I have always wanted a metel detector. Does anyone have some advice on what I should buy for an overgrown toy like this? Something that is not cheap but not overly expensive.
I just bought a “Discovery Junior” detector from Radio Shack to find the H[sub]2[/sub]O shutoff valve buried 6" deep in my front yard. It worked a charm. They list it for sixty bucks on their website, but the store had it discounted to $10.00.
Look for deals. The circuitry isn’t very complicated, so you can pay a lot for bells and whistles.
It depends on where you plan to use it, and what you plan on looking for. A good all-around starter machine is the Garrett Ace 250 (I spent $212 on mine brand new) - it will detect up to 8" in soil, and can discriminate between different kinds of metal pretty well. You can set it to filter out iron and foil, set it to only hit on coins, jewelry, or relics. It has a beep and a LCD screen that’s pretty easy to understand. It’s got the best features in the price range by far - the most features unless you want to spend at least a couple hundred dollars more.
If you plan to detect mostly along saltwater beaches in wet sand though, you will need a detector designed for saltwater; it makes dry land machines ping on nonexistent targets and go haywire. I don’t know much about detectors for those conditions but there are definitely people who can advise you on that.
May I recommend the kind folks at this site:
They are very helpful, welcoming and informative to new detectorists.
Best of luck in your hunt, it can be a lot of fun.
I was once in an arts & crafts / hobby supply shop (buying some uber-tiny phillips/flathead screwdrivers), and saw that they rented metal detectors.
I’ve got a metal detector somewhere myself - I did get it when I was very young (man, like, 15 years ago at least…), but I recall growing bored with it somewhat quickly, especially since it took a large number of batteries and was never very accurate despite spending lenghty periods attempting to calibrate it.
Anyway, I’d recommend borrowing or renting one for a while to see if you’d like it as much as you imagine you might.
I have a White’s Spectrum. Works great.
But if I were to do it over, I would get a more basic/less expensive metal detector. I discovered you really don’t need all the fancy processing.
An experienced treasure hunter doesn’t need all the “smarts” that are built in to a lot of detectors nowadays… they can find treasure by the sound of detector’s response. So my advice is to stick with a reputable manufacturer (like White’s) and get one of the mid-range units. Do NOT get an expensive unit with lots of “smarts.” Only amateurs get those.