World's Fair Pin

[George Kinsey]

I found this in 1978.

[NCtoad]

George

for those of us who are fairly new to detecting, can you tell us what it was like detecting back in the 70s?   I’m sure there was more silver coins and more virgin sites that had never been detected.  How well did the detectors from that era work?   

[Cal_Cobra]

I enjoy finding relics like that!  We've had several worlds fairs here and sometimes tokens, coins and other relics such as pins and badges are dug out here. 

 

[Tom_in_CA]

4 hours ago, NCtoad said:

George

for those of us who are fairly new to detecting, can you tell us what it was like detecting back in the 70s?   I’m sure there was more silver coins and more virgin sites that had never been detected.  How well did the detectors from that era work?   

I'm not George, but I'll take a crack at this :   It depended on who you were , and how hard-core you were.  There were a LOT of hunters back in those days that were strictly doing park turf, beach, etc...    And did not have the "presence of mind" to do exotic things like stage stops, forts, old-town demolition, etc.....    Not sure how true this is of back-east (and CW areas, etc...) .  But it's true of where I'm at in CA.   We were content to ply the parks for silver .   Didn't know any better.   Doh !

 

And the machines had no disc. up to the mid 1970s, in the era of 77b, 66TR, etc... (aside from ignoring small iron).  And the early TR discriminators (mid to late 1970s) were wimpy.  And didn't tackle minerals.   And were a bear to keep balanced.  Even when the original motion discrimination came out (1978 -ish with the Red Baron and the 6000d), they were slow to catch on.  News traveled slower in those days.    And these early motion machines were wimpy compared to today's depth.   Nonetheless, silver was "easy" for a few years in the late 1970s to early 1980s, for turf hunters.  Albeit just mercs and roosies type-stuff.

 

To be honest with you, we'd have thought 3 or 4 silver from park hunt day was good.  And , heck, I can still do that today at-will.  

 

I'm sure there were pioneers who got the better tech. earlier.  And who went to virgin sites first (virgin fairgrounds, etc....).  And I'm sure there were guys that wised up to relic-mindset earlier than others.   But for others of us, it was all about turf and tame beach stuff in the earlier years.  So there was still virgin stage stop stuff into the 1990s and 2000s (heck, even to this day if you're a researcher and ballsy-type).

[kac]

Was talking to a local guy who he and his brother hit much of the areas around here back in the 60's through late 90's. Told me one story of hitting Salisbury Beach after a big storm and they pluck out over 200 silvers.

To say they didn't hit all the good spots, old foundations etc isn't particularly accurate in my neck of the woods.. These guys got permissions to some of the private colleges, very old court houses etc.

Growing up here just about every local coin shop was a Whites dealer or Garrett. Machines were not that far out of reach for many and the areas here are rich in history.

We have the advantage of machines that are easier to use but more importantly Lidar maps and the internet that makes research much easier. We are hunting scraps here in New England unless you have permissions to properties that have never been hunted.

[Tom_in_CA]

3 minutes ago, kac said:

..... Growing up here just about every local coin shop was a Whites dealer or Garrett. Machines were not that far out of reach for many ....

Kac, yes it was a regional thing.   Some areas had the hobby catch on as early as some time in the 1960s (albeit limited by the tech. of their era).   My area was also one such spot, where I know there was a few guy plying the school yards as early as 1964.   Eg.: with the old BFOs and such.   And as early as the mid 1970s, there was already a club in my area, and 2 dealers.

 

So by the late 1970s, you were already "Johnny-come-lately" to the obvious spots.  So the people coming by the early 1980s, picking up the exact same history books as we had, were merely getting leftovers.  Doh !  

 

But we noticed that if we drove an hour in any direction, we would come into cities where the parks hadn't been hit as well.  For example:   In the very early 1980s, there was a park an hour away from my city, where the only local machines that had hit it, was wimpy old school fisher TR disc.   So the entire top 4 or 5" (clad and 1940s-50s silver) had been cleaned out pretty good.  But those of us who rolled into town with motion discriminators got the barbers to '20s stuff with ease.  Doh !  

 

So it just depended on where you were.   Some areas had pressure, while others did not.

[Ridge Runner]

We all had to start one time are another at detecting and mine was in the mid 60’s with a White’s BFO . Back then it was like fishing that the silver was everything you dug . You looked at clad quarters like trash but I don’t remember throwing any away. I had the luck of finding a half dollar a fair amount of time. Then every blue moon up pop a silver dollar.

