What Inspired you to start Detecting?

[pescadore]

My father liked collecting coins and he bought me a Whites metal detector back in the early 70's. I found a lot of cool stuff but hunted mostly around phone booths and parks. I kept the detector for several years and would dust it off occasionally and play around with it. Right before my wife and I got married we went to Canton and there was a guy there at the flea market selling Garrett detectors. I bought a Treasure Ace 100 and the next weekend I took it to an area lake and found a large men's gold wedding band that I ended up selling for more than I paid for the detector. I was pretty much hooked after that and bought a better detector. That was over 20 years ago and I have been seriously detecting ever since. I really enjoy finding older coins and other interesting stuff. I have through the years bought, sold, and traded over 25 detectors and I really enjoy trying new ones and learning the little differences in them. I pretty much stayed with Minelab detectors after I bought my first Explorer but I also used a lot of Whites machines. I currently use a Fisher CZ5 and it's a real good machine. I am primarily a coinshooter and hunt parks, schools, and rec areas most of the time. I love finding older coins but still enjoy a fun clad hunt occasionally. I have met a lot of nice people metal detecting and been a member of two different clubs. I hunt regularly with a group of guys that I met through another forum.

 

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[barrywk]

lol....will try an locate steam whistle soon worldtalker....haven't seen it in awhile...found it way before digital cameras and cell fones

 

[worldtalker]

lol....will try an locate steam whistle soon worldtalker....haven't seen it in awhile...found it way before digital cameras and cell fones

Let me tell you my Friend,I surely would enjoying seeing it.

Gotta be COOL!

 

[Red James Cash]

History,history ,history,I'm the guy that was a history teachers nightmare come true,in a good way of course.I'm the guy that should of lived 300 years ago.How I wish I did.

 

[Msbeepbeep]

A diver gave me a cob in 1968, I was thrilled.
Years later I stumbled across a small cache at a flea market, I realized at that point the potential of what's out there! AKA "the fever"! Also watched a documentary on Dutchman mine, started reading all the books I could find at library on treasure; Edward Snow, KMV, Marx, Glenn Carson, etc.
Next year I got a cheap used no name detector $2. at flea market, with a 2" range that never met metal it didn't like! Found clad & trash.
In 1990 got a Whites 4900 DL Pro, and 3 yrs. ago got the M6, never looked back, too busy looking down! Lol!

 

[silverlining]

My dad!

 

[RustyGold]

When I was out surfing I would see the older guys out on the beach detecting and I always thought I would try MDing when I retired or could not surf anymore! Well that retired thing came about faster that I could imagine and so I bought a detector then two and now I hunt the beach looking for the opposite conditions that I used to look for when surfing!
Low tide, no waves! Lol!
One thing, I never saw anyone in the surf detecting back then!
HH everyone

 

[Flex68]

Thanks for starting the thread, bigfootokie
Love reading the reasons folks have for getting the bug.

My dad was into all things "old" and had numerous things he had picked up over the years: old bottles, glassware, barn-finds, furniture, and so on....I was hunting old dump sites by the time I was 8 years old, as well as hunting plowed fields for arrowheads, etc. until I got my driver's license. My interests changed, dramatically, then!

Since about 2002 , I have been very much into hunting fossils. I have been privileged to hunt in one of the most renowned sites in the world, and ---- although this site has since become unavailable to hunters--- I continue to surface hunt and dig/screen for fossils in various locales.
I received an inexpensive (read "cheap") detector in the early-mid 1990's, and found nothing but junk, but am determined that I will do better this go-round!

The "hunting" bug bites equally deeply, regardless of whether one is in a plowed field, an antique mall, an ancient ocean basin exposed by a modern creek, or inside the foundations of an old schoolhouse!

 

[Newfiehunter]

I metal detect because of my passion for History. My mother who passed away just recently at the age of 85, use to tell me stories about what it was like growing up during the 1930's and 40's. One day I found an ad in the National Inquirer for Whites Metal Detectors. She ordered me a Whites Liberty 2 metal detector from Sweet Home, Oregon. She even thought Sweet Home was a nice name for a town. After placing the order for the detector, we got home and realized that the Money Order was not in US funds. She ran back to the post office, got the letter back and changed it from Canadian to US funds. She was born and grew up in a town which no longer exists and is now a ghost town. Someday I will go to where she lived and maybe find something that belonged to my ancestors who lived there. I know the location of the house where she grew up in. Mom always understood my passion for metal detecting and history. I miss her dearly.

 

[rockhound]

Many years ago my brother in law lost some parts while working on an old car in his front yard. He found an old, cheap metal detector at a flea market and bought it. He found his parts and even some change. One day when I was there visiting, he had this thing out detecting his front yard to see what else he may have lost throughout the years. He wanted me to do the digging, and this thing had no discrimination and would only detect about an inch deep on coin sized objects, but it loved aluminum foil. I must have dug a gallon of it that day. I then decide I would buy one with a discrimination mode and see what I could find. At that time there was no internet and most of my purchases were from local stores. I bought a Radio Shack detector and then afterwards upgraded to a better model. I still have the Radio Shack detector and pull it out from time to time. It will find coins about 4'' deep, but the meter is excellent, discriminating between ferrous and non ferrous. Good Luck. rockhound

 

[Lab Rat Pappy]

Never claimed to be right from the beginning. I just got worse as the years went by. As a lab rat I'm allowed a little leeway. HH Steve

 

[MickeyMaguire]

I was always a big history buff. I dreamed of having a metal detector back when I was a kid. So, as an adult, there was nothing to stop me.

