Why And How did you get started in Metal Detecting ?

[Warrant]

Dad was the luckiest man I ever knew. As a boy he would take me along on trips fishing and we'd wind up on the deserts instead looking for piles left by long defunct farms and ranches. He'd pull up coins (really old ones) gold coins, silver and indian heads and buffaloes at evey site. He found old bottles, opium pipes, militaria and log cabin tins. Jewelry would appear for him at the drop of a hat, like majic. He never had a Metal Detector and I learned a lot from him through watching how he searched out good sites.
Years went by and I joined the Navy then served 25 years and retired a Chief Warrant Officer. I needed another hobby, since sailing has gone out of the picture. I knew he'd have loved this too and I do it for me and for him both. It's like I have him with me again and as a military strategist I make my game plan and it's paying off.
I know my detector isn't the top of the line but it's kicking tail and taking names right now! It's a terrific hobby and in the heart of gold country I exepct this to be a really profitable and healthy hobby.

[PABill]

I started with the hobby when I was in my young teens. I was riding by bike one afternoon in the small town where I lived when I came across a man Detecting in a Church yard that was going to be torn up for an addition to be placed on the building. I stopped and asked him what he was doing and was amazed at the amount of coins that he was finding. This church was very old and there was always local fairs and events held in this yard. Many of the coins were old silver. He was using a White's 6000 series detector and told me where he bought it.
I immediately looked up the coin dealer that sold it to him and soon after spent my hard earned allowance and bought my first White's detector. It was a 6000 di Pro that I used for many years with great success and now own an XLT. I am also having great results with it.
This has always been a great hobby that I have spent time on and off with it over the years. I am now trying to spend more time again with it and intend to stay more steady. I have a number of years before I retire but if my health is still good when I do, I intend on spending much more time on it. Having to work just gets in the way of everything!!!!
Also being involved with the hobby has brought me to this site where there is many great people with alot of knowledge. I am pleased to be a member here with all of you and hope to be talking to you for many years to come. Bill

[TwoDogsBob]

About four years ago my wife and I decided enough was enough, retired and moved to the area where we had always vacationed, fished, hunted, and hoped one day we would end up. It's very rural with farms, ranches, and lots of forest to roam.
Once here, and having some extra time on my hands, I got hooked into learning the local history, hanging at the local museum, and getting to know some of the people who had families that originally came into this area in covered wagons. I found that if you showed an interest they were wells of information. It was on one of these occations, when I was being shown around the family ranch by the current owner and we were looking at the original homestead that I made the comment "Ya know, this would be a good place to have a metal detector."
Isn't it wonderful when the moment of enlightenment hit..
I did some research and a couple weeks later an MXT showed up on my doorstep. Luckily my wife has pretty much the same interests as I so we were soon out together hunting old deer camps, cabins, campsites, what ever and where ever the truck and the day would take us. She now has her own MXT.
Can't say we have found anything of monitary value other than the beer change picked up at the local ball field but we have had some wonderful times digging up rust. Pieces of people's past. I really enjoy when we have company over, the conversation turns to detecting, and she digs out some of our treasures and shares the stories of the day we found them. Even looking at a cardboard box full of square nails, rusty toys, broken picture frames their comments are "Wow, can we go out with you sometime?"
They get touched by the magic. Nothing better than seeing some of our high tech city friends on their hands and knees digging through a pile of dirt and with a grin from ear to ear.
That's it, how we got here. For us it's not just the finding, it's the sharing that goes with it, the stories and the memories. What a wonderful hobby.. TwoDogs and Dusty..

[Dull Knife]

Originally Posted by PAPPY

Well, Ole' Pappy is getting ready ( I HOPE) to create another good monster.

I would be interested in how and why all members of our TQ Family got started in Metal Detecting.

Post your answers to WHY AND HOW

EVERYONE HAD TO HAVE A REASON AND STARTING POINT

as a printer at the Albuquerque, NM Journal/Tribune in the late 1960s. One day a fellow from the night shift came in to show me some Confederate grape shot that he had found at Glorieta Pass.
Now, how he knew that they were Confederate or not, I haven't a clue, as I did not have time to really examine them.
I was all excited about going treasure hunting after that, and I bought my very first detector, a Garrett Side Winder BFO unit. This detector made a constant noise. That noise would go up or down depending on what you detected in the ground. I can also add that an hour under the head phones with that constant noise in your ears will drive you nuts.
My wife and I went down to Ojo Caliente (the one in the SW part of N.M.....there are two in the state). This was the site of an old Army fort, where the Army held Geronimo the first time they caught him.
On the old road leading into the fort we found a bunch of old metal rifle
cartridge cases all bent in a U shape from being run over by the old, narrow, steel rimmed wagon wheels......I still have one of those casings.

