Metal detectorists

Just wondering if anyone here plays around with metal detectors? Goes looking for buried treasure? (junk, relics, coins.... Probably in that order)

I've ways had a love for old stuff and love finding treasure, so when I found a bit of burried stuff whilst replacing my back fence I figured if I'm finding stuff by accident, I wonder what I can find if I'm actually looking.

I'm about to become the owner of a new metal detector and looking forward to seeing what I can pull out of the ground on my half acre. It's been continuously inhabited over a hundred years, so there's bound to be a few finds. Hopefully I can find an old trash hole or two which were apparently common place back when our house was built. I'm of no illusion that I'll find myself a fortune, but i love old crap, so that in itself will be a reward. 

I also like exploring abandoned places, so again, being able to scratch past the surface and find something interesting would really give me a kick.

I've been wanting to get into this for some time, but have yet to buy a detector. I do love watching Green Mountain Metal Detecting videos on youtube, Brad is very down to earth and knowledgeable about his finds, I highly recommend his channel. He is located in Vermont, so most of his digs are at colonial era sites, which yield some very interesting finds. 

I also love abandoned places and would love to try urbex, but don't know anyone locally who does it and I'm not inclined to go alone. I do love The Proper People videos though, they have gone to some extremely cool places. 

Living in civil war country I used to dig up stuff all the time on farms of friends and family. After they had plowed things would be closer to the top. As time and tech. has progressed you can find more things down deeper and know a bit more about what it might be. Get a few bullets, coins, bottle caps, junk and throw them on the ground, you'll learn to pick up the difference in them on how it sounds and reads on the various screens.

In reply to EastCoastMojo :

I'll definitely check out those recommendations.I pored over a bunch of YouTube vids, along with reviews and forums to try and pick a good first detector that I won't grow out of too quickly but wasn't going to break the bank.

The stuff left behind kind of helps tell a story of a place. From the coins we found after removing floors in our new place along with what records we've been able to track down we've been able to date the house to between 1905 and 1910. 

Urbex is interesting, and you can find and see some great stuff. It's amazing seeing something that was once considered worthwhile being discarded and left to decay. I completely understand the reservation about doing it on your own, it really can carry some risks being alone in some places. Some places are dangerous, some you're not actually alone and some just give you the creeps...

In reply to johndej :

Civil war country would be pretty cool to explore, I'm a bit envious of places that have history deeper than Australia purely from a potential find point of view.

The tech available today is fantastic, part of choosing a detector was to try and decipher what bells and whistles to go with and how to get the most detector for my money. I ended up settling a machine that has iron discrimination, so I can skip alot of junk if I want to Target coins and non ferrous stuff. Once I get past the initial novelty of beep and dig I intend to set up a test field and get really familiar with how the machine works. 

EastCoastMojo said:

I also love abandoned places and would love to try urbex, but don't know anyone locally who does it and I'm not inclined to go alone. 

I've been interested in it and didn't want to go alone. I'm betting there is a group here.


Oddly enough, we're novice treasure hunters, too. We've got some inexpensive gear and have dug up old nails, scraps, a few pennies from the 70s and that sort of thing. We've never really gone anywhere but around the house in Raleigh and did a little bit down at my in-laws. 

I keep passing places with old structures on them but I'm a bit too introverted to go up to a stranger's place and ask them if I can plunder the ruins on their property, though.

Please post up some of your finds, I also enjoy the story of a place that comes to light when forgotten, lost and discarded items resurface.

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

I believe mojo is in Raleigh, sounds like you've already got the makings of a group.

In reply to EastCoastMojo :

I'll go through the house with the metal detector before I install new subfloor and floorboards, there may be a few more missed coins.

This is the bulk of what I pulled from under the floors.

A few tobacco tin lids/tins, the remnants of a harmonica, a drain grate, small bottle, part of a wire brush of some type, a couple of pennies. There was also a couple more coins and a pamolive soap token that aren't pictured.

I found a broken wire strainer and a bunch of glass when doing the back fence. I'd say the strainer broke when someone was building the fence and they just left it there. One post hole I dug I found a near complete bottle, another post hole I found alot of glass from one bottle from a cordial maker who used to operate in the town. I also found what seemed to be a deliberately buried horse shoe, it was nearly 2 feet deep and there wasn't any other rubbish found in the hole. Apparently some people burried them for good luck

I'm interested also. Looking to downsize my hobbies. I watch Green Mountain too and there are several more. 

I live along the National Road, might be some good detecting there. 

Might even find those lost 10 mm sockets. 

I have a cheap one I picked up used for ~$15 years ago. Living a block from the beach & our home being 3/4-mile from the original 1699 French encampment site I figure I’m likely to find some kind of intriguing junk. We’ve been here 4-years & I’ve not touched it yet though...

I'd recommend a detector that can discriminate metals and a pinpointer.  I recently bought a Garrett AT-Pro and have been happy with it.  We have a log house that my great-grandfather bought in 1911 and there are two other log houses on the property that haven't been occupied for 100 years.  Most of the 1000 acres is wooded.  There is so much iron/steel litter in the yard, that without discrimination, I'd be digging every foot or so.  I have found a few coins and odds and ends.  What is surprising is what you find in the woods.  I detected a flat spot deep in the woods and found a horseshoe and several .22 Shorts, and a forged  hook used to suspend a pot over a fire.  I plan to search around the other log houses this winter.

