Met a fellow who said he'd started detecting in 1964, if my memory serves me right. He was fresh out of high school in Southern CA, and had seen a fellow doing it on the beach. It piqued his interest, so he went out and bought one for himself. There was a shop in southern CA at the time selling Metrotech 220 detectors.
He said that it was no unusual then to see several hunters on the dry sand (probably didn't work on wet salt) plying the popular beaches at that time. And the machine of choice he'd always seen was this Metrotech. So he just followed suit and got the same brand/type.
He eventually gravitated to doing sandboxes. And he discovered that ANY sandbox he'd go to in any park or school had ample change to dig. And in '64 to '65-ish, it was all silver! But since that was "no big deal", he just spent it like you would spend clad today. He said that in any few hour stretch he cared to hunt sandboxes, he could reliably pick up $1 to $3 in change. Which he'd promptly put in his gas tank (gas probably only .19c per gallon then?), and then go buy beer to party with his college buddies
So he got to where he'd do it just for the money potential, as it paid higher than minimum wage jobs at the time.
He never had the knowledge or forethought to hold on to the silver. Nor to go into more exotic things like ghost towns, etc.....
He said that it was no unusual then to see several hunters on the dry sand (probably didn't work on wet salt) plying the popular beaches at that time. And the machine of choice he'd always seen was this Metrotech. So he just followed suit and got the same brand/type.
He eventually gravitated to doing sandboxes. And he discovered that ANY sandbox he'd go to in any park or school had ample change to dig. And in '64 to '65-ish, it was all silver! But since that was "no big deal", he just spent it like you would spend clad today. He said that in any few hour stretch he cared to hunt sandboxes, he could reliably pick up $1 to $3 in change. Which he'd promptly put in his gas tank (gas probably only .19c per gallon then?), and then go buy beer to party with his college buddies
So he got to where he'd do it just for the money potential, as it paid higher than minimum wage jobs at the time. He never had the knowledge or forethought to hold on to the silver. Nor to go into more exotic things like ghost towns, etc.....