What Inspired you to start Detecting?

[bigfootokie]

I was about 10 years old (around 1965), we were having our regular Saturday afternoon baseball game with about 8 kids at the old ball field behind the school after the morning cartoons and chores were done, when this Old Man in his 40's or 50'S walks behind the backstop swinging this weird contraption that was making noises that we had only heard while watching Sci-Fi movies on TV. Of course, we were all curious as to what he was doing since the A-Bombs were being tested out in Nevada and we had been told a few times that Radioactive Fallout was drifting over us and to stay inside. Many of those days the sky would be brown instead of blue. Thought maybe he was with the government or something.

We gathered around and quizzed him about what he was doing. When he said his machine could find coins we lost, we were skeptical, especially since the only money we ever had was from picking up pop bottles on the side of the road and trading them in at the grocery store for a penny or two which we immediately spent on a Pop, gum, or candy bar. Within a few minutes, we were amazed to see that he actually could find Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, and Quarters.

I never forgot that day and about three years later, my Mom took me to OKC where my Dad was working at a furniture store on SW 29th St. We were going to have lunch with him but had a little time to spare so Mom took me to a nearby Rock Shop that was huge. Tons of rocks plus I noticed they had a few of those strange coin finding machines on the wall behind the counter so I showed Mom and she said "that's nice, but they are too expensive". A few months later on my birthday, my folks gave me a detector they bought at that Rock Shop.

It was a "Treasure Ray" brand and cost about $40. I was thrilled and proceeded to start digging up every signal I got...finding mostly nails, foil, and steel crown caps. This machine would penetrate the ground about two inches on a coin sized target and there was no such thing as discrimination back then. One solid variable pitch tone with higher pitch for the more shallow and larger targets plus it was All Metal All The Time.

Wish I still had that machine though. It was what got me hooked for life.

 

[chuck ky]

i fished all the time. right after i got married in 1970 one of my hunting and fishing magazines had a article about metal detecting. i ordered a detector from one of the companies mentioned and now i don't have the time to fish any more.

 

[bigfootokie]

Nobody else out there with a good story?

 

[JB(MS)]

My first detecting trip hooked me on detecting for life. The hunt involved a guy named Fadious and his quest to find a pot of buried money. That was in March of 1967 and Fadious had just moved here from Tennessee and got a job where I worked. One of his relatives had found an old iron pot with a few silver coins in it that washed out of a creek bank near where they lived in Tennessee and Fadious bought a Ted Williams model Sears & Roebuck detector, made by Whites, so he could find a pot of money for himself. A few day after he started work he asked me if I knew where any old homesites were that he could hunt and if I did would I take him to the oldest one. There was a homesite in the woods not far from where I lived that according to the property owner dated to the 1820's. I told Fadious about it and he almost went ballistic. I wasn't the least bit interested in hunting treasure but I was curious about the detector. I had never seen one except in magazine ads and was curious as to how they worked and what they did so I agreed to take him to the old homesite. He wanted to go that afternoon after work but I had a prior commitment and told him we would go the next day. The rest of that day, and all the next, he talked nonstop about finding a pot of money, at least I think he did. He had, still has, a speech impediment and when he was excited it was hard to understand him. He was also prone to blow spit, so it wasn't a good idea to stand too close when he was excited.

He brought his metal detector and we left straight from work the next day. By the time we got to the homesite he was so excited and talking so fast we (Joe, another friend went with us) couldn't understand most of what he was saying. He fired up the detector, which had no discrimination and a 12 inch coil, and started swinging. Signals were few and far between and after half an hour or so and a few severely rusted pieces of iron Joe and I were about ready to call it a day, but Fadious was just getting warmed up. He found a few shotgun hulls, more rusty iron and then he hit the jackpot, a signal that he said was something big and deep. We dug down a foot, nothing yet but he was saying "This is it boys, this is it boys" over and over. Least that's what we think he was saying, it sounded more like "thishitboils, thishitboils". At two feet he was almost hysterical and then, after a couple more shovels full of dirt, Joe, who was digging, hit something solid. Fadious jumped in the hole and started scratching with his hands, then jumped out and I swear he did the Red Foxx thing like on Sanford and Son. You know, where he grabbed his chest, stumbled backward and says "this is the big one Elizabeth" or whatever her name was. Fadious grabbed his chest, and jabbering incoherently stumbled backward until he bumped into a tree. We looked and it actually was an old iron pot. Upside down but an iron pot for sure. Fadious was completely incomprehensible by then, blabbering a hundred miles an hour and blowing spit everywhere. Joe pulled the pot out of the ground, turned it over and it was full.....of dirt. Fadious wouldn't believe it, he got in the hole and dug and dug but nothing but the empty pot. He finally accepted there was no money and didn't say anything more all the way to my house.

