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Kid’s These Days!


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Editors Note: Split from Vanquish Thread

On 6/5/2019 at 7:39 AM, Reg Wilson said:

Just like Harley Davidson, Minelab are finding it hard to appeal to a younger market, and their latest offering is still targeting the older consumer judging by the video add. Not all that smart considering that the old farts are falling off the perch or losing interest. How to appeal to youth will be a problem as the youngsters of today are not really into such pastimes.

Very true Reg, very few 'young'uns' are having a go....but a certain TV show is helping to a small degree I suspect. But from what Ive seen, the current 'instant gratification' generation doesnt have the patience or fortitude to spend time in the bush for more than half an hour...

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4 hours ago, phrunt said:

That's the opposite to me, my Dad never took me camping or hiking, and had no interest in the outdoors and now I'm wanting to get involved in that stuff ? As I'm finding out now being a relatively new Dad, kids always want to do the opposite of what you want them to do :biggrin:

Same here. Dad did not camp, like any sports, fish, hike, swim, sled, ride a bike, show any interest in collecting coins, stamps, walk in the woods, etc... Maybe THAT is what made me like to be active LOL

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I don't think these gold hunting shows would have much of a youth following, as they mostly involve big money investments to chase a commodity that is becoming increasingly elusive.

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, younger people are interested, they just don't hang out on Facebook or forums much, especially today. Forums especially seem to be retaining mostly older crowds. And Reg is right, most of the TV is consumed by 40 and over crowds these days. Youtube and even more so now, Instagram are where the younger crowd is. Even places like Reddit are getting younger by the month.

Point of reference - when I bought my first gold detector in 2006 I think I was the youngest fairly consistent poster on the forums. 13 years later, I still feel as if that might be true and I'm 40 now. I've never in my life met a serious gold detectorist younger than me in the field in all that time. I never even met anyone within a decade of me until maybe 2014/5 or so. I've met Dave, Chris, Boulderdash and Lunk who I think are all in my general age range, but that's about it, in my entire career, and I lived full time for over 5 years in the field living (meagerly) off gold prospecting.

Conversely, I have 35,000 subs on a Youtube channel (I have a prospecting related channel), so there is definitely interest from younger people. That is about the global subscriber base of ICMJ for comparison. Looking at demographics the majority are in the 25 to 45 range, though that number is slowly creeping up as I get older. I get young people telling me all the time they dream of doing something like this but can't afford it.

In 1995 I bought my first coin detector at garage sale and my friends refused to be seen in public with me so I tossed it after a year of messing around. In 2003 or whatever year the Ace 250 came out I bought one and my college girlfriend was horrified anytime I'd use it around her in public. Last week I was getting my hair cut by a girl in her early 20's who was proud to tell me she owned and used a Ace 250. A few days ago in the park I saw some kids in their 20's drinking some brown bagged beers and taking turns on some no name detector. I had a kid come up to me at a grocery store in Arizona and say he liked my vids and really wished he could afford a gold detector but that he got a Bounty Hunter for coins. Things have changed in the coin/relic world, it's not nearly as uncool as it used to be.

Coins/relics are everywhere. There isn't a detectable nugget within 1,000 miles of a lot of the US/Canada population though. Even if there were, the serious guys on Youtube are all using at least 4500's if not GPZ's now. People see that, want to use the same thing, feel hopelessly behind if they can't, and then see they are in for a $2500 ride or whatever a 4500 costs now and give up. A retiree can just buy a GPZ on a whim. That's why there is such an age discrepancy. Even at 40 I've had to pay for my 4500 and my 2 GPZ's via business loans, otherwise I'd still be detecting for coins. That arbitrary pricing in the detector world is offensively overinflated IMO, it's almost single handedly make me swear off any kind of collaboration with detector companies. And that's a big reason why few to no younger people join electronic prospecting while the coin/relic world is experiencing a boom probably not seen for decades.

This Vanquish seems like it might be trying to address this general issue. But if it's what it sounds like, it may succeed in the coin/relic world, but it won't find anything but mediocre success in the gold world, for reasons I went over in the Garrett thread. No serious prospectors are going to be using this all day in most their videos. And Minelab doesn't seem to care about connecting with the prospecting related content creators anyways.

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When younger people see and hear about the hobby , those that can get into it . Those that cant wait till they can . If ? 

I think that why there are so many older people in the hobby , we're all old youngsters .

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I agree i have yet to find someone who is as interested in gold prospecting and treasure hunting who is younger then me.  Im 29 and have been prospecting now since i was 24.  Anyone i have met who prospects or detects regularly has generally been at least 10 years older then me.  

