What drew you to this hobby?

[GMD52]

It's always interesting to find out why the people around you follow a particular hobby. We are all participants in this hobby, and I'm sure we are all here for different reason's.

I was always drawn to the myths, legends and stories of pirate loot, sunken Spanish galleons, and hidden, and illusive treasures. My fascination with books has led to an extensive library, my real treasure. The strongest draw for me is that desire to read that next book, plot the next map, find out what's around the next corner, and over the next mountain ridge, and the secrets that lie on the bottom of the lake, and the depths of the oceans.

Why did you all choose to pursue hidden treasure, what keeps you doing it? Thanks for your replies in advance.

 

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[richbat]

Myself,it's the fascination of finding things that others have lost and wondering how it came to be.

 

[Maburger]

I have anxiety and depression so I look for activities that make me get outside. The sun provides seratonin which helps with the depression. I also need solitude because quite simply, people drive me crazy! So MDing provides both. I am unemployed and anything I can find to do that "might" bring in some cash is always good. Not gotten rich but it all adds up!,

 

[Jeremy S]

I like history, antiques or "old stuff", the outdoors, and the thrill of the hunt. Metal detecting is the perfect hobby with all of the key traits that I like.

 

[SusanMN]

Grew up living on landfill property. You could dig a hole anywhere and find cool stuff, like marbles, bottles and toys. Many many times us kids were sure we'd found gold only to have it stolen by one nasty neighbor boy or another. So, getting into the hobby as an adult was a natural. I started back in the 80s but was too self conscious about looking goofy on the gear and soon quit. Got back into the hobby in 2007 after I was burglarized and all my jewelry and rings were stolen. Decided to go find myself some replacements, and have done that and more.

 

[Keppy]

.....Wealth & Riches........

 

[BosnMate]

When I was 10 or 11 years old, my father had a friend named Charlie, who was much older than Dad. When road construction started on the 100 miles of Coast Hiway 1, that hangs along the cliffs of Big Sur in California, Charlie took my Uncle and they hiked through there before the road was built. Charlie was the guy that discovered along that same route, the jade at what is now called Jade Cove, but in those days was Willow Creek. Charlie also owned a claim for a chrome (I think) mine, anyhow he had a claim we were able to hunt deer on. Charlie was a prospector, and a treasure hunter. I was 10 years old in 1947, so that was before metal detectors, and Charlie and his wife would come over and visit my folks, and I would assume a very low profile, never saying a word, just listening while Charlie was telling about prospecting for gold, or looking for treasure, and he was always only about three feet from finding Jaquine Muretta's treasure. Always just about there, he'd found the signs and had it figured out every time. This is before metal detectors, except WWII surplus mine detectors, so he must have probed, and dug a lot of big holes. Anyhow, that was my start, the bug was biting hard, and besides that, on vacations and picnics dad would help, and we'd pan for gold. I remember Dad finding an old sluice box and tearing it apart and finding quit a bit of color out of cracks in the wood. The gold he got out of that was silver color from the mercury in it, and when he put that in the bottle with the other gold that he'd panned, the mercury migrated and turned all the gold in that little bottle silver colored. Beside that, we didn't have a lot of money, so our vacations tended to be doing things that didn't cost money, and we go ghost towning and rock hunting in the desert. In those days there were no hen house rules, you asked the ranger where the best place was to find arrow heads, or thunder eggs, or agate, or where the ghost town was. So I sort of grew up with the bug, but didn't get a detector until I was in my mid 20's, and then it was a Whites BFO, and I found very little with that machine. I got discouraged by those results, but eventually rented a machine, don't remember the brand, but there was no discrimination, and I found some neat relics, and from then on it was Katy bar the door. So when I divorced my first wife, I bought myself a divorce present, a Whites 6000 Di Pro, and I still have the machine. I didn't have the money to really use a detector when the kids were small, and now that I can afford to have an expensive machine, I don't have the health to use it like I'd like to. But that's life and I'm not complaining, I still use it when I can, but not in the hard to get to places anymore. In my old age, I'm like Charlie, I have a hot line on a pocket of gold, but the hike in there is just darn well impossible now. My X wife used to have a fit about my metal detecting and gold hunting. She always figured that if I found a 50 lb nugget it would do us no good, because I wouldn't sell it, and she was no doubt right, it's one of those things, you know, look at what I found, eat your heart out. Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[dholland02]

To find old coins and jewelry

 

[LifeNRA]

Been wanting a MD for years! It was just this early spring I was around my nephew while he was digging things up. Then he pulled a few coins and one was silver! I knew by the end of the weekend I was going to buy one!

