Attention ! any/all metal detectorists who were hunting circa 1965-1975 !...

[Argentium]

One thing is certain ,unless it gets outlawed nationwide (worldwide -HA !) this will be the most fun hobby ever ! The harder it becomes to
find a good coin or whatever , the more those finds will mean to us - so perhaps the fact that we're no longer "hoovering" up the goodies
like that first generation of detectorist , is really not so important ! Love hearing these 40 -50 year old testimonials !!!

 

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[testing123]

thanks for all of the stories! Now, my curiosity is what coins were found together. In my modern detecting time (90s to 2002, then 2009 to date), the majority of silver coins found are dimes. Now this leads to the question...did silver quarters, halves and dollars not really circulate in large quantities? Or, were these simply the first picked off by detectors? I've come to think that halves and silver dollars were rarely carried. BUT, what have you "veterans" of detecting seen in the 60s and 70s? Was it an even distribution of denominations? Also, in coin spills, did you see a lot of mixed designs together like seated mixed with mercs?

I'd like to think that what we find detecting is a representation of what actually circulated "back in the day", but I don't think it can really be deemed accurate. What do you guys think?

 

[NWMP]

...and hear I am happy if I find 1 silver per hunt..lol

I couldnt even imagine how nice it would have been back in the day

I hear ya. Last week I popped two silver quarters and an 1899 Barber dime. And three silver days are unusual for me around here. I have read accounts of guys coming back with half a cup of silver coins, back in the day. I never knew if that was real or a load of donkey doo. Interestingly though, quite often my silvers are old now, 20's, teens, or older. Maybe the easier shallower silvers have been vacuumed up, so the deeper coins that signal near the edge of our machines capabilities seem more normal to me. But I have only been doing this for about 5 years or so. I have learned a few tricks already though. There is a small park in the middle of a larger city up here that has been spanked six ways to sundown. The main greens give up very little. What I did though was check under a small row of older hedges around the middle of the park. The park staff rake the leaves out from under the hedges every fall which means that the earth under the hedges is about six to eight inches shallower than the surrounding park, maybe ten inches. I worked under those hedges and pulled out old silver, some I.H."s, a ring etc. It only lasted for two visits but the finds were very rewarding.

 

[masterjedi]

I started in the late 1970's... My friend and I hit every school, church, etc in town in southern Oregon for approx 5 years. Our best school was built in the early 1940's and we found over 100 mercs on one football field. It was not a big deal back then to find silver. The good old days.

 

[CoilyGirl]

Great thread! Hope some relic hunters weigh in.

 

[tanz 82]

my grandfather was one of the first in Marblehead MA to dirtfish . He tells me stories that he would go to the beach and bring a bag to pick up the coins and jewelry . mostly after storms at 3 or 4 in the morning he would go because people would follow him asking questions about dirt fishing . My mother also told me he had a five gallon bucket where he kept all the silver coins and it was full so my grandfather started filling toolboxes and other containers . luckily he has kept most of it because my family has hoarded silver since the 1800's

 

[BARKER]

Hi Argentium; I started in Nov. 1968. I was the only guy in my area with one. I had a RadShack BFO type detector. Buzzed like crazy, drove people nuts and good for 4" - 6" max. I loved it. For every pulltab was a silver ring or coin. Watches were everywhere. I averaged 1 - 3 per week. Every week I'd fill up a 5 gallon mayo jar I got from my uncles store with just silver coin. I was priviledged to get to Field Test "EVERY" detector that came out back then. I beat them senseless and if they passed my Tests they would work ANYWHERE. A big problem back then was Radio Interference. A cab would send them haywire. CB's were even worse. Today that problem is gone. I remember the Dawn of Discrimination. Boy it was bad but we put it through its paces. Back then Manufacturers actually listened to us rather than just chasing the dollars. Chances were you knew everyone who owned a detector for 100 miles around. Alliances were formed. !!! I can go on and on about the good old days but I have some business to take care of right now.
Argentium, Thanks for this thread. I think you opened a Pandora's Box on this one. I have 46 years of SOLID "IN FIELD" detecting and I'm gonna share about them here ok. Thanks.
PEACE:RONB

 

[Argentium]

I think the picture that is emerging for me from all these stories is- not only that silver was pretty much everywhere , but also what a good
job y'all first generation detectorists did vacuuming it up - It is a special day for me if I come home with a merc or a rosie (just one ) It
is much easier for me to pull silver rings than silver coins . By way of explanation most of my detecting years (10 now) have been spent
in Northern New Mexico - I have found very few silver coins - less than 50 over that time period , whereas I've pulled over 125 silver rings
in that same period . One way to explain this is that silver rings are being lost repeatedly now , silver coins aren't being lost and haven't
been for about 40+ years . Thanks everyone for a great bunch of stories (keep em coming !)

