I got a Cabelas flyer yesterday and they had a $400 Bounty Hunter Titanium metal detecter on sale for $200. So I started researching and on the metal detecter forums, the Garrett Ace 250 seems like a top beginners detecter at just over $200, the Ace 350 with a few more bells and whistles is just under $300.

Just wondering for those that have them, are they really effective or just another dust collector after a short time?

Waste of time, in 25 yrs of playing with them off and on- never found much except for some wheaties.

I'd rather be walking fields for arrowheads instead of digging up lead roofing washers and horseshoes
Even with discrimination modes, still lots of junk.

I have a Whites- made in USA. The machines themselves are great. It's just the trash that humans leave everywhere, public areas are mostly off-limits and other good areas have been descended upon by locusts with their machines well before you get there. Homesteads are weedy, trashed up with nails and iron.

I inherited a pretty nice one from my father-n-law

Maybe a year ago there was a show on TV where these two guys went around working their ass off to basically find old hinges, a horse shoe, a label off a piece of machinery , stuff like that - I'm sure over the course of the show they found some things that were valuable but what I got from it is you just have to like the hunt to get any enjoyment from it. If they were the professionals and this was all they were finding, its not a hobby I want to invest time on.

So it sits in my closet.

On occasion someone does find something really significant but I don't have the patience to spend hour after hour finding nails looking for that once in a lifetime hit.

There are probably arguments that every hobby is a waste of time.

If you think you will enjoy it, do it.

The commercial cracks me up- dude says his wife thinks it's great exercise plus he gets to dig up walking liberty half-dollars


What a damn joke. Hope the old fart has good knees and doesn't mind chiggers and seed ticks in his flabby folds.

You need to read a few magazines like Lost Treasure to see if it piques your interest as a hobby. The stories of common folk in LT is what keeps most treasure hunters going. Plus, finding those 90% pre-64 silver coins we all grew up with is a hoot.

I use to treasure hunt back in the day with my uncle, 80's early 90's and he has several quart jars of silver coins and gold rings. Metal detectors have come a long way since then so I'm sure they're more effective. It's a fun hobby that can be valuable and also get a little exercise. Been thinking about getting one myself better than the couch.

Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it.

If it's a hobby, and you enjoy it...you win.

If you are looking to supplement retirement, probably won't happen.

Seen some people find jewelry on the beaches

I got my first one in 1980 (Bounty Hunter) and had a ball with it. I didn't mind digging up every signal because that's how you learn your machine and targets. After a while I could tell from the tone if the target was junk or silver. I was in Hawaii and chose to hit school yards rather than the beach (too much competition there). I found plenty of Mercury dimes, silver quarters, and wheats. My best find was in Ohio ... found an 1827 Capped Bust Half dollar under the root of a very old oak.

I purchased a White's DFX in 2008 because it was programmable.

There are two keys to enjoyment with a metal detector: Knowing your machine and doing research on potential hunt sites. It can get very frustrating hitting the parks and playgrounds that everyone else has hit and digging every target that rings up on the machine. The more enjoyable and successful hunts come when you are in tune with the machine and dig up those treasures that others have missed.

Final recommendation would be to see if there are others in your area that are willing to hunt with you. Some of those more experienced guys can definitely shorten the learning process.

I've read about treasure hunters in England really hitting it big when finding caches of ancient Roman gold. They're rare, of course, but some have been found. Apparently, to avoid long court cases, England has defined a legal policy on how the loot is split between the finder, the land owner, and the government.

Our son does some metal detecting as a hobby in his spare time. He says it's a pretty good destress hobby for him whether he finds anything of value or not.

He got interested in metal detecting back in his early teens. We started him out with a basic Radio Shack beginner model thinking he would loose interest in it before long. He didn't, though. Within a year or so he moved up to a middle of the road model White detector. He's got a different higher tech one now. (can't recall the brand/model name)

As others have said, he finds a whole lot more trash than treasure, but he also finds some pretty neat things sometimes. So far that I know of he has sold at least $100 worth of odds and end kind of stuff on ebay - old pewter whistle, old advertising watch bobs/pocket knife, etc. - that he has found metal detecting. He's finds quite a few old coins too but he usually keeps those.

If nothing else they can help pay for themselves by finding lost jewelry, keys, whatever, for family and friends. Our son's first cheap little beginner detector paid for itself simply finding our lost aluminum shaft arrows.

My money is on my young lab digging up a pot-o-gold in our yard. He has been getting a lot of false readings so far.

^^^^ This, plus what rockinbbar said about getting out what you put in. A set of head phones works a lot better for listening to tones to learn the difference in junk.

