Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Metal detecters - fun hobby or waste of time?

I got a Cabelas flyer yesterday and they had a $400 Bounty Hunter Titanium metal detecter on sale for $200. So I started researching and on the metal detecter forums, the Garrett Ace 250 seems like a top beginners detecter at just over $200, the Ace 350 with a few more bells and whistles is just under $300.

Just wondering for those that have them, are they really effective or just another dust collector after a short time?

Waste of time, in 25 yrs of playing with them off and on- never found much except for some wheaties.

I'd rather be walking fields for arrowheads instead of digging up lead roofing washers and horseshoes
Even with discrimination modes, still lots of junk.

I have a Whites- made in USA. The machines themselves are great. It's just the trash that humans leave everywhere, public areas are mostly off-limits and other good areas have been descended upon by locusts with their machines well before you get there. Homesteads are weedy, trashed up with nails and iron.

I inherited a pretty nice one from my father-n-law

Maybe a year ago there was a show on TV where these two guys went around working their ass off to basically find old hinges, a horse shoe, a label off a piece of machinery , stuff like that - I'm sure over the course of the show they found some things that were valuable but what I got from it is you just have to like the hunt to get any enjoyment from it. If they were the professionals and this was all they were finding, its not a hobby I want to invest time on.

So it sits in my closet.

On occasion someone does find something really significant but I don't have the patience to spend hour after hour finding nails looking for that once in a lifetime hit.

There are probably arguments that every hobby is a waste of time.

If you think you will enjoy it, do it.

The commercial cracks me up- dude says his wife thinks it's great exercise plus he gets to dig up walking liberty half-dollars


What a damn joke. Hope the old fart has good knees and doesn't mind chiggers and seed ticks in his flabby folds.

You need to read a few magazines like Lost Treasure to see if it piques your interest as a hobby. The stories of common folk in LT is what keeps most treasure hunters going. Plus, finding those 90% pre-64 silver coins we all grew up with is a hoot.

I use to treasure hunt back in the day with my uncle, 80's early 90's and he has several quart jars of silver coins and gold rings. Metal detectors have come a long way since then so I'm sure they're more effective. It's a fun hobby that can be valuable and also get a little exercise. Been thinking about getting one myself better than the couch.

Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it.

If it's a hobby, and you enjoy it...you win.

If you are looking to supplement retirement, probably won't happen.

Seen some people find jewelry on the beaches

I got my first one in 1980 (Bounty Hunter) and had a ball with it. I didn't mind digging up every signal because that's how you learn your machine and targets. After a while I could tell from the tone if the target was junk or silver. I was in Hawaii and chose to hit school yards rather than the beach (too much competition there). I found plenty of Mercury dimes, silver quarters, and wheats. My best find was in Ohio ... found an 1827 Capped Bust Half dollar under the root of a very old oak.

I purchased a White's DFX in 2008 because it was programmable.

There are two keys to enjoyment with a metal detector: Knowing your machine and doing research on potential hunt sites. It can get very frustrating hitting the parks and playgrounds that everyone else has hit and digging every target that rings up on the machine. The more enjoyable and successful hunts come when you are in tune with the machine and dig up those treasures that others have missed.

Final recommendation would be to see if there are others in your area that are willing to hunt with you. Some of those more experienced guys can definitely shorten the learning process.

I've read about treasure hunters in England really hitting it big when finding caches of ancient Roman gold. They're rare, of course, but some have been found. Apparently, to avoid long court cases, England has defined a legal policy on how the loot is split between the finder, the land owner, and the government.

Our son does some metal detecting as a hobby in his spare time. He says it's a pretty good destress hobby for him whether he finds anything of value or not.

He got interested in metal detecting back in his early teens. We started him out with a basic Radio Shack beginner model thinking he would loose interest in it before long. He didn't, though. Within a year or so he moved up to a middle of the road model White detector. He's got a different higher tech one now. (can't recall the brand/model name)

As others have said, he finds a whole lot more trash than treasure, but he also finds some pretty neat things sometimes. So far that I know of he has sold at least $100 worth of odds and end kind of stuff on ebay - old pewter whistle, old advertising watch bobs/pocket knife, etc. - that he has found metal detecting. He's finds quite a few old coins too but he usually keeps those.

If nothing else they can help pay for themselves by finding lost jewelry, keys, whatever, for family and friends. Our son's first cheap little beginner detector paid for itself simply finding our lost aluminum shaft arrows.

My money is on my young lab digging up a pot-o-gold in our yard. He has been getting a lot of false readings so far.

^^^^ This, plus what rockinbbar said about getting out what you put in. A set of head phones works a lot better for listening to tones to learn the difference in junk.

I've wasted a lot of time having a lot of fun with a Whites 6000 DI (and a bunch of other stuff as well). I've also gone in behind guys who were dead serious treasure hunters and told me they had cleaned a park out. I came back later and found silver they missed.

At a city park in New Braunfels, Texas I found a Minié ball near a berm at the edge of the park. Walked up a trial on the berm and found a few more, some actually visible laying in the trail. Later I learned that the area was a muster point during the Civil War, and the volunteers would target practice against the berm while waiting to head up. While little if any monetary value, that was one of my most rewarding finds.

Put some effort into it and it will be rewarding.

Depends how much effort you put in, what you want out of it and what areas you have to detect..

Over here in the UK, its a bit of a geeky hobby which attracts some very serious enthusiasts.

Given the rich and colourful history of the UK, making genuine and exciting finds is definitely a possibility and every few years someone seems to find a hoard of gold or silver coins.

That said, the actual detecting is only part of the hobby..

Many enthusiasts spend hours and hours doing research looking for likely sites ie former villages, roads, houses, churches ect..With online aerial photo's now available this research often identifies sites not previously known.

Once they locate a likely site they then have to gain legal access from the land owner, probably striking a deal over any potential finds, although a minority will simply trespass and work the site that way, often at night..

I've had a Garrett 150 for years. It will find the tiniest scraps of nothing , bits of foil from ancient cigarette packs , bits of hog wire fence where there is no visible sign of the fence , etc.



Mike

Just like any "HOBBY", you'll get back exactly what you put in...what I mean is you have to "Learn" how to use each individual model, & there is a definite learning curve among the different models...The Ace 250 is a very good detector for the price & is one of the best/cheapest/easiest as a starter.

I'd shy away from anything by bounty hunter.

I've been in the "hobby" for over 40 years, have had over 10 different detectors and tried/used many others.

My only current detector is a Minelab 2200V2 with two coils. But I'm looking to pick up a Fisher Gold Bug 2 & one of the newest Minelabs...the SDC 2300 or a Garret ATX. (Mainly for nugget shooting) It can be a very enjoyable but addictive hobby...Oh BTW, I've more than paid for every detector I've ever owned. At one of my favorite spots for coins, there wasn't one time I ever came home with less than $20 of old quarters. Don't expect those kind of results right off the bat...it takes a lot of research & time spent actually detecting. Also don't expect to see someone actually detecting any "sweet spots" during the daylight. Once a really good spot is found, many won't "work" them except at night.

ETA: Join "finds treasure forum" to get a better idea of the different types of metal detecting...a lot of guys specialize in the different types..."beach hunting", "nugget shooting" Relic hunting" etc. It'll give you a better understanding on the different types of detectors too...

Finding $5 now and then will keep you going for awhile.





A friend's wife pulled this out of the mud a few years ago.