How much income could you generate in a year?

[Yeasty]

Have you ever wondered, if you detected an average of 40 hours a week, how much income could you generate in a year with your detector? I’m talking about gross income without deductions for batteries, gas to get to a site, etc. Also, please give very general locations of where you would go to work at your new job. Let us know your thoughts!

Pete

 

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[Pepper2004]

Pete, that's a interesting thought. Being a green horn I don't have a clue. I'll make a guess though. Just a regular (no diving or gold panning) Maybe $5000 if your good at it.

Will be interesting to see others guesses.

 

[gnewt]

I believe I could make 1.58 for pull tabs .17 for scrap metal 3.74 penny's and for the rest I would have to say less for tax purposes or I don't know, never thought about it. Now you rattled my cage and got me start thinking. I will have get off my duff and go hunting a few days and do some figuring HH Gnewt

 

[konnon6]

Pete
While I can't tell you how much I make just metal detecting.I can say I have been Quite successful treasure hunting and digging myself out of debt.
Finding treasure is all about what to look for and who will buy it.An old brick
could sell for 250 bucks to a collector, a brown yacht cannon found in a lake
just sold in Antique Digest for 50.000 dollars( wish I found that one!)but even old bottles are big bucks.A hand cut marble tub I found, sold at action for
4.000 dollars! rare books found at second hand stores-500 dollars
Don't believe the nay Sayers its a great living! And fun too!Well if you don't get
sick all the time! like me.

 

[deepskyal]

Hmmm...maybe around 5 grand or so. Now you think I'd give away virgin territory? I found lots of old homesites recently.....that's gonna be my ace.
Al

 

[midnightcaller]

Back in 1994 I read about a lady who live in the Hunnington Beach California area who was making about 32.00 dollars a day

 

[gnewt]

I have a box of Mentor magazines that go back to 1926 , and Life magazines that go back to 1946 to 1953. I have given several away to people that were from countries the magazines had spreads on. I started out with two boxes. I never knew how much they were worth. I get them out and read them, the commercials are beautiful, 1927-28 Packard's , old stoves and refrigerators.
I found a year book and diary of a senior in 1938 from Univ.SC I mailed it to the section set up with some of their old artifacts.
I never thought about what I could make off my finds, maybe I should, I hear people talking about it and it just goes over my head. Thanks for bringing my attention to something I was missing out on. Gnewt

 

[EDDE]

Ill bet the IRS would like to know me i made nothing

 

[txkickergirl]

If the question was how much income could you spend a year metal detecting than I could answer that
3k detectors and coils
1k accessories
3k gas
yeah I could easily drop 10k a year just as a serious hobby and that's not counting the 4x4 truck I would need. Now real treasure hunting oh...you would be talking 20-30k a year

Now making income I would have to say probably less than 3k unless I started keeping the pull tabs and alumin. cans I dig.

 

[cybercop106]

I've been considering becoming a "Dirt Detective" when I retire. Open a business offering to find lost valuables for people on a fee basis (hourly rate or percentage of lost item's value IF found). I keep everything I find they are not specifically 'paying' me to look for (well, I'd negotiate/share on items of great value found on private property). It would probably require residence in a fairly large metro area and I imagine many jobs would be impractical because they won't know generally where they lost the item they want recovered.
I wonder if that would be lucrative enough? I've found a number of things for people here in my rural area (some on a fee basis) in my spare time and that got me wondering about a business.
As far as a 40hr a week job, if you had access to a lot of places with weekly concession stands and/or paid entertainment on grass or gravel lots, you MIGHT make minimum wage........... hahaha
I'd think your best chance of making enough money (in the US) would be to concentrate on public beaches, swimming holes/camping/picnic areas and sports fields.
Unless you found expensive jewelry, artifacts or relics consistently and sold them it seems like it would be tough to make enough to live on..........
It also seems that doing it 40 hours a week would make it seem too much like a job though instead of a fun hobby?!?

I do hear panhandling pays really well, so maybe I could beg at intersections for a few hours a day to pay for my metal detecting addiction?!?!

 

[Farmercal]

Three hours of hunting is a lot of work. Detecting all day just to make a living? Too much work for this old dog. Most of us can make more sitting on out duff in two hours than that lady (mentioined earlier) made in a day. Besides that cybercob said, you would take all the fun out of the hobby. It is supposed to be fun not work.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Well, lets see. Depreciate the detector over five years . . . 4AA batteries every week (minimum) . . . or the initial investment of a wall wart & rechargables vs. 12 hrs of 50 mHh on the household electricity bill three times a week . . . gas to detecting site . . . medical impact of constant "get a job you bum!" nagging while at home . . . offset against $1.38 average daily income from finds.

