What got you started?

[bleeohio]

I had just gotten my license in the late 70s and had moved up to the big time with a beat to death whites that I thought I'd mastered for a few years.
One day I was hunting an old church that I'd pretty much cleaned out, so I thought. These two old dudes pull up and ask me if I minded them hunting, sure knock yourself out. While I'm whipping that whites like a nine iron, had to swing em fast, I noticed their machine didn't even have a meter, phht, amateurs. Sure looks like they're digging alot though.
They had brand spanking new fisher 1260s and they took me to the woodshed with handfuls of Indians, wheats, silver. That I couldn't hear. Long story short, next day i was on my way to delphis Ohio as he was a dealer, auto parts store, place's parts I believe.
Still have that 1260, even though it doesn't work, I musta put a million miles on it. Got to know a few of the small dealers in the area. Now long gone, stupid internet anyways. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have a truck load of silver but I sold it off as I went, stupid girls anyways. So what machine got you started?

 

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[3cylbill]

compass relic magnum 6 a good machine found alot of nickles and some silver but when i ffound a 1918 s i was hooked big time ans added a whites 6000d a and never looked back . i found alot with the whites and used it until 95 about 12 years , it was a great detector in it's day....

 

[3cylbill]

that would be a 1918 s walker half

 

[RustyGold]

A dream, when I was 7, of finding coins in the dirt, all tied up in a row with a long string. As I pulled on the string the coins just kept popping up out of the ground.

 

[dirtdigginfool]

I'm not sure, whatever was a popular White's machine back around 2000...bought it new, pulled in an AMAZING $1.55 with it. And PLZZZ...do NOT ask me what I traded it for. U'd all hunt me down and tar and feather me. Ddf.

 

[bleeohio]

I gotta know DDF, it's just nice knowing I'm not the only one who's made some funky trades,..

 

[Slowtaknow]

It was my cousin eddie who showed me his and his fathers detectors, i wanted one then but never got one. Years later it was a combination of seeing other people doing it and a tv show, i forget which, that led me to try it out and buy the f2. I now know i love doing it and just upgraded to the vaquero.

 

[Megalodon]

I'd heard a story in the mid 1960's about one side of the family that hosted Frederick Douglass in MA and confirmed it with my grandfather who was born in the 1890's. The "mind yer business" side of the family had not spoken to the abolitionist side for about 100 years. I was stunned and wanted to find a physical link to this history, so I saved up my lawn mowing money and bought a cheap Jetco or Relco piece of junk, rode my bike about 4 miles out to the old property and obtained my first permission. Between the low quality of my equipment and not really knowing how to use it, I only found some nails and iron. After college and grad school, I got interested again and bought my first real machine, a Garrett Groundhog, upgrading to a Garrett Master Hunter 7 in 1985. The first coin I found with that machine was an 1838 half-dime in EF condition. I was hooked. Now retired, I plan to detect more when I'm not out on the beach fossil hunting. Today, I received a new old stock MXT bought from a member here and look forward to learning a more modern VID machine to go along with my Tesoros. Anyone have a copy of "The MXT Edge" book they no longer use that they'd like to sell me?

 

[Peyton Manning]

my first machine was an MXT PRO

 

[GA_Boy]

Early '70's--------------------Fisher VLF 550 series--------------not sure of exact number but later I bought a 555D.
Later a 1265X and I still use it some-------------got it for CW relic hunting.
Marvin

 

[srcdco]

My first machine was a Christmas gift, 1976. It was a Heathkit. Yes, my dad and I had to build it. I used that until 1980, when I saved up my money and got a White's 5000. I was in 10th grade in 1980.

Scott

 

[Down_n_Dirty65]

When I was 17 and getting ready to graduate, I ordered my class ring, paid the $250 or so for it and waited along with my friends for em to come in. Finally got it and yeah it was a little loose as the person selling em suggested getting a size bigger. Well a few weeks after I got it my mom had a Fourth of July party in the backyard with all the family. One of the things to do was the horseshoe pit... yup you guessed it, I watched that beautiful gold chunk fly off my finger... people helped me hunt around but no luck.
Jump ahead about 5 years and I’m at a yard sale where someone was selling a radio shack MD, my first thought was hmm I wonder if it’ll find that class ring?... nope lol but the seed was sown.
No idea what happened to that machine but now in my 50s I’m told I need more exercise and the first thing I thought of was the fun I had in my grandparents backyard, basically the woods.
Picked up a tracker 4 really cheap in January and waited for the New England weather to clear up enough to use it. Gotta say I’m finding lots of small pieces nothing really valuable, but love being outdoors again!...

