A Nice Thing About Uncle WIlly's Nostalgia Trip...

[dahut]

AIve commented (called compaining ) on how there have been detctors around for al long as Ive been alive. FOr some of use WAAAAY longer. THis leads one to conclude that we are too late, and all the good, easy stuff is already found.

An while this may be true at least in part, 'Im also encouraged to see that the average detector from times gone by was mostly junk, seemingly little more than a few knobs on a cheap case. The electronics of the day werent terribly sophisticated either. But most enlightening is that whenever I see someone using one, it's pretty obvious they are just stumping for the ad - and havent a clue what they are doing!

Yeah la lot of the easy stuff has been snagged, and some of the detectors must have at least worked. But then, as now, only a handful of people were truly dedicated and there seemed to be much more hype than substance with these old "beep boxes."

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah a lot of the good stuff is gone forever. Years ago I found silver almost every time out, now I'm lucky if I find one every few months. Also, everybody and their dog seems to have a detector. I had a string of playgrounds that I used to hit and it was easy to find $4.00 to $7.00 in them. Now you're lucky to find a few cents. In one small park years back I found $7.50 just under one tree. My partner was hitting the little ball field and open area and picked up over $6.00. So there was $13.50 just out of that little park in just a couple of hours. I hunted one grassy spot in front of a school auditorium and picked up $13.00, two 14 KT gold rings, a gold bracelet watch, a solid silver bracelet and some other goodies.

There were some very good machines back then and I wish Ihad a few of them now, especially my old Tesoro Bandido - a coin sucking magnet. I have some pics of that one with a big pile of dimes found in one summer and another big pile of nickels found with it. I have shown the one pic of coins found in one summer with the oldies - a pile two feet long, one foot wide, and a foot deep. I ain't found that much in many moons. I had one of the first Silver Sabres ( circa about 1985 or before ) that was one of the best coin pluckers ever made. I also found tons of coins with my old Compass detectors.

Detectors haven't really changed that much, just more features and bells and whistles. Silver of course is going to become increasingly scarce as they don't make it anymore. And with everybody buying a detector these days even clad is going to become mighty scarce and finding some virgin spot that has never been hit is mostly just a dream now. Silver out here is almost non-existent anymore. Oregon is a young state and people were living and losing mone back east several hundred years before Oregon was even discovered. It just ain't never going to be like it used to be. Back then we thought it would never end but sadly it did.

Bill

 

[dahut]

Yeah a lot of the good stuff is gone forever. Years ago I found silver almost every time out, now I'm lucky if I find one every few months. Also, everybody and their dog seems to have a detector. I had a string of playgrounds that I used to hit and it was easy to find $4.00 to $7.00 in them. Now you're lucky to find a few cents. In one small park years back I found $7.50 just under one tree. My partner was hitting the little ball field and open area and picked up over $6.00. So there was $13.50 just out of that little park in just a couple of hours. I hunted one grassy spot in front of a school auditorium and picked up $13.00, two 14 KT gold rings, a gold bracelet watch, a solid silver bracelet and some other goodies.

There were some very good machines back then and I wish Ihad a few of them now, especially my old Tesoro Bandido - a coin sucking magnet. I have some pics of that one with a big pile of dimes found in one summer and another big pile of nickels found with it. I have shown the one pic of coins found in one summer with the oldies - a pile two feet long, one foot wide, and a foot deep. I ain't found that much in many moons. I had one of the first Silver Sabres ( circa about 1985 or before ) that was one of the best coin pluckers ever made. I also found tons of coins with my old Compass detectors.

Detectors haven't really changed that much, just more features and bells and whistles. Silver of course is going to become increasingly scarce as they don't make it anymore. And with everybody buying a detector these days even clad is going to become mighty scarce and finding some virgin spot that has never been hit is mostly just a dream now. Silver out here is almost non-existent anymore. Oregon is a young state and people were living and losing mone back east several hundred years before Oregon was even discovered. It just ain't never going to be like it used to be. Back then we thought it would never end but sadly it did.

Bill

Yeah, its more about individual finds and creative ways to discover them. Even when I first got a detector, only twenty odd years ago, could find silver coins often enough. But not now, at least not in the same places.