 People get excited to find a wheat penny now days but back then the wheat’s didn’t start getting old until the 30’s are earlier. My reasoning behind that was due to a buzzard drop me on a fence post and the Sun hatched me in 1941 .

 The good thing getting permission wasn’t a hard thing to get due to the fact most people never seen a metal detector. I do remember one that I can reflect back on and went like this . I was working for the phone company then and I went over to this one horse town to hunt around this old meeting hall. I been at it a while detecting and pops this guy biting at my butt and that day I wasn’t up to any bull from anybody. If he had just told me to leave I may have done it but he back me into a corner I’d had enough. So I let him know if he keep it up me and him was going to wap ass Texas . Maybe it was best for me he backed off and we started talking like we were old friends.haha Come to find out he took care of the place and he needed me being I worked for the phone company. When they have party’s the phone get screwed up every time..

  Someone was talking about relics found back then . I remember one relic I’d found several but at that time I didn’t know was it was . I didn’t find out what it was until I went to this deal to buy a 66TR. It had a lid saying Merry Widow on it. Anyway I ask him and he said that was a condom container.

 I can truly say I found more rings and other jewelry but back when you didn’t have any way of blocking out trash. I guess the good thing I was younger and stronger back then.

 Best to all!

 Chuck 

[Tom_in_CA]

9 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

We all had to start one time are another at detecting and mine was in the mid 60’s with a White’s BFO .....

 

Chuck, great story.   Questions for you :  1)  What inspired you to buy that first machine ?  2) Where did you buy the machine ? Eg.: Catalog mail-order, or a dealer, or ... ?   3) What city and state were you hunting in, back in the mid 1960s ?  4)  How deep do you recall that it would detect a dime -sized object to ?

 

thanx !

[Ridge Runner]

Tom long before I could afford a detector that’s buying store bought. I made my first from a kit and it worked but at the same time it was a joke.

 The BFO came from a Whites dealer and he had a restaurant with a glass case with every coin you could think of that he had found.

 I got into prospecting in your neck of the woods along the 49’s trail. That was back in 61. I don’t know why but everything is back when. I guess I need to kick my butt for getting older not old.

 I had started working for the phone company in Corpus and that’s along the coast in south Texas. That’s the place where I bought that BFO detector.The kit I made I used it in another town and it too was on the coast. I ran across this guy and he had found 18 silver dollars about a foot down wrap up in a old oil cloth.

 Tom I hope this answers your question. What I look like is with a face only a mother could love and she just turned a 100 back in November.haha

 If one day you out there prospecting and you see a soda straw sticking out of the ground please don’t pull it up. I hope to be out there when I’m about to die and here’s what I got plan .

 I’m going to pull the dirt over me and have that soda straw to get air until I die . So you see why I said don’t pull it up. Just think I may not be dead yet and you unknowingly just killed me because I smothered to death.

 Now we both feel bad about that.haha  

 The Best To You Tom !

 Chuck 

[GB_Amateur]

I got just a taste of detecting starting in 1970 or 1971 with a Heathkit GD-48, about as simple of a detector as ever existed -- ~100 kHz IB ("T/R") with a single (sensitivity) knob and no switches.  Talk about turn-on-and-go!  But it worked in mild soil and I found a few Wheaties in a football field behind my uncle's house.  At the time I thought they came from deep but probably 5-6 inches.  "Hit hard" as people like to say today.  One was a 1910-plain -- quite common but still old enough even then to get my imagination going.  Reality is I spent more time reading treasure magazines in those early decades than I did detecting.  Hell, I was probably reading about you quinquagenerians (and I'm not referring to your age but how long you've been detecting 😁).

I think there are still *unsearched* parks and schools here in the USA that are old enough to hold silver coins.  Yes, I do mean unsearched.  They are rare but the fact is, even today most detectorists go after the easy to find/discern/access locations.  The park I hunted much of 2021 I'm pretty sure never saw a detector before me, at least nothing more than an inexperinced detectorist.  The finds were too common and too easy to uncover.  (Note:  my finds were certainly drops from before it became a park, which is one of the reasons it didn't get hunted by serious detectorists.  They didn't think that far outside the box.  Also, it's in the kind of neighborhood that discouraged some from even venturing there.  And I'm thankful for those.)

When driving home from my June Western USA detecting expedition I drove through a small town with a park that I suspect hasn't seen a detector, it's so small (town and park) and out-of-the-way.  I had a schedule that day (other places I wanted to detect) so didn't stop.  But it's on my radar for 2023....

Good thread.