 

[cw0909]

started Md in 72, i lived in an old county in ohio lots of history,and it seemed like
everyone would let you Md their prop, left HS,then i went to university in fla.
and fla was over run with Mder, from 76 on, i loved the beach and island hunts
a friend was going to university in Columbus, Ohio,and getting into Md. we looked
in the stacks and found this,( link below),had a great run,then in the 80s Md really
caught on it was getting harder to get permissions.
then i got into cache hunting late 80s, but was living up north again, wish i knew
then what i know now about the average joe caches during the CW
then the 90s internet for the average joe, research was a lot easier lol, then the 90s,
wow great advance in Mds, and the Mds are getting better, but im getting older, and
harder to get down to dig, so to satisfy my urge to know whats in the ground, i have
found 2 kids= in their 20s, to teach how to research and Md that research, its been
fun, im going to dread when im down to just reading about Md, guess thats better
than nothing though, links to imgs of some of my detectors below
and like BARKER said, i could tell you some tales too, ill prob share as time allows
thanks for the thread


found this in 79/80, and the Photocopiers when they worked they worked LOL
Archeological Atlas of Ohio


old map of area, i 1st started Md in
File:Portage County 1826.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


the Mds i used 72-80s
http://treasurelinx.com/uploads/GT1973catN9.jpg
http://treasurelinx.com/uploads/BH1976catn9.jpg
#4
http://treasurelinx.com/uploads/Tesoro1N9_0.jpg
cm 5D
http://www.treasurelinx.com/uploads/WH1980cmn9.jpg

 

[Pointman]

I was really young in the late 70s, but I do remember detecting an old train depot with my dad. Now it is is a vacant lot with gravel. I have seen in one town where all the old houses are being town down for apartment buildings and parking lots. This has really spiraled out of control in the last 25 years.

In the mid-late 70s' I found a few pieces of silver just on top of the ground. I remember getting excited when I found a Mercury dime laying flat on top of the ground. My dad gave me $1.00 for it, and it was only worth about .60 at the time. Just about 3 years ago I found a standing liberty quarter on top of the ground at a spot that hasn't seen a detector.

 

[diverrick]

If it is newer than 1960, I simply put it in my pocket and buy lunch afterwards. Never pays for lunch BTW. Actually I put it in my "finds" bag and walk around for weeks on end, and when I next clean out the bag, I then put them in my pocket for lunch.
usually I a more of an underground trash picker than anything. I plan on using that next time the park guy comes by.
I can see it now.." But sir!! I am simply picking up trash from your lovely park. Some poor child could get cut on this sharp aluminum, or these sharp rusty nails. You know you can get very sick from rusty nails. So, unless of course, you would like to assume the liability of leaving it here and potentially causing someone to get hurt and preventing me from making our PUBLIC parks safer. Your call" I wait for that moment to happen every time I go out. I already tried the "this thing goes off on hot chicks", and "I am looking for land mines". Not anywhere near as effective.

 

[JunkShopFiddler]

I started near the end of the era you mentioned with a Garrett Master Hunter, We have a public pool here at the top of a steep hill. There is a concrete stairway of about 60 to 70 steps leading up to the pool entrance. It was so steep that the city didn't try to grow grass on it. Instead they put big white rocks the size of watermelons on the hill beside the steps. The city charged 25 cents admission to the pool. It was so popular that hundreds of us kids in the fifties and sixties would line the steps waiting for the pool to open. We would get board and start pitching our quarters around and many kids would lose their quarters when they were thrown or dropped into the big rocks and it was too scary to climb down into the rocks so kids always ran to their parents for more quarters.

I was 20 when I got my first detector so me and brother went to this park early one Saturday and moved a few or the big rocks aside and...bing, bing, bing...all silver quarters. Put those few rocks back and moved another few and the same thing. About half way up there were too many signals for the detector to separate so we put the detector down and just started digging plugs, Silver quarters were falling out of every plug! Then we would get the detector going again for the deeper ones. No pull tabs, no junk of any kind, every signal was a silver quarter. In a few hours I think we had 12 dollars in silver quarters. including a Standing Liberty and a Barber. That was close to 40 years ago and nothing like that has ever happened to me again.

