After owning the Bounty Hunter RB7 (#4) for about 2 years, (1983-1985) I stopped at one of the local dealers to pick up some books and magazine back issues from their great assortment and saw a Demo Garrett Master Hunter 7. After testing it in the store I decided that to get some of the deeper old coins "I had to have it !!" Got rid of the BH RB7 and got detector # 5. With 16 years experience of searching parks and schools AND now, a top of the line detector-- I was ready to really get down to business.
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| Like the one I had |
After 3 or 4 months of the Garretts "Bell Tone"( which I couldn't stand anymore)----- I had enough--------back to the shop I went, and I traded the Garrett in on a Whites 5000D series 3.( #6) Now I could concentrate on the beeps instead of hearing bells in my head.
It was about this time when I met up with another Whites owner. He had an auto mechanic shop down the street from where I worked and he fixed my car a few times. One of the times I was at his shop I noticed a metal detector in the corner and I struck up a conversation with him about it. We went out detecting a few times a month at parks and schools in the neighborhood. He also had the opportunity to partner up with a guy who was searching for the Texas Twin Sisters cannons, and an article was written up in the Sunday paper magazine on one of their searches. I think they went out 3 separate occaisions looking for the cannons with no success. ( I always had to work when they went searching). I had pretty good luck with the Whites as I was re-searching some park areas and digging up some old coins that were still in the ground.
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| The 1212X was very similar to the 1210X |
I had heard there were about a dozen metal detectorists from the nearby neighborhoods, but I only saw 1 or 2 others detecting. Then in the middle of 1987 I was out of a job---and needing a few bucks, I decided to sell the Whites. Within 4 months I was back working and saved up some money and got a nice clean Fisher 1210X (#7). One knob, no screen, and ready to find coins. I WAS BACK IN BUSINESS !!!!
Do the current day detectors seem more "productive" than those of the early 1980's? Or were there many more targets back then than there are now and you still find about the same number of coins per outing?
ReplyDeleteJS
JS,
ReplyDeleteMost of the current detectors have advanced target ID capabilities and will detect targets deeper. And there were much more older targets back then, and while there still are old targets in the ground, the many years of pulltabs canslaw and other small junk being thrown on the ground over the older coins NOT found years ago, makes it more difficult to find them.
Let's say a 1920's coin was dropped in 1940 in a public park.The park still in use today has had at least 25 years of possible silver coins lost before no more in the pockets to lose.Some having never been found due to the older detectors not being able to, or missed the exact spot the coin was at. Besides the many years of pultabs since 1962( the 1st year of the pulltab)the soda cans dropped, run over by lawn movers and being cut up or squashed in the ground and no telling what other metal thrown on the ground. 50 more years of junk metal and clad coins lost on top of the older coins not found during the 1970's and 1980's detecting days. Those older coins are being masked by lots of other targets over them.
You can still find the same amount of coins per outing now---but almost all will be clad coins instead of silver and older pennies. You almost HAVE to dig every signal in parks and schools, even demo sites .......someone most likely owned the land beforehand. they might have owned 200 acres that over the years has been parted out into small 1/2 to 1 acres lots. Any particular area might have had a house, barn, outhouse and possibility of lost coins or relic items.
So when some detectorists say dig everything it is because there are still items in the ground...many after you dig a trash item that masked it from being detected. The odds are in your favor for finding older coins when lots of trash nobody want to dig is in a searchable area.
I agree
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