Back to the "Good Old Days"

[nad]

Everyone wants to talk about what it was like to hunt in the sixties..The foot ball field behind my house gave up over $90, in silver and eleven gold rings. That was typical of any public place due to the build up over years. Old houses always produced a few coins.On occasion, a few nice ones..So, if you go to an old house and find one Indian , that is what you would have found in the sixties...Going back a little further, Seaside Heights NJ, about 53, 54, somewhere in there, I saw two guys with a metal detector.One guy swinging, the other digging, and throwing everything into a bank type canvas bag..They had about 20 to 30 pounds of stuff..From the little I gathered, and remembered, they had a route, and made a living working the Jersey Shore..So, while you are all thinking about the sixties, and seventies, I wonder about the 50's....cordially NAD

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Are you sure you saw guys coin-shooting in '53 or '54? That would've been quite unusual, as the detectors in those days typically weren't sensitive enough to find individual coins. A few were, but most were like mine detectors or two-box units: just for big objects.

But yes, around the early '50s a few were just starting to be dabbled with, that could indeed find individual coins. Albeit only to perhaps 2 or 3" deep, and only in non-mineralized ground. But it was to take many more years before they became widespread. They were quite a novelty, and most places remained virgin until well into the 1960s. I read an account of someone doing CW battlefield sites in the very late 1940s. I forget what machine he was using, but listed amongst his finds, were "bullets". So I'd assume if it was sensitive enough to find bullets, that it'd find coins too

 

[nad]

The Fisher T-10 tube type had to be late 50's , early 60;s then replaced with the T-20, then T-20 b.The T-10, had less ground capacitance, and would out hunt the 20's any day of the week.....I've had T-20's, and used Allan Taylor's T-10.You are talking commercial detectors, the basement boys have always been years ahead of the market..A six inch/ eight inch coil on a TUBE TYPE BFO, would surprise the heck out of you..I have a book put out by Blankmyer, early 60's any way,maybe late 50's, will look and see if there is a building diagram for a BFO. Was a home printed mimeographed thing. Canfield, a fantastic electronics character, had a BFO that would run a coin at 15 inches, no watch, no rings.This in 87....Damn, did I want that toy,We were supposed to get together in 95., Winter came and went, read his Obit.,Wife a short time later..Tried to contact the kids, figured I'd buy it ,and see if someone could convert it from a bench top to a swinging model....No luck, another of my missed items.As far as detectors go,don't underestimate some of the early tube type BFO's They could possibly keep up with a Silver UMax, and on beach sand , that runs 5 to 6 inches...Of course those big batteries weren't hung on Helium balloons Cordially Nad