What Got You Into Detecting?

Cash1977 · Apr 17, 2008

Hello Everyone!

I was just wondering, what got you into this hobby we've chosen? :icon_scratch:

I was interested and doing research for months. I was watching Cash & Treasures on the Travel Channel and thought about how cool it would be to find treasure. My birthday was approaching and I had almost made my decision to get a metal detector, but I was still on the fence.
I was home one day, flipping around on the tv, and BAM! A new episode of Cash & Treasures was on. I had not seen the episode before. I couldn't believe my eyes, she was metal detecting!! :thumbsup:

I had made my decsion. I figured with all the beaches down here, I would have plenty of places to hunt!
I then bought my detector and I couldn't be happier! It's a great hobby. I love being out there, whethter I find clad, earrings or a rusty nail!

So, Why Do You Detect? (I cant wait to hear!)

Cynangyl · Apr 17, 2008

I detect because I have always been fascinated with finding any kind of treasure....mom used to send us on treasure hunts at every campground we went to and the winner got a snack pack puddin!!.....wasn't until I was an adult I realized that she was just making a list of every piece of trash she saw. rofl I love prospecting most of all but MD'n is a lot of fun too! :thumbsup:

RHoward · Apr 17, 2008

I was interested in treasure hunting when only the military had metal detectors. So when the first ones came on the market I got one, don't remember the brand. The coil was encased in wood and drifted really bad, falsed all the time and max depth on a penny was 1 inch. Still with all that I was hooked. The next was a Garrett BFO. A great machine, light, stable, and easy to use, but did not discriminate. All together owned 6 Garretts. Great finds over the years, the best a 1922 plain Lincoln. Even Zincolns get the heart pumping!!

boogeyman · Apr 17, 2008

Being a little guy bouncing from the beaches of Calif to Grandpas in Arizona, figured I'd either find Pirate (fill in the blank)s Booty or hit the mother lode. Started with a Bounty Hunter TR that I had a real rough time tuning, then found an old Whites tuber at a garage sale. Was a fun machine but a little heavy for my size. And considering the 9V & 96.8 batterys cost almost three weeks allowance the Whites didn't get as much use. Still going Have several Whites & a Minelab or two.

Skillets · Apr 17, 2008

About two years ago I stopped by my parents' house to visit, and while talking to my father by his workbench I noticed a small metal detector hanging on a hook nearby. "Oh cool," I said "when did you get this?" He told me my mom had picked it out of a catalog in some raffle she won at work. It was a cheap $50 Bounty Hunter. I'd always heard of metal detecting, but never gave it much thought until I saw that loud little unit in dad's workspace. Within two or three months I upgraded to a White's Prizm, and have been obsessed with what's in the ground ever since.

doctorbb · Apr 17, 2008

38 years ago, I met a man with a detector, hunting under the bleachers at the local high school stadium. I was 11 years old and was at the school as part of a summer rec program. I followed him around for a few minutes and watched this guy pull quarters out of the grass with every sweep of his coil. Being the oldest child in a large family of 6 kids, and with a father who was a government worker, needless to say those quarters coming out from under that stadium were more money than I ever had in my pocket. I soon got a paper route and started saving. In a few months I had enough to buy a Sears Ted Williams (a Whites Coinmaster made for Sears) and have been hunting ever since. The sad thing is, back then I could hunt for a few hours each week and make more than I did on my paper route. Finding 2 or 3 dollars worth of coins in the early 70's would be like finding 20 or 30 dollars now, it just don't happen. I'm still finding 2 or 3 dollars (on a good day). Not as much treasure and what there is ain't worth as much. Sure miss the good ol' days. I kinda feel for the newbies who will never know just how good the finds used to be. But it's still fun.

ivan salis · Apr 18, 2008

my father was a detectorist --got the fever from him --his unit was an old grounghog --- dad paid the weekly milk money for the house with the clad he found --the silver he keep for hard times when things were tough

JOe L · Apr 18, 2008

I think I have a couple reasons but, my main interest is History and I believe that's what lured me.
I have more interest in finding historical things, things from the past, things I can hold in my hand and think of living in that time.
To hold something someone 100+ years once held.

