Metal detector for kids?

[Captain Cactus]

Hi all:

Hoping to tap into a wealth of global knowledge and experience here... my youngest son (9 years old) is interested in metal detecting.  We'd like to buy him a "starter" device, something appropriate for kids (both in size and price). 

Googling just brings up the usual ads and list-acles, which I feel aren't trustworthy (search prioritized by the highest bidder, etc...).

Do you have any kids in your life that do metal detecting? 

What recommendations do you have for a new device?

[YttriumNitrate]

Last year my then six year old wanted a metal detector, so we got him a ~$30 kind of like this one [https://www.menards.com/main/black-friday-2022/barska-reg-metal-detector/6170051/p-1444424713594-c-13917.htm?tid=7243255811423137534&ipos=1]. I think he used it for all of about an hour and then got bored when he realized it was mainly just walking slowly and (if they're lucky) finding garbage.

[Captain Cactus]

Cool, thank you!

[jambongris]

Don't know much about the comparative quality of metal detectors but my mother got one for my son a couple years ago and he had a blast with it. I want to say that it was under $100 CDN but I don't really remember.

The community was in the process of ripping out an old rail line in front of her house to convert into a community trail. The company removing the rails was supposed to take away all the metal, presumably to sell it for scrap. I guess it wasn't worth their effort to pick up every last piece so we spent countless hours walking up and down the trail hunting for railroad spikes and other pieces of metal from the old railway. We found five or six hundred pieces in total.

We weren't the only ones as local teacher/artist starting turning the old railroad spikes into art. My mother got in touch with him and he worked with my son to commission a heron with a fish in it's mouth made out of railroad spikes which is now installed in the shallow water in front of my mom's place by the new community trail.

Happy hunting!