[mark v]

About 4 years ago, I young gal that I worked with at the time was telling a few of us how every year her family would go on camping trips and they'd metal detect. Her father bought metal detectors for the whole family. I thought that was interesting. Well one day she brought her father's detector into work, gave me a quick crash course on how to use it and said "Go ahead and use it around work here. I'll pick it up later". So I did. Well, I found an old horse shoe. Finding that old horse shoe in an industrial park was one of the neatest things ever to me.
A few months later I met another person at work who had a detector. I read lots of magazines he brought in and he even found me a deal on an inexpensive used detector. I bought it, used it, and now I'm on my 3rd. detector. I never imagined I would be interested in detecting as much as I am.

Well, it all started by that big tree in my back yard , i found an 1899 indian head penny on the ground after a hard rain , had a hole drilled in it , got a detector from radio shack that christmas , tried, it was a total bust , i put it away , then the follwing summer i remoldeled my house (old House(1900) , when we were done about 2 weeks later , right there in the middle of the new carpet in the living room was 2 indian head pennys , out of the blue , we did no tearing out in the living room , just replaced the carpet, and then 2 weeks later there they were ,,,,, it was clear to me then it was my destiny to find old coins so here i am today, a total addict (lol) and that's my story .

[DonF]

As a lot of you did, I got into it because of my father. Being in the Navy for a career, as Warrant did, when I came home on leave, my dad took me out to Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, where I grew up and had me tag along while he metal detected. I didn't think much about it until he started pulling silver, quarters, pennies, dimes, nickels out of the ground that I've never seen before. Some of the silver came out of the ground looking like it was minted yesterday.

That hooked me.

[Joe(TX)]

I grew up listening to bed-time treasure hunting stories from my father. He couldn't afford a metal detector but told me of his child-hood treasure hunts during the Great Depression with his father using either a dip-needle or magnetic compass ordered out of the Sears and Roebuck Catalog. They never found anything of value but it started his great love for searching for lost and buried treasures! Well when I turned 15, I received $75.00 back on my tax return and I told my dad that I would go 50/50 with him on the purchase of a new metal detector!...............and the rest is HISTORY!! Me and my dad shared many adventures and even when he grew feeble and couldn't hunt anymore, he was always interested in my treasure finds and would read all my back issues of all the treasure hunting books and magazines!! My dad is gone now but his legacy lives thru me and all my Treasure Endeavors!!!

[John's Detectors]

Hi Pappy! It really all started for me when I was growing up in Tucson,Az. in the 60's and 70's. I was born in Texas by the way. Anyway I remember driving by a metal detector shop quite regularly and I wanted one so bad but was too poor to buy anything as a teenager. I was doing some gold prospecting using a homemade drywasher with an oldtimer and would wonder what I could find with a metal detector in the desert. Well 13 years ago I finally bought a White's 4900 which I still have and I was on and off with the hobby until about 4 years ago. That's when the hobby got me bigtime! So I decided to open a part time metal detector shop about 3 years ago. I like to find old things and also kinda like antiques. I am also fascinated with the electronics of metal detectors too.
Since I am a Certified Electronics Tech. and work with instruments to detect and measure radiation then naturally metal detector technology is just as interesting as making finds. I detect almost daily now and if I miss a day I don't feel right haha! I also got into the hobby to meet people and make lots of friends and there is no shortage of friends! I am just glad I found TQ and Greg, Pap, Chuck have been a great blessing to me!
So I think it was the prospecting in the desert that first brought my attention to metal detecting and I finally made it! Well that about sums it up and I know I will be swingin a coil for many years to come. God Bless all and happy hunting!

John Tomlinson,CET
John's Detectors
Blackwell,Tx.

[Electronic 49er]

Ever since I was a kid and dug this up in a friend's yard!