Anyone else metal detect

[freedom]

Anyone else metal detect? If not would you let someone metal detect your field or woods? If so would you be up for someone tagging along? I mainly detect civil war spots and old home sites west of Nashville but am always up for traveling. Not sure if your fields are worth detecting? I love to do research and find what was going on in the past, you'd be surprised what happened in your front yard a hundred years ago.

[jimmylogan]

I used to some - my dad was big into it when I was a kid, and I'd go with my older brother 'coin shooting' at the local playgrounds and school grounds. Was fun stuff!

I live on farm land, and there might be stuff there, but don't like the idea of digging up the yard - LOL - no fields in my possession.

 

 

[freedom]

19 minutes ago, jimmylogan said:

I used to some - my dad was big into it when I was a kid, and I'd go with my older brother 'coin shooting' at the local playgrounds and school grounds. Was fun stuff!

I live on farm land, and there might be stuff there, but don't like the idea of digging up the yard - LOL - no fields in my possession.

 

 

It's all good brother, a good detectorist wouldn't dig up your yard, you wouldn't even know anyone had been there. Machines these days can pinpoint exactly where a target is, and guess at the depth, so anyone can cut out a neat plug, get the item and plug it back up like it never happened ... But I understand where you're coming from since some people, especially newbies, will dig holes you could fall in and just walk away or dig up trash and just leave it there, bad habits for sure that make everyone else look bad.

[Darrell]

When I bought my property it looked like it had just been woods forever, probably logged at some point. But after speaking to some old-timer neighbors I learned that this whole area was populated and somewhat developed before the Great Depression. One neighbor showed me where a railroad bed ran through my property, and while clearing some woods I found very old barbed wire fencing. Old enough that there were no barbs left. 

There's a really old barn a couple miles from here on a property owned by a family. I took some pics of the barn, just because, but there's also a wreck of a house that one can tell was once quite a stately place. That property actually has three barns on it and the house.  I didn't actually go on the property, but from the road it looks very interesting. 

I rented a metal detector to try to find one corner of my property, which has supposedly been pinned. I found plenty of beer bottle caps and other metal trash, but no pin.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Darrell

[freedom]

1 hour ago, Darrell said:

When I bought my property it looked like it had just been woods forever, probably logged at some point. But after speaking to some old-timer neighbors I learned that this whole area was populated and somewhat developed before the Great Depression. One neighbor showed me where a railroad bed ran through my property, and while clearing some woods I found very old barbed wire fencing. Old enough that there were no barbs left. 

There's a really old barn a couple miles from here on a property owned by a family. I took some pics of the barn, just because, but there's also a wreck of a house that one can tell was once quite a stately place. That property actually has three barns on it and the house.  I didn't actually go on the property, but from the road it looks very interesting. 

I rented a metal detector to try to find one corner of my property, which has supposedly been pinned. I found plenty of beer bottle caps and other metal trash, but no pin.

Awesome! It takes awhile to learn how to weed out trash from good stuff. Not sure what model you rented but a cheaper detector also won't go very deep or weed out the trash as well. I've got a spare if you ever wanna give it a shot again I'd be happy to go out with ya and see what we can find. 

When I was a kid we had a trail going straight through the woods, my dad got a detector and we found a railroad plate (not sure what it's called, it holds the rail to the tie) ... It wasn't until I got older and looked at some old maps that I realized there was a railroad that ran right through the yard in the 1920 that only ran about 10 years before it was abandoned.

 

[jimmylogan]

On 4/5/2022 at 8:11 AM, freedom said:

When I was a kid we had a trail going straight through the woods, my dad got a detector and we found a railroad plate (not sure what it's called, it holds the rail to the tie) ... It wasn't until I got older and looked at some old maps that I realized there was a railroad that ran right through the yard in the 1920 that only ran about 10 years before it was abandoned.

 

Ain't history fun? I love stuff like that!!!

[Quavodus]

I've always meant to get a good detector but, never got around to it. I got an old cheap one. Never found anything but junk, like nails , screws, wire, metal cans, etc. 

[freedom]

23 hours ago, Quavodus said:

I've always meant to get a good detector but, never got around to it. I got an old cheap one. Never found anything but junk, like nails , screws, wire, metal cans, etc. 

