A Metal Detectorists dream beach!

[Goldstrike]

Looking at this pic taken on July 4th 1936 at 'Jones Beach State Park' Long Island, NY, just makes my mouth water thinking of all the gold and silver rings and jewellry dropped after the crowd had left. To think, no one even dreamed of metal detecting that beach or any beach, probably because I think only the army had simple models to detect land mines at that time! You would need multiple oversize pouches to hold all the goodies you would find AND you wouldn't have had the trouble of getting any ring tabs/pulls in your scoop at that time!!!!......OHhhhhh............dream on Goldstrike dream on..................
[size=x-large]HAPPY JULY 4TH EVERY ONE[/size]......and happy hunting after the crowds depart from the beaches!!!

 

[ROBOCOP]

I used to go to Rockaway Beach in Queens during the 50's and 60's and back then the beach was so crowded on the weekend you couldn't find a spot on the beach to put down a beach towel.

Needless to say the best spots which were under the boardwalk were always taken. Remember the song " Under the Boardwalk".

Brooklyn and Queensites would dream about going to Jones Beach. That was considered paradise. But the El train couldn't take you there. We paid 2 tokens to get to Rockaway Beach, Rockaway Playland and Fitzgerald's beach bar. When we got older we drag raced down Cross Bay Boulevard to go to the beach.

Drinking age was 18 and we had fake ID to prove it.

Over 40 years ago. Seems like yesterday.

Shoot I guess it's 50 years now. Time flies.

 

[Goldstrike]

Great memories ROBOCOP! We have got to enjoy each day as they come and try to make happy memories and it sounds like you have many!! HH

 

[tomtowns]

Looking at this pic taken on July 4th 1936 at 'Jones Beach State Park' Long Island, NY, just makes my mouth water thinking of all the gold and silver rings and jewellry dropped after the crowd had left.

Another thing to remember is that the coins back then were "real" metal...

 

[KinTN]

John Lennon should have written:
"Imagine a beach with no pulltabs....its easy if you can"

 

[GTzer]

I was a kid in the 50's so I wouldn't have been able to afford a MD. But I've been a surface collector since that age. One regret I have (with modern hindsight-that is) is that I never thought to just sift with some 1/4" mesh. Spent 13 summers at the DE beaches. Had to be...a layer.
Spent plenty of time diggin' w/o sifting.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

thanx for the pix. Detectors that could find coin-sized objects, really didn't come about till the early 1960s. Well, for all practical purposes anyhow. There were a few attempts and models that could do it as early as the late 1950s. But by and large, it just wasn't a hobby that you saw anywhere, till the early 1960s. The detectors before that time were only capable of finding larger objects. And even once they got sensitive enough to find coin-sized objects, they did-so only down to an inch or two, at first (and very squirrely to keep adjusted, a bear to keep balanced, etc...). So as thick as the pickens would have been for the very first guys to step foot on the beaches, with the first machines capable of coin-sized targets, yet they still were slow-going, on account of the rudimentary detectors (in the earliest days of the Metrotechs, BFO's, etc... anyhow). And prior to the advent of detectors-for-coins, believe it or not, there were guys that would go on to the super populated older beaches (under boardwalks, etc...) and just sift random sand. It was apparently profitable enough, that lots of people just took shovels, and rocker-boxes, and shoveled random dirt for hours on end. Can you imagine how thick the pickens must've been, to make such a practice profitable? Sheesk.