What got YOU hooked?

[nevrdundetecting]

Just wandering how everyone got "hooked" on detecting. For me it went like this. When I was about 13 or 14 yrs old my grandparents were cleaning out some junk and they found an old detector that they had bought for my dad and his brother when they were kids. The detector was a Jetco TreasureHawk. I figured out how to use this machine in the back yard finding mostly some pennies and bullet casings and I played with it most of the summer that year.

It wasn't until this summer, approx 13 or 14 years later that I thought that I might like to try detecting again. I mentioned it to my wife and on Fathers Day of this year my wife and kids bought me a "Pioneer EX" from Wal-Mart made by Bounty Hunter. The Pioneer EX is equal to the Quick Silver that BH sells. As soon as I opened the box I went straight out into my front yard and began finding stuff. Over the next few weeks of searching only my yard I managed to find around 30 memorial pennies and 25 wheat pennies!! Most of which were found in about a 2 foot circle! I think it is safe to say that from the time that I found the first wheatie that I was hooked. I used the BH machine until early Sept when I decided that I needed a better machine that was easier to use and had a pinpoint mode. I then went to the local White's dealer and bought a new Prizm III. Since then my love for detecting has grown immensely and I now know that I'll never lay it down again!!

What got you hooked on detecting?

 

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[jeff of pa]

When I was about 9 or 10 (Just an Estimate) My Grandparents Came Back From Their yearly Winter MIGRATION & HIBERNATION in Florida.

? My Grandmother Told me About What she was doing & Showed me her Detector.
? It was one of those $19.95 Jobs.

? SO I talked her into Letting Me take it home & Play with it.
? ?I took one of those Ear Plugs You used to get with AM radios & put it on.

? Then I walked Out onto an old Coal Miners Road Behind My House.

? My First Signal, was weak But I started Digging. What at That age (From My Memory) I think about 6" deep I pulled out a Wheat Back.
? It Turned Out to be a 1919.

? NEDLESS to say

? I WAS HOOKED?

 

[Sandman]

What got me hooked on detecting was when our neighbors across the street got in a fight and she threw her wedding rings into the front yard. When they cooled down, they looked for them and everyone helped. I knew a friend that had a detector and I invited him over to try his luck. He found them in less than five minutes. We both got a kiss and a beer for that. I have been hooked on kisses ever since.

HH,
Sandman

 

[Doctor Detroit]

I was sun bathing on a float at a beach and drifted near a old guy with a metal detector. He looked me up and down while I ask him what he was doing. He explained, and while he was talking I heard a beep from his head phones which he scooped up from under where my float was. It was a gold ring! He let me try out his detector and I found a penny and a hairpin. That's how I was hooked.

Doctor Detroit

 

[rvbvetter]

? ? ? Mid 70's my first wife and I owned an antique store. And while at an auction looking for possible items for the store. I seen a handle, that I couldn't identify, sticking up out of a rather tall box.
So before the auction started I went up to investigate. And after a bit of struggling to get out from under other things crammed in with it. I seen it was a BFO detector. AT the time, I didn't know it was a BFO, I barely knew what a detector was. I bought the box for $5.00 and tossed every thing but the detector.
? ? I played with it for a couple months, till it stopped working. Then I seen a detector shop in town, and after a few visits, came home with a brand new Garrett.
? ?That old BFO didn't detect to well. But one thing it did very well, was to get me hooked.? ? ?HH

 

[Kentucky Kache]

While doing research on my family tree, I stumbled onto a local legend of buried gold. I've been crazy ever sense.

 

[ClonedSIM]

I have to admit, it was the White's commercials. I've always had a streak of treasure hunting in me, but until I saw the commercial with the guy walking through the perfect medow with the perfect weather and the perfect finds and talking about his proud wife and weight loss, I never pursued the hobby. The commercial was effective enough, though, as I've almost hunted exclusively with White's detectors.

 

[southern gent]

I've been hunting treasure in some way or another since early childhood. I have a friend that had been detecting since 1970. He said I should give it a try. I turned out to be good at it and stuck with it. HH! Chris

 

[SilverTee]

I've been rock hounding since I was a kid, so I've been a digger for a long time. Then a guy I work with started talking about his metal detecting. He told me were he bought his, well the rest is history. I'm ADDICTED!!

 

[jreamy4]

I thought it would be a cool way to pick up chicks !