The clad and loose change along the way just helps my quest, I guess.

knfmn · Apr 18, 2008

I've always been interested in history, and this just seems to be a way to get ahold of my own little piece of it. How cool is it that if things go right, and you look in the right spots, this is a hobby that will pay for itself? (Oh, and I'm sure that there are bars of gold out there waiting for me to find them! 8))

Kristopher

Cynangyl · Apr 18, 2008

I sure hope you find them Kristopher....grab a few for the rest of us too! :wink:

Welcome to Tnet as well.....won't find better treasure than this bunch of folks!! :thumbsup:

Ricardo_NY1 · Apr 18, 2008

I like old paper currency, and the thought of finding old coins also interested me, so that's how I got into metal detecting. Now I know there is more to like than just the coins I find.

FrankMD · Apr 18, 2008

In was panning for gold in a creek somewhere

in Virginia and when I was going back to my car I ran into two guys coming out of the woods with metal detectors! I asked them what they were looking for and they said CW relics. Thaqt got my interest up and I bought a Garrett top of the line unit. This was about 1982. I field of work was and is electronics so an electronic tool to find gold or treasure was for me!

HH

Frank

deepskyal · Apr 18, 2008

Back in the early 80's, my mom's cousin told me a story about a stash that my great grandfather had on his farm. Two trunks of silver dollars. He had bough a metal detector years earlier to try to get permission to hunt the old farm but the new owner told him to get lost.

In my wisdom, I bought a cheap whites coinmaster 3000, figuring I'd find it at the last place my GG lived, which was quite a ways from the farm. I couldnt get permission to hunt it either...but I did get into relic hunting and some coinshooting.

I agree with you doctorbb...coinshooting was sure a lot better back in them days. It's a fun challenge still though, looking in the hunted out places, finding that one old silver that's been passed over.
Al

trusty · Apr 18, 2008

Always liked history & really need the exercise, anyway it seemed like a hobby that couldn't get out of hand. Yeah, right!

rockhound · Apr 18, 2008

Back in the early 80's. my brother -In Law lost his wedding band. I helped him look for it all week-end. The next week he came back from a flea market, where he bought a metal detector for a buck. It was a child detector wit one knob for on-off, tune. We used it for a week every evening. We dug aluminum foil,nails and even a few coins,but no wedding band. I got interested as to what was in the ground. a few months later I bought the best machine Radio Shack had. It was a VLF-TR machine. It had manual ground balance,sensitivity, discrimination, and a retune button. It was a non-
motion machine. It would find pennies-dimes at 4 inches and Quarters at 5 inches. I found a lot of coins.Back int the early 80's,you could find plenty of wheaties and silver at 4-5 inches. But I never did
find his wedding band. Since then I have bought and sold a lot of machines, and have found my share of silver and gold jewelry.

Silver Fox · Apr 18, 2008

Lin and I decided to move to Los Angeles in 1979 to start a new life, although we had a great one in New York City. We agreed on achieving 2 goals in L.A. First, for me to see UFOs as it seems everybody else was. Second, to hunt for treasure. We achieved both. :icon_king:

I eventually had a couple of sightings of UFOs. Somewhere along the line, I, or we, got ahold of a flyer announcing treasure hunting classes at a community college and we enrolled. In the class we had the honor of actor Aldo Ray and we were taught by treasuremeister Roy Roush. :icon_study:

We had a ball, made many friends, and I was off getting a White's 6/DB to start me off. I paid my dues with that detector.

How many of you can claim a formal education in Treasure Hunting? I can! :thumbsup:

Look at the photo of my "Diploma."

Silver Fox

whitesPA · Apr 20, 2008

two of the people i worked with . ones to busy now and the other one lost interest.so now i am by myself

davest · Apr 20, 2008

I like diggin the dirt. My mom always said she had to wait until the last second to dress me for church or a formal occasion cause I was like 'pigpen" in the Charlie Brown series. I've always like the history aspect and now that history is moving way too fast, I need to reach back and grab a piece of it every now and then.

radarwill · Apr 20, 2008

Silver Fox said:
Lin and I decided to move to Los Angeles in 1979 to start a new life, although we had a great one in New York City. We agreed on achieving 2 goals in L.A. First, for me to see UFOs as it seems everybody else was. Second, to hunt for treasure. We achieved both.

I eventually had a couple of sightings of UFOs. Somewhere along the line, I, or we, got ahold of a flyer announcing treasure hunting classes at a community college and we enrolled. In the class we had the honor of actor Aldo Ray and we were taught by treasuremeister Roy Roush.

We had a ball, made many friends, and I was off getting a White's 6/DB to start me off. I paid my dues with that detector.

How many of you can claim a formal education in Treasure Hunting? I can! Look at the photo of my "Diploma."

Silver Fox