I lit it up about a week ago. And I'm absolutely in love with it until I found out how much it costs. But if you can get over the price tag, what it is, I think you'll enjoy it. So nest New York is the company. The candle is pumpkin Chai classic candle. That's the name of it. Obviously, I went through I don't want to say a cold spell last week here in Michigan, but it was like, you know, 70s During the day got into the low 50s at night. It was like 95 today by the way, that doesn't matter. So I was like you know what, I'm gonna bust out I'm gonna bust out this candle and check it out. See what it's up to. Just amazing. Just there it was fall in my house for a week. And then obviously I'm like well now it's 90 degrees again today we're in the air conditioning. So I'm gonna tone it down a bit but two things I like about this candle which it's a little different for me one it's only the classic. It's only the the it's a two wick but supposedly going to last for 8080 hours 60 to 80 hours to all I don't know about that. I don't know I don't know whether 80 hours.

The other thing is the presentation like the little glass container it's in is really cool. And I'm actually kind of excited. One of the things I actually do is if I have some leftover wax from other candles is that combine the candles and make them into you know, re refurbished candles, whatever you want to call them. So I'm looking for the glass the glass is cool. However, I say all this I looked up the price of the classic which is what I what I have. And it's $48 just for the candle. Oh, so you're probably looking at 60 bucks including shipping, which is a lot. But if you can get over that. It really is a fantastic handle. And like I said I got mine just kind of by accident because the person didn't want it. I would have gladly pay paid for it and I maybe I will in the future for other candles from this company. But yeah, it's it's awesome reminded reminded me a fall you know fake fall until we got back to summer here so

Nick VinZant 1:00:15

so let's just call it a $50 candle. Now how many hours are usually going to like get out of a 50 hour candle what I'm asking you basically is like that's a long burn 80 hours. Is that ultimately worth it though? Like yeah, you're paying a little bit more but you're getting a little bit more to

John Shull 1:00:31

well I mean it's yeah, it's definitely worth it however, I think like even I've become accustomed to a lot of these candle companies, not the ones on Etsy not like the creative candle makers they'll call them but you know, the the companies like Target Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. I know it's hard to keep a straight face. I mean, they have deals, so you can get three for 20 right or you can get you know, 330 whatever. So yeah, but once again, I mean, they say like doing doing a little research on the burn time they say like a three wick can last you up to 100 hours. A luxury, which costs $190 will last $120 Now listen.

Nick VinZant 1:01:18

I knew it. I knew this. I knew this was going to happen eventually.

John Shull 1:01:22

What

Nick VinZant 1:01:24

your snobbery has now gone into the candles. Now. You can't get just did like a three for 20. Now John's not happy unless it's a $50 candle you snobbery has gone into candles.

John Shull 1:01:36

Well, obviously the three weeks or three weeks the luxury is a four wick. The classic is, like I said it's a one or two. It looks like here at least from one of the picture I was looking at from the different candles can also get a votive or bo t which is a smaller version for 20 bucks that has about a 30 hour burn time, which is probably good enough, you know, probably good enough for most people but

Nick VinZant 1:02:03

and this is the time of the show. I would like to remind people that Yes, John has had sex at least twice. He does have two children despite his massive candle knowledge. He has been intimate with a woman before which is I'm not sure they ever have any just did they have any chair? Do they have any candles that are just like one simple thing like, pumpkin, Apple? Or is it all fancy stuff? Is it all just fancy names? I mean, rush.

John Shull 1:02:34

I mean if I mean at this company, everything's pretty fancy. I mean, most of them are fancy, I guess. I mean, like some of the you know you have Moroccan Amber, Autumn plum. You know, amalfi lemon and mint. I mean, that just makes me want to buy it. Just the name alone.

Nick VinZant 1:02:57

Hmm. Did you also hold back a little bit of a vomit burp just a second ago?

John Shull 1:03:03

And has been a pretty fun day in my household. So yes, I am.

Nick VinZant 1:03:06

Hello. Okay. All right. Well, I saw that.

John Shull 1:03:09

I'm holding down barbecue and liquor and beer and I think I'm doing a great job, though.

