In about 6th grade for me (1974-ish), a kid in my school had seen an old man swinging a detector on the school lawn over a weekend . Back in the days when school yards were defacto playgrounds of the communities. He had followed the man around watching him, and became interested. He went home and asked his dad for a detector for his birthday gift. Soon he was the proud owner of a heathkit type metal detector . I followed that kid around the lawn of our school and saw him dig a few pennies.
So I went home & begged my dad for a detector for Christmas. My dad, however, got me a $19 "toy" that was scarcely capable of finding any item small than a soda can. Doh! To get a coin to give a signal, you had to hold the coin right to the bottom of the coil. Aaarrgghh. Needless to say, I immediately lost interest.
Fast forward to 7th or 8th grade (1975 or 76-ish), a Jr. high school fishing buddy friend of mine had a detector: A Compass 77b, if I recall. Because his older brothers (who were 15+ yrs. older than him) had been into the hobby since even the 1960s. I soon found myself tagging along behind this new friend, at a local school blt. in the 1920s. On a typical day, we might find 15 to 25-ish coins, of which a few would be wheat pennies, and ..... if we were real lucky, a mercury dime, or buffalo nickel. I was hooked ! I realized that the one I'd gotten a year or two earlier was junk.
So in about 1975 or '76-ish, I found myself the proud owner of a used Whites 66TR. That was JUST when discrimination was starting to arrive on the scene. So ... within a few years, I upgraded to a Garrett Groundhog. But that was JUST when motion disc. was arriving on the scene. So I upgraded to a Garrett ADS II. And so forth, and so on, to the present.