So how did we all get into this hobby?

[whitey9977]

It seems like one of the strangest thing in the world that I would have come to love this hobby so much! I've been a musician and lead singer in a band for ten plus years and music was my passion. Two Christmases ago I was in Dick's looking for ideas for my two little boys and there it was a metal detector! We could go outside and search for things together and bond! Well spring came that year and I mentioned to the boys that we hadn't used the metal detector yet! So we put it together, it was a cheap bounty hunter, and set off to the park for a couple of hours. Well soon enough my boys were bored but I was into it and the excitement of not knowing what would be under the dirt at every hole I dug!!! Well two years later I own an AT Pro, Ace 250, Pro pointer and countless digging tools and pouches! So even though my boys didn't take to their Christmas present like I had hoped it definitely sparked a fire in me! Love to hear others stories due to the fact I can't dig yet again because of another snow storm!

HH
Whitey

 

[Jason in Enid]

I bought a Treasure magazine on a family vacation as a child, roughly 31 year ago. After getting home I talked my dad into letting me buy a Radioshack POS detector. It was horrible, but I found a LOT of clad and even a piece of silver with it. Eventually I upgraded and have been happily addicted ever since!

 

[bevo]

Papa(grndpa) detected, as well as being an auctioneer. Not to mention, we like junk.





misspelled papa

 

[Terry Soloman]

A friend of my Dad came by the house in 1972, with a two-ounce gold nugget he found with a Whites Coinmaster north of Wickenburg. That was it. I was hooked like a bad act at the Apollo!

 

[Mzjavert]

Well mine's a two part story. As a kid I got a Radio Shack Treasure Hunter. Didn't really find anything. I later sold it at a yard sale. Fast forward twenty some years and a co-worker brought in a 3-ring binder full of silver coins he'd found metal detecting. I wanted one the minute I saw his treasure. I poured over W&E Treasures and bought a Classic II based on my co-worker's advice. I'm too shy to ask for permission to hunt, so I've never done sites where the silver is. I hunted parks mainly until I discovered beach detecting. After that I took several summer trips a year to my favorite beach. That ended when gas went sky high. The last couple of years I've been hunting school yards, tot lots, and some parks (lot's of trashy parks in my area so I have to be selective). Tot lots aren't bad though. I got one gold and one silver ring from tot lots last year as well as two silver necklaces.

 

[racer117]

My uncle was an md'er . It was the seventies and he used to come to the house and show my mother(his sister) and Dad his finds.He was a Md dealer.I remember he sold Whites, then Garrett,and finally Tesoros',out of his house.Evidently these companies did not require you to have a storefront back then. I remember mom telling my dad he cannot get one,he had enough toys.Well,it was 1980 something,and there was a brand new shiny copper and tan metal detector in my dads room.Needless to say,I used it while he was at work and became hooked.Got in trouble to,as I was pretty rough on equipment.I think dad used it three times..lol. 5 years ago I was at a coin shop,and seen an Ace 250.Took me all of 3 minutes to buy it drive home and hit the park.The rest is history,Im addicted to mding now.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

There was a fellow here in my town, in the mid 1960s, who was leafing through one of those "Desert" or "True West" type magazines that were popular back in those days. In the back of one issue, he spotted a classified ad that said "Find Buried Treasure". He replied, and soon had a Whites catalog in his mail-box. From that, he was soon the owner of a big whites BFO machine. Mind you, he'd never even seen a detector in actual usage, didn't know about headphones, didn't know squat. However, the schools and parks were all virgin in those days. And even though the machine probably wouldn't go more than 2" deep on a coin sized target, yet that's all you needed

Soon his other brother got the bug, and by the late 1960s, these two brothers were hunting the schools all around our town. They never did anything exotic (simply had no idea, and the machines were primitive). But they filled cigar boxes with silver, buffalos, wheaties, clad, etc....

Fast forward to about 1975 or '76, when these brothers were now in their late 20's/early '30s, their youngest brother, 10 or more years younger than them, was a jr. High school friend of mine. The two older brothers had gotten this younger brother friend of mine a 77b by that time. That school friend let me tag along with him in about '75 or '76. I remember we'd find the usual clad, wheaties, and occasionally a buffalo. On a really good day, we'd get a merc. I was hooked! So I went out and got my own machine: A used Whites 66TR for $100. Woohoo!

Ran around for a year or so with that, mostly hunting school yards, and front yards of homes. Never knew anything about urban demolition, stage stops, and exotic things. I kick myself when I look back on places I could have gone. But our junk tolerance was low, so we never expanded much out of school yards. Doh!

Within a year, it was becoming painfully obvious that all-metal TRs were becoming dinasours, in-lieu of the newly arriving VLF/TR's. So I went and got one of them. And so on, and so forth, all the way through all those lightening fast evolutions that occured from the late '70s through the '80s. Exciting times to see such evolution, and know and hear from guys who started 10 yrs. before that even.

