Different Perspective – 20 Gold Rings of Yesteryear Equal to One Today!

[LawrencetheMDer]

If you have been detecting for a while, say since the 1970s, or if you’ve read a lot about old time metal detecting, you know of or have heard stories about MDers going out and finding 10, 20 even 30 gold rings in a single outing. I recall one post of a frame with 56 (?) gold rings found by an MDer in a single day. Truly depressing when compared to the finds today where we celebrate finding, say, three gold rings in a day. Heck, I’m absolutely thrilled to find a gold ring once a week or month.

For nothing else then perhaps mental health reasons, another perspective is in order. For example, if you found, say, 20 gold rings in the early 1970s they would have be worth a total of $32.00/oz for gold content. A reasonable estimate would be that the 20 gold rings (14k, 6g each) would be worth about $74.00. But wait, that is in 1970s (say 1972) dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that $74.00 in 1972 would be worth about $574.00 today (assuming the gold rings were scraped).

If you find a 14k 6g gold ring today, gold scrap value (gold spot = $5,000) would be about $560.00! So in this example, one 14k 6g gold ring found today is as valuable as almost 20 gold rings found 55 yrs ago! Boy, that sure makes Me feel better.

Of course, there is always a caveat: If the MDer had kept his/her 20 gold rings of yesteryear and scraped them today, they’d be worth a cool $10,000+. Let’s not go there…

Happy Hunting

 

[ronaldj2]

Because I dont get to beaches or parks that much ... Two or three gold rings in one year would be my norm.... I love old homesteads , cellar holes out in the wilderness / woods or forests. Carriage roads.. Mostly colonial or victorian aged stuff. My wife and I get out to the ocean beaches two or three times a year, mostly off season. We will be headed out in March , Anniversary / Birthday celebration. Cape Cod. I might cash in some of my gold to buy a small pickup truck.. Its crazy how high the prices are , won der when they will crash. Hmmm. RJL

 

[Nauti]

Yes,certainly slim pickings these days,even coins are getting harder to come by.

 

[Sand Sifter]

If you have been detecting for a while, say since the 1970s, or if you’ve read a lot about old time metal detecting, you know of or have heard stories about MDers going out and finding 10, 20 even 30 gold rings in a single outing. I recall one post of a frame with 56 (?) gold rings found by an MDer in a single day. Truly depressing when compared to the finds today where we celebrate finding, say, three gold rings in a day. Heck, I’m absolutely thrilled to find a gold ring once a week or month.

For nothing else then perhaps mental health reasons, another perspective is in order. For example, if you found, say, 20 gold rings in the early 1970s they would have be worth a total of $32.00/oz for gold content. A reasonable estimate would be that the 20 gold rings (14k, 6g each) would be worth about $74.00. But wait, that is in 1970s (say 1972) dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that $74.00 in 1972 would be worth about $574.00 today (assuming the gold rings were scraped).

If you find a 14k 6g gold ring today, gold scrap value (gold spot = $5,000) would be about $560.00! So in this example, one 14k 6g gold ring found today is as valuable as almost 20 gold rings found 55 yrs ago! Boy, that sure makes Me feel better.

Of course, there is always a caveat: If the MDer had kept his/her 20 gold rings of yesteryear and scraped them today, they’d be worth a cool $10,000+. Let’s not go there…

Happy Hunting

Ahh yes, those were definitely the good ole' days! And there's another BIG difference to consider as well, Technology. I started detecting as a kid back in the 68/69 timeframe. My mom bought me a Heathkit BFO detector that we had to build, not just assemble, but actually build as in soldering components to the pcb, soldering coil wires, etc. Around 71', we upgraded to an all-metal White's Coinmaster IV, which was TR technology and before detectors with discrimination came onto the market, so a jump up from a BFO. But back then with the TR Coinmaster IV, if I found a target down 5" or 6", that was considered DEEP, lol. I don't remember exactly when VLF technology came out but I ran that Coinmaster IV for years, and I'll never forget taking it to the beach one time. I dug an old looking, dark coin that looked to my young eyes to be a doubloon, so I was jumping up and down screaming "I got a doubloon". But alas, turned out it was just a crusty quarter, but for those few seconds, I thought I really hit the jackpot with some real Spanish treasure, lol.

Back in those days, the beaches, land, and just about any place you'd want to search was pretty much virgin territory, and the number of detectorists was just a tiny fraction compared to the numbers of hunters today. We of course didn't have the internet or YouTube, so to learn about detecting, you first had to know that the hobby existed, then you'd buy some treasure magazines to research the hobby and then join a treasure hunting club to see what other hunters were using and to learn from their experience. Metal Detecting back then was much more of a word-of-mouth type hobby; you had to be aware of the hobby, then seek out information or people involved in the hobby to learn more. It wasn't anywhere near as widely known as it is today. For instance, back then, people would come up and ask us what we were doing, where today, people come up and ask us if we found anything. Most people today know what we're doing, but back then, not so much.

