11-02-2016, 01:37 PM
After a very bad summer with practically no posting on the forum, the site has come back nicely in the past week or so. Still about mid-week activity drops off again, expectedly so I guess as folks go back to work. The activity counter shows people checking in and then leaving when there aren't a lot of new posts and the site sort of idles till the next surge. I wondered if suggesting a topic solely designed to spur a little friendly banter (or even a serious discussion) might keep the members active and engaged with one another.
It occurred to me that in all our experiences in detecting, there must be some that didn't go exactly as we had planned. Have you ever had an embarrassing moment related to detecting that you might want to share, either for fun or maybe a warning to someone who hasn't ventured there? A brag that didn't pan out, getting shown up by a newbie, big time equipment fail in front of others, or maybe wrong place -wrong time?
Mine happened many years ago, when we were first married and struggling to pay bills and deal with family life. I had my old Whites detector but had also just gotten a Garrett beach unit. Trouble was there were no good beaches here and I just didn't have time or money to go to the coast often. Made one trip that was a failure, and soon realized that we needed to sell the new unit pay, pay bills, and move on.
An add in the paper produced a quick response and a man came to my office to see the unit. He was impressed and liked the price. Deal done. Then I tried to show him how it worked and what each little knob did. I showed him my pitiful little plastic bag with my salt water finds (fish hooks, sinkers, assorted metal crud) and my couple of local water finds consisting of a few corroded coins and a couple of junk jewelry pieces. Just kept talking when I really had little worth saying.
The buyer asked me to go outside with him while he stowed the detector in the car. I saw by his plates that he was from Florida, and as he put the detector in the
trunk he pointed to a huge fishing tackle box, the kind with multiple shelves that spread out when opened. And when he opened it I was stunned speechless, really. There were gold and silver rings, bracelets, necklaces and coins in every little compartment. I saw class rings, wedding rings, glam rings, cocktail rings, all with diamonds and every color stone imaginable. Turns out the guy was a fireman living at the Florida coast and he was basically a professional beach treasure hunter. The fire department job was for security and benefits, and his real "job" was treasure hunting. He said he did as well or better most years with detecting vs. being a fireman. And he was in the area seeing family, after meeting jewelry buyers and arranging to meet others.
The guy was very nice and did not intend to put me down. He just wanted to show me what wonders there were out there, waiting to be found. But I felt about 2 inches tall, and was truly embarrassed that I had been trying to tell him how to go about water detecting. Oddly, the machine I sold him was a duplicate of the one he was using and which had been rendered pretty much unusable by sand abrasion to the coil and salt water corrosion in the box. I learned a few good lessons that day. Don't get too big for your britches, there's always someone better, and humble pie tastes bad. I guess the biggest lesson though was that treasure awaits-you just have to find it.
Anybody want to fess up? I'd like to see what experiences you guys might have endured. Thanks .
It occurred to me that in all our experiences in detecting, there must be some that didn't go exactly as we had planned. Have you ever had an embarrassing moment related to detecting that you might want to share, either for fun or maybe a warning to someone who hasn't ventured there? A brag that didn't pan out, getting shown up by a newbie, big time equipment fail in front of others, or maybe wrong place -wrong time?
Mine happened many years ago, when we were first married and struggling to pay bills and deal with family life. I had my old Whites detector but had also just gotten a Garrett beach unit. Trouble was there were no good beaches here and I just didn't have time or money to go to the coast often. Made one trip that was a failure, and soon realized that we needed to sell the new unit pay, pay bills, and move on.
An add in the paper produced a quick response and a man came to my office to see the unit. He was impressed and liked the price. Deal done. Then I tried to show him how it worked and what each little knob did. I showed him my pitiful little plastic bag with my salt water finds (fish hooks, sinkers, assorted metal crud) and my couple of local water finds consisting of a few corroded coins and a couple of junk jewelry pieces. Just kept talking when I really had little worth saying.
The buyer asked me to go outside with him while he stowed the detector in the car. I saw by his plates that he was from Florida, and as he put the detector in the
trunk he pointed to a huge fishing tackle box, the kind with multiple shelves that spread out when opened. And when he opened it I was stunned speechless, really. There were gold and silver rings, bracelets, necklaces and coins in every little compartment. I saw class rings, wedding rings, glam rings, cocktail rings, all with diamonds and every color stone imaginable. Turns out the guy was a fireman living at the Florida coast and he was basically a professional beach treasure hunter. The fire department job was for security and benefits, and his real "job" was treasure hunting. He said he did as well or better most years with detecting vs. being a fireman. And he was in the area seeing family, after meeting jewelry buyers and arranging to meet others.
The guy was very nice and did not intend to put me down. He just wanted to show me what wonders there were out there, waiting to be found. But I felt about 2 inches tall, and was truly embarrassed that I had been trying to tell him how to go about water detecting. Oddly, the machine I sold him was a duplicate of the one he was using and which had been rendered pretty much unusable by sand abrasion to the coil and salt water corrosion in the box. I learned a few good lessons that day. Don't get too big for your britches, there's always someone better, and humble pie tastes bad. I guess the biggest lesson though was that treasure awaits-you just have to find it.
Anybody want to fess up? I'd like to see what experiences you guys might have endured. Thanks .