Question for people that had the first metal detector in their town.

[Tahoegold]

I thought it would be fun to hear some stories from people that had the first detector in their town. Or at least believed they were the first to detect the local parks etc., and find some really great finds. You know, silver, gold, relics that now days that just won't be found as easy.
I kinda think it may have been just like the Old timers during the Gold rush. Old silver coins, Old Gold coins and jewelry. Things that people may want to hear about.
I live in Carson City, NV now, and there's some pretty old places around here. Still, I haven't found any silver yet, or, Gold jewelry.
I just got back into detecting again since there's plenty of time for folks like me who are still in shut down and, well, you know...
So, I'm sure there's still a few of you around that were there in the very beginning and found great stuff. I know you guys in Florida have that famous beach and are still finding stuff. And, there were probably lots and lots of fantastic finds across the country.
I read about that guy that bought a Radio Shack detector and found one of the biggest nuggets in North America in the early 80s.
I suppose there's still finds to be had. However, I'm curious as to how it really was when there was no one that had hunted until you did. OK, looking forward to some stories. Thanks! TG

 

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[cpomike13]

1977, radio shack metal detector, Ty Paulson found not only the "Mojave nugget" 156 oz, but a pocket of 132 nuggets weighing in at 1,660 oz's! Randsburg ca.

 

[Tahoegold]

1977, radio shack metal detector, Ty Paulson found not only the "Mojave nugget" 156 oz, but a pocket of 132 nuggets weighing in at 1,660 oz's! Randsburg ca.

I had no idea! That's a fantastic find!!
1,660 x $1000 ( just for approx value) is $1,660,000!!!!
That's with a 1980s radio shack detector. Nice!

 

[SD51]

Great topic...

I got my first detector, a Garrett Groundhog in 1978. I never saw another person detecting where I lived in MN. The detectors didn't detect as deep as today, and the company I bought it from recommended to use a flat-bladed screwdriver as the probe / digging tool.

I was always hunting locations that had never been detected, so I took Silver for granted. One particular day, I was detecting an old grade school in a small southern MN town around Thanksgiving. The school was adjacent to the town's park. After digging my first Walker that was well under a large pine tree, the weather turned and it started to sleet. I saw a covered picnic structure in the park and headed over there. The picnic tables had been removed, so the entire ground under the structure was open to detect.

About every five feet, I was digging silver dimes and quarters. Probably finished the day with well over twenty silvers and a ton of wheaties.

 

[SD51]

Wanted to share another detecting story from 1979...

I recall that the space station Skylab had come out of orbit and was going to come back down to Earth, but they couldn't predict where it would land. It ultimately broke up and the pieces were dispersed in the Australian outback. It created a detecting frenzy there because people wanted to find a fragment. There were multiple stories of unhappy detectorists that were only finding Gold nuggets!

 

[Steve Ia]

I imagine most of those people are already dead. I knew an early detectorist in my home town. He had a White's BFO. The amount of silver and good finds they made were unbelievable.

 

[brianc053]

This has been something I've been thinking about all weekend - thank you for asking about it!

In my town I believe I'm finding a few locations where no one has ever detected. If you look back through my posts from 2020 you'll see that I found three 1700's coins, a collection of large cents and two centuries worth of buttons - all from the same farm. Clearly no one had ever detected there. Finding all those amazing things was kind-of life changing, frankly. It hooked me on this hobby forever.
But it also spoiled me. Now every time I go to an old site I expect to pull out large cents and maybe King Georges. And that hasn't happened - I've only found one other large cent in town, and it was toasty (no date).

I've met with and detected with an older gentleman (70 or so, while I'm 49) here in town and he's been detecting a long time, one of the guys that has 10 detectors from all ages. His memory frankly isn't very sharp but he tries to tell me stories of all the places he's hunted in town, which gives me the impression that most public / easily accessible sites have been hit at least once.
In those sites - for example, old baseball fields that were fields on the 1931 aerial photos available of my town via Historic Aerials - I've still been able to pull out silver dimes (mercs, roseys), maybe because they're smaller and deeper. I've found some silver quarters, but not as many.

There's a specific park here in town that used to be a camp in the early 1900's. I thought I was the only person that figured this out, and so I spent probably 10 weekends hunting it via a grid. In the main part of the park I pulled out some OK stuff, but there was this one corner area where I've pulled out 8 or 9 silver dimes and quarters from an area that's maybe 20'x50'. Well the story gets weirder: I was at an organized hunt last year and mentioned to someone the name of my park. That someone said "Oh, I hunted in your town a few years ago at a park that used to be a camp in the early 1900's". Sure enough, this random person from Pennsylvania had been in my park. He said that he and a buddy pulled out all sorts of silver coins from all over the park. My response: I said, "well you missed a spot because I got 9 that you didn't get!" We both had a good laugh about it.

That experience leads me to believe that:
- most of the public spots in my town have been hit, but
- even those spots still have good stuff to give up, if you look in less-than-obvious places or harder to reach places. (From the camp-park my best coin was a 1920 SLQ that came from the overgrown woods on the edge of the park).
- and my strongest conclusion is: If I'm only finding modern pennies or even wheat pennies, I believe someone went through the park and took all the silver.
But this leads me to a question for those who were detecting in the 1980's/1990's: did those detectors have the ability to cherry pick just the silver?
And I'd love other opinions: If I go to an early 1800's house and I only find 1900's coins, did someone get the large coppers? Or have they sunk deep in the ground over the years? Or were they never there?