I grew up camping, building forts in the woods, playing paint ball, riding dirt bike and most other out door activities.  My parents both taught me lots in that regard, and while my father was never into prospecting or detecting, his father was a very active detectorist and use to detect with him on the beach and after the local county fair.  My uncle was geologist and collected minerals and fossils, and is part of the reason i went into geology, and ive always had a love for rocks.  So once i found out there was gold in VA, both prospecting and detecting came easy as a somewhat new passion.  

As for getting the my generation and the younger generations into prospecting and detecting, im not sure what the best way is, as i seem to be an anomaly, and more old school then most people in my generation.  

Some say these types of things skip a generation which i can see as my grandfather detected but my dad doesnt have an interest in it.

But many of these types of hobbies are hurting.  My father is private pilot as a hobby and builds his own airplanes and flies constantly and aviation also has a severe lack of younger people.   Hunting is also experiencing this problem, so its not just a problem in our hobby but many outdoor hobbies.  

Maybe something a detecting company could do to get younger people interested is make Virtual reality treasure hunting/ detecting game.  lol   

 

Steve - 

thought you might enjoy some J-3 cub pictures, since i think i remember you saying you have your pilots license.  First two are of my dads 1941 J-3 cub on tundra tires that he rebuilt many years ago, and the third is of a pseudo carbon super cub, which is also now on tundra tires.  He eventually plans to fly the super cub all the way to Alaska.  

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For what it’s worth department years back I was covering control surfaces on the C 47 in the military. One time a guy came with two control surfaces he wanted redone and he said they came off a P 51 Mustang but never seen the plane.

When I had a upholstery business I redone the inside of a old cub this guy had . He would fly along the coast at Corpus Tx. and here people be swinging with a shark swinging just a short distance away. He told me it’s some big sharks out there and people didn’t know the danger they were in.

Chuck

PS I’ve got a steel ball in my left shoulder because I crashed my gyro copter . I came to the conclusion it’s not the fall that kills you but that sudden stop.

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Beautiful planes! Flying a Super Cub will always be a highlight in my life. I wanted a J3 but it seemed they turned into collector items the moment it crossed my mind! :smile:

Kids these days are great. Sounds like nostalgia to me. Metal detecting always was an oddball thing for oddball people. My wife when we got married did not want to be seen near me when I was detecting..... until she saw I could actually really find gold with it. From 1972 to about 1990 I regularly was approached by people who had no idea what a metal detector was. I could go years between bumping into somebody else with a detector.

Now people detecting are seen all the time. I just got sent a picture of some kids detecting a beach in Florida out front of my friends place.

So I guess I am more with Jason on this (great post by the way) and agree the big hurdle is gold prospecting. Coins and jewelry renew to a degree and people can always go to a public place and make finds in short order. That is very important to either getting the bug or not. Nuggets do not replenish, and the basic fact is easily accessible decent ground is getting near impossible for novices to find. Nugget detecting requires top notch skills, not just in running a detector, but in research skills, so the bar is much higher in more than one way. It is extremely hard for a novice to get that first gold... most try a couple times, find nothing, and give it up. Making early finds is key to getting hooked for most people.

I don’t think detector price is so much a bar if you just want to find gold. I can find gold just fine with a VLF, thank you very much, but it is true if you want to get more serious about finding substantial amounts of gold (make money) the bar is much higher as far as detector costs. That’s not detecting though, that’s professional prospecting, and expecting professional gear at hobby prices is simply unrealistic.

Long story short I am sure there will always be a market for people who detect for fun, and it does not take much for a youngster to get excited. It’s the people who expect to make money or find lots of silver coins and top end relics and such that will fade away as detecting “is not worth it” any more to them. Droves of older prospectors are gone now because they can’t get that ounce a day any longer. I’ll swing a detector until I can’t, because finding stuff is secondary to my simply enjoying what I am doing.

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Guest AussieDigs

I have no idea what the attraction is!

I take a beer out with me to consume as the sun sets to try and add some spark to end my day!

 

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I enjoy detecting because it takes me places I otherwise would not go...its the silence and solitude, the only noise is the rustling of grasses by sudden burst of quail  or other animals when you suddenly come up on them. I just think theirs way to much noise, be it people, politics plastered on television, and other stresses of life. Metal detecting/nugget hunting takes you away form it all. IMHO I think new blood (young folk) are awakening to the benefits of the outdoors, some choose other activities to do..but we all seek the same thing. Peace and perhaps some gold. I don't think the spirit of adventure has died with new generations..its growing.

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