How many yrs treasure hunting?

[Beachkid23]

How many years do you have treasure hunting? Im 33 and this is my 5th yr into this so kinda young at it? My goal is to continue to learn from the vets out there.

 

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[Greybear]

I have been into detecting for 40 years. Started at age 19 although I was always picking up stuff and bringing it home even as a little kid. I guess I've been a collector of things all my life. Also I got into gold prospecting about 12 years ago.

 

[Beachkid23]

I have been into detecting for 40 years. Started at age 19 although I was always picking up stuff and bringing it home even as a little kid. I guess I've been a collector of things all my life. Also I got into gold prospecting about 12 years ago.

I was bringing home Salamanders and frogs at 12. I wonder what they look like now!? Although most ended up on a hook! Lol.

 

[Greybear]

I was always looking for cool rocks or shells at the beach. Didn't take long to realize the high tide line was a good place to look. Also stRted coin collecting with my dad when I was around 8. Still doing that too.

 

[GibH]

I started when ebay was first starting up (mid to late 90's). I had to find something to do when football season ended, so I started hitting flea markets and thrift stores. At the time my biggest profits came from vintage toys, out of print VHS tapes, and Zippo lighters. DVDs killed the tapes, used to make huge profits on them.

Once I was browsing at the flea market and came across 3 sealed VHS video albums of John Cougar Mellencamp's "Little Pink Houses". I paid 2 bucks each for them and they sold for $75 and up. The following week we were at the same flea market and my wife said let's check, maybe she has more. Sure enough, scored six more of them.

 

[Beachkid23]

I brought home alot of beach glass too. Loved that stuff!

 

[Greybear]

Yea that's pretty cool too. When I got older I started poking around midden mounds while living in Florida. Found some good items there that I still have. One is a hand chisel made from a Whelk shell. Also found some bone beads made from bird bones and lots of pottery shards. Hit one spot where we started pulling out a lot of fossils, still have those also. There was mast adorn bone, some form of camel or llama, small horse and loads of petrified sharks teeth. Diving in springs was a great place to find fossils.

 

[Greybear]

That should read Mastodon bones. Stinking spellcheck hot me again.

 

[Lost&Found]

I've been at it for 40 years. It's a bit sobering to see items being sold as vintage that were brand new when I started.

 

[duffytrash]

ive been dealin in marbles for over 20 years...old bottles...stone artifacts that the original people left when they lived here.......anything that you find along the river...so the answer for me would be over 50 years....most of my childhood collections was stored away and "lost" when i left for the military in 1970....prob due to floods and lack of space....i can see the reasons tho...i got some junk that could be "lost",now....but .....maybe this summer....

 

[Baltimore]

I've been a collector since I can remember, the last 15 years or so. I only started seriously selling around this time last year, but I'd been thrifting and yard sale-ing with my parents as a kid, so I picked up the rules of the resale game pretty quick.

 

[lookin-for-treasure]

I've been buying and reselling for about 8 months. I really love it and would love to do it full time. I've always had a thirst for knowledge in everything I have done in my life and this isn't any different. I'm just small potatoes, but been consistently hitting sells around 2000 the last few months. Getting better all the time thanks to you guys!

 

[apush]

4 years metal detecting; 3 years CRH; about a year or so hunting at garage/estate/storage locker units. These are my hobbies and I really enjoy them--great stress relief as well. I, too, have found great advice on this forum thanks to lots of nice folks.
apush

 

[austin]

57 years, ever since my cousin and his friends took me to Padre island to hunt for Spanish coins. I was 8 years old then. Sort of a minor hobby the rest of my life...

 

[ATPro4Life]

Been treasure hunting since 7th grade, so...8 years. Parents bought me a metal detector after they saw how obsessed I was with treasure hunting. Went on and off during high school, eventually getting my hands on with dumpster diving with one of friends. Bought my AT Pro when I was a freshman in college as well as CRH with my next door dorm mate (Now in his Social Fraternity). Started going to garage sales the summer before Sophomore year. Still visit garage sales and go metal detecting, but taking it easy on CRH. Ain't nobody got time for that during college!

