Does This Photo Show The Future Of Detecting

[GB_Amateur]

6 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

So I tend to be optimistically glass half full when I look at detecting's future.

Your photos were supporting that, until the last one.    Maybe that was your "half empty" part to go with the many "all fulls"?

7 hours ago, phrunt said:

I don't think detecting has much of a future at all, gold almost gone, old coins nearly gone,...

I wonder if we made steps back by decade (2010, 2000, 1990,...) if this was said then, too.  Or maybe they anticipated new detectors would take up the slack.  IMO (only having been active detecting for ~7 years now), I agree that it's gotten tougher.  But I also agree with Hugh that there is still uncharted ground in the USA coin-and-relic space, where I spend my 4th dimension.

Simon, I know you've been at this endeavor for even a shorter time than I.  And yet you found that public, unhunted sports field ("cointopia"?) which has produced bushels of silver finds.  In, what, 2018?  You think that's the last one?

Natural gold does seem to be the more difficult one, in the first world anyway.

In so many areas of interest, the population of participants has aged.  (Physical games, such as card games, are another of many examples.)  And for the most part we oldtimers lament that our activities are dying out and we need to somehow recruit young blood to continue them after we're gone.  Why?  Do the next generations really care what we desire?  Don't they have their own new activities to take the place of ours?  (That wasn't purely rhetorical as I don't have the answers myself.)

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Your photos were supporting that, until the last one.    Maybe that was your "half empty" part to go with the many "all fulls"?

This year I pull a Sac dollar off a deserted beach.  I call that supporting my optimism that people still do stupid things like bring a dollar coin to the beach (why?!) and promptly lose it despite it being a "cashless" society now.  (It was a dry sand fresh drop).  Didn't think I needed to provide explanatory captions...

😎 🤑 😜

To further my case for optimism found this fake the same day 

[jasong]

8 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Are these 3 ring bullets worth anything if they are found outside of the Civil War areas, like Western States? Or is it the location/history that makes them valuable? I've found probably a hundred of them over the years, just ended up throwing them away though for the most part. 

[Gerry in Idaho]

Just need to get off the beaten path.  I realize some folks have no path to get off as the patch is their only hunt.  When hunting the same ground , then we realize really fast the majority of bigger gold has been removed and we are left with bits and then there is those specimens.

[F350Platinum]

4 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Just need to get off the beaten path.  I realize some folks have no path to get off as the patch is their only hunt.  When hunting the same ground , then we realize really fast the majority of bigger gold has been removed and we are left with bits and then there is those specimens.

Same goes for relic hunters, where a site is wiped out, nobody's going to be dropping fresh knee buckles. 😀 Luckily it takes a while to wipe out battle areas. We just need to diversify. 😁

[Chase Goldman]

2 hours ago, jasong said:

Are these 3 ring bullets worth anything if they are found outside of the Civil War areas, like Western States? Or is it the location/history that makes them valuable? I've found probably a hundred of them over the years, just ended up throwing them away though for the most part. 

They're relics of history regardless of where they are found as they tell an unwritten story of human presence.  Don't have to be tied to a historic battle or site (but it may mean more to a collector of such artifacts if they can be).   Finding these out west is more about frontier pony soldier forts and western expansion than the Civil War and they are telltale to the presence of relic finds of potentially more collectable value such as uniform buttons, belt plates, and cartridge box plates because they represent the more personal aesthetic of the actual soldier.

Frankly, I don't do detecting for money or profit, but for fun and relaxation.  To me, it's an Easter egg hunt for adults and an excuse to socialize with detector nerds and history buffs (i.e., friends) who share common passions and an unlikely opportunity to perhaps find something of significant value.  Nothing more, nothing less.  For me its the thrill of the hunt, the culmination of research, getting together for outings with like-minded friends busting chops, and briefly holding history in your hand. Most of what I find has little monetary value over clad.  I've never sold my finds.  What I don't keep for scrapbook purposes I throw out or recycle as scrap.  The more valuable or visually striking finds like gold coins, old silver, uniform accroutrements and rare projectile designs or those found at sites of high historic purpose (e,g., the English-made (ID-stamped) dropped, Enfield slug found in a gas station back lot in downtown Gettysburg) find their way into display cases.  Others are stored in plastic bins.  I primarily cherish the snapshots.  My heirs will likely simply get rid of them after I'm gone.

However, just like the joke on the show "The Detectorists" about selling "rare" ring pulls to dopes on eBay, people will buy just about anything.  Or you can recycle any metal that isn't heavily corroded (think fishing sinkers, brass casings, etc).  So if it's about money, you could certainly sell them for a couple bucks a piece on ebay by capitalizing on the historic cachet (embellishment is fair game) and recoup some cash or keep the hazardous heavy metal out of a land fill somewhere by bringing it to scrap metal reclamation center rather than just throwing them away.  Get creative.  You can create the mystique to make anything more interesting to a prospective collector.

My hobbiest mindset is completely different mindset than the full time prospector toiling away to ultimately gain a net profit and eek out a living from from their investment of time, elbow grease, tools and machinery.  That's work.  Detecting for me is doing something completely opposite of work, i.e. play.

[Glenn in CO]

4 hours ago, jasong said:

Are these 3 ring bullets worth anything if they are found outside of the Civil War areas, like Western States? Or is it the location/history that makes them valuable? I've found probably a hundred of them over the years, just ended up throwing them away though for the most part. 

I and my wife found over two hundred three ring bullets at Fort Sedgwick in Colorado. This website is selling civil war bullets at $4 to $5 a piece.

[F350Platinum]

1 hour ago, Glenn in CO said:

I and my wife found over two hundred three ring bullets at Fort Sedgwick in Colorado. This website is selling civil war bullets at $4 to $5 a piece.

Funny the ad reads that they buy their bullets from Virginia diggers because Gettysburg but Gettysburg is in PA, and it's now illegal. 🤔 Ad is a bit odd.

Hey, sell 'em your bullets! 👍

[GB_Amateur]

12 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Funny the ad reads that they buy their bullets from Virginia diggers because Gettysburg but Gettysburg is in PA, and it's now illegal.

Hey, your pal Chase said just two posts above yours that "embellishment is fair game." 

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Hey, your pal Chase said just two posts above yours that "embellishment is fair game." 

That's because people seem hung up on buying and selling this stuff.

Not my bag to sell or buy stuff of low intrinsic value I find in the ground.  

I say do what you gotta do baby, if it's all about the detector paying for itself mindset.

People will obviously buy anything.