For the veteran detectorists out there... what was it like detecting in the 70s and 80s?

pcgs69

Just curious... can you describe the silver-to-clad coin ratio? Were you able to find more jewelry since there were less detectorists? Were the machines a lot harder to operate? etc...

cars

Good question. One of my older friends & neighbor saw me playing in the yard with mine the other day and stopped over. He said he used to have a MD but it weighed a ton and was a task to swing it around for long.

BentFork

I'll speak up since I've been at it since 1965.

Believe it or not, my dad and I did find silver coins frequently. But not to the degree that I find clad dimes, quarters and halves today. People we're as frivolous with money back then. And it was even more so when comparing let's say the 1920's to 1960s. In the 60s before clad was everywhere, and silver was all that was generally circulating, my dad and I would maybe find one silver quarter and one clad quarter during a 4 hr outing. We found more silver dimes than clad dimes - and the number of dimes to quarters was higher as it is today. Jewelry was almost non-existent. Also, if a coin was more than 4-6 inches down you could forget finding it. The machines weren't as sensitive as today. As for the 70's and 80s, silver pretty much disappeared from parks because machines got better and silver waned in circulation. In the 70s and 80s it was easier to find silver coins in coin rolls than parks.

G Man

demodigger

i started in 1986. most people were digging in the parks and schools. it was pretty common for peple in our club to bring in a dozen silvers each month. me and a friend worked the parking strips and front yards. occationally we would get into some backyards too. my best month for silvers was 36 and 131 wheat cents. it was pretty easy to get a few silvers each time out. i used to find alot more indian cents and barber dimes back then too. it stayed like that for me for about 10-12 years.

these days, its the minelabs that get alot of coins cause they're deep. i do'nt care about coins anymore, unless its a date i have'nt found yet.

mr1931S

The late '70's were my dirt fishing halcyon days.

The White's metal detectors was the machine to be swinging in those days.I would use all-metal mode and my best finds were found,with rare exception, from 2 to 4 inches down.

The sound pattern was the "teller " on the White's. I got very good at learning the sound of silver coin and could tell you with near certainty, "silver dime at 2 inches," for example. The discriminator only worked for coins very close to or on top of the ground so would hardly ever use it.As a result,I dug very little clad coinage.Clad coins were very close to the surface of the ground and would pass on these "hard" sounds,preferring to dig the silver to be found 2 or more inches deep.

My first silver find with my White's was a Barber dime dated 1907. I found many Mercury dimes,some having virtually no wear from circulation.Another detectorist showed me a 1916-D dime he found in Denver's City Park, where it seemed was the place to be in those days.One could go over ground here again and again and still make good finds. I recall finding thirteen '40's Mercury dimes in one small area of the park on one damp and chilly day in '78 or '79.

Barber dimes,a definite favorite find of my mine,were sometimes found having very little circulation wear.I did find some semi-key dates in these,1897-S and 1904-S. I would sing "looking for a dime,ba barber dime" in the melody of "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys.I think that helped me a lot to find these. I must have found total a few hundred of these with my White's.

Oldest coin I found in those days was an 1867 IHC that was surprising shallow.I found the dates 1909 and 1914 in Lincoln cents but without mintmark.One day I found a 1924 D cent that did not have much wear but did have a green bubble of corrosion just above the date. Very few coins from the '30's,to include pennies, were found by me.

I never have found a SLQ, or a gold coin.Another detectorist one day showed a $5 coin that he claimed to have found in the City park.It was an 1867-S in well-worn condition.

I found very little jewelry and probably went right through the center of many a ring with my probe,which I considered essential equipment. I did find a massive man's gold ring in a South Dakota park, however.

Anyway,that's a snapshot of what it was like for me to be dirt fishing in the late '70's.