I've wasted a lot of time having a lot of fun with a Whites 6000 DI (and a bunch of other stuff as well). I've also gone in behind guys who were dead serious treasure hunters and told me they had cleaned a park out. I came back later and found silver they missed.

At a city park in New Braunfels, Texas I found a Minié ball near a berm at the edge of the park. Walked up a trial on the berm and found a few more, some actually visible laying in the trail. Later I learned that the area was a muster point during the Civil War, and the volunteers would target practice against the berm while waiting to head up. While little if any monetary value, that was one of my most rewarding finds.

Put some effort into it and it will be rewarding.

Depends how much effort you put in, what you want out of it and what areas you have to detect..

Over here in the UK, its a bit of a geeky hobby which attracts some very serious enthusiasts.

Given the rich and colourful history of the UK, making genuine and exciting finds is definitely a possibility and every few years someone seems to find a hoard of gold or silver coins.

That said, the actual detecting is only part of the hobby..

Many enthusiasts spend hours and hours doing research looking for likely sites ie former villages, roads, houses, churches ect..With online aerial photo's now available this research often identifies sites not previously known.

Once they locate a likely site they then have to gain legal access from the land owner, probably striking a deal over any potential finds, although a minority will simply trespass and work the site that way, often at night..

I've had a Garrett 150 for years. It will find the tiniest scraps of nothing , bits of foil from ancient cigarette packs , bits of hog wire fence where there is no visible sign of the fence , etc.



Mike

Just like any "HOBBY", you'll get back exactly what you put in...what I mean is you have to "Learn" how to use each individual model, & there is a definite learning curve among the different models...The Ace 250 is a very good detector for the price & is one of the best/cheapest/easiest as a starter.

I'd shy away from anything by bounty hunter.

I've been in the "hobby" for over 40 years, have had over 10 different detectors and tried/used many others.

My only current detector is a Minelab 2200V2 with two coils. But I'm looking to pick up a Fisher Gold Bug 2 & one of the newest Minelabs...the SDC 2300 or a Garret ATX. (Mainly for nugget shooting) It can be a very enjoyable but addictive hobby...Oh BTW, I've more than paid for every detector I've ever owned. At one of my favorite spots for coins, there wasn't one time I ever came home with less than $20 of old quarters. Don't expect those kind of results right off the bat...it takes a lot of research & time spent actually detecting. Also don't expect to see someone actually detecting any "sweet spots" during the daylight. Once a really good spot is found, many won't "work" them except at night.

ETA: Join "finds treasure forum" to get a better idea of the different types of metal detecting...a lot of guys specialize in the different types..."beach hunting", "nugget shooting" Relic hunting" etc. It'll give you a better understanding on the different types of detectors too...

Finding $5 now and then will keep you going for awhile.





A friend's wife pulled this out of the mud a few years ago.

Talking of "sweet spots" when my nephew was about 8 years old, I bought him a kids detector one Christmas.

Knowing his attention span was short and the detector was rather limited, I went out and buried a hand full of coins scattered around the corner of a near by field..

The look on his face when he made his first "finds" was worth it!

Eventually it got to be a bit of a routine; he would phone and ask if I would take him out with the detector and I would go out just before he turned up and bury a handful of coins..

Over the next few months, his "finds" would have probably cost me more that the original present! lol

Forgot to mention.

I lived in Mina, Nevada some years ago, and every year a group of guys would stay in town for a week or so while hunting the tails piles of the local abandoned mines.

I never saw a huge nugget, but they always came back with gold, usually enough to pay for their trip and then some.

They seemed to always have a good time.

I don't know the current status but some years ago a lot of parks, etc were outlawing them because the treasure hunters were using trowels and shovels and making a mess of the place.

+1 on this!

I too have been playing with detectors for at least 45 years. The research end of the hobby can account for many winter evenings and by spring, boy of boy are you fired up.

The best advice I ever got was to find a local dealer that is willing to give you some one-on-one training with what ever machine you select. The few dollars saved by mail-order dealers is false economy. The local dealer wants to help you succeed and will go out of his way to make you happy. He may also be able to get you in touch with other locals - a partner is always a real plus for anybody in this hobby.

Happy Hunting - Craig

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/03/25/07/16/victorian-grandma-finds-gold-nugget

even better....

http://www.nuggetshooter.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=27825

If one insists on getting into it.

Get a secondary smaller (3"-4") coil if you get into places with mixed trash so you can pinpoint during discrimination.

I used the 10" coil for open fields and forest areas for quick cruising.

I'd be out "hunting" right now, but my brothers condition keeps me home most of the time. I'm moving at the end of the month to a place where he'll have a part time "sitter"...& yes, I plan on supplementing my retirement...it's fun...it CAN be rewarding & believe me...it CAN be good exercise, especially if you're climbing hills & using a good "Pulse Induction" machine...it sure beats the hell out of sitting on the couch.