I brought the pot home, it was the kind that was hung on a hanger in the fireplace to cook in, something like a Dutch oven. I was tickled over it. I cleaned and painted it and my wife used it for a flower pot until her young nephew knocked it off the stand on the patio about 15 years later and it broke in half. As far as I know Fadious hasn't been detecting since then, but it turned me into a detecting addict. To Fadious that empty pot was a big disappointment, but to me it was a wonder. I couldn't believe there was a magic machine that could see into the ground.....into the past. And it really is magic you know.

 

[bigfootokie]

EXCELLENT story JB(MS)!!! That's what I'm talkin about! So many stories about our detecting beginnings are out there, and reading about them is very cool and interesting. I've been a member here for 8 years and I always considered this to be the best forum on the net. I participate in 3 other detecting forums also and have seen a lot more replies on them to my "What Inspired you to start Detecting?" post than I have here...79 replies to be exact. Not all were long posts from us "Old Timers", many were just a few lines and some were one liners. I just think it's interesting and really enjoy everyone's story about what tripped their trigger and got them hooked on what is the best hobby I have ever had in my 58 years.

Thanks,
Jim (BFO)

 

[edjcox]

1973 my buddy had two detectors and showed me how to use one. We went to Fort Knox, Maine and detected the grounds. (back then no one cared) I found a gold ruby ring. He found some coins and a necklace. At the end of the day my "buddy" asked for the ring... I quickly realized I needed my own machine... Mad as a hen I parted ways... We were poor enlisted guys in the AF... The ring was probably worth 2-3 months salary... Leson learned, he got sent to Alaska and I ended up in Turkey... The detector, well I sold it as I had no shipping allowance other than my clothes...

 

[mudpuppy]

GREAT story JB! by gosh thats good enough to print in a treasure hunting mag! Ed, that story of yours is a damn shame!

As long as I can remember, I've been a treasure hunter, panner, trapper...something about making a little money off the land, with the hopes of a big Atocha kind of find.

A guy cant find anything sitting around in the house, so you have just as good a chance of finding anything just by being outside and looking for SOMETHING!

Well, got a detector 3 years ago, since then, its pretty much consumed all my spare time...dont trap no more, dont fish no more...just out swinging coil, pretty sure this sport will take me into the end of my life, NOTHING I have found equates to the thrill of the hunt like detecting has for me...sure, the finds are not guaranteed like when a guy is trapping.. trapping pays off, but the season is short, and its hard work, and who wants to keep falling through the ice year after year? I figured I walked 100 miles of sand barefoot in the month of July alone, swinging coil...thats gotta be good for a guy right?

I think certain people are born with some sort of reptilian brain that makes them NEED to hunt for something...its been a great and healthy sport for me, I dont see any slowing down and have not been in this good a shape in 20 years...even if I lost everything and was homeless, I KNOW if I had a detector, I could find enough to take care of my daily needs...makes a fellow feel pretty good...
Mud.

 

[Ed Steinhoff]

about 4.5 years ago I stumbled across this forum and a couple of others while web surfing and got intrigued by the stories and pictures of what was being found. Located a tracker IV on ebay for $75.00.
When I got it, it was Christmas morning and I was nine again! After finding all the nails in the floor of my house, bravery took me to the yard, where I proceeded to find every old wore out mowing machine sickle section, rusty nail and bolt that had ever been discarded on the farm! Now slightly discouraged but undaunted, my greenhorn logic concluded that I needed older sites to find all the treasure I was imagining lay just beneath the surface. So that Saturday my wife, my grandson ( went to an old barn that had been a stage stop and freight wagon terminal during the gold mining era.
Upon entering the barn I was totally overwhelmed by the nails, old tin, pull tabs, pop cans etc. Went outside and began searching. After an hour of about the same results I was pretty discouraged and was slowly swinging back to the p.u. when I got a solid repeatable coin signal! CLAD PENNY!! at the time it was the most beautiful coin in the world! Before I got to the truck, I found another one! That was all it took, I was totally addicted and it has only gotten worse. It wasn't until two years later and several thousand coins found, that my wife told me that Her and the grandson had planted both of those pennies ahead of me! That was the kindest and most loving thing she could have ever done for me!! That grandson has His own machine now and is my faithful hunting partner.
HH Ed in co.

 

[jarid]

I started when the tree huggers in CA banned suction dredging I got a detector to continue nugget hunting and then soon discovered coinshooting.

 

[starvin]

About three years ago I got into prospecting in Northern California and Southern Oregon. As I was panning my concentrates, a fellow was walking along the river with a detector and had found some small gold nuggets. He did better that day than I had in a week and I decided I would try detecting. I have been hooked on this hobby ever since.