Just gotta be in the right place at the right time, if there's nothing but trash that's all you'll find, especially with a cheaper detector that you're not familiar with. A lot of spots get worn out by people detecting over the years and all that's on top is junk they left behind, the good stuff has been picked out or is deeper, there aren't a lot of "virgin" spots but a lot is just research where you want to be and hope someone lets you dig there. If you want to get into it I'd suggest buying a used ATPro, they were $700 until the newer version came out and now you can get one for $300 used. A Simplex is a decent newer wireless detector, but I'm still getting used to mine, it's around $300 new. There's a metal detecting club in Nashville, Knoxville, Murfreesboro and Memphis that I know of, I go to the Nashville one and we have folks who are interested but don't have detectors yet come and check things out all the time. 

[JD_Shellnut]

Hey there fellers. I’ve had two metal detectors for about 5 years now that I bought for the kids and I don’t think they ever touched them again, despite both of them each finding a silver dollar in our back yard! Yes, it’s really the truth…I should know since I’m the one who ‘buried’ the suckers. Go figure.

They’re currently buried under a bunch of crud in my garage but I can still see enough of them to tell you that they are bright yellow in color with a display that says “Ground EFX” (or possibly vice versa) in raised lettering just above the display. There are several grey buttons that run along the bottom of the display which I believe they’re used for kinda tuning it. I got them at a pawn shop but I can’t remember if I paid $5 for them or a couple hundred….but, knowing myself, I would place my bets towards the cheap end of the scale. 

Does this sound familiar to any of y’all…so far as recognizing them is concerned? I let a friend borrow one of the for a weekend that lasted 2 years and when he finally returned it he told me that he never got around to using it! Hahaha at least he brought it back I reckon, not that I’ve used it either though…but I’ve always wanted to, and still would if a decent opportunity were to present itself. I’d love to find some minie balls from a battle site or something neat like that. Gosh wouldn’t that be something!

Heck, maybe I could give these to some of those folks mentioned by Mr. Freedom in the previous post - the ones who have the will but just not the way? Unless they’re just a couple of yellow turds, that is (my equipment, not the folks), because the last thing I’d ever want to do is make things harder for them when I’m trying to help….although I’ve been known to manage even that before!

[freedom]

On 4/16/2022 at 10:46 PM, JD_Shellnut said:

Hey there fellers. I’ve had two metal detectors for about 5 years now that I bought for the kids and I don’t think they ever touched them again, despite both of them each finding a silver dollar in our back yard! Yes, it’s really the truth…I should know since I’m the one who ‘buried’ the suckers. Go figure.

They’re currently buried under a bunch of crud in my garage but I can still see enough of them to tell you that they are bright yellow in color with a display that says “Ground EFX” (or possibly vice versa) in raised lettering just above the display. There are several grey buttons that run along the bottom of the display which I believe they’re used for kinda tuning it. I got them at a pawn shop but I can’t remember if I paid $5 for them or a couple hundred….but, knowing myself, I would place my bets towards the cheap end of the scale. 

Does this sound familiar to any of y’all…so far as recognizing them is concerned? I let a friend borrow one of the for a weekend that lasted 2 years and when he finally returned it he told me that he never got around to using it! Hahaha at least he brought it back I reckon, not that I’ve used it either though…but I’ve always wanted to, and still would if a decent opportunity were to present itself. I’d love to find some minie balls from a battle site or something neat like that. Gosh wouldn’t that be something!

Heck, maybe I could give these to some of those folks mentioned by Mr. Freedom in the previous post - the ones who have the will but just not the way? Unless they’re just a couple of yellow turds, that is (my equipment, not the folks), because the last thing I’d ever want to do is make things harder for them when I’m trying to help….although I’ve been known to manage even that before!

Hey JD! If you're near Nashville I invite you to the monthly metel detecting meeting right off i40/briley/Charlotte Pike in east Nashville every first Friday of the month. If you join and make it to three meetings before October you could go to our annual club hunt where they seed a field with hundreds of coins, bullets and prizes.

 

Anyway, I looked up Ground EFX and there seems to be a few different versions so not sure which exact one you have but they seem to be anywhere between $100-$200. 

Finding a civil war relic is sure a rush! If you're near Dickson and walking around the woods in ticks, chiggers and spiders for hours trying to find something that got dropped 160 years ago sounds like fun let me know, I'm usually hoping to find buried treasure on any given weekend.