 

[rginn]

My Great-great uncle, Hiram McClain, one of Coronado's children, was my greatest inspiration. He would work in the fields long enough to make some money and then be off to scour the Wichitas in SW Oklahoma. He never had any electronic devices but relied on tales passed down and secret maps he had seen. Treasure Hunter deluxe, great fiddle player, but not treasure finder. Well, he actually did come up with quite a few cool things from his many adventures. As a small child I heard stories about the Cave with the Iron Door, Jesse James' 17 mule loads of gold, places where treasure was stashed but people were watchin it, and all this before I knew that people had written these same stories in books. So yeah I detect and I got a pretty good detector that my ancestors would kill for. So far I am king of square nails, but there is some indication that I may soon move into the position of king of hot wheels cars, or fishing sinkers. I do pretty good on those.

 

[Jason in Enid]

RGINN, it's a shame we can no longer roam the hills like your G-uncle. I would love to spend time down there hiking, camping, exploring and detecting, but that is now impossible (legally)

 

[CleenSweep]

Love Early American/Revolutionary War/Colonial American era history...While surfing some stuff on old Colonial homes last year online, I ran across a bunch of MD Youtube clips...cellar holes, Foundations etc....Couldn't stop talking about it! After that, It was only a matter of time.....

 

[TreasurePirate69]

Whitey, my story is very similar to yours. A few years ago my daughter received one of those Discovery Store National Geographic metal detectors for Christmas from her Aunt. Spring came and she hadn't used it so we all went outside to give it a try. 10 minutes later the rest of the family had lost interest and I was the only one still outside. Two hours later I was still swinging the thing. I had always like the idea of treasure and pirates (hence the name) and decided that I was going to buy me own metal detector. I've been hooked ever since. Little did my sister in law know that she was actually buying ME a Christmas present that year instead of my daughter. I actually took the handle off of that cheap National Geographic metal detector and used it as a pinpointer for the first few months until I bought a Centech and then a ProPointer.

 

[foiler]

It was the 60's. I was dating my wife to be when I met her grandfather. He was using a surplus army mine detector in his back yard. It all began there.

 

[dholland02]

Saw people on the beach a few years back thought ita be cool. Got a cheapo bounty hunter lost interest in it. Then a friend of mine got mw hooked again and its.been down hill since. 2 detectors later I'm addicted.

 

[2mtech]

Well, here come the flames so I'm going to word this carefully I've been a CW buff since the 7th grade (a long time ago, trust me); enough so to request a transfer to the South here to be able to visit battlefields and walk the history of what I loved so much. I heard a lot of stories after getting here about farmers kicking up relics with the plow and always thought it would be cool to actually FIND some honest-to-Gus artifacts. Channel surfing a couple months ago I crossed the dreaded "Diggers" show. Now don't get me wrong, I knew already those guys were clowns and most of their finds were likely bogus, and figured there were a lot of serious detectorists watching their moronic antics and shaking their heads while doing the face palm, but it occurred to me that sitting right here where Lee and Johnston and Hardee (and unfortunately Sherman) had left bootprints and not metal detecting was like living on Huntington Beach and not surfing. So $1000 and five trips later I still haven't found a single thing, but I fully appreciate the thrill of wondering what that next signal might be or what could be coming up out of the dark earth. And after reading TNet daily for awhile, now when Diggers is on I shake my head, and do the face palm...

 

[treidm]

Already collected coins

In 2000-2001, was going fishing and dug for some worms and found an Indian head cent

Got to thinking and researching about it, and decided to give it a try

....Reid

 

[boris]

Growing to a teen in New York, I found a musketball where the rain had washed a roof. Looked for arrowheads after moving to Massachusetts, and delivered newpapers so I developed knowledge of coins and loved getting a V nickel as a tip when papers cost 5 cents. Returning from U.S.Army after college I worked at Welfare and a friend told me about a Peace Dollar he found with a machine, I already learned about slot machines in Korea, so off to Radio Shack I went and the last 40 years I am always thinking of virgin sites. Treasure Island is a favorite, and I live on one which has the History. The exorcise and dreams have kept me fit in retirement and I never could understand being called "Dumpster diver" child terminator at work by the Director? Remember the svc. men each day, and all my veteran brothers everywhere. HH Boris

 

[Native Floridian]

My daughter decided throwing her engagement ring at her fiancee would be a good idea. I hired a local detector guy to search the yard. No Joy!!! But I thought the process was pretty cool. He was finding stuff in the yard. Mostly old coins. So, I bought a couple of detectors and have been hooked ever since. Since then i've hooked my sons and my brother on the hobby as well. because we spend most of our summer at the beach we gravitated in that direction.

So we lost a ring but found a great hobby. Since then I've found enough loot to pay for that ring. That though, we sell nothing we find. We're in it for the hunt not the money.

 

[dreeder59@gmail.com]

Not sure how this works but am learning. Hello from a newby.

 

[dreeder59@gmail.com]

I've decided that metal detecting might be a way to get some exercise. That and maybe a gold chest or something similar. First have to get rid of all this Saskatoon snow.

 

[ret-detector]

We have lived in some great places, and I was aware of MD, but never had the time to invest in the hobby.
I retired for the second time last June, and the wife was encouraging me to find something to do. I mentioned MDing, and she said to search the iNet...I did.
After a not of time on-line looking at stories, forums, and companies, I decided to take the plunge into an AT Pro and Pro Pointer. I haven't been out yet, just practicing in our garden...soon, very soon, I may well become 'the terror of the turf'...so to speak.