School yards, sidewalks leading to old houses or churches are good places to look.  Invest is a quality detector.  I searched my yard with an entry-level detector and found a nickle and a penny.  Later I bought the AT-Pro and searched the same spots and found several more pennies and a silver dime.

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

I would be down for some splorin', and I'm not shy so I can do the askin

You guys have got me thinking.

Friends of mine own a very large ranch with 2 gold-rush era ghost towns on it.

Maybe I need to poke around there a little more.

Nobody has mentioned the tv show The Detectorists yet?

LOVE that show. 

In reply to Apis Mellifera :

I've purchased a nokta makro simplex+, I have to wait till the weekend to pick it up. Waterproof to 10ft, discrimination, pinpointing, notching, ground balance along with the ability to change/upgrade coils. It's alot of detector for the purchase price, and the company are pushing hard to grab a better slice of the pie. Garret makes some fantastic machines, the at pro is impressive as hell, but was quite a bit above my budget for a first machine. I was initially looking at the ace 300, the Fisher f22 or a minelab x-terra. A bit more research put me onto the nokta and the minelab vanquish, but the vanquish doesn't release till next year and isn't waterproof... 

Totally agree about the need for discrimination, there's alot of iron junk around the house, and made worse by the last people living here.... They drank heavily and I don't think a single bottle top found its way to a bin. It sounds like you're enjoying turning up relics on your property and you've still got plenty left to find.

How do you go with permission for some of the suggested sites? The old stuff is what im looking for, I'm not really interested in turning up new valuables, it's the relics I want, even if they're worthless.... It's the insight into the past that they provide that I find truly valuable.

In reply to ShawnG :

It never hurts to ask, I'm sure you could find something cool and interesting there.

In reply to DrBoost :

I actually started watching it by accident the other night, saw it on Netflix and hit play without really reading what it was. I was expecting some kinda reality show

It's pretty funny, in that dry British kind of way. Definitely going to watch some more of it

daeman said:

In reply to DrBoost :

I actually started watching it by accident the other night, saw it on Netflix and hit play without really reading what it was. I was expecting some kinda reality show

It's pretty funny, in that dry British kind of way. Definitely going to watch some more of it

Yeah, British, but in a watchable way haha. 

EastCoastMojo said:

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

I would be down for some splorin', and I'm not shy so I can do the askin

You'd probably get better results than I would, too. I drive by here once in a while and it looks interesting, but I think it is commercial. There's probably more interesting things down your way, in any case. I kind of live in the middle of things.

Let me talk to my wife about it. 

Also, some of the detector guys on Youtube in Europe get pretty serious about it and find some crazy things- like tank mines. I saw one (can't find it now) where they found an MG 42 that was in remarkably good condition for having been outside for years. They turned it into the police.

 

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

Looks like that property was sold to a holding company in Oct 2017 and may be slated for development. That may be good news in terms of the owners being amenable to metal detecting. 

There's a few abandoned houses near me that I am really curious about. Let me know if you want to try this. 

Mojo- PM sent.

Time for an update. I've had my nokta simplex for about a month now, pretty much just been wandering around the yard getting used to how it works and what I can expect to find from the various tones and readings.

First note, this yard is absolutely loaded with all manner of junk. Some of it old some of it quite new. It amazes me just how deep some thing's can get in such a relatively short time, vs how shallow some things can be despite being there for a good 50+ years. 

Secondly, I can see a pinpointer in my fairly immediate future. On a couple of occasions I've lost whatever I was getting a signal on, or just really struggled to locate whatever it was. Trying to wave fistfulls of dirt under the coil or waving a 10" coil overs a hole is cumbersome. The pinpoint feature on the machine is quite accurate, but is no substitute for a hand held pinpointer.

Other little things I've realized is that a customized shovel and some form of collapsible sieve would be very handy. Also wouldn't hurt to have a piece of plastic I can roll out to put the dirt on to make refilling holes neatly a much easier task.

Finds wise I'll get some photos up soon. No old coins in the yard so far, but I've barely even been over a quarter of it and even then, there's targets I haven't dug for various reasons. I've found a few newer coins, a heap of newer bottle caps and ring pulls, whole drink cans, some older jar and bottle lids, a teaspoon from the 1930s, a knife handle, an old timber or masonry wedge, a horse shoe and a bunch of other stuff. Also I've found alot of older broken glass and ceramic in some areas whilst digging, I may dig those areas more extensively at a later date as they might be old dumping spots which could potentially have intact glass.

All in all, I'm pretty hooked, I've wanted to try detecting for a long time and it hasn't disappointed. Definitely get the "just one more hit in case it's something awesome" thing happening. The surprise factor of not knowing exactly what you're going to unearth is alot of fun.

I know (roughly) where a completely restored '56 Wizard 25HP outboard went into the Suwanee river.  I keep toying with the idea of rigging up a wide area metal detector system like meteor hunters use to narrow it down, then go diving.

Guy had just finished restoring it and brought it to the river.  Grandson wanted to go for a ride and he allowed it.  Transom clamps weren't torqued down.