 

[clovis97]

I've been treasure hunting all of my life, even as a kid.

I remember finding an old dump when I was a kid in the early 80's. That dump probably was last used in the early 50's, and we had a hay day digging old bottles.

Of course, all of those years, I knew that I loved "found" stuff, but I didn't know that I was a treasure hunter at heart until I found this forum.

It is nice to have a term for my condition!

 

[roaddust66]

I rented a Compass 77B in 76' or 77'. The rental was so cheap , I kept it almost a year before buying a Garrett Deepseeker , then I wised up and bought a Fisher ..lol , then Tesoro came along ! Wow ! they were great ! I got out about 95' or 96' , now I'm back and I'm loving it , so so happy to be back civil war digging. And now I'm saving my money to buy a T 2 !!!

 

[clovis97]

I forgot to mention that even though I loved to treasure hunt at auctions, I didn't get into the reselling game until 1998 on ebay. I fell in love with reselling at that point.

I started selling at a flea market sometime around '03, and fell in love with that too.

Today, I ebay and flea market for a living. I don't love the selling as much as I love the hunting for treasure!!!

 

[Tallone]

I have been interested in old/interesting stuff for as long as I can remember. Over the years I have bought a few things but never because I thought I was getting a "great deal" but just because I liked it and thought it would make nice decoration or conversation piece in my home or office. It has only been in the last 3 or 4 years that I have looked at things from a potential profit perspective. It has only been the last 2+ years that I have been serious about selling things. I still look for interesting pieces to keep but now I will buy anything if I am convinced I can flip it quickly and easily to make a few bucks.

 

[billjustbill]

How many years do you have treasure hunting? Im 33 and this is my 5th yr into this so kinda young at it? My goal is to continue to learn from the vets out there.

Treasure Hunting has come in as decades have gone out.

Growing up on a flat dry land West Texas, treasure was found only in the small town's Bookmobile with "Coronado's Children", "50 Balloons", and "King Solomon's Mine". And, maybe the time I found my first arrowhead taking dad a cold drink of water as he plowed in the black land soil, or the time the heavy rain washed away the end of a cotton row's dirt to let me find some poor hired hoe-hand's old glass faced pocket watch..

High school days of treasure hunting were limited to Grandpa's old two story stable and various neighbors' old barns. Maybe something found at the town's dump before it was covered over. Mostly, these teenage days' treasures were measured in social acceptance or an opposite gender's warm heart....

College days found me doing afternoon and late night dumpster diving with a flashlight and those young days of "Early Marriage" after old tenants moved out of the apartment complexes we lived in.

Going to the large monthly flea market in a new and strange town that contained our jobs was always a treasure hunt as we bought our first house with its carport workshop.

Then, when a new Lowes opened, I found that I could find newer, better, and cheaper Treasures there than I could at the flea market. 90% of all the lumber I used to build a 16'x32' two story cabin came from the 90% off lumber, plywood, and returned windows and doors that were sold in Lowe's "Cull Carts for 10-cents on the dollar. Plus, Lowes and Home Depot store-wide clearance/close out materials, merchandise, and "OOPS Paint" Treasures came with a "30 day return policy" never known at the flea market....

I began detecting in 1999. It was years before I found my first gold ring, but the "Something for Nothing" fever never let go. It only evolved to a higher plane when historical items like a WWI dogtag was found.

It was only in the past seven years that I actually stumbled upon a garage sale on the fringes of our neighborhood. Old wooden sewing/thread cabinets, an old handmade dovetail wooden chest, rebuilt hammer drills, and new & antique hand tools for my workshop were priced far below retail, clearance, or flea market prices... Collecting newfound treasures for keeping is great. Selling a $5 electric 1960's pea sheller for $35 to a fellow who was going to use it to flatten the meat of his homemade beef jerky made us both happy and made me laugh.

As time passes, a new level of understanding occurs, the emotional high and low waves of missed items or the adrenalin joy of the garage sale finds pay far more than all the things I get to keep for "Free". These emotional times are measured in seconds and minutes, and then, when you stop to think about it, you realize that Treasure Hunting has lasted six and a half decades.