Nick VinZant 1:03:16

Oh, you had barbecues? You put ketchup on it?

John Shull 1:03:18

No, I did not. This was just basic hamburgers, hot dogs. Which of course why would I put ketchup on?

Nick VinZant 1:03:27

The I don't call bar hamburgers and hot dogs barbecue. Okay, that's not barbecue. You're trying to class things up? I'm not. I am better than hot dogs is not barbecue to cook out. All right. Don't try to class it up and say it's barbecue.

John Shull 1:03:41

What's the difference between a barbecue and a cookout? They're the same thing. If

Nick VinZant 1:03:45

if you don't know I can't explain it to you. All right, anybody? Do it master. Anybody who's a real pitmaster knows the difference. Cook out man. That's just having some fun. You're having some people over. You're having some hamburgers, hot dogs, maybe wings. If you're gonna know a barbecue that's talking about putting a pig in the ground. Maybe you're having some brisket. You're having like some rack of lamb, a shoulder or something like that. I shouldn't have to explain this to you. You're the guy who's supposed to be a barbecue person. You should know these things.

John Shull 1:04:15

It's I think the classification of the Hangout. It doesn't matter to me. It's a barbecue. Wow. Yeah, whatever.

Nick VinZant 1:04:24

I would expect that from a casual fan.

John Shull 1:04:27

I also bought a slip in salary expect that kind of stuff.

Nick VinZant 1:04:30

Did you really did you go on this live inside? No, I was

John Shull 1:04:34

it was a little kid one when I was actually kind of put off by it because it wasn't as the kids loved it, but I was like this doesn't seem like if I was to go on it. I would slide down the end.

Nick VinZant 1:04:47

How much did you pay for?

John Shull 1:04:51

Clearance? I got it for $4

Nick VinZant 1:04:54

Well, no. Yeah, dude, you got a Ford on the slip and slide. What did you think there's gonna launch him into space?

John Shull 1:05:00

It was 75% I mean, it's a decent slip at this from the company that makes slip and slides.

Nick VinZant 1:05:04

Still only $16 If it's 75% off, I think if that math is correct, right, like, what are you expecting?

John Shull 1:05:12

Do you know how many slip insides they sell a year? Okay, they can put them at $16.

Nick VinZant 1:05:18

Yeah, but still, like I'm not really expecting a lot. I would think a slip and slide needs to be in the 50 to $100 range. If you're really like expecting to like go somewhere with it. Just get a tarp. Just get a tarp and hose it down. It's the same thing maybe a little bit more dangerous, but the kids can heal.

John Shull 1:05:37

Well, he's from Kansas.

Nick VinZant 1:05:38

I put him up, man. toughen him up. Right, right. Alright, are you ready for our top five?

John Shull 1:05:43

I'm feeling snacky and a little bit tacky.

Nick VinZant 1:05:48

Okay, our top five is top five snacks. Actually, it's top fives types of snacks, not individual snacks, right? We're not going to go through 20 Different kinds of chips. That can be a different one. We're doing top five types of snacks to number five

John Shull 1:06:03

seeds, like sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, you know, those types of things?

Nick VinZant 1:06:10

No, it's a waste of time. That's a waste the seeds are a waste of everybody's time. Seeds is the thing like Why Why would you eat seeds? Let's not even a snack like Oh, I'm gonna fill up on these pumpkin seeds and 40,000 of them

John Shull 1:06:24

well it's a snack so you're not I'm not trying to get necessarily filled up and you can spend two to three hours snacking on a handful of sunflower Well, I mean some people can't but either way they they're a longevity snack and it's it's not they're not terrible for you. And it's it's good man seeds seeds are super fun like you know if you can properly seed it's a good it's fun.

Nick VinZant 1:06:53

It's too much work right see to me is just like that's the what if are we doing top five worst snacks because there I would agree with seeds on there. Right like number one. You don't get anything out of them and you got to put in way too much effort. It's just a terrible that's a die.

John Shull 1:07:09

Oh can like somebody that has never properly seated a sunflower before?

