How Old Were You When You Started Metal Detecting?

[CalReg]

1974, got a Bounty Hunter detector for Christmas. Used it for a couple of years then took a 45 year hiatus! Just got back into the hobby last year.

[Tom_in_CA]

I was 14-ish, in about 1975- ish.   Had been following around a fellow school chum (7th grade ?  8th grade ?), who had a Compass 94b or 77b auto.  He ran the detector while I dug the holes for him.   We'd find clad, and an occasional wheatie or buffalo nickel.  I was hooked on the concept !   I rushed out and found my own machine to buy.  With all the money I had saved from my previous summer job picking apples ($100, which was a lot of $ to a kid back in those days), I bought a used Whites 66TR.    That's a circa early 1970s all-metal TR machine (similar to the 77b, but not quite as good).

 

All I did, for several years, was just elementary school yards, and the yards of old homes in our town.  Never had enough brains to use headphones, etc.... The depth for coin-sized targets was 3" or 4" tops.    Maybe 5" on a quarter if I really pushed it.  It had no discrimination (other than innately passing small iron).  So I dug a lot of foil & tabs.   I was limited on where I could take it on my bicycle around town.   Never had the concept or knowledge to do anything more exotic that turf.  So it was merc. & silver roosies, and teens/20s wheaties at the absolute oldest.  I remember finding a high percentage of silver washington quarters in those days.  But go figure:  In the mid to late 1970s, silver had only been out of circulation for 12 or 13 yrs.   And the 66TR was better at bigger objects (quarters), than small objects (dimes).  

 

Then in 1980 or so, while in High school, I got a Garrett Groundhog.   I don't know why I didn't have enough brains to get a 6000D.  Since those were FAR AND AWAY better, in that era.  Doh !  But news didn't travel as fast in those days (not like now, with immediate access to pro/con discussions of machines).  So the VLF/TR era was "slow to die" in the late 1970s to early 1980s.

 

 

[Tometusns]

Started around 83 bought a bounty hunter outlaw at a catalog return store. Used the tr mode until I figured out how the vlf worked. Then I started finding coins. First silver a 1913 barber dime. Upgraded to a whites 6000 di pro, Eagle ll sl, Spectrum xlt.  

 I also took time off but have been back for about ten years now and have tried twelve different detectors before settling on the  Equinox and Deus. Since I retired in 2017 I hunt quite often.😁 

[wltdwiz]

i was about 22 & started wth a jetco bfo

[palzynski]

It was in 1998 , I was 36 years old. Me and my cousin we joined a friend who was detecting in a wood close to my house.  My cousin was digging and I was guiding them in the wood. At this moment I remember having thought " hey this stupid hobby is not for me ..." .   However a few weeks later I decided to give a try and we went to Paris to buy a machine. It was a Tesoro Silver Sabre MM for me and a Tesoro Amigo for my cousin .

Still in the hobby 23 years later ... 🙂

[Rick N. MI]

Treasure hunting is addicting.

[Tiftaaft]

I was always intrigued by metal detecting when I was younger, but always assumed it was too expensive to buy a machine (I was a kid) and never pursued it.  Fast forward 40ish years, and my 9 year old son only wanted one thing for his birthday... a metal detector.  So, knowing his attention span would most likely move past this quickly, I opted for an entry level Bounty Hunter.  As expected, my son was almost immediately on to something else, but in showing him how to use it, I found coins in my yard and others in the park near our house...  and I was HOOKED big time.  That was 5 years ago... I'll be 52 in March.   I am just sorry I missed out on all those years I could have been out detecting... especially when I had more free time and less life responsibilities. (It was my golf game that took care of that excess free time) 🙂

I should mention, my son has reminded me on many occasions that half of what I find is his, because he got me into it.  Haha:)

HH everyone. ~Tim

[Sheppo]

I was about 13 or 14 and was handed a detector to ‘have a go’ and have held an interest since. Last year, at 31 I picked the hobby up full time.

[Tom_in_CA]

Since "nostalgia" is the theme of this thread, here's another.  It's not mine, but it's someone I know :

 

Back in the early 1970s, there was a lady archaeologist here in California.  And she wanted to get her 12 or 13-ish yr. old son interested in history, digging things, etc....  So for some reason, she gave her son a metal detector for Christmas.  So he could play "Junior archaeologist", or whatever.  Probably just some Heathkit or BFO of of that era.   However, it was good enough to find coin-size objects.   So the kid would follow his mom out on to some of her projects (she was digging some western contact period sites, at the time, with the local university or whatever).  

 

And I guess, back in those days, there was not the animosity between archies and md'rs.  The little tyke was ignored , and looked at as harmless.  After all, that's his mom that's duly-authorized, and ... no one paid the little tyke any mind.   

 

BUT HE FOUND some wickedly old stuff when snooping around the archie digs and scrapes.  Since, of course, they were working in sensitive monument type sites.   And naturally, when the kid moved off to normal turf, school yards, park, beach, then naturally, it was only clad, foil, etc....

 

So he wised up at a very young age, and quickly became bored of anything that wasn't seateds, reales, etc....  TALK ABOUT SPOILED AT AN EARLY AGE !   By high school age, he partnered up with another local high school kid, and the two of them went on to do some hair-raising Indiana Jones type antics stuff all around CA and NV. 

[F350Platinum]

Heh, 60. Now I'm 61. 😎 I messed with Bounty Hunters and such when I was younger, but it never took root like it has now. Too old to play in rock bands anymore, and I think I've photographed enough for a lifetime.