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Do you know who is resposible for the detector you are using today....................it's Not Gerhard Fisher!!!!
- Thread starter Ivan
- Start date
An Englishman Daniel Hughes (think he was a poet) developed an induction balance in 1879 which Hopkins and Bell further developed in 1881.
Gutton of France developed a bomb detector in 1915 which didn't work to well due to ground noise but by 1918 there were several metal detectors (both French and British) that were demonstrated to the military. There was a picture published in the Strand magazine at the time.
The first specific treasure hunting machine came from Daniel Chilson of L.A. in 1924 which was a B.F.O. known as the Chilson-Bridge. This was used with great success in Florida and the islands finding gold and silver coins/chains etc.
Detector production expanded rapidly and by 1927 Sintschi produced the first metal detecting book "Modern Divining Rods: Construction and Operation of Electrical Treasure Finders"
Finally Fisher in 1929 came out with his "Metallascope". I think it cost $200 at the time. The weight was 22 lbs !
At the end of the 2nd World War various mine detectors came on the market and some could be and were used for coin hunting. There was a metal "slug" in the coil that could be screwed in and out to increase sensitivity to small items.
A few interesting facts are that Fieldmaster a British company developed a "motion" detector with a double D coil whilst Whites claimed that concentric coils had to be used.
Richard Dodds (Q-Tone and Sensor detectors) came out with the first wireless headphones for detectors and the first detector that used no wires between coil and control box despite XP's claim to be the first twenty years to late.
The Solar Pinnacle was an early British motion machine that was solar powered.
A US/British company came up with the "Splice", must be ten years back, designed for demining in the jungle where batteries were not readily available and the trees prevented the safe use of solar. This used a pendulum system to provide the small amount of current needed.
The U.S. company Westinghouse developed the first multi-frequency metal detector but only used it for industrial purposes. So Minelab was only first from the point of view of its use in a hobby machine.
Gutton of France developed a bomb detector in 1915 which didn't work to well due to ground noise but by 1918 there were several metal detectors (both French and British) that were demonstrated to the military. There was a picture published in the Strand magazine at the time.
The first specific treasure hunting machine came from Daniel Chilson of L.A. in 1924 which was a B.F.O. known as the Chilson-Bridge. This was used with great success in Florida and the islands finding gold and silver coins/chains etc.
Detector production expanded rapidly and by 1927 Sintschi produced the first metal detecting book "Modern Divining Rods: Construction and Operation of Electrical Treasure Finders"
Finally Fisher in 1929 came out with his "Metallascope". I think it cost $200 at the time. The weight was 22 lbs !
At the end of the 2nd World War various mine detectors came on the market and some could be and were used for coin hunting. There was a metal "slug" in the coil that could be screwed in and out to increase sensitivity to small items.
A few interesting facts are that Fieldmaster a British company developed a "motion" detector with a double D coil whilst Whites claimed that concentric coils had to be used.
Richard Dodds (Q-Tone and Sensor detectors) came out with the first wireless headphones for detectors and the first detector that used no wires between coil and control box despite XP's claim to be the first twenty years to late.
The Solar Pinnacle was an early British motion machine that was solar powered.
A US/British company came up with the "Splice", must be ten years back, designed for demining in the jungle where batteries were not readily available and the trees prevented the safe use of solar. This used a pendulum system to provide the small amount of current needed.
The U.S. company Westinghouse developed the first multi-frequency metal detector but only used it for industrial purposes. So Minelab was only first from the point of view of its use in a hobby machine.
thanx for posting that. There's plenty of images of WWII mine-detectors easy to find. And plenty were available after the war. I knew a guy who had one (although it could have been a Korean war era surplus). He said it was only capable of finding big cast iron, barrel hoops, etc... He said it would have been incapable (or lousy at best) at finding anything coin-sized. I wonder what those WWI mine detectors were actually capable of?
Carl-NC
Active member
"How many of us knew that Compass invented the DD..."
It's possible that even Compass didn't know they didn't invent the DD coil. Charles Heddon got a patent for his DD loop... in 1938... 30 years before Compass.
So what is a "DD" coil? It's a "00" coil with flattened sides. And who used a "00" coil? Alexander Graham Bell, 1881.
- Carl
It's possible that even Compass didn't know they didn't invent the DD coil. Charles Heddon got a patent for his DD loop... in 1938... 30 years before Compass.
So what is a "DD" coil? It's a "00" coil with flattened sides. And who used a "00" coil? Alexander Graham Bell, 1881.
- Carl
Carl-NC
Active member
Hughes was a musician... if anyone is the "father" of the metal detector, it would be him.
Bell created the first applied metal detector, directly based on a device he got from Hughes.
Fisher was an early mass producer of detectors. But he wasn't the first, there were other manufacturers at the same time. I own an early-mid 30's unit that pre-dates Fisher.