Nick VinZant 1:07:13

Oh, yeah. See? That's what I'm talking about. That's

John Shull 1:07:19

that did sound snobby. You are correct. You

Nick VinZant 1:07:21

don't even know how to see the sunflower. Right. You know all the lingo but apparently don't know the difference between a barbecue and a cookout.

John Shull 1:07:26

You were right. That sounded snobby. You were right. That was

Nick VinZant 1:07:31

really snobby. It was like a level nine. A nine. That's probably it's pretty. You were pretty high up there. Right? You got a t shirt that's talking about seating you got to sneak seat and convention later. You can go on to your Facebook page that you all have talked about splitting it up the left side of your mouth versus the right side. This whole discussion what's your

John Shull 1:07:49

number five for your face gets

Nick VinZant 1:07:51

cheese puffs. Cheese puffs, keep it with the people. Give me a big tub of cheese puffs, the kind that you can get, like ridiculous at the grocery store for $7.

John Shull 1:08:04

But I think of cheese puffs and chips as the same thing.

Nick VinZant 1:08:09

Well, they're not. Okay. All right. No one would ever be like, Hey, do you have any chips? And you're like, Yeah, and you just bring out cheese puffs. Now you'd like to know I got the puffs, or not chips, the puffs, different thing? Right? If I asked for chips and you bring me popcorn, it's not the same thing. What's your number four.

John Shull 1:08:31

So number four is ice cream.

Nick VinZant 1:08:34

I don't really consider that to be a snack. And if you did consider that to be a snag. It's certainly not number four.

John Shull 1:08:42

Yeah, it's at number four. It's it's I mean, list. Okay, fine. Ice cream. Yogurt, frozen yogurt. I can I mean whatever. frozen treats. I guess maybe it's my number four. But I'm thinking predominantly think of ice cream is a snack. It's dessert. No dessert is a dessert. Ice cream is a snack.

Nick VinZant 1:09:05

How much you weigh now? Well, well, right, let's move on. Ah, my number four. I don't personally really care for these. Right? I don't personally care for it. But I think they have to be acknowledged and that's the impact of mixed nuts. A lot of people like mixed nuts.

John Shull 1:09:30

I mean, that essentially was my number five just without the nuts seeds. This Yeah, they're in mixed nuts.

Nick VinZant 1:09:40

They're not mixed nuts does not usually contain seeds. And if it does, it's not the kind of mixed nuts that I'm buying. Keep those little things out of my mixed nuts. I want big nuts. Only the biggest nuts go in nice mouth.

I only want big nuts in my mouth. If you got little nuts, put them in somebody else's mouth. I want the biggest nuts in my mouth to bagel cashews. Just fill up these cheeks with nuts.

John Shull 1:10:17

Okay, my number three.

Nick VinZant 1:10:20

Oh, that's my number three two is popcorn. I agree. I think that's the appropriate place for popcorn.

John Shull 1:10:26

Kinda with what you said for your nut nut choice. I mean, I don't mind popcorn popcorn is okay. I mean, it deserves to be on a snack list. But I'm kind of, you know, obligatorily putting it in at number I think popcorn

Nick VinZant 1:10:42

and that number three is like exactly where it should be. I have one really good popcorn that I really enjoyed, but it gets stuck in your teeth. And fucking drives me crazy, man. Right.

John Shull 1:10:56

All right, my number two is pizza rolls. Oh god.

Nick VinZant 1:11:01

I do love fucking pizza rolls. Yeah, those are good. Okay, those are good. I got nothing bad to say against pizza rolls. From for no problem with pizza. All right. My my number two is chips.

John Shull 1:11:13

Okay, my. I actually don't have chips on my top five.

Nick VinZant 1:11:18

You don't have chips on your top five snacks.

John Shull 1:11:23

I don't and I think that just because I don't eat a lot of chips. I mean, I do like chips. But when I when I eat them, it's usually with a barbecue.

Nick VinZant 1:11:33

Okay. Are you sure you're having a cookout?

