Anyone hunt in the 1960s or 70s?

[bergie]

Anyone here who hunted when the hobby was first getting started decades ago? I imagine you could go just about anywhere and find amazing stuff. Every place was unhunted. Any great stories? I could imagine a place like Coney Island amusement park or any major site untouched...

 

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[Bob B.]

I did for a short period of time in the 70's, used my father in law's detector the thing weighted a ton, I don't remmember the brand name. But I do wish some of those sites were still here most are now parking lots. HH Bob.B

 

[bakergeol]

Hi Bergie
I started in the early 60s in the midwest. Yes all those great old stories were true but at the time we did not know how good we had it. All sites were virgin and you couldn't move your coil 6 inches in a park without a coin hit(My first day detecting in a park yielded 11 silver halves-sorry they really were quite common in the early days).

Perhaps the most interesting area I detected was at the local county fairgrounds. I was a teenager at the time and when the county fair came to town we of course would go to the carnival. After flirting with the girls my friends and I would always end up at the penny arcade site shooting those dumb rifles. Well leaving the penny arcade site that year(1964?) I had a brainstorm(Well I was a dumb kid). It occurred to me that this arcade site was set up in the grass(with sawdust on the ground) in the same spot year after year. So I remembered the spot and when the fair ended I arrived with my BFO. The best way I could describe it was multiple coin carpets. You simply could not dig a hole without digging up coins. I spent several months at a location the size of a house foundation and recovered several thousand silver coins(clad coinage was rare in 1964). My most valuable find was an old gold pocket watch. The most interesting day came when I was working the area around the vendor's booth. I hit a very large signal and proceeded to dig it up(with BFOs you dug everything). I flipped the target up and was quickly sprayed in the face with dimes. I had discovered several rolls of dimes which were lost in the sawdust. I deduced from the dates that they had lost in the same year-1957?.

I do mainly gold hunting these days as it is hard for me to get excited about present day coinshooting.

George

 

[bergie]

amazing info, thanks.

 

[True_Metal]

Man, thats some amazing stuff, George. Wish i were around back then to get in on the "good old days" Great stories. 8)

 

[bergie]

George--now we are lucky not to get hit in the face with pull tabs, not a bunch of coins. However, there are still great sites out there for those who do the research. I think that makes up much of the challenge and fun.

 

[junkdigger]

This is my first post to this awesome forum. Been visiting quietly for a couple of months. In 1967 i bought a D-tex bfo detector at age 16. You had to listen for a SLIGHT dip in the steady tone from the speaker.I'd search for hours and it's a wonder I didn't get a headache. I usually came home with 30 or more coins maybe a third of them silver. Two old church lawns (with permission) were the best bets. The local detector dealer sold lots of Garrets and D-texs and they were quite the rage at that time. I never found an IH cent nor any Barbers. Started detecting again 2 years ago with an XLT and now a Troy x5. MUCH better detectors! Now I look for the few places every one overlooked years ago. Those places are very few but in these last 2 years I've found 12 coins over 100 years old. IH cents, Barber dimes, a seated liberty dime,a Barber half,a Canada silver half dime,a Canada large cent,a cast Chinese cash, and more. I'm trying to hunt "smarter" and it is paying off. Far fewer coins but better ones. I hunt in Idaho and Wash. and envy you hunters in the east and south.

 

[bergie]

Cool story, junkdigger, welcome to the forum. I agree I'd rather spend time doing research and avoiding places where everyone else goes and find those out of the way spots that have been long forgotten. I find talking to "old timers" is the best way to learn good info.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

HOLA: do the early 50's qualify? say with a Gardner?

 

[bergie]

Sure thing. What kind of things did you find?

 

[neil]

I had a Whites underwater metal detector. It worked off a 9 volt battery and had a tiny little screw down peice with an o'ring under the lid. OMG. It leaked like a seive and still worked soaking wet inside. I finally drilled a hole in the case and put a tire valve stem in the hole and pumped that baby up with a little bit of air while I went scuba diving and searching. There were no instructions with the thing because I bought it at a garage sale for five dollars in about 1978 or 1979. All it had was an on off volume dial switch and when there was a target, the noise would go off. I shoulda kept that thing just to have on the bookshelf. It was about two feet long and had a giant coil. I did find coins with it underwater, and a gold ring. So it did work. That is when I was hooked.

 

[jeff of pa]

YEA , BUT I DON'T REMEMBER THE 60's & Early 70's? ?? SORRY? 8)

 

[neil]

those were cool times. Since then, ya gotta remember. The population has doubled. Too many people around now days. Lots of em with gold fever. Just look at the lottery lines.

 

[jeff of pa]

Which reminds me, Powerball is $127 Million wendsday . Gotta get a ticket tomorrow.?