 

[fyrffytr1]

When i was a youngun back in the late 50s early 60s I and my brothers would find civil war relics laying on the ground at construction sites in the Hagerstown, Md. area. I joined the service in 1969 and got out in 73. When I went home my brother showed me this amazing machine that could find stuff underground and I had to have one so he gave me his Whites 4900 and i have never looked back. I moved to south Georgia but never stopped detecting. The finds down here are fewer and farther in between but I get out with my buddies every chance I get.
Now, if I had kept all that "junk" I found back then I would have something to show Y'all. But, i gave a lot of it away and only have a few relics and about 5 pounds of bullets left.

 

[Keppy]

It seems like my reason is ...I like silver & Gold and cold cash... ... That is why i do it ... Bottom line ... MONEY , MONEY , MONEY....

 

[NJ Marty]

History,history ,history,I'm the guy that was a history teachers nightmare come true,in a good way of course.I'm the guy that should of lived 300 years ago.How I wish I did.

Yup, same here. I still lull myself to sleep at times thinking about being at Woodstock or back in 1700's NJ, Phila, Quebec or New York with my minelab and plenty of batteries. I got it all planned out, go to a kick but area after time travel to 1700's areas, find a bunch of period silver coins get a great meal and room and talk with locals. Mind you this is in the heat of summer so I could do night hunting and not be questioned about my magic coinfinder.

 

[wayfas4u]

When I was 8 yrs old, My grandfather was in his mid 90's, so plundering around his house I remember finding a 1917 $2 Bill in his dresser drawer and some old coins and postage stamps. So I started collecting stamps first, then later coins. All these years later I think of that old home site and the stories of when he buried his money in jars in the backyard back in his early years. (later found out he always dug it back up). These many family gatherings on the old porch produced lots of stories from yesteryear, so I absorbed them like a sponge! This is my first taste of history. I woke up one day and just realized that HISTORY is in the ground all around us! That sparked me getting into metal detecting. I hunt with my local buddies every chance I get and learn stories and experiences from them! I have a vivid imagination of what life was a long time ago and that inspires me to detect any old area I come across. If only the large old trees could talk.

 

[whammy]

Back in the mid 80s, I was working at a university and on the weekends this guy would show up with a Whites detector. I was working days then and worked the weekends. Being summer, the calls were few and far between so I followed him around for most of my 8 hour shift. He was finding all kinds of neat stuff, and gave me a civil defense badge he found. The second year he showed up, his father had passed and he moved up to his fathers detector and I bought the one he used. I ended up giving that one to my buddie who lives in Nova Scotia and I bought a Whites Eagle Spectrum, then a DFX, and now a Vision. That kid in the 80s infected me with some kind of bug, and I still got it. Just can't get rid of it, but it gets me out of the house and you never know what you will find next. When I come home, the wife is waiting to appropriate the good stuff. Been having a great time ever since and it helps keep me young.

 

[JunkShopFiddler]

I was 25 in 1980. I worked in a factory with this middle aged lady who always said she used her paid vacation days to hunt for the lost Confederate gold. Her and her husband knew a psychic and this psychic woman would go into a trance and see these remote viewings and draw psychic sketches of the gold's locations. Then the couple would then drive around the South searching for the hills, ravines, or trees, etc resembling the drawings and then get out their detectors.

This co-worker lady spoke of things like hearing voices in old trees, and watching shadow people moving in the darkness during their night hunts. I was quite amused by these stories while enduring long days of boring factory work, and honestly thought she was just a little "off" until she brought in some of their finds to show. silver coins and gold jewelry, bayonets from the Civil War. She had musket barrels, minie balls, relics of all kinds. That changed my mind and she gave me advice on choosing detecting equipment, and hunting tips I still use today. The factory closed when the union came in and I never saw her again. I always imagine she is somewhere sitting on a big stash, courtesy of Jeff Davis and Country.

 

[Tired Rooster]

Years ago when I was younger/when my dad was younger, he used to pan and dredge for gold in creeks in North Georgia and parts of Alabama. The times and experiences I had helping him do that and my own love for history and the search for things is what lead me toward metal detecting........

 

[texasred777]

I started detecting after moving into an older house with big front and back yards; and seeing a little cheap detector in Radio Shack. I started wondering what I might find, so I went back and bought it. I was almost instantly hooked! I found quite a few coins in the yard; some silver, and even a silver bracelet. When I thought that I had found enough to pay for the little cheap detector, I bought a BH 840. Although I had gone over the yard many times with the cheap detector, I found a 1909 quarter during the first 15 minutes using the new one! Now I have 6 detectors.