New guy with a pic

[detectit]

Hellow,
I just found this site and it looks good.
I have been metal detecting for 20 years and I used to be a dealer. I sold Minelabs and Fishers. I use a Minelab E-Trac for most of my hunting but I carry a Fisher F4 for a backup. I hunt mostly parks and old houses from the 1930's 40's and 50's.
I am a nut for silver so that is what I spend most of my time looking for.
The pic is from a house that I hit a couple of times 2 weeks ago.
The house was built in the late 40's
I have pulled 7 wheaties, 50+ coppers, one silver rosie, and one silver quarter and a bunch of loose change.
Thanks
Todd

[Daniel]

Glad you have you onboard :welcome: You found some good silver there. I will be getting out soon and postingt anything I find.

I need to get out more!

[Nolifeking]

Nice finds! I'm itching to get out here. Ground is still frozen though! Should be too much longer its getting warmer and there has been a lot of sunny days.

[Maineman750]

:welcome: Nice to see some finds and get me enthused ! I just got a metal detector last year so still learning. The only thing of interest I've found was an old horseshoe...it was at the site of an old civil war hospital, but there's no telling where it was from.

[detectit]

New machine=practice, practice, practice.
Good hunting

Frozen ground?? I live in central TX.
It was 94 today with 30 mph winds. I will swap with you.

Thanks for the greetings guys.
I love to look for silver and I will post pics of my finds.

[dipper13]

You sound like a detecting master. Could you recommed a machine or machines for silver/coins?? Dan

[detectit]

Wow thats a question.
You can get a decent detector in the 500.00 to 700.00 range that will offer enough disc. ground balance and multi tone options to get the job done.
I run a 1500.00 Minelab E-Trac and its doesnt miss much, but I have thousands of hours on that machine.
If I wanted to I can program it to just accept silver dimes and quarters and block all other signals, but I dont. I pretty much run it wide open and let my ears pic the silver out of the clutter.
I dont like machines that have coin Icons. I prefer a newmeric value for conductivity and ferrous content. I also want a machine with as many tones as possible 4 tones will work but I want more. Your ears are the best discrimantor out there.
I sold Fishers and Minelabs.
If I was going to get a fisher for silver I would look at a F5,F7 or F75
If I was going to get a Minelab I would look at a Exterra 705, Safari, Explore, or E-Trac.
These are listed from lowest price to highest.
I have also heard good things about the Garret AT Pro. I think its in the 500.00 to 600.00 range.

I carry a fisher F4 with me. This is a 400.00 machine that doesnt have a lot of bells and whistles but I have found silver with it.
It is a good coin machine but it wouldnt be my first choice for cherry picking silver.
The one main thing is that you have to learn the machine. You need to learn every noise it makes. With lots of practice your ears will be able to tell if you have a bent rusty nail or a quarter, you can hear the differance between a pull tab and a nickle.
My E-Trac has a sound that I hear that screams silver at me. With my disc wide open and set to multi tone my ears will pick that sound out of 100 tones all mixed together. Once I hear silver then I will look to my display to see what numbers are showing. Even if my machine isnt showing me numbers that say its silver if my ears say it is, I will dig it.
I always told my customers to buy there second machine first. Most people get a Ace 250 ,Fisher F2 or Bounty Hunter and they get upset becasue they dig lots of trash. Buy a better machine first, you will be happier.
Whatever you get learn the machine. practice,practice,practice

[Daniel]

Very good advice on selecting a MD. I can understand what you're saying about silver tones. I can pick out silver amongst a bunch of coins, tell what decade most coin series are from just by looking at the reverse, and sometimes even down to the year and mint.

However, I can't do this when they're buried! :l You would have made a sell if you where still selling.

[Nolifeking]

I haven't gotten the tones down that well, but I can pick out a good signal from a bunch of iron targets. Usually I can tell the size of targets from pinpointing. I run a whites DFX 300 and I'm still learning it. It has so much to offer programming wise and you can fine tune it to do just about anything you want. My first MD was a bounty hunter though I just upgraded last year to the dfx. Never tried fisher or minelab. I wouldn't mind getting a detector from a different company just to compare and see how much if any I'm missing with my dfx.

[detectit]

Heck you are doing better than me. I cant see the dates or mint marks anymore.


The DFX is a good machine. I have a coin test garden in my yard where I have all kinds of coins buried in the ground. I bury them with nails, on edge with pop tops and any kind of junk I can think of. I put some on the very edge of the range of my machine and try different settings to see if I can hear them better.
Whatever machine you have just use it, practice, practice, practice

[dipper13]

My kids gave me a kind of low end machine several years ago. It is a model 505 pioneer bounty hunter. I took it out today to an old abandoned park. I found a lot of pop tops and a silver quarter (1956) and 4 pennies, 1 wheat, and a cool old matchbox car. I really like the idea of a test garden. I set one up before I went out. It really works, and the machine is nit bad. By tuning it a little, it found less junk. I really did not have to travel much to find stuff. A 40 foot by 50 foot area is all I searched. This machine is better than I expected. Dan

[detectit]

A silver quarter, that would make my day.
I started off with a Bounty Hunter. They are made by First Texas Products or Fisher same company.

[berryla]

.it was at the site of an old civil war hospital, but there's no telling where it was from.