 

[Earl]

I bought my first detector in 1968 and it was a heath kit. I built it myself and thought it was quite a unit. I found a lot of junk and some coins with it. You had to dig everything. I sold it a couple of years later. In 1979, I bought a bounty hunter red baron vlf. Boy what a heavy brute and it ate batteries for breakfast. It did work good though. It had a lot of features at the time. In 1980, I bought a whites 6000D with the hip mount. Loved it and still think it was the best detector I ever owned. Man that thing would talk to you. Ended up selling both detectors and buying a Whites 6000Di and used that a couple of years. Found tons of coins with both Whites. Finally sold that and got out of detecting until 1993 when I bought 2 Tessoro diablo 2's. I have recently purchased a Tessoro golden max and have been having a ball getting back into the hobby and intend to make it my life long hobby when I retire in a couple of years. Thanks Earl

 

[Zeke]

I did in the mid 70s. Was in the 4th or 5th grade and got a Bounty Hunter for Christmas. I searched the ballfields...mostly around the concession stand and under the bleachers... and found some coins.

I wish I still had that detector. Wasnt anything great but it would be neat to have. I've been looking on ebay for one like it but no luck yet. I can remember it had a big square aluminum box that was an anodized gold color and the handle/shaft went from the coil under the box, then looped around for the handle/grip.

Anybody recall that model?? Cant remember if it had a name or what it was.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Hola:? I started in 55, at that time there were only a handful of detectors available.? The best by far was the Gardner.? It was a long?brute but balanced beautifully? with any of the various coils, especially with the 3' one.

It could effectivelybe tuned to eliminate ground reaction but it was?a chore to balance.? You had to work between two controls, first one then the other, but it could be used in mineralized grund or even at the sea shore - no, it? wasn't waterproof.

It lept? food on the table in Mexico? for years.? largest cache? was a gunny sack filled to the top with the old silver pesos.? these are larger than our silver dollar. Of course it found quite a few gold nuggets also, largest was 31.2? grms, and oval sardine cans. one of the unique finds was? a? undergroud dump under the floor of a room in an old house here in Alamos.? Found many intact glass ink bottles? etc there, and nost interesting, an striker steel? for making fire by flint and steel which was used in those days

As you say, it was virgin ground, and still is in rural areas,? but now I look for lost mines mostly.

 

[downindixie]

I started in the early 70's with a very cheap detector and then traded a german luger that I took off a drunk(he actually gave it to me after his trail) for a whites coinmaster 4(I believe that was the name of it)I found lot's of coins with it.It did not have discrimanation on it so I dug everything that gave a signal.I finally got to the point where I could tell by the sound if it was a coin.Ahh that was the days! I have tried many detectors since then and bought a white's 6000di in 1984 and have been using it ever since(I did buy a 5900 white's hip mount a couple of years ago,but I don't think it works right so it stands in the corner of my shop gathering dust)I would like to have one of the new cz's,but since I am disabled so I don't have the money for one.Next to digging old bottles, metal detecting is the best hobby a person could have.

 

[deathwind1]

I started in 62--What I remember was Coins everywhere all SILVER--At 1 time I had 4-5 3 lb. coffee cans full of silver--My X spent it all and told me someone else took it--later on found out she all so took and spent over $100.000--Long story--Then every one thought you had a Geiger counter--The fairgrounds (sawdust) was so loaded I would get sick of picking them up in 2-3 hrs.--I could go there 3 weeks after the fair and it was virgin--Guess thats why now if I get a silver I think nothing of it and I am more apt to give it away than keep it-------The detector that I liked most was a Coin 4 by Whites--I got so I could call the coin before I dug----Would I go back to my coin 4--NO--I am spoiled by the confort of the new detectors--I still have it and it was a arm killer=straight shaft----Oh well those days are long gone---and I am a old man now--My detecting days are numbered--A lot more behind me than ahead------------DeathWind1

 

[Swanie1]

One day, in the late ' 60'S, I was walking the beach of a local freshwater lake that had been lowered, here, in the Midwest. I spotted a guy with a detector on the beach and saw that he had a mesh bag of rings and coins. My wife, then, heard something on the radio about people finding stuff with detectors and said to me "that's something you ought to do". That's all it took and, as soon as income tax money came, I bought a big White's Goldmaster. Each time I came home from detecting, my pockets were so heavy that it almost pulled my pants down. In the 70's I dug up TWO 1916D mercury dimes, one in beautiful shape and one in about good condition, in a local park and house yard. We, really, didn't know how good we had it as, now, you have to use some ingenuity in finding good spots to hunt and it didn't take a sophisticated detector to have good luck. I, still metal detect but don't have that kind of success.