For the old guys! The Legends of Metal Detecting

[masterjedi]

Its like walking both ways uphill to school in the snow. LOL

I started detecting in 1977...

Remember the 70's... no VDI screens, no depth indicators, no treasure pouches, no custom hand diggers, no custom shovels, no waterproof detectors and no pin pointers!! Every target you had to dig through the plug by hand to find the target. Back in the day you went strictly by sound. Pay attention young detectorists/Jedi's... You should be going only by sound today!! I have an Garrett ACE 350 and an AT PRO and I set the machine up, then go only by sound... If it sounds good, dig it, if it doesn't, don't dig it. Its that simple... If I get a great sound on my AT PRO, yes I look at the screen to see what it is telling me but, I dig it anyway based only on the sound, not what the screen says...

Learn your detectors sounds and the force will be with you! LOL

Gary from Oregon...

 

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[DigIron2]

I hear ya!I never could understand that screen reading stuff.

 

[CaptEsteban]

& remember all the silver coins we found ??

 

[masterjedi]

Yes... me and my friend pulled over 100 silver dimes from one football field.... most were mercs....
The good old days.....

 

[Frankn]

Yea, I remember the good old days, but they are gone so now I have to deal with the reality of today. When my XLT beeps, the program I use grunts on large iron and is silent on small iron. Although Iron doesn't sound, it still shows on the bar graph. So all signals with a beep are non iron. I dig the first couple to set a presidence . If a certain ID # turns out to be a cartridge, I pass on those ID # hits. This has prooven to be a reliable system for me. The catch 22 in this is if two targets show on the graph bar. In that case I move in from the sides of the signal area until I have identified the good target. If I didn't do this, I would have passed on this $3000 ring.
Frank...-

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Here's two examples of the then versus now, as it pertains to park productivity:

Example #1: In our city, we have our main downtown large "central park". Dates to the 1890s or whatever. And I distinctly recall that .... back in the late 1970s, you could take a rogue beginner there, to show him the ropes, how to use his machine, etc.. And it wasn't uncommon for the beginner to find silver or wheaties on his first time out! But now ... 35+ yrs. later, you gotta be ONE TOUGH COOKIE to pull any more silver or wheaties out of this park. The hardcore oldtimers can still eak out a few more if we try real hard. But pity the poor newbie who goes to this park trying to get silver. It just aint gonna happen. And that stands in stark contrast to the "old days" , when someone could find silver on their first ever day out there.

Example #2: There's a city about 30 minutes away from me, where .... some guys in our club discovered a productive park. That was about 1979-ish. They were coming into the club meeting with choice barbers, early mercs, IH's, etc... Pretty soon word leaked out as to their site, and soon .... several others of us were hitting it too. A typical evening's hunt would be on the order of several silver (of which one or two might be barbers), 7 or 10 wheaties (of which most would be teens/'20s), a V nickel, etc.... Great fun! But as the '80s progressed, and all through the '90s, this park became "blighted". Homeless denizens would hang out there lying on the grass all day. It just became a lower-income drinking park sort of hang-out, for migrant crop-workers to sit around on at every Sunday drinking their beer, etc... Pretty soon it became a sea of zinc pennies, wino caps, clad, foil, etc... In addition to the easier "gimmees" (sweet sound of deep silver) had all be stripped to begin with from '79 to '80-ish. By the mid '80s I'd given up on the place. Just not worth the effort. And now, I'd venture to say, if you simply WILL NOT find silver (unless there were a tractor scrape or something). Stark contrast to the old days, where we litterally went all metal and weren't bothered with too much trash.

 

[CaptEsteban]

& remember all the silver coins we found ??

But,,, we spent the silver coins rather than saving them ! LOL

 

[masterjedi]

Yes.. I only kept the few best Silver coins

 

[Jeremy S]

If it sounds good, dig it, if it doesn't, don't dig it. Its that simple...

Learn your detectors sounds and the force will be with you! LOL

Gary from Oregon...

Nowadays there are so few silvers left you really have to work to find them. Many that I have found were targets that others did not dig because they didn't sound very good, usually because the coin was deep and mostly masked out by other trash.

The golden era of detecting is long over. The easy finds are all but gone but there is still good stuff to find out there. That see why I like this hobby, it can be a real challenge!

 

[PullTabPete]

In the late 70's I was a young teen and had either Radio Shack or Sears metal detector, I can't really remember which, but I remember finding wheats but not much silver if any. I'm sure the silver was around but my machine and technique were not that good.

Unfortunately going to college and starting a life, I got out of the hobby until a couple of years ago and missed out on the good times.

My old junior high from the 30's is still around the corner from my parents house and I hit it last year and found a buffalo, a silver roosie and a dozen wheats, but mainly a lot of clad. I bet it had a lot more goodies that were already cleaned out.

It is kind of funny how happy I am if I pull one silver coin nowadays. I'll spend $7 in gas and couple of hours and come home with $2.35 in clad and a silver roosie and consider it a great success.

Anyways I have a great time hunting and can't wait to get out some more.

Good luck to all.

Pete

 

[masterjedi]

I agree... I wouldn't pick up a penny if I saw it on the ground but love digging them up. Its crazy. Its just the fun of not knowing what you will find...

 

[Bigal0549]

I always dig by sound the isn't always right but I do like the iron growl of the Garrett & the # they've been pretty accurate so far.

 

[masterjedi]

I agree... I like the iron audio too... Gives you just that much more info...

 

[cudamark]

But,,, we spent the silver coins rather than saving them ! LOL

Not me. I did the same in 1970 as I do now......save the silver and wheats, and spend the clad. On a side note, I usually made more per hour of detecting back then than I made in hourly wages at my job!