 

[CoilyGirl]

I was always the little girl with her head down at the beach searching for cool shells,in the woods looking for geodes,or just randomly finding stuff that attracted my eye. Years later I met a man who was the same way too and he had an avid interest in history and genealogy so we started searching his relatives and finding one had carried a battle flag in the battle of Murfreesboro.Thus the interest in The Civil War for both of us. He got a detector when our sons were young and we would hunt first in our yard and then he would go on his own and find bullets and relics. We don't get to go too many places but when we do I love it.
ETA that man is my husband,lol!

 

[GMD52]

Coily,

Some of the best treasures that I have found are the old family Dutch Bibles, that after my paternal Grandmother passed wanted, they now reside with me on display in my den, and started the quest for my family history, which dates to 1640 in the lower Hudson Valley of NY, with an ancestor being the Dr. on the Half-Moon with Henry Hudson. Those studies also starting turning stories and clues to some hidden objects from centuries of the familys marrying and settling the same location, some still live on the same land grants. It has been a fulfilling quest, which has sent out tenicles of interest in other directions, and make for many interesting hours.

 

[CoilyGirl]

Coily,

Some of the best treasures that I have found are the old family Dutch Bibles, that after my paternal Grandmother passed wanted, they now reside with me on display in my den, and started the quest for my family history, which dates to 1640 in the lower Hudson Valley of NY, with an ancestor being the Dr. on the Half-Moon with Henry Hudson. Those studies also starting turning stories and clues to some hidden objects from centuries of the familys marrying and settling the same location, some still live on the same land grants. It has been a fulfilling quest, which has sent out tenicles of interest in other directions, and make for many interesting hours.

I don't know if you've ever read the book New York by Edward Rutherford but it is a detailed account of the formation of the US and the Dutch people's part in history. It was a little hard to follow but still an enjoyable book.

 

[TerryC]

The babes on the beach! No, actually, as a pre-teen, I saw my younger brother always looking down on the school playground... in the snow. He was finding lots of CASH! FREE! So I started looking down and finding free cash. Been finding cash and things ever since and the rest is history, as they say! TTC

 

[GMD52]

Coily,

Yes, I have. A copy resides in my library, and I agree about the read.

 

[Atomic Ed]

I was always fascinated with finding cool things that were long lost and the excitement of unearthing something no one else has found yet. Of course I also dream of finding something rare or valuable as everyone else does

It is a cool hobby and I bring my wife and daughter and its great to do it as a hobby together. We are all new to MD, but all enjoy it and all have our own setups. I have the AT Pro, my wife the ACE 350 and my Daughter has the ACE 250. We all share 1 Garrett pro pointer

 

[TerryC]

Coily,

Yes, I have. A copy resides in my library, and I agree about the read.

BOOKS! Or, more precise, the ability to read is one of the greatest treasures of mankind. Books that have been passed down from generation to generation are the real treasures. TTC

 

[GMD52]

Terry,

This internet is new to this old dinosaur, only got my first computer last Christmas, but books are a passion. I have several hundred in the collection, and keep adding more. If only we could convince the younger generations to the importance of what the books contain, perhaps they too would find them as a treasure.

 

[TerryC]

Terry,

This internet is new to this old dinosaur, only got my first computer last Christmas, but books are a passion. I have several hundred in the collection, and keep adding more. If only we could convince the younger generations to the importance of what the books contain, perhaps they too would find them as a treasure.

I have re-discovered the joy of a good book when I bought a NOOK book, from Barnes and Noble. I held my breath when I heard the Nook was going belly-up. Glad to hear Microsoft will keep it going. Tnx. TTC

 

[damiani1]

Growing up in todays society there is a lot of things that trouble people such as drugs and alcohols so it keeps you busy from getting caught up in all that stoof.

 

[CASPER-2]

My father got into bottle digging in the early 70's
My parents were divourced and he would pick my sister and I up on weekends
and we were forced to go with him and get dirty - around 1974
he saw in one of his bottle mags - a Whites advertisement that said you could find the old dumps
with a metal detector and then find the bottles there. So he bought a detector- we started to go to
old cellarholes and and go in the back and look for metal signals that would hopefully be their dump
one day my father got a target and it ended being a large cent - he looked it up and found out that coins could e worth more than the bottles
and started coinshooting - in 1975 at age 12 he bought me a used Compass off one of his friends and a TH'er was born