Don't look good. :P

 

[Pulltab Parson]

Well, lets see. Depreciate the detector over five years . . . 4AA batteries every week (minimum) . . . or the initial investment of a wall wart & rechargables vs. 12 hrs of 50 mHh on the household electricity bill three times a week . . . gas to detecting site . . . medical impact of constant "get a job you bum!" nagging while at home . . . offset against $1.38 average daily income from finds.

Don't look good. :P

But if you were single just think of the ketch you would be to the ladies

 

[idigdirt]

32 hours of research, 8 hours of search. Research is key....

 

[Bridge End Farm]

I know exactly how much I would make in income

$0.00


For I keep it all, even the current clad.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Hello all..........

It's a hobby.

 

[doctorbb]

Not gonna happen now. BUT,,,, when I started this hobby as a 12 year old in 1970, I found just as much per hunt as I do now, maybe more. That same $1.50 - $2.00 of finds per hunt was more than the $1.00 and hour I would make 4 years later when I got my first job scooping ice cream at 31 flavors. I could hunt for a couple hours a day and also make more than I did from my paper route at the time. How times have changed.

 

[DAYTONA TOM]

i my self it depends on land or beach and water? :P water and beach for me all the way.
as sandman says never tell anyone what you find. but i can say this .save up $5,000.00 start
at the top east part of fl work your way south to the end of the keys as long as you have a good buyer for gold and silver . you just might be able to buy a house with some left over just might i say buy the time you get to daytona if you think of how much we love to dug when we here that sound and what
it could be it's so sweet i have for more then 16hrs a day when the storms come in .
the key is how to sell. i wish someone would start a how to sell and start whats the best way to you've sold your finds. that's the big key right there and loving your work[glow=red,2,300][/glow]best a luck to ya

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

I'll give my serious answer to the question. I say this because I will look at the question and seriously put myself in a situation that would never occur, but if it did........

I would say at least 4-5K. It could be more or less, depending on the person and location. Where I live, I know I could dig $20 a day in clad for a year until things went dry (If they ever go dry). With silver coins and rings popping out, that would add at least another $100 to the clad value. If I could find gold like some people I know, then I would add at least another $1k to $2k to that. If they were to open up Central Park to detecting and unleash me there, shoot, who knows what the possiblities are. I don't drive to any of the places I go to, and if I take public transportation, my unlimited metrocard makes the trip free. No money on batteries. Just charge the Minelab pack. $0 expenses besides the food and cigarettes I have to buy anyways.

 

[EasyMoney]

I know there are exceptions to the rule, but most metal detectorists make less $$ metal detecting than they would collecting and selling scrap metal, and that is not a very good income.

Every person I've ever met who owns a metal detecting sales shop makes more money selling detectors than he or she would EVER make finding goodies. The truth is, that I have only personally met 3 people who are actually "looking for money", as one nun put it to me. The rest seem to be like most of us, just out to find odd things from the past and a nice goodie now and then, and to have a little solitude and escape from the world's miseries and troubles and cares. In fact, psychologically, using metal detectors creates an air of tranquility, an occassional bright and happy moment, and (according to them) it instills a light form of self-hypnosis, much like when we drive our cars steering consciously, while we operate the foot-feed and gas pedal subconsciously and simultaneously..

IMHO (for whatever it is worth) White's Electronics and Minelab are the worst for misleading people in their ads for the average person to find gobs of treasure and that their detectors are so easy to use. Tesoro doesn't do it, and neither does Fisher and Garrett or all the European machines.. No wonder people stick such labels on us such as "scrounge", and "bum", and how about "lazy no-account who doesn't want to work"? It is those two types of ads that seem to mislead the public the most.

Since 1973 I have only found a bit over $10,000 in silver, gold, old coins, and clad. If I deduct the cost of all my metal detectors and gas money, etc, I basically have myself running ONLY 50% over the dotted line. At an average of 1 hour per week that works out to around $2.50 per hour.

REPAIRING metal detectors made me 1000% more than operating them as a hobby, per hour.

If a person invests the right money for certain types of hunting and looks for some SERIOUS treasure in prime areas, then that could be an entirely different scenario, but most people are more atuned to just finding an occupation in life that they like or can tolerate and investing their valuable work time earning a living at something more tangible than the dreams, hopes, whims, wishes, and fantasies that a normal detectorist involves himself or herself in.

Time for a good cup of chocolate and then maybe it's off to the wetlands and the river banks for some serious fishing lure hunting. I think I'll use one of my Compass detectors, they work the best.

EasyMoney