Hijacking this thread on purpose !

How are you and your Brother doing ? Have been wondering how it is going for you both

I've thought about getting into nugget hunting as we have quite a few old mines and not all of them have active claims so there is good potential to find some picture gold or maybe a nugget or two in a tailings pile.

But the key is to realize it's similar to fishing in the ocean. Yes, there are fish in the ocean, but there is a lot more ocean than fish so you need to concentrate on fishing areas where the fish will be concentrated. Same thing with detecting, you need to do your research on narrowing down areas that are likely to contain buried valuables.

Yes, that's been a problem with some. With very little effort one can dig and leave hardly a trace, if any.

I had a low end model years and we had a lot of fun with it over the years. Maybe in our retirement we could take up the hobby again.

As a kid in the 60's I had a crazy neighbor with a kit built White's detector IIRC. He was my buddy's father and I thought he was pretty cool at the time. He like guns, fireworks, metal detecting, digging for old bottles in farm dumps and he shot off a line cannon every 4th of July on the corner in our neighborhood. He also had a secret stash of stag films that we "discovered", but that is another story.

Anyways, I thought detecting was cool but it was sort of like hunting on posted property, you never knew if you were going to get run off where you were digging. This guy was president of the local PBA so he acted pretty much like he owned the places we went.

Long and short of it he found a colonial era flintlock pistol near the Princeton Battlefield that had British markings that were pretty clear after he soaked it in a mild acid solution. All the wood was gone but everything else came out of the hole. He also found a New Jersy penny once at Washington's Crossing just across the river in PA. I can even remember him going to the site of the Battle of Trenton and doing some detecting. All of these things would probably get you a nice fine these days but hey, it was the 6o's.

I have a bounty Hunter myself, but I really never have the time to use it. I've found the usal crap along with some better stuff. My best find is a civil war uniform button in my next door neighbors yard. His house was built in 1739.

I'm lucky enough to live in a good area for relic hunting. I used to relic hunt a lot more back in the 90's. There is a skill to it that will get you more finds or will get you nothing if you don't have that skill.

I mostly hunted for and found Civil War relics, lots of U.S. and some Confederate. I found thousand of bullets, round ball, percussion caps etc. and quite a few military buttons, buckles, box plates and insignia.

It's a lot of work, you will be worn out at the end of the day and it's not a good summertime hobby. I used to have several shoe boxes of relics that my wife called "junk" that I kept in our bedroom closet. That junk turned out to be a few thousand dollars worth when we started selling on ebay back in '98.

I'm kind of interested in this subject also.

So, I was wondering if the value is there, for a beginner, to buy the Garrett Ace-350 instead of the Ace -250.

There is little difference in cost, about $85.00+ for the Ace-350.

I know most everything has a learning curve, and on some hobbies it's better to start out with a tool that's easy to learn on. Others, easy to learn, and you can grow into.

I doubt that I'd be using whichever purchase I make, a great deal of time, but I would like to buy something that allows for discarding pop tops, bottle caps, ect., and has a easy learning curve.

Respects,
Richard

In Anchorage there is a place called Alaska Mining and Diving. They have a Gold mind back in the bush that you have to fly out to. They have a deal for some amount of money (not cheap) they will fly you our and feed you for a week. What ever you find in gold you keep. They keep the place full doing that. Some pretty good strikes happen on occasion. I think most people at least pay for their trip.

I went through the same thing a couple years ago. After my research I originally planed on getting an Ace 350 but after some contemplation decided that was a little too much money for me to sink into an unknown hobby.

I ended up with a Tesoro Compadre for about half the price. It dose not have the discrimination abilities of the Ace but it is a solid machine that is simple for beginners to understand. If I ever decide to get an second upgraded machine I'll probably skip the Ace line and go strait to the upper end Garrets.

I've only done detecting around the ranch here so I've not come across many coins yet. My best find being an 1898 Indian head penny. There are several old homesteads on the place so most of what I find are relics.

I've found an surprising number of different fired cartridge casings, some dating back to the late 1800s. I've found everything from .32 rimfire short to .45 Bulldog.

It's pretty neat getting a glimpse back in time and seeing what folks were doing 100+ years ago.

The Gaines Creek nugget detecting trips are no more.

Not hard to find some 250 vs. 350 comparisons on the net. The thing with detectors is you need have an idea of what you are looking for and what ground you'll be working in. Some detectors will work better for some metals than others, or large deep objects vs. smaller objects, some detectors are better at discriminating what you're looking for from mineralized ground, etc. Do some research as there is lots of good information out there.

