Fake "finds"

[Daniel Tn]

Has anyone else noticed a huge uptick in obvious faked finds being posted?  Not here...but on other sites and in particular, social media hunting group pages?  I'm talking about silver and copper coins "in the dirt pile" pictures that have zero oxidation, patina, etc and the silver look like it's been rubbed on with metal polish paste...that kind of luster to them.  I guess they thrive on comments or something. I saw some tonight on an arrowhead group I'm on...guy had 5 modern points posted together that are the kind you get at the souvenir shops, gas stations, and such...not even made from material found here in the US...and claims he found them at a certain place near me.  If he did...somebody planted them as a joke.  I thought he was posting the picture as a joke but he said he knows their real because he knows other people have found native rocks there too.  🤔   Well heck...I guess beer cans are from the Civil War because we find them on property we also find Civil War relics too.  Stuff like that probably shouldn't irk me but for some reason it does.  

[Badger-NH]

I don't watch many detecting videos but I would like to see an example of what you are saying. That kind of thing would bother me too.

When people see the number of views that channels like Aquachigger receive, the potential to make a lot of money becomes a major motivator but more often than not, the type of person who would fake a find is not very intelligent.

[Sirius]

The metal detecting vids I watch seem to be on par with what I expect to find out on the field myself. Especially if the locations are near where I live and also hunt! (mainly local beaches) I'm not in any social media groups regarding metal detecting except this one so i'm not seeing any fake stuff. If I do see fake stuff it blatantly obvious and I avoid it all together.

[Hard Prospector]

Kinda reminds me of the occasional cheater you see entering a bass fishing tournament. Money and acclaim seem to bring out the skeemers and dirt bags

[Steve Herschbach]

In general I just feel sorry for people like that. How sad their lives must be, their craving for attention, that they feel a need to try and impress people with fake finds. The ones that do it to make money… that’s just fraud, and they are thieves. Prosecute them. The ones that are just doing it for attention though, well, I hope they can find some other way to fill that empty hole in their lives. Even the thieves - not for one second would I want to trade my life for theirs. Broken people.

[Daniel Tn]

1 hour ago, Badger-NH said:

I don't watch many detecting videos but I would like to see an example of what you are saying. That kind of thing would bother me too.

When people see the number of views that channels like Aquachigger receive, the potential to make a lot of money becomes a major motivator but more often than not, the type of person who would fake a find is not very intelligent.

I wasn't referring to videos or YouTube.  I was more referring to the detecting groups and such on Facebook that people post pictures of "finds".  This is exceedingly bad on pages like the Manticore Facebook pages, and similar machine specific groups where they are really trying to push a machine.  

[Steve Herschbach]

Sounds like groups or pages to avoid.

[GB_Amateur]

5 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Stuff like that probably shouldn't irk me but for some reason it does.

Anyone who lies, cheats, and/or steals *should* irk us all, no matter how insignificant that dishonesty seems.

Being the suspicious type, I sometimes privately question finds made here.  Fortunately I don't think I've ever concluded that a posted find was fake, but it's good not to let one's guard down as long as one doesn't get possessed by the practice.  It seems people who perform such nefarious acts eventually overdo it and reveal themselves as the charlatans they actually are.

[locator]

7 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Has anyone else noticed a huge uptick in obvious faked finds being posted?  Not here...but on other sites and in particular, social media hunting group pages?  I'm talking about silver and copper coins "in the dirt pile" pictures that have zero oxidation, patina, etc and the silver look like it's been rubbed on with metal polish paste...that kind of luster to them.  I guess they thrive on comments or something. I saw some tonight on an arrowhead group I'm on...guy had 5 modern points posted together that are the kind you get at the souvenir shops, gas stations, and such...not even made from material found here in the US...and claims he found them at a certain place near me.  If he did...somebody planted them as a joke.  I thought he was posting the picture as a joke but he said he knows their real because he knows other people have found native rocks there too.  🤔   Well heck...I guess beer cans are from the Civil War because we find them on property we also find Civil War relics too.  Stuff like that probably shouldn't irk me but for some reason it does.  

Hi Daniel. Don't pay to much attention to these. Some of them are real influencer which do that for their living. And to get the "clicks" every tool works for them. THEY don't do this for the detectorists spirit.

I saw one vid from a well known guy which does beach detecting and saw the drop-ins in the sand when he dug up totally surprized the coins. 🤪😝 So I stoped watching, desubscribed and went on. Leaving comments won't help much as these people will delete them (some forum members from here included, too). I do ignore them all the way, good for health and mind.😉😊

IMHO, Good Luck & Have Fun.😎

[jasong]

Situation normal. 

One large prospecting Youtube channel that for reasons beyond me many people find to be reputable (and I see still occasionally posted here too) both fakes finds as well as charges people for gold tours to places I am well acquainted with and know are being salted. Like 1st time detectorists using 20 year old coin machines, 6 inches off the ground, and finding 1/4 and 1/2 ouncers buried 1 inch deep in places gridded by hard core, full time gold detectorists for 40 years - that level of ridiculousness. The fact it's being done where I literally recognized the exact washes, bushes, trees, etc was just the icing on the cake. 

Yet when I tried to point this out to the very people I thought were being victimized, I was told I was the liar and demonized. Not one "thank you for letting me know I'm being ripped off".

Learned a lesson quick there. People generally want to believe every color of BS. And if you are the one ruining their dream, you are the a-hole, not the snake oil salesman. This, among other thievery, lying, and cheating were a big reason I decided to stop making videos myself, and remove myself from social media for the most part, aside from this forum, it's all toxic these days IMO, and not representing actual reality. I prefer to live in reality myself.