Wikipedia states, "In 1937 [Fisher] applied for, and was granted, the first patent for a metal detector." Even this isn't true. There were numerous metal detector patents prior to Fisher.
The SCR625 was deployed to field use in 1942, coincident with Kosacki's design. Both were used throughout WW2.
- Carl
Bell created the first applied metal detector, directly based on a device he got from Hughes.
Fisher was an early mass producer of detectors. But he wasn't the first, there were other manufacturers at the same time. I own an early-mid 30's unit that pre-dates Fisher.
Wikipedia states, "In 1937 [Fisher] applied for, and was granted, the first patent for a metal detector." Even this isn't true. There were numerous metal detector patents prior to Fisher.
The SCR625 was deployed to field use in 1942, coincident with Kosacki's design. Both were used throughout WW2.
- Carl
and this comes from talking with both Don Dykstra and Henry Gorgas who were two of the three co-founders of Compass, they both worked for White's. White's were selling and Don had an idea for using a Double-D coil design and Henry and Don both had some 'visions' of what could be done. Well, the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" must have applied because they left. White's didn't want to tinker with their ideas so they joined up with Ron mack and started up Compass Electronics, and their use of the Double-D coils sort of set them apart from the rest. Others followed in time, like Garrett with his D-D designs.
It's much like many other things we associate 'invented' with and in this case, Compass brought out the most noteable use of the D-D coils design so many of us just felt they got the credit.
Kind of like White's 'inventing' the Ground Cancelling Coinmaster 5 Supreme, giving us the ability to raise and lower the coil and balance out the effects of the ground. Nice, but I used to have a military mine detector from, I believe, the '50s. I'd use it when I'd give some seminars and have a friend walk into the room and scan by in front of everyone to get a laugh. Then, for fun, I'd read the Operator's Manual for that IB Mine detector and you needed to adjust a slight audio Threshold hum, with the coil in the air. the lower the coil and make a compensating adjustment with another control, then raise it up and do it again, then lower it and adjust again, until you achieved a setting that balanced to or ignored the ground if the coil was raised or lowered.
That was much the same as using the Coimaster 5 Supreme's Tuner to set the Threshold and then the Terainean (sp) Attenuator control to balance out the ground signal. That was an older military detector, with ground compensating abilities, yet I believe it is George Payne who has a ground balance patent for our hobby-based equipment, and wasn't that when he was still with White's?
It's things like that which cause us to sometimes mis-assign a development. So, from a hobby detector perspective, I think Don & Henry get the credit for Compass bringing us the first hobby-detector with a Double-D coil.
That's just a thought and certainly doesn't match you study and knowledge about the historic progressions of these contraptions.
Monte
It's much like many other things we associate 'invented' with and in this case, Compass brought out the most noteable use of the D-D coils design so many of us just felt they got the credit.
Kind of like White's 'inventing' the Ground Cancelling Coinmaster 5 Supreme, giving us the ability to raise and lower the coil and balance out the effects of the ground. Nice, but I used to have a military mine detector from, I believe, the '50s. I'd use it when I'd give some seminars and have a friend walk into the room and scan by in front of everyone to get a laugh. Then, for fun, I'd read the Operator's Manual for that IB Mine detector and you needed to adjust a slight audio Threshold hum, with the coil in the air. the lower the coil and make a compensating adjustment with another control, then raise it up and do it again, then lower it and adjust again, until you achieved a setting that balanced to or ignored the ground if the coil was raised or lowered.
That was much the same as using the Coimaster 5 Supreme's Tuner to set the Threshold and then the Terainean (sp) Attenuator control to balance out the ground signal. That was an older military detector, with ground compensating abilities, yet I believe it is George Payne who has a ground balance patent for our hobby-based equipment, and wasn't that when he was still with White's?
It's things like that which cause us to sometimes mis-assign a development. So, from a hobby detector perspective, I think Don & Henry get the credit for Compass bringing us the first hobby-detector with a Double-D coil.
That's just a thought and certainly doesn't match you study and knowledge about the historic progressions of these contraptions.
Monte
They touted it as being all new multi frequencies and brand new DD coils. They may have meant the first Multi frequency DD coil, and I misunderstood them.
If so please accept my apology for saying minelab grabbed the credit..I was wrong.........I should have researched better. I can further state that after MInelab came out using the DD coil..it did get more popular..and still is... Again, sorry for the bad info..and or poor memory..
If so please accept my apology for saying minelab grabbed the credit..I was wrong.........I should have researched better. I can further state that after MInelab came out using the DD coil..it did get more popular..and still is... Again, sorry for the bad info..and or poor memory..
Great post who ran the fisher ship after the good doctor retired? Any notables or innovators? In doing metal detector history research seems to be a big hole between A. G. Bell and Fisher. Then seems to be a dead end right after fisher for awhