Tuesday is senior citizen day at the Dirt Cheap stores, a chain of salvage stores in MS, and everyone 65 or older gets a 10% discount and doesn't have to pay sales tax. The stuff they sell comes from truck wrecks, stores that were damaged by natural disasters, insurance companies that paid claims and took possession of the goods and other sources. Just about anything from chewing gum to high dollar clothes to huge presses used for stamping metal parts can show up in them at bargain prices, but it's buy at your risk as there are no refunds or returns. They are a good place to just browse, so Tuesday morning I went to the one here in town to see what I could find. Three of the folks I worked with at True Temper were there, and while we were BS'ing one of them told me there was a metal detector in the tools section. I went over and sure enough, there was one of the made in China detectors Harbor Freight sells for $49.
The handle was broken off, a few wires were showing and it had a $30 sticker on it, but it was in the 90 percent off bin. With 90% off the sticker price and the 10% senior citizen discount I got it for $2.70. I figured it was trashed, but when I got home I put batteries in and it fired up. It has an 8 inch coil, a standard motion disc mode, an all metal motion disc mode and a tone mode similar to what the BH Tracker IV and Fast Tracker have. I air tested a quarter, dime, nickel and penny and was surprised with the results. It got the quarter between 7 and 8 inches, penny and dime almost 6 inches and nickel at 5 inches. Not at all bad for a $2.70 detector.
A little soldering, a dab of JB weld and a 1/4 inch bolt fixed the detector up just fine. I mounted the handle on end, which makes it more ergonomic and easier to use, took it out for a short hunt and got two quarters, four dimes and several pennies that were surface to maybe three inches deep, including a 1952 wheatie that was lying on top of the ground. It gets about the same depth on in ground coins as the BH Tracker IV and Fast Tracker and discriminates rejected targets as well or better. I'm going to play with it a few times and give it to the little boy who helps his mom and sisters clean up the trash at the football stadium after home games. Teaching a 10 year old how to use it will be a lot harder and take longer than fixing it did.
The handle was broken off, a few wires were showing and it had a $30 sticker on it, but it was in the 90 percent off bin. With 90% off the sticker price and the 10% senior citizen discount I got it for $2.70. I figured it was trashed, but when I got home I put batteries in and it fired up. It has an 8 inch coil, a standard motion disc mode, an all metal motion disc mode and a tone mode similar to what the BH Tracker IV and Fast Tracker have. I air tested a quarter, dime, nickel and penny and was surprised with the results. It got the quarter between 7 and 8 inches, penny and dime almost 6 inches and nickel at 5 inches. Not at all bad for a $2.70 detector.
A little soldering, a dab of JB weld and a 1/4 inch bolt fixed the detector up just fine. I mounted the handle on end, which makes it more ergonomic and easier to use, took it out for a short hunt and got two quarters, four dimes and several pennies that were surface to maybe three inches deep, including a 1952 wheatie that was lying on top of the ground. It gets about the same depth on in ground coins as the BH Tracker IV and Fast Tracker and discriminates rejected targets as well or better. I'm going to play with it a few times and give it to the little boy who helps his mom and sisters clean up the trash at the football stadium after home games. Teaching a 10 year old how to use it will be a lot harder and take longer than fixing it did.