Three more quick stories:
- At one private property field (owned by a nun's covent) a friend and I got permission to hunt a sports field that used to be part of their facility's school from the early 1900's. Together we pulled maybe a dozen silver coins (we each got an SLQ, which was nice) so I suspect no one detected there before.
- At a house dating to the 1700's my friend pulled a silver Franklin half-dollar from an area 10 feet from the backdoor, so I'm almost certain no one had ever detected that location with any detector (an Ace 150 would have found that coin). But, that was the only silver coin we found all day, and we didn't find any old copper coins (oldest were wheat pennies), which surprised us. Not sure what to think of that situation. Maybe the owners just didn't drop many coins over the centuries.
- I got invited to detect a different late 1700's homesite, but the land had been so landscaped / changed that I suspect anything good is buried. The homeowner and his kids followed me around for 90 minutes hoping I'd find something of interest, but everything I pulled was modern (a lot of aluminum bits, probably part of the fill that was brought in). That was a disappointing day for everyone.

Anyway, I'm sorry for writing so much but this was something I thought about starting a post about. Thanks for bringing up the topic.

- Brian

 

[Irishgoldhound]

I had no idea! That's a fantastic find!!
1,660 x $1000 ( just for approx value) is $1,660,000!!!!
That's with a 1980s radio shack detector. Nice!

1,660 x a thousand what

 

[XtreasureX]

I was the first guy to detect the colonial pueblo of San Rafael in Sonora, Mexico. You could find coins and relics on the surface. Over 350 coins about 30 of them silver. It took me about four months to cherry pick it all. This site still produces. That was in 2012.

 

[Tahoegold]

Thanks Brian,
You can write as much as you like. We all want to know what it was like to be the first one there! It's somehow satisfying to know there was treasure found metal detecting. Thanks for contributing!

 

[Tahoegold]

1,660 oz of gold multiplied by one thousand dollars at todays price would be $1,660,000

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I don't think I was the first in my then town of Monroe, MI in 1983, but I once dug 22 straight silver dimes there.

Edit: I still have them

 

[cpomike13]

Spot price for gold in 1977 was close to $200. Depending on size of nuggets, you get spot+, massive nugs like the Mojave, gets upto 3x, so $600×1660=$996,000 in 77'

 

[cudamark]

When I started in 1970, I never saw another detectorist at the beaches I was hunting. As a 17 year old, I was making more detecting than I was at my job! Half the coins I was finding were silver and wheats.

 

[pepperj]

Started with a Heath kit jobbing, then my father traded his 30-06 + $150.00 for a Whites GoldMaster, then the Tr, CionMasters, Alaskan it was a family affair where 2-4 of us would be digging at a time. Under a dozen silvers you got ribbed that we sucked at detecting.
The times were great, untouched, and far and in between these days to even to get a few in a day.
Still digging something old never gets tired even after 50yrs

 

[Nitric]

I have heard "rumors" of the first guys to have them in the town I grew up. The local junk yard owner was also a metal detector dealer of the area. There was a small amusement park that I guess they cleaned up at, finding bags of silver coins after going through the whole property. I was the first to go through an area that was a place that had fairs that came by train. My grandfather showed me where it was and still think I'm probably the only one that knows where it's at(along with my Dad). I didn't find any silver or gold, but a lot of buffalo and v nickels. I still find them every time I go to the spot...My problem is? I seem to find poison ivy every time I go to the spot and it still hasn't been thoroughly hunted. I think there are a lot of areas like this and still plenty out there to be found.

 

[Tahoegold]

I have heard "rumors" of the first guys to have them in the town I grew up. The local junk yard owner was also a metal detector dealer of the area. There was a small amusement park that I guess they cleaned up at, finding bags of silver coins after going through the whole property. I was the first to go through an area that was a place that had fairs that came by train. My grandfather showed me where it was and still think I'm probably the only one that knows where it's at(along with my Dad). I didn't find any silver or gold, but a lot of buffalo and v nickels. I still find them every time I go to the spot...My problem is? I seem to find poison ivy every time I go to the spot and it still hasn't been thoroughly hunted. I think there are a lot of areas like this and still plenty out there to be found.

Hey Nitric,
Thanks, great stories here! Do you happen know approximately what year this was and any idea the detector they used? Man, would it had been a great time finding all that silver. I remember when I was 4yrs old. My family went to the Santa Cruz beach and boardwalk. 1964, I was laying on my towel and found a half dollar in the sand. It was just lying there. Later in life, I imagined there must have been piles of silver on that beach. Just like many beaches across the country. However, at the boardwalk. Almost everything required coins and cash. So people were loaded with them in the day, dropping coings everywhere.
It's great to hear these storries. Anyone from Santa Cruz Calif that was in on the first wave of detecting there? I'd love to hear that story too.

 

[Ekim14]

I started detecting in 1968 with what I think was a Bounty Hunter beat frequency oscillator. It was a high end detector that I dropped my whole weeks paycheck of $35 on. It did find a dime once but it also picked up every piece of metal in the ground. Disappointed I gave up detecting until around 1972 when I bought a Lowrance TR detector. Wow a discriminator that worked, what a game changer. In one summer I picked up enough change to buy my first Whites detector. Hundreds of silver coins. Thousands of wheat cents. Coming from every playground, park and beach I could find. Its worth noting that after years of searching and 10 – 15 different detectors I finely found a gold coin. It was 2017. It is an 1851 2 ½ dollar and it was 8 inches deep with an AT Pro. There are still good finds to be made, so get out there and good luck. The snow in Minnesota is melting and I'm retired now so you know I'll be out there.