 

[spotz]

Dec. 19th, 1964 my dad fell off of a car port roof & broke both arms. He was laid up for several months & he had been reading about detecting. He built a couple of simple hand wound coils on a cut out circle of masonite, added an angle cut broom handle & mounted a transistor radio above the coil. He set the radio inbetween stations until he had a constant hum & when the coil was passed over something metalic, such as a silver coin, it caused feed back to the radio & it squeeled. Thus, he had a basic but simple metal detector. I was impressed. He played around with it & got the bug. He had no money to spend but he traded some old clunker gun for an old mine detector. His arms recovered & at the same time he bought an antique & second hand store on a contract. My Uncle had gotten me interested in coin collecting at the same time. I love guns, antiques & coins. DUHHH!

Hmmmm! Hunting for antiques to sell... Dad also had two very close friends who loved to ride around in the desert on old beater motor cycles. He got one & built one for me. We hauled them to numerous locations around the area where we could ride & explore old homesteads. We also spent most of several summers exploring old mine & cabin sites around Baker & Sumpter, Oregon. He always had some kind of a detector along. He made tons of finds that we would all kill for now. Just thinking about hitting all of those places now with a machine like the DFX is a rush. Most of the old places are developed or posted now.

All of this started 40 years ago for me, & I grew up on tails of buried treasures, caches & unrecoverd stage coach robbery loot in nearby Stage Gulch. ( That's where I got the idea for my RV Park Name, Stage Gulch RV Park). My interest wained as I raised my family & started a couple of businesses in between 22 years of law enforcement. I got the bug again & in June of 1999, I bit the bullet & bought MY first detector, a Whites QXT PRO that is now my back up & guest machine. I graduated to the DFX not quite 3 years ago. I've made a few good finds of gold & silver rings & chains & such & a ton of clad. Probably in the $500.00 plus range. I've made some decent silver coin finds & I am heavy into research for old local sites, but pre 1900 still has eluded me. It will come to sooner or later. Sooner I hope. Speaking of hope, I hope this long story hasn't put you all to sleep.
Spotz

 

[D REX]

My brothers finding old treasure in my Grandmothers backyard, old 1800's farm land. Found many a coin as a kid, but I was too young to remember dates and such.

 

[gunner6170]

I have bought a ton of coins as i'm a huge US coin fan.
So i figured it would be more fun, and mean more personally,
if i actually found some of my coins versus buying all of them!
Heck, now i don't buy as much, too busy detecting and looking
for my first 1800's find!
Plus, it didn't help growing up on the East Coast and hearing/reading
all the pirate stories as a kid. These just add to the rush of metal detecting,
hoping to find some of that buried treasure some day!

 

[mxtman]

It began for me in the military. I was attached to an EOD unit ( Explosive Ordinance Disposal ) and we used them for locating explosives. Then one day we were playing football in the back yard of one of my team members and I threw a pass and off came my wedding ring. And with absolutely no idea where it went. We scoured the entire back yard which I must say was about half the size of an actual football field. We searched until we were running out of daylight. Then we got this idea!! Hey, if we can detect metal bombs we should be able to find a gold ring. So we went to the unit and gathered up 6 detectors and went to work. I was blown away when we found my ring in about 15 minutes. That I can say...... HOOKED me!!!

 

[JakePhelps]

Just walking through the woods and finding old bottles and metal got me thinking "i wonder what else is down there?".

 

[tallpaul]

acctually watching some guys finding old celtic coins way back when i was a kid,, i never started straight away ,, but never forgot those guys and what they where findind,, when i was about 16 i bought a cheap detector an old c-scope, i found old coins but never any celtics or old romans, i used it on and off untill, someone offered to buy it off me and i sold it,, then when i was older i think arround 20, that was it i got another c-scope, then a whites, and now a minelab, i love this hobby.

 

[DANNYGEE]

my brother and i were staying at a cabin in newhampshire with the rest of my fam. Iwas 13 he was 11 (1973)
we were digging for something near the lake there and came up with a 1802 large cent.(which i still have)
we were amazed! purely by accident we dug this. so we spent the next 3 days prospecting as my dad called it, and we used an old screen window to sift the sand at waters edge.
i said to my dad it would be cool if there was a machine that could find coins. and he said "there is!"
well we couldn't afford one then with 7 kids my parents were just gettin by but i was hooked and as soon as i saved enough from my paper route 3 years later i bought a jetco.
i was truly hooked.