Metal Detecting Tool Holster 1982

In the old days (or "the early days," for those of us who are old-er) it usually all boiled down to a garden trowel and/or a ground-off screwdriver for excavation operations, and the usual heavy-cotton carpenter's pocketed apron tied around your waist. Usually these aprons, usually unbleached cotton, were usually white or light vanilla colored, printed with the hardware store's logo, and quickly became filthy with dirt; smeared and stained after just a few days use. A lot of detector operators also wore the almost obligatory flannel shirt over a white cotton tee-shirt to complete the look of the day. Detectorists in the 60's, 70's and early 80's were not big on fashion sense...practical clothing was the rule. 

The interesting array of metal detecting tool and finds pouches available now didn't exist either, with me finally breaking down and making my own leather tool-pouch seen here below circa 1982. And dig that crazy digital watch on my 30-year-old arm! All the rage in the late 70's and early 80's, despite it being a piece of crap to use. And you will notice that the tools IN the tool pouch are all custom-made for that era of the hobby when few commercial tools existed. On the left, the coin probe is nothing more than a plastic-handled screwdriver with the slotted-blade ground down and rounded. The cleaning brush was a 1" wide enamel brush with the bristles cut in half. The thin, coin-digging tool on the right was a piece of electrical conduit pipe, hack-sawed, then metal-filed, at a 45-degree angle with a bicycle grip pounded over the end. And the tool resting in the center back of the holster is a standard wood-handled trowel, mainly used for moving quantities of dirt back into the hole you'd pulled the target from. 

Home-Made Tool-Leather Detecting Holster Circa 1982

Thanks to Tandy Leather, still in business today I might add, for providing a few tool leather scraps, a few dozen leather rivets, and a cheap rivet setting-tool. And of course, continual customization was the watchword as long as you still had a few open areas that you could rivet another leather loop onto. And it was almost indestructible; it would not rip, tear, pull apart, shrink or wear-out. And as a side benefit, leather, unlike myself, seems to get better with age! I've owned about a half-dozen modern detecting tool-holder/finds pouch arrangements, made of heavy canvas and/or synthetic materials that have finally worn out, ripped or finally came apart. Luckily, most tool and finds pouches are reasonably priced enough that replacement or having a few different ones for different types of hunts (the beach, parks, clay soil, fresh-water, rocky river bottom, etc) is not unreasonable. And they now come with an assortment of zippered pockets, water-proof mesh with Velcro-ed cubbyholes for junk, artifacts and coins...high-tech is not always the best tech, but things are improving.