John Shull 1:11:38

I have them at a cookout, slash barbecue slash hanging out whatever you want to call it. My number one are like snack crackers like cheese. It's Triscuits I don't know what the proper term is for them. Maggots crack. I'm

Nick VinZant 1:11:54

not gonna put but that we I'm not gonna put like Wheat Thin or Triscuit in there at all. Like, those aren't necessarily very good. Cheese. It is so good. Really a chip. But I know it's technically a cracker, but it's more like chip based. It's

John Shull 1:12:08

it's a cracker man. It's an oven baked crap. But

Nick VinZant 1:12:11

I don't think of cheese. It's the same way that I think of Triscuits if somebody's like, Hey, do you Would you like some cheese? It's like, yeah, of course. And they come back with Triscuits or Wheat Thins and be like, this isn't the same thing.

John Shull 1:12:25

I mean, like I also not that I put this in number one for this reason, but like Oreos could be considered a cracker. I think that because there's two sides.

Nick VinZant 1:12:34

Dude. Come on. Now. There's two sides to every cracker cookie. There's two sides to everything ship has to get here and it's a cookie. It's a cookie. Definitely. My number one is trail mix. I love trail. chocolate in there, man. Especially if you go like m&ms trail mix.

John Shull 1:12:52

The only problem that I have with a trail mix is kind of like your thing with the nuts. Is is the nuts take over. And all you want really is the m&ms or the chocolate or the raisins or the Craisins. And you get more nuts than you do anything else. Some

Nick VinZant 1:13:09

good trail mix, man. You've got to find better trail mix. It's a more proportionate mix. Like you're getting too much trail not enough mix.

John Shull 1:13:17

Tell Costco to up their game.

Nick VinZant 1:13:19

Oh yeah, you gotta get better stuff then man go to like a grocery store. Just look at one. How are you buying $70 candles, but you won't like pay an extra dollar for good trail mix.

John Shull 1:13:34

That's how I can afford well. Those candles is because I save a buck here there and eat McDonald's. Your wife

Nick VinZant 1:13:41

ever had to be like, John, we got to cut back on candles this week. And you're like No. Only like she's like it's part of the budget. Is it in the budget? Is candles? And is there a line for candles in the monthly show budget?

John Shull 1:13:57

No, no, there was only one time where she questioned me and it was right after we started doing the segment on the regular and I went a little nuts and I bought like nine or 10 candles from about six different companies. And they all arrived within like three days of each other and she was like, Are you getting paid for this? Like what's happening here? I was like, No, I just I just love

Nick VinZant 1:14:19

cannabis like two or $300 with the candles.

John Shull 1:14:23

A lot of candles just

Unknown Speaker 1:14:25

like you're doing

John Shull 1:14:30

let's see what Yeah, I actually have a lot of beef jerky.

Nick VinZant 1:14:36

I go back and forth on beef jerky. I don't think it's a top 10 Snack personally, but I do I'll eat it

John Shull 1:14:44

this is probably under candy but I felt like candy was so broad. So I put gummy bears down.

Nick VinZant 1:14:51

Yeah, do you that's a candy.

John Shull 1:14:53

Yeah, but like, I don't know,

Nick VinZant 1:14:57

candy. Did anybody actually want

John Shull 1:15:00

granola bars, fruit,

Nick VinZant 1:15:03

I can do granola. Now granola can be a good one.

John Shull 1:15:07

My personal favorite out of all of these decisions however, I knew you were going to argue if it was a snack or not, and I didn't want to fight you on it or try to debate you and that is charcuterie.

Nick VinZant 1:15:22

I don't actually know what that is. Is that meats and cheeses? Yes, if it's charcuterie, right, like if it's got its own label, just like with ice cream, it's ice cream. It's not a snack. Right? Like chips or snack?

John Shull 1:15:35

Nuts or snack? salty nuts more salty.

Nick VinZant 1:15:38

Ah, lick them. I'd lick those nuts if I could. If I can't eat it, I'll just lick them. Ah, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out and let us know what you think are some of the best snacks. Trail mix is my jam, man. I've whoo hoo. I mean, I could I could. I could go through a giant bag of that a day. If you know health would allow it. Ah, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it. It really does help us out. Doesn't have to be some big thing. Just a couple of quick words and let us know what you think are the best snacks. i MAN i would i would go through a bag of trail mix a day, if not two or three. If I could. I don't understand why John thinks ice cream is a snack like ice cream is not a snack.