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I had just gotten my license in the late 70s and had moved up to the big time with a beat to death whites that I thought I'd mastered for a few years.
One day I was hunting an old church that I'd pretty much cleaned out, so I thought. These two old dudes pull up and ask me if I minded them hunting, sure knock yourself out. While I'm whipping that whites like a nine iron, had to swing em fast, I noticed their machine didn't even have a meter, phht, amateurs. Sure looks like they're digging alot though.
They had brand spanking new fisher 1260s and they took me to the woodshed with handfuls of Indians, wheats, silver. That I couldn't hear. Long story short, next day i was on my way to delphis Ohio as he was a dealer, auto parts store, place's parts I believe.
Still have that 1260, even though it doesn't work, I musta put a million miles on it. Got to know a few of the small dealers in the area. Now long gone, stupid internet anyways. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have a truck load of silver but I sold it off as I went, stupid girls anyways. So what machine got you started?

Right along there with you! I still have my original 1260X, it's kinda floppy now, but those electronics - it's a dirt digging machine. Back then I found several silver dimes at 10" with it.

Did a "group competition" and those Whites 6000's killed it all - had to swing them hard and fast - I think as I recall it helped in discriminating out trash?

I bought one of them and it nearly yanked my arm out of my shoulder socket!

There was a spot in a park in Michigan filled with coal clinkers where my Garrett ADSIII wouldn't go. I read an article in one of the treasure mags at the time about the new Fisher 1260X, so I jumped on one. My first outing following receipt I went to that same area and the first target I popped out was a Walking Liberty half. Used it a couple years ago again and it pulled coins out of serious nail infested areas.

Great machines. I've read about Fisher taking in those old machines and refurbishing them. I need to check in to that myself. I've gotten so lazy in retirement.....

I also have too many different machines currently - all of those posted on my profile, 6 different.

 

[Ammoman]

As a child living on Guam, i would find WW-2 Fox holes and scratch around in them always finding bullets, canteens, knives and even bones. For some reason, a metal detector was a logical choice in my relic hunting adventures. My first detector was a radio shack version of a detector sold at the Anderson AFB Base Exchange. My first real detector was the Garrett ADS purchased at Clevangers metal detectors in KC Missouri back in the late 70s

 

[Herbie1955]

My first machine was a used Heathkit that I got for my 14th birthday back in 1969. I had a lot of fun with that thing digging everything. Not sure what happened to it after I left for the service. Fast forward to last Christmas I asked my wife what she wanted and she replied a metal detector! it seems she had been watching the Hoover boys and other videos and wanted to try detecting. So I got her a Fisher f22. Once I got my hands on it that's all it took to bring the excitement and addiction back since then I picked up an At Pro for myself and then convinced the wife that the Equniox 600 I bought was an upgrade for her.

 

[mikebourgeois]

Watched the show The Detectorists and thought it a marvelous show. Wanted to feel what it would be like to dig and find things long buried and just get out in the sun and light rain and enjoy myself. Bought a White's Treasure Master and after just about two years upgraded to my Makro Kruzer. Out just this morning at the crack of dawn aerating the field out back of our local elementary for spare change.

 

[GB1]

i first started when i was 9 with a bounty hunter jr. and my first great find (to me) was a old horse shoe and i've been hooked since

 

[Eleven Cents]

I had a toy detector as a kid and had a lot of fun with it. Fast forward thirty years. My mom found a merc while transplanting some flowers in her garden. She bought a detector and started hunting her yard. That got my brother into it. Then I found a used BH Prospector for $25 and got hooked myself.

The three of us has a competition to see who could dig the first silver coin. That ended spectacularly when my brother dug a walking liberty half. Then my mom came to visit and found a silver Rosie in MY favorite park! Two years on, I've found a few pieces of silver jewelry and even a gold ring, but still not a single silver coin.

 

[Oddjob]

Got started because many in my family did it. The ranch we lived on was part of the old Moonlight cattle drive trail through Texas heading toward Col. Grand father got me one like he had and showed me how to use it. First week I had found an old silver ring, lots of traps, 2 levers from lever action weapons, lot of hammer heads.

I was hooked; within 2 years I had found around 200 traps, and out of all of them only about 60 of them I could not make new and get to work again. Spare parts. But got alot of them to work. in winter there was not a safe critter that could climb a tree that liked peanut butter and bird seed. Founds more rings, not many with first machine, plenty of coins and other stuff.

But it was the traps that sold me on the machine, growing up on a cattle ranch folks said they would never buy me any traps and would not let me buy my own. All that free food and pelts, as a kid growing up on a ranch only thing as good as that is is guns, ammo and fishing gear.

 

[MoonTzu]

I'd always wanted a metal detector, ever since I was a kid, but had to content myself with surface scavenging. But over the last several years, the TV shows Time Team and Detectorists reignited my interest in what lies beneath the surface. I started lurking in these forums and scouring Craigslist for a good deal. Finally found a Bounty Hunter Elite 2200 that fit my meager budget, and been swinging ever since, mostly in public parks in the morning, before the grounds staff shows up. I've been detecting less than two months, and have learned a lot and hope to learn more. I've also acquired a pinpointer, which led me to coin popping, and now I don't dig in my local parks - if I can't pop it I leave it. Still need to go beach detecting though, where I can dig to my heart's content!