I’ve been using them since the 80s. Location in the country makes a difference in what you can find and when you can do it. Most important is research to find the right spot. The more you pay the more info you get to make a digging decision. I’ve stuck with Garrett but each company has there own ‘feel’.

Mike V

I use a whites V3i.

My dad discovered the hobby in his later years. Ended up rubbing off on me and my brother. My dads best find was a silver morgan dollar dating back to the early 1900's.

I haven't found anything amazing yet. Some interesting artifacts were found in my back yard such as the face of a 1918 rope making machine. My brother is a much better prospector than me. He will dink around and usually come up with a silver mercury dime or a few buck wheat pennies.

My wife and I are planning a trip to Ruby Beach, WA. Going to bring my detector and try to finally unearth something cool.

Gary drayton finds bobby dazzlers all the time

Used to do it quite a bit in my early teens and still have one. I just don't go out much. Started out with a Compass Magnum 320. Had a Garrett ADS 7. Owned a Whites Spectrum for awhile. Currently own a Minelab Safari. The Minelab is awesome on black sand beaches.

I've found lots of old coins. Coolest find for me was an American Civil War cannon ball.

Costco always has the best deal on a decent Bounty Hunter when they have it. The $200+ model is ~$100 at Costco when they are trying to get rid of them. If you want high end, lots of old guys buy an expensive one and get disillusioned with it quickly. There are all kinds of deals on CL and Marketplace.

I have been MDing for decades. Whites and Garrett are the best IMO. I had a Garrett GTAx 550 for years my first one with a target display. That machine was so good. Seated and barber dimes, Indian head pennies, buffalo and V nickles, standing liberty quarters, barber and walking halves, large cents, more modern silver coins. Had the pleasure of searching a defunct local amusement park that started off as a trolley stop like a lot of them in New England around 1890's. Got permission and was sole searcher there for a couple of years as the place was plowed and coins were everywhere. My best spot to date.

My experience has been construction sites are the best option. I have a Garrett AT Pro now.

Best finds, 1906 O Barber Half, 1919 Walking Liberty Half, 1895 S Barber Dime, 1902 Large Cent, 1738 Hibernia Half Penny (found on public property!), a 1901 Indian Head penny in mint condition, 1886 seated dime in high grade condition, 1929 standing liberty quarter in high grade condition..

In E Mass...

I bought my kids a Bounty Hunter Jr. for Christmas. It got good reviews by a guy on YouTube (yeah, I can hear the groans now). But his review was scientific enough for me. It does a great job for what it is. So far, found lots of screws, nails, beer cans and a quarter. Keeps the kids busy.

We found these with a Whites 63tr in 1972

Whole experience turned into a freakin nightmare

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I have a minelab ctx-3030. Been metal detecting for many years. Found some nice finds, from gold and diamond rings on the Jersey Shore to civil war relics in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Still go quite often.

Not as a hobby but via work I do.

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Metal is life!

We wound up finding a total of 25 pieces. we were getting tailed every time we left town, Relatives wanting some of them Dad finally sold 24 of them to the Flavel museum in Klamath Falls, OR. one was given to Whites Electronics because they gave us all brand new detectors It was written up in Treasure World and True Treasure mags among with the newsletter that Whites put out

I have a Whites Classic IDX and some headphones. I've had it for several years. I don't think White sells that model anymore. I haven't used it for some time and I take the batteries out when it is in storage. It works great and I found a lot of stuff, but nothing of any significant value. I do have several glass jars of dirty coins. The thing about metal detector hunting is that you have to dig up a lot of metal trash if you want to find anything interesting and it is a lot of trouble. You also have to careful about where you are hunting so people don't get upset by some guy digging holes in places that they are not wanted. It is very easy to find coke cans, metal beer can tabs, metal bottle caps, tin foil rappers, etc, etc, etc. And if you ignore signals that resemble trash, you can miss good items that are not trash. I have used it to find a ring that someone lost or keys, etc, etc. It works great for that. And if you only want to look for coins, this one will identify signals that could be coins and ignore some trash. However, you get generally the same signal from a metal beer can tab, that you get from a nickel or a penny... I like to use it when I go near a beach, where it is really easy to dig up the target and no one cares about holes in the sand.

I admit, I have a detector - cheap, cheap model from Harbor Freight. (I think I paid.. heck, $70 for it?) I don't go hunting valuables, though - my treasures are buried survey markers.
I was never trained on it, never learned - I know enough for it to help me locate something 6 inches underground.

I have a Tesoro Silver uMax. Great little detector and not too expensive. Found lots of stuff with it including a 24ct gold wedding band.

John

I seem to find lots metal with my chainsaws when I cut trees off my fence. Penality instant dull chain.

enjoy the day ! Shane

Better to just keep those finds to yourself.

If anyone finds a Grand Lizard our fellow Pinsider Blackbeard is looking for one.

I actually went back to find it - this is the one I got:
https://www.harborfreight.com/9-function-metal-detector-67378.html

It can detect different metals, apparently. However, unlike everyone else here, I have no idea how to use the functionality of that part of it. Since my survey markers are rather big (between 3 and 5 inches in diameter), I've never had to really worry about detecting different metal types.

