I bought one about 40 years ago...thought I could find treasure/make money (get rich quick). Seems that my "finds" worked out to a few cents per hour. I put it away and got a second job (and bought silver coins). Made some pretty good money on those.

It may be better hunting in more wealthy areas or near the ocean, but I suspect that unless one is hunting where they know some sort of hidden cache is...it is not worth the time (unless you really enjoy it a lot).

My old place in Western Mass, it used marble markers...

For one of my rural properties, the metal pin was driven into the stump of a hundred year old cedar that was cut to ground level. My genius neighbor rented a stump grinder and took out the stump and the pin.

I found the 4 corners of our property via my metal detector. I knew the general locations from GPS coordinates off my county's GIS web site which helped - but the detector made it possible to find the exact pins.

Also, I inserted landscaping spikes in my front yard to designate the 4 corner locations of the cleanout lid for my septic tank. About 2 minutes with my metal detector and I know exactly where to dig.

Anybody here live on Florida's gold coast? If I did, I'd probably pick up a few rolls of pennies to scatter in the surf line at high tide...then wait for the metal detector people to show at low tide.

Yeah, I'm nasty....

Detectorists today would know instantly if it was a penny or not by visual and aural ID. The new machines are unbelievable. You can even notch out pennies, but leave gold.

I bought a Garrett AT Max Metal Detector a couple of months ago. I haven't tried it yet but I am expecting to find buried treasure in my back yard or some other place. I'll let you know.

One of my younger friends bought one. Like all dreamers he figured he would find a lot of treasures.

He had a can that he picked up all finds, and kept putting the finds in a bigger can. It was a small oil drum full of bottle caps, pull tabs, soda cans, food cans, screws, nails, and other construction debris. He found a few modern era, face value only coins and it is not yet a dollars worth.

He did find one metallic rock he thinks is a meteorite, and it might well be, but it is the size of a Hershey Kiss.

I have never bothered. I have dug many holes, and put in a full sprinkler system in my yard. All I have found is construction trash and rocks and sand-stones. My neighborhood was a farmers wheat field in up until the early 1990s. Before that it was just prairie. The native Americans were a stone age peoples, and never even saw metal until the white man came.

I love the British series called Time Team that is on Amazon. They often go to a site and discover artifacts from over 4,000 years of occupation of a site. Neolithic, bronze age, iron age, Roman era, to continuous occupation to the modern era. No chance of that here. There are very few building from the 1880s and nothing much before that in Oklahoma.

Has anyone watched the Detectorists ? was on netflix I liked it.

There are a couple of series on the History Channel. The Curse of Oak Island and Beyond Oak Island https://www.history.com/shows/beyond-oak-island which is about treasure hunting all over the world by various different means/people including metal detectors..

This is a fun sport & cheaper version of metal detecting. Magnet Fishing. I've pulled out dozens of fishing rods, tackle boxes, knives, sunglasses & hunks of metal junk from under the local piers. The worst aspect is all the people gathering around to see what comes up.

https://gomagnetfishing.com/magnet-fishing-ultimate-guide/

I live in central Florida.
With patience...and a place that has or had a lot of use, you will have results.

Quite a few nice rings, converted to cash. A few really nice keepers. A nice watch.

And a lot of time peaceful beach combing.

I got back into detecting last year. For me...it's therapeutic. It's also one of most "smart" hobbies you can have. Actual detecting is about 10% of it. And yes, I've found gold rings, and LOTS of pre 1800 coins and silver. It just takes patience, which most people don't have. .most people don't want to research where they're detecting, or spend the time to REALLY learn how to use their machine. They do it for 10-12 hours and then give up.

I'm non-coastal so I focus on homesteads/relic hunting/and old coins.

I get that when I'm out with the metal detector. The only time I've found a whole lot of coins a bunch of kids were following me around so I let them have the one and two dollar coins.

Then I get the crowd who say "What are you deeewwing... (doing)." Well it's fairly obvious.

Another crowd say "Have you found anything valuable; like a diamond rind?" So I've started to carry around a fake diamond ring from the two dollar shop so I can say "I've just found this. It's worth somewhere between eight and fifteen thousand dollars." But haven't had the opportunity to play that trick yet.

Don't the old guys at the beach just do that metal detector thing so that the young girls in bikinis will come a little closer to watch...and he can get a better view or maybe chat some of the more mature ones up a bit?

Yeah, I guess I do.

Then I heartily endorse the hobby.

Thanks.

You just gave me an idea. I'll scatter around a few of the "diamond rings" from the two dollar shop, then gift them to the bikini girls LOL

You only have to let them find something relatively nice once, and they will be down on their hands and knees digging for you for days. A great way to make new friends.