Topic: Anyone do metal detecting? (Read 1428 times)

I just laughed a little

Okay! Okay! I'll tell you! Now please quit twisting my arm.  -- CRAIGSLIST --

Rumor has it that one of the metal detector companies is accepting pre-orders for their new model due to be released in a couple months: Minelab ASIC. It's suppose to double as a can of beans warmer.  

Fake Edit: The release date has be put back and remains a little fuzzy now due to them having to reconfigure the mineral buffers.

wow. So you can basically earn thousands by just spending a day clearing a barn out. Where would 1 go to sell the stuff i find? For example those doors, who would you sell them 2?

I have two metal detectors. One my uncle got me (it's a kids detector, but seems to work better than the one I shelled out 300 bucks on most of the time) and one that I bought on my own. Heh, maybe I should sell one for some quick coins.

I got all excited about it once and bought a detector. What I discovered was that every square foot of the Earth's surface has a piece of metal under it. lol I never found much. some change, old hot wheels, junk jewelery.  Stuff like that.
I did get some great advice however. One thing I remember was to go to the oldest tree in your town, maybe at a park or old estate, and check under it. Before air conditioning people would go to the parks and sit under a tree to do their chores. The stuff they dropped is still there. Of course you need to check to make sure you are allowed to search an area.
But basically you are going to find a lot of those old beer can pop tops.  

*bookmarks* Sounds like a fairly decent obsession paycheck.

Since I haven't found a way to steal the barns at night, I always ask permission. The success rate is about 20%, but of the 80% that say no, they sometimes give you a lead and maybe even come around later and say yes. Plus, when I go to the barns, I take an unfamiliar route in and a different route out, thus finding new prospects I wouldn't have found if I hadn't gone to where I was just declined via a direct and familiar route.

Here's the beauty of this business: sometimes the farmers pay you to take the gold off their property. How much gold? A full pickup load fetches over $3,000 USD no matter what size the lumber is. You'll also be surprised at what I get per a single 100+ year-old nail.

Now, I'm really going to get you excited. Let's assume your neck of the woods doesn't have many barns, but there's enough communities surrounding where you live that have a few abandoned homes built prior to WWII. Guess what those homes were constructed with. Correct! Wood. The same wood used to build barns. These homes are considered eye sores and the municipalities love to get them down but they're strapped for cash, and they'll entertain lower bids to accomplish the task.



How many of the doors above do you think are in an old home? Most of the time it's over a dozen. What do they sell for? $100 each sans the hardware which you sell separately. You'll recognize several thousand dollars before you even get to tearing down the ceilings, walls and floor from the other architectural elements found within. And guess what you'll find many a times behind the walls. The same things one finds metal detecting. Picture a kid in the attic dropping his old Buddy L cars down an opening just to hear them drop. That opening is located behind a wall on the lower floor(s).

Years ago when I lived in Tunica playing poker, a poker room manager related to me a story of this woman whose been doing just that with silver coins for decades. He knew where the house was but didn't tell me, but it's in Helena, Arkansas. I wonder how many coins would fit in a 2" X 24" (not 16" on center) X 8' cavity.

I hope this post wet your undies.

~Bruno K~

Buddy of mines dad does it all the time.. We live all around beaches here.

He found a rather valuable wedding ring and received a $5000 reward for returning it to the owner.


Dudes old and spends a lot of his time doing it.


Kettle Point Ontario is a nice place for doing this type of thing

I found a Pepsi can buried about 2 feet deep in a beach.

Do you have to ask permission or anything? And dont worrk, theres quite a bit of distance between us. lol

With Google maps. Find a barn with a whole in its roof and you're golden, but stay away from my territory--Northern Illinois--because I own the all the digging rights.

how do you go about starting "barn hunting".

I found a mercury dime in the front yard of my old house!

Beachcombing is where it's at: http://www.beachcombingconference.com/

Then again, I like hunting old barns. One day I'm goin' to come across one of these babies:



The best I ever did was seven vintage jukeboxes. (and an 1850's wagon last year)

I found a nickel once. It was worth approximately $0.05 (5 cents ).

I've always wanted to go metal detecting in the desert and see if I could find some meteorites.

Just wondering because I live in a pretty old town with a lot of woods and trails. Might find something nice. Anyone that does metal detecting as a hobby? Has anyone found any interesting that is worth some $$?