Drive-In Theater

[Muttlys]

There is a drive-in theater near where I live. It was built in the early to mid 50's to the best of my knowledge. Since then, the road that passes the site has been by passed by a new highway, but the drive-in still operates (seasonal) and has all but closed due to moving of the highway. Would this be worthwhile detecting?

[gregl01]

Absolutely!!!! Find where the old play area was and do it!!!!
I've heard many stories from folks who have done well at drive ins.
Good luck
Greg

[Sandman]

Heck yes, it's a great place! I had at least seven drive-ins near me and they are all closed now and the land hasn't been sold, yet. The play area in front of the screen is good as this is mostly grass. However near the concession stand is even better, especially in front where we used to set up chairs to watch the show. Heck, I've had good luck everywhere, even in the back row where the lovers went. One very popular drive-in was blacktopped and I can get silver readings about everywhere. A real bummer.....

[warthog steve]

there is an old drive-in theatre near where i live-its no ,longer operating...got ahold of the owner,he evoked the old "cant let ya in there,liability issues,ya know"...then he said somebody had already been in there detecting,cleaned it out......If its a liability issue,how come somebody else was allowed in there??He said it was cleaned out-yeah,right....Anyway,I didnt push it;just forgot about it...

[aaron7]

2 of near me... never thought of hunting there!! Both are just overgrown... stand and screen still up at one of them, kinda creepy!

[PBK]

Definitely worth working! As noted, the concession and play areas are probably best, and chances for silver are well above average. You'll find plenty of coins in the general parking/view area, too, but a lot of them will be rough after being ground down into the gravel.

[Gypsy Heart]

When I was 18 ,I worked at the drive in . Best places to hunt are along the fence line...I used to find paper money there all the time. Kids play area was directly below the screen. No one sat in their cars...they put lawn chairs out in front of the cars and had little grills,BBQ's....Concession stand area is also good. Remember it was night and no one worked during the day so any coins dropped , more than likely stayed there.

[aaron7]

Hmm... I'll have to go check it out! Wish I had a MD... no cash for one though!

[Diggincoinz]

When I was 18 ,I worked at the drive in .

Okay gypsyheart with a profile age of N/A! You just aged yourself to us!

... yes, an old drive in near me too. I remember just 7 yrs ago the screen wall was still there but has since been taken down and some earth movement has taken place but I think there's still good stuff there if no one prior has been there. A buddy of mine mentioned it to me so we have to look into it and try to get permission (soon)! I have to do some leg work for this one as the owner that I knew that had it would probably not let us but I hear that he may no longer own that land now.
There's still got to be some silver in there!

[Digginman]

My little town still has a working Drive In. It's a two screener. We go at least twice during the summer. The price is great, $7.00 for two movies. Kids are $4.00.

[gldhntr]

don't overlook the last couple rows in the back, farthest from screen....this is where the cars went to open the trunks and let out all the non ticket buying audience, also where the beer drinking crowd parked as they could pile up the cans, fall down, get up, urinate, and no-one would complain, dropping coins and such the whole time......also where the too frisky went for privacy, and their jewelry/coins were not too much of a concern..............gldhntr

[stefen]

I used to have pretty good luck at drive-ins.

Oops! Sorry, I got off of the topic

[MalteseFalcon]

**sigh**

Another piece of history that today's young 'uns will never understand.

I was a kid in the 60s, and went to quite a few movies with my parents, as we only lived 2 blocks away.....we could see the screen from my sister's window.

Now it is all overgrown with weeds....no screen or anything.

Google Earth photo below. I cannot hunt it, as I now live 800 miles away haha.

[Marty-Graw]

the drive in by my house put a stop to the people sneaking in to the show in car trunks and such..........they just charge $10 a car load.... it has 2 screens facing each other with concession stand in the middle so the cars in the last row are right in front of the concession so no lovers lane lol they thought of everything lol

[stefen]

As long as this string has deviated from its original intent, I thought that I'd add to the humor of past memories...

Well here goes...during the summer after graduating from HS, I bought an old Nash Rambler station wagon...the one that looked like an inverted bathtub. Yeah, you know the one that had the reclining front seat

Following a rather heated summer night at a drive-in, we found that the seat would not return to the upright position...

To say the least, try to imagine how hard it is to drive a stick shift...on a rather slick sloping plastic covered seat...while driving over drive-in humps, and then all the way home.

Ole Pap didn't say a word and just smiled when he came into the barn and say me wrestling with the seat mechanism the next morning.

Of course, I probably gave some lame excuse

Oh yeah, he most likely believed every word

You bet.

[Gypsy Heart]

My daughter who is 10 just asked last night if she could get a job at our towns drive in so she would be the one who always got to hunt it. Hahahaha...I said you cant pick up the mess in your bedroom...let alone a parking lot. She said ....go throw money in my bedroom and I will clean it every day !! I cant win with that child . So today she thinks she riding her bike to the drive in and asking....Lets see what they say. I told her even if they dont give you a job,see if you can hunt it.

[daytondigger]

Bountiful silver hunts await if not previously detected. It's dark out and your fumbling for change on the way to the concession stand. Drop your silver in the gravel, oops it's gone. Blacktop is no obstacle, it's usually thin and much newer thant the theater. I've seen several merc's with blacktop stuck to them. One of my favorite sites.

[TreasureTales]

Yahooooo, love those drive-in theaters! A couple buddies and I hunted one a few years ago. It must have been built after 1964 because we never found any silver. But the 3 of us hauled out a total of over 800 coins. It was great because through the years some soil/sand had blown on top of the pavement and the coins were in that sandy/soily overburden. Every time we went to retrieve a target we'd set our detectors down and get another signal as we did!! It was a clad coin bonanza.

I've hunted 3 other drive-in theaters and none of them were even close to being as productive. One did yield a wheat cent, so perhaps their is silver there, but the owner gave us only half an hour to detect. Not sure why he gave us a time limit since the screeen was gone, the speakers were gone, and the only telltale sign of a drive-in were the mounds.

We used to drive the pickup to the drive-in and park backwards. Then we'd climb into the back with an old mattress, a few pillows and watch the movie while semi-reclined. It wasn't always comfortable, but it was lots of fun. Geez, I miss those theaters. The picture was usually hard to see and the speakers weren't the greatest, but it was sure fun for some reason.

[KGCnewbieseeker]

thats such a good idea! I have three old drive ins in my area. thanks for the tip....

[BuckleBoy]

While everyone is getting fired up about drive-ins, let me add that a friend and I hunted one in Virignia once and we pulled close to $12 face value in silver coins out of it. It was built in the 50's. The totals were:

Silver Roosies: 22
Mercuries:16
Silver Quarters: 14
Standing liberties: 3
Walking liberty halves: 4
Franklins: 3


The dimes were everywhere. It was like someone had just taken a roll of them and scattered them around. Silver coin heaven. Get on those sites!

Buckleboy