METAL DETECTING-HOW DID YOU GET INTRODUCED?

[diggummup]

Hi,I was wondering how everyone else got into this hobby.As for me i guess i've always been interested in finding things that are "lost" or forgotten.As a kid I would search the woods endlessly,looking for who knows what.Always thinking I was going to find remnants of some lost civilization or something.As an adult,it's the history of the objects I find ,that intrigue me.I picked up my 1st. MD a couple years ago.It belonged to a friend of mine.I bought my 1st MD only about a year ago.I haven't quit swinging it since. Any stories,anybody?H.H.

 

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[mchamby]

Hey rtde3,
Well mushrooming or shrooning is what us back woods Vermonters do when we want something good to eat. I also get fiddleheads and dandelions. Great for spring tonics :-)
I was in the hospital for cancer sx. all this good pollution we have doesn't do a body good.
MChamby

 

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[omnicognic]

I got? an orange radio shack detector when I was thirteen, back in1980,

Yeah! was it shaped like a 7? That was my 1st, had 2 dials "TUNE" and "FINE TUNING"! I found more with that than any other MD I've had!(looking to break that record with a new beachhunter ID!) I got it at a garage sale for $7.00 and it paid for itself 20 times over!

 

[zommbee]

My brother built a Heathkit metal detector in the late 1960s and it just
sat in the closet. I found it in 1973 and he let me have it (I was 12).
I would go to parks with the family, and while they played on the beach
I dug up coins. LOTS of coins. Thinking back, I'm sure every place I
went back then was 'virgin'. I found pockets full of change - I'm sure
lots of silver, that I just spent on candy....

I got out of the hobby until 1992 when I found a Whites 4000d at
a garage sale, with extra coil, for $75. I got back in big time and found a
LOT more coinage. But lost interest in the mid 90s.

Now I'm waiting for my new XLT to arrive.... gonna give it a really serious
go this time around. I'm self-employed, and travel the Pacific NW a lot
for work, and fully plan to exploit my travels and always have my detector
in the car.

Zommbee

 

[WolfmoonX]

I think I was about 10. We had an apple orchard behind our part of the woods in Winchester, VA. The 1st CW battle of Winchester/Kernstown happened thru our property among others. I was in the orchard with some friends and had seen a couple of guys with metal detectors and got nosey. They showed us the CW bullets that they were digging up.....HOOK LINE AND SINKER!! The next day, my father had gotten me a RadioShack detector.

Laters...
Wolf

 

[PatPhillips]

Back in the mid 70's I was in San Diego while in the Navy. Lived in Ocean Beach and worked the evening shift. Walked the beach frequently in the mornings and met this old guy who was always down there in the very early mornings before the tourists show up. The first day I met him he reached in his pocket and showed me a watch and three diamond rings he had found, and a gold plated money clip with $300 dollars in it. He said he didn't even need the detector for the money clip, it was just lying there on top of the sand for all to see. This old guy had been doing this for years. Some months later he invited me to his home and showed me a foot locker that was full of diamond rings and watches and gold jewelry and various other valuable things. When he needed extra money he'd just haul a couple handfuls of this stuff to a jeweler or pawn shop and cash in. It was pretty impressive. Procrastinaor that I am I finally acquired a detector ..... and my some had to give it to me for Xmas .... in 04 !!!! 31 YEARS after this old guy gave me the "bug" !!! How's that for procrastinating? The weather hasn't been cooperating, but on a test run I managed to find about a buck and a half worth of coins at the local soccer fields where the bleachers sit (detecting in bermuda grass, by the way, SUCKS !!!) and elementary school playgrounds. Now I'm trying to figure out where the popular local beaches are around here. In the Dallas area now so I'm stuck with manmade mudhole lakes, but oh well. Pat

 

[GunFarce]

I had this posted in another section someplace!

In 1973-74 I ran a diving shop in Toronto. One of my customers was into treasure hunting, and knowing that I lived up near lake simcoe, he asked me if I would like to give it a try on a spot he heard about. Soldiers bay is a spot on the Holland river where a marina is located. At that time the East shore was simply a farm field. According to the records he searched, during the war of 1812 a bateau (small barge) was tied to a large willow tree on soldiers bay. The bateau was bound for Big Bay Point, the jumping off spot to willow creek, Georgian bay, and north to the fort at michilimacinac(sp?) It caught fire and there was an explosion (black powder and muskets were also being hauled) The record said along with the muskets and powder was the 'soldiers pay' supposedly in an iron box on board. We found a old wagon rut trail (large trees now growing up in the middle of it) and followed it to a depression near the waters edge My friend had two detectors with him, a hand held conventional unit, and a thing he called a metritech(sp?) which consisted of a 6 foot pole with a transmitter on one end, and the receiver on the other. He said it would detect down to about 25 feet.. We found a lapstrake boat held together with squared copper nails under the mud, and dug through the hull because we were getting a stronger signal below the wood.. digging down about 12 inches, we found a wooden box and retrieved it. There was a signal from the box, and it was heavy.. We pulled it apart, and it was full of concrete (obviously a makeshift anchor) there was a sold signal coming from the concrete so I bashed it with a rock ,and out rolled a cannon ball.. The large detector was picking up a weak signal of a large mass of metal just off shore (all mud) so there was something definitely down there. Unfortunately, it would have taken, days, a cofferdam and mud pumps, to get down, and that was a much bigger operation than we were capable of undertaking.. Bob, my friend, has since passed away, but I was always fascinated by the things he found, from Spanish silver to other coins and artefact's. My wife and I visited him several times after he and his wife Bev. had moved to Nova Scotia. Some of the stuff he found, and where he found it was absolutely fascinating. Now, over thirty years later, I have a MD.. My wife bought be one for Christmas this year.. A bounty hunter 2200 .. Maybe not the best, but now I can't wait for the ground to thaw and get out there.. Thanks Bob, rest in piece old friend... I've been waiting 30 years for this, and I suppose I can wait a few more months.....