Old Drive In Theater

[Theakiki]

There is an old drive in theater near my home. It has been closed about thirty years, and I'm not sure how many decades it was open, but I know it was at least a few. "A gold mine!" I thought to myself.

I spent about two hours out there last night. I got an old Ford ignition key, an old can / bottle opener, a few dozen bottle caps, and many dozens of pull tabs.

The good stuff consisted of one 1961 penny!
It didn't go down the way that I had imagined it would.

 

[Swartzie]

You have dug a lot of crap which is a good thing. It would tell me the place has not been searched that much. I would keep at it 'till I found some silver. You know there's some in there.

-Swartzie

 

[cassrh]

I've done pretty good at one near me. Remember, most of the drive ins had a playground next to the projection house/concession stand. During intermission, the kids played there.

 

[Bart@Big Boys Hobbies]

How trashy is it? What size coil you using?

 

[fistfulladirt]

The good stuff's there, just hiding. You must hit that place over, and over, and over.

 

[Theakiki]

How trashy is it? What size coil you using?

I'm still new, so I don't know much about coil sizes, but it's the stock coil that came with a Garret ATX550.

I think that you could stop anywhere out there, and sweep your hand across the surface and grab a fistful of pull tabs.
It's trashier than Mariah Carey.

 

[Bum Luck]

I don't know if the guys are right, but you gotta try.

Do several small areas and clean them out like they say; can't lose a lot by that.

Otherwise you'll never know.

 

[lookindown]

Some places are just to trashy for me. Everyone has a different tolorance level for digging trash. I do this for fun, and if it becomes like work I find a better spot. Maybe not a better spot for treasure, but more fun for me to hunt. There are some ballfields that just have to much can slaw for me. I know there is good stuff there, but it can stay there.

 

[bazinga]

If you aren't finding 5-10 silver per hunt at a drive in, you're doing it wrong.

Or my friends and I have already been there.

My guess is #1.

 

[Swartzie]

How trashy is it? What size coil you using?

I'm still new, so I don't know much about coil sizes, but it's the stock coil that came with a Garret ATX550.

I think that you could stop anywhere out there, and sweep your hand across the surface and grab a fistful of pull tabs.
It's trashier than Mariah Carey.

Just disc out pulltabs, unless you're looking for jewelry.

-Swartzie

 

[TORRERO]

Come on guys !!!!
The reality is that if this place has been closed for 30 years someone else has picked this clean 20 years ago, and now what your finding is the trash dropped since it was cleaned out.

And I have to believe that even now he is not the only one who hunts this place.
Someone is using this as a "Backup" location when there is nowhere else to go.

I do believe that there always will be some coins that will come from such a place, but I also know
that I will have to walk long, and work real hard to find one or two silver dimes that
were missed by the earlier hunters.

You might do better to set your discrim on coins and walk it like that.
There should always be coins that can be had between the pulltabs and trash.

Good luck and let us know what you discover.
Richard

 

[Sandman]

True while someone has no doubt hunted the ones near you, they never get it all. Many had a playground up from near the screen so the parents could watch the kids. The coins could be anywhere and the pull tab ratio is way up there. But there could also be class rings among the pull tabs. The drive-in near me had asphalt added to it many years ago to cut down on the dust. I can still get silver readings from what is under the black top.

http://www.driveinmovie.com/mainmenu.htm

 

[extractor]

Sandman That is a good link thanks ! !

 

[Tom_in_CA]

swartzie is right: just disc. out pulltabs and below, and go for the penny/dimes and up. A location THIS trashy is NOT the site to "be a hero" and go looking for nickels or gold jewelry. I mean, for pete's sake, if someone REALLY thought they were going to be a hero and strip-mine all the tabs out, in an effort to find gold rings, then their time is better spent simply going to a beach nearby, where jewelry hunting is just more condusive, to begin with. So as swartize says, some places are just areas to go for the coins, and forgo nickels, etc....

I can think of a particular bleachers/grandstands area that dated to the 1920s, that got torn down, in my town. It was just a SEA of pulltabs and bottle caps. We had only a small window of a single week to hunt it, before it was slated to be filled with fill-dirt. We had to crank the disc, and rescue as much silver as we could (got hundreds). To have tried digging all the tabs too would have been fool-hearty. We'd have never have progressed out of 10% of the available real-estate, before it got filled in.

So as much as some people might *bristle* at the thought of disc, believe me, there are just some locations that require it, and you can save your heroism for more relicky type hunts elsewhere.

 

[Theakiki]

Thanks for the replies. Lots of great ideas from several different angles.

I decided to try again.

After a bit of thought, I could remember playing on the playground under the screen! I began the unt there, it had been backfilled with construction debris!

I went back to the viewing lot and disced-out the pull tabs, and dug a pouch full of junk! After a two hour hunt, I found a penny on the gravel driveway while walking back to the car.

I have found many sites where I can dig coins all evening long.

Maybe this site is too challenging for a yearling buck like me.

 

[steve from ohio]

You have dug a lot of crap which is a good thing. It would tell me the place has not been searched that much. I would keep at it 'till I found some silver. You know there's some in there.

-Swartzie

Or maybe the modern machines with discrimination have avoided the junk and trash and got all the goodies?

With my Excalibur II, I can tell if it is trash or not and don't dig junk any more. Have I missed some good targets? Maybe...but I doubt it. I do know is that I did not dig up a bunch of junk.

I have found that in the many decades that metal detectors have been available, almost all obvious sites have been hit at least once. The trick is to find the sites that no one has been too yet. Drive ins were at the top of a lot of detectorists list of places to do.

 

[Frankn]

Here's another link. www.drivein-jim.net It lists all the closed driveins in the US.
They are listed by state. Have fun. Frank

 

[bazinga]

With my Excalibur II, I can tell if it is trash or not and don't dig junk any more. Have I missed some good targets?

Yes.

 

[steve from ohio]

With my Excalibur II, I can tell if it is trash or not and don't dig junk any more. Have I missed some good targets?

Yes.

It was a rhetorical question. And I doubt very much that I have missed anything good. I am way too good with the Excalibur after digging everything for many years. I know what the Excalibur is telling me and almost for certain I can tell what it is. But I will admit that I dig way more tabs than just about anyone. I just can't resist digging pull tabs. I still cannot figure out how a tab sounds different than some rings.

But who know....you may be right. IF so, I'll leave those targets for others.

 

[TexasDigger1]

Try to find where the big screen was and search right below it. That's where the playground for the kids used to be during intermission. I searched the old drive inn my parents used to take me back in the late 50s/early 60s and found lots of silver. HH