As someone who has spent hours outside looking for things like this, it IS very exciting when you actually find something that even looks halfway valuable. Plus, urban and rural exploration can be its own reward.
I would like to know what happened between "owning some speakers in the 80s" and now.
Something happened, something birthed the "deep digger" within him.
I've got an old metal detector that I've found some cool stuff with. Nothing as fun as Europe, since they had Roman soldiers burying coins and stuff.
Mostly, you find nails and screws, followed by lower layers containing more of the same but with pull-tabs from beer cans.
I'm told that if you can find abandoned farms, those have some pretty good stuff in the form of coins, both dropped as well as hidden by people suspicious of banks.