It was an interesting paradigm. Not a lot of people were in the hobby compared to today. Most sites were pretty virgin and wide open for hunting, not a lot of hunters cleaning areas out, so we had virgin sites probably holding tons of goodies. BUT the technology of the detectors we were using wasn't even in the same universe as the technology of today's detectors. So, if you were finding gold rings on a beach back then using a BFO or TR detector, or even early VLF, just think what you would have found back then if you were swinging a modern SMF, or even previous BBS technology, ala Sovereigns and Excals. I don't remember if we had PI's back then? I was just a kid and an all-metal TR Coinmaster IV was all I knew at the time, lol. I know at some point, Whites had a PI 1000, then 2000, but don't remember when they came out, maybe the 80's? So, we had all these great areas to hunt, loaded with goodies, really no competition to speak of, but detection depth was much more limited compared to today, due to the technology we had available at the time.

 

[sube]

I started in 69 bought a $19.99 BFO which was a fortune lot's of papers delivered to own it . It was in the back page of a comic book had one button on and off was a tuning button also . You turn it on had to keep your finger on it was your auto tune constant adjustment all day depth was pushing 2 1/2 inches but there were coins everywhere .
No pull-tabs lot's of bottle caps those caps are almost rotten and gone now replaced by pull-tabs .sube

 

[Sand Sifter]

I started in 69 bought a $19.99 BFO which was a fortune lot's of papers delivered to own it . It was in the back page of a comic book had one button on and off was a tuning button also . You turn it on had to keep your finger on it was your auto tune constant adjustment all day depth was pushing 2 1/2 inches but there were coins everywhere .
No pull-tabs lot's of bottle caps those caps are almost rotten and gone now replaced by pull-tabs .sube

Man sube, I can definitely relate. I loved looking at the ads when I was a kid, in comic books and also the classifieds in the tabloids my mom would get at the store. Every week I'd wait patiently for her to finish reading that tabloid paper then she'd hand it to me and up to my room I'd go, searching for detector ads at the back of the paper, lol. Those ads were magic! And the detectors were cheap off brands, but I didn't know that at the time. I seem to recall one was a "Jetco" or something like that. Seemed most of those detectors had futuristic model names. But I used to drool over those ads, with dreams of heading west and finding treasure in old ghost towns. Then, I called Garrett & Whites and requested their catalogs.

For the younger guys here, that's what we had to do back in the day, either call or write a letter requesting a catalog, no website to visit to request or download a catalog, we either had to use Ma Bell or snail mail. I waited patiently for days, checking the mail every day until the catalogs came, waiting was painful, lol. Then I'd spend hours drooling over all the cool detectors in the catalogs. And after a couple years swinging the uncomfortable Heathkit BFO, we upgraded to a Coinmaster IV TR. Man, that big meter was so friggin' cool, I thought I was swinging the pinnacle of detector technology, lol.

Here's some pics of the Heathkit and Coinmaster IV. These aren't my detectors; I found these pics online. I have no idea whatever happened to the Heathkit, but I still have the Coinmaster IV around here somewhere, I gotta find it, load it with batteries and see if it still works after 50+ years. Notice on the Heathkit, the shaft is mounted at the center of the coil, and it swivels. But for a young kid, it was pretty uncomfortable to swing holding it by that metal handle, not very ergonomic. The Coinmaster IV was very comfortable to hold with the handle in the center of the control box, much more ergonomic. BUT on the Coinmaster IV, the shaft is connected to the coil via a small, fixed angle ramp that's molded to the edge of the coil, so the coil angle was fixed so not able to be adjusted. Because of the fixed angle, I had to maintain the control box in a certain position in order to keep the coil positioned parallel to the ground.

 

[sube]

I can relate too . Me and my buddy were at my house which was across from a city park we were watching this guy with a metal detector a whites 63t I think it was enormous .
We didn't know what it was so we went across the street and talk to him and found out he was finding MONEY wow we would throw penny's on the ground when he was not looking and bigolly he would find them lol.
So after watching him for several hours seeing him find silver quarters and dimes we went back to my house with dreams of getting rich lol .

Found it
in a comic book save money for 2 months and order lol we had dollar signs dancing in are minds waiting for the money machine to come 2 weeks later there they were .
56 years later here I am lol I got to say youngsters of the today did not earn the BADGE OF HONER running a complex machine I started with . sube

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

Love to hear about "The Good Olde Times" metal detecting. I started in the early 70s when I sold a $20.00 gold piece for $50.00 (that's right Fifty dollars!) to buy my first detector, all I remember is that it was a Whites. Never did find much with it and school and work got in the way for the next 25 years. In the 90s gave the detector to a nephew and bought an Echo II, that I still have as a back-up to my back-up...to my back-up. But it was nearly impossible to learn anything about MDing back then and being dirt poor had no mentors (or even a father) to learn from. The Internet has really changed everything.