When you start trying to tune out bottle caps & the other junk, you lose sensitivity...some machines have "tone" & digital readout "discrimination" but I know a guy that was nugget hunting with a popular "gold" detector & got a screaming signal that was thought to be iron... his buddy dug that same target not 5 minutes later & unearthed a nice 3/4 ounce nugget not 2 inches below the surface...even if you use a machine that will most of the time be pretty spot on as far as identifying what the signal is...one of the first things you need to learn is to dig everything...when you pass up digging up what probably is a rusty old can, you'll feel pretty stupid when your buddy digs that target & finds that rusty old can (or jar) & it's filled with old coins or cash.

Dig everything.

I've got one of the $200 ilk.

I use it to find arrows in the back yard. Works great!

The extra bells and whistles aren't necessary but the power is. I would recommend a machine that can detect small objects that are deep.

I always use my ears to discriminate good metal from trash. If you are digging aluminum pull tabs then a gold coin could be next. When you find a target, move the head across in different directions. If you get a faint signal that is clear, smooth and doesn't hick-up then that could be something good a few inches down. Some things are bigger and not deep, but I always look for things that other relic hunters missed. Move real slow like you are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Most of my good finds were very faint signals from objects that were just deep enough that my machine would have missed if it had a little less power or I would have missed if I had been moving too fast.

I always wear a good set of headphones. It does feel a lot different wearing them as in it isolates you from everything else. I liked to have my pitbull with me back when I used to go a lot. He would make big circles around me in the woods keeping me in sight, that would help keep away that feeling that someone was sneaking up on me.

When I was on deployment to the Med in the Marines I was out flying with my CO. He was real interested in Roman history on the African continent. He had some maps of certain Roman battles and we landed in Tunisia, out in the middle of know where and he got out with his metal detector and started looking for Roman artifacts. He had planned on doing this since he had taken command of the squadron, knowing we were going to deploy to club med.

Train him to sniff out truffles

Not only dig everything, but after you dig down and find your target, make another sweep over the hole with the coil to make sure you don't get another ping. On more than one occasion a deeper nugget has been found over a shallower one. And not to mention many cases where something valuable was left after something was found on top of it.

Exactly.

Likely not going to get rich, but it gets a feller outside.

I bought one years ago with the idea I'd use it to look for lost aluminum arrows behind my backstop. It works great for that.

I've used it to look for coins in a dirt parking lot at a couple of boat ramps with the permission from some park rangers. After looking for a couple of hours, I didn't have enough change to buy a cold drink. Part of the deal was that I throw away any trash I dug up. I doubt that I could get that permission again and don't think I want to try.

I have found several rings and necklaces, but I had a general idea where those were lost and was asked to look for them.

The greatest value was the time I spent with my boys when they were growing up looking for stuff. They would get as excited about an old button off some kids jeans as they would have if we had found a gold coin.

I use a Fisher QuickSilver. Mainly for coin, it picks up round
semi-round objects. I use the headphones, the tones help alot.
Always check under old clothes lines. I need to go out more.

That'll get you shot in a lot of places...

I had a Radio Shack model back in the early 70's, it picked out plenty of junk and I grew tired of if quick, preferring my bicycle and Yamaha 60.

I avoid crowds pretty much all of the time, but I did think it would be fun to search Buffalo Bayou west of downtown Houston after a big event, like FreedomFest.

always wanted to try it, i like hiking and it goes along with the rockhounding and fossil hunting i already like to do....may have to look out for a good lightly used model from someone that decided it wasnt for them whole lot of homesteads around here.....

Weren't you a your ex involved in a newspaper? With connections to other local publishers, especially ones who have archives of old printings, I'd think you may be ahead of the game from the git go as far as research goes.

yeah she owns part of two area papers.....prolly have a couple years worth of spots without touching the archives though, my family has been here for most of 100 years and know some places ild hit and even have permission to be on....

Way back when, it was common to bury/hide valuables...the older the location, the better...if you decide to do it Sheridan, remember....dig every signal you get...clean the area the best you can & then return with a "Minelab" pulse induction (GP series) model. You'd be amazed at how much deeper they'll find stuff...especially the bigger targets. Be forewarned though...I've dug boot tacks almost at near 2' depth...

Here in SC one of my former coworkers was big into it. IN addition to the verrrry nice detector he had this little hand held unit that you could put into the hole after digging to see if there was anything there. He paid for his by taking it to Myrtle Beach and sweeping the beaches at dawn every day. he would also work the fields and similar areas after concerts and football game parking areas, that kind of thing, so it is not like he was finding treasures or any of that, and he was less than scrupulous about advertising the lost items found

That said, if you are into ti, good luck