 

[history preserved]

Still possible!

 

[Worm-Slicer]

View attachment 1627707 Still possible!

I agree totally , more still waiting out there. Here's a portion from virgin Kentucky cavalry camps I found. I first found one camp in 2014 and the big one a year later in 2015. 2015 and 2016 was pure fun having untouched Confederate camps for just me and my brother to hunt. It was the only place we hunted for a long time.

 

[coinman123]

I only started in 2013, but I do have some coin magazines from the 1960's that give me an idea of how many people were metal detecting during the golden years of the hobby. I counted around 15 different metal detector advertisements in one issue of Coinage from 1968, compared to the average 1 to 3 I see now.

 

[Reanm8er]

Right on BosnMate, That mine detector was so heavy one held the wand and the other carried the back-pack, and at the end of the day we were both worn out. We detected the site of the battle of Overall Virginia in 196? We only had permission to hunt the northern approach and not the actual skirmish line. Much of the battlefield had been claimed into the Shenandoah National Park. We didn't find a lot but we did find a Maynard bullet and a matching casing, which we were exited about. Can't expect much more for a unit made to detect large chunks of iron. There was a farmer there that had quite a lot of grape shot he'd plowed up over the years. Years later a cousin of mine got to hunt a private farm just inside the park boundary. He found a complete Texas Artillery buckle with the leather still attached. It must have been used as a pistol or sabre belt because it had been discarded. The tongue had nearly worn completely through the wreath.

 

[pulltabfelix]

I started in about '75 or '76-ish . But our area had had hobbyists already for a number of years . So the obvious. spots already had pressure by the time I got into it, in my area .

But there was a real silver boom /rush. fro'78 to '82-ish, if you ask me. Because of the advent of motion disc .

I knew some guys who got into it in the early '60s here in my city . But even though things were virgin , and silver was still circulating , yet the machines were cumbersome , didn't go deep , etc. So I don't think these guys were getting more than .... say ... 5 or 10 silver from the school yards, in a day back then. It was slow going (no way to pass foil , etc...). So an entire tally might only be 30 coins or whatever .

I'm sure there's stories of more precocious and better skilled hunters , who did 30+ silver . Like if they were the first in front of concession stands , etc....

California always seems to be 10 years or more ahead of the rest of the US. I wonder why that is. But it is what it is for better or worse. I remember as a kid we had military kids who had lived in CA for several years and they told us stories that seemed unbelievable but were true. I remember when one family of with two of my friends who were teenagers in the 50's came back and told us that they had to have 4 cars since both parents worked and their twins did not want to share a car. Back in Georgia 1 car per family was the norm but some guys in their junior or senior year of high school worked and bought themselves a car.

 

[mobile miner]

I started in 68 or 69 in small town Iowa. Moved to Co in 71. Best hunt ever was at the Co Springs court house on a early morning weekend hunt. Back then the sidewalks were raised and people would set in grass on the slopes.Silver pocket spills were common. Can`t remember the total number but it was a good day. Also hit antlers park in Jackson hole wyo in about 73 while working in the area. Had my pockets full of silver and going strong when a city worker stoped and said he didn`t like me digging in his park so I left. I`m like a few others and sold my hoard when silver hit 50 buck. Made over 3k. Wish I had it back now.

 

[gunsil]

I got my Garrett BFO in 1970 and after a couple of weeks of digging great stuff got one for my girlfriend. Man we had a blast!! We were the first in our county which is a very early settled area (1600s) and all sites were virgin. Nobody knew what we were doing and nobody cared. Older schools and parks were silver mines, Old churches and really old parks were large cent mines. Found plenty of small jewelry too, and those BFOs had no problem with gold chains. One funny thing was that our BFOs would pick up police car radios and on occasion somebody would tell the cops there as weird activity at a school grounds and I would here a patrol car answer a dispatcher and know they would be asking me what I was doing soon. They never cared, just thought I was a strange ranger. Permission was easy to get, and we got to hunt a lot of colonial era houses but many had had much landscaping but we still found colonial relics and coins. With no discrimination we had to dig almost all targets and we did clean out tons of junk too. Like others have said there were few pull tabs, but the steel bottle caps were a pain. As time progressed and I got newer machines I went back to some of those sites and found very little we had missed. Now there are very few places to hunt around here except for private property, most public area have been pounded to death.

 

[Argentium]

I'm loving all these dream like stories of the " first generation" detectorists ! Very inspiring .