I haven't really kept up on the latest tech, but most gold jewelry registers just like trash metal. If you don't dig up the trash, you probably aren't going to find the gold.

Even with my fancy V3i I still managed to dig up just about everything; thinking I may pass up the find of a lifetime if I don't. Some off the nicest tones put off by my Whites turn out to be the tips of nails and old pull tabs. All part of the hunting fun I guess

I havent in a long time. But I used to date the Daughter of Kellyco, does that count?

My Uncle goes out on the Sarasota Area Beaches, he finds his best stuff wading just beyond the surfline at around 1-2 feet of water. On average, well at todays gold, he brings in around $30K Annually in Gold and Jewelry found.
Maybe 5 days a month he goes out.
His biggest haul was a 2 carat diamond ring, and the best year in gold would be about $70k, and that was 2-3 times a week.

I bought my Garrett from them. Me and a friend went down there. He bought a Technetics detector. That was an expensive, plastic POS. He would get so mad when I'd find stuff and he wouldn't.

Figured I'd resurrect this thread since I'm just getting back into the hobby after a 10 year hiatus. I was always a White's guy, so I was sad to see that Covid played a role in them closing their doors earlier this year. I guess Tesoro called it quits a while back as well.

Anyway, I use White's V3i and XLT. Had a couple other White's models in the past as well. I just ordered a Garrett GTI 2500 Pro though, so I'm excited to get out there and see what it can do! Looks like a sweet detector.

Yep, they closed in June. I guess it was a combination of Covid, lack of motivation by the current owner (son of the founder), and some other stuff. They were definitely a giant in the industry. Hard to believe they're gone.

Fortunately, before they closed they set up 2 White's repair shops, one on each coast, so repairs should be easy for a while yet. I called the one up the other day and was relieved to hear that you can still update the original Spectra V3's to a V3i. The V3i was a later model that fixed some bugs and added some other things. Mine is on its way to them now.

Here's some stuff I found with my old faithful Nautilus. This batch is bound for Riddick s Folly museum in Suffolk, VA. Other stuff I've donated to the Pamplin Park museum near Petersburg.

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I basically just stick to hunting coins. That said, if I were in an area that I thought had some good relics in it, I would go for anything.

Those are some awesome finds! I wish there were things like that around here. I'm a bit too far North to get civil war relics, and for that matter too far West to get the really early US coins.

Thanks man!

I lived in Petersburg for a while and all you had to do was walk almost anywhere. If I were hunting today I'd go for homesites. Research 1800's maps.

So as per my previous comment, I'm a newb, and my current detector is a cheap, off-the-shelf thing from Harbor Freight.

Can ya'll enlighten me - what do these more advanced (Whites, for example) detectors give? Yes - treat me like an idiot. (Because I am, in this context. Heh!)

Few things I found in Virginia. Union Cavalry button, buckle, and pieces of harmonica reeds. Found with my trusted CTX-3030

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Speaking of newb's. I hunted in New Kent Co. and kept finding bits and pieces of epaulettes and union buttons but no sign of battle. The field had been plowed so I hunted the bank beside and found one complete set. I was searching for a reason and found that fresh union troops landed from NY. They ran into seasoned soldiers who made fun of the newb's and they discarded the epaulettes.

If anyone needs any help evaluating any Jewelry Finds, Feel free to reach out.
Im 4th Generation with 50 years personal experience. No charge!

It's both hardware and software. Some detectors have many compatible search coils, in different sizes and shapes, which allow for searching deeper or hunting in areas with a lot of trash. On the software side of things, some detectors offer multiple search frequencies, sometimes more than one at once. So you can identify items before you dig.

And then there are things like preset programs that you can choose from depending on what you want to hunt for. Many detectors allow you to change settings to create your own program.

There's other nice stuff as well. Like wireless headphone compatibility, transfer of programs from one detector to another, color displays, display graphs, etc. etc.

Thanks!

Okay, this caught my attention. How do the different frequencies help identify items?

I'm putting this into perspective with the work I do -
Sometimes I need to find a survey point. This point could be a 3" round brass, aluminum, or bronze disk. It could also be a 1/8" to 1" rebar driven into ground and covered by a plastic cap. These COULD be under a layer of forest leaves, OR, under a foot (or more) of dirt. In some cases, these markers will be alongside a road. And more than once, I've gotten a ping on my detector, and started digging, to either find trash, OR, .. not find anything. So in cases like this, yes - I would like to somehow know before I spend a good ten minutes on my knees along a road, digging up.. nothing.

Each element has a freqency range that is best suited to allow the detector to find it, so that info is turned into something on the display. I think I read somewhere that gold was best found with a freqency somewhere around 40kHz. So if your detector is searching with 3 frequencies and one of them is going nuts on the display with your highest frequency (assuming that frequency is in the gold range), then there's a good chance that it's gold you're hitting. I guess that's the best way that I can explain it.

And data is also converted to display info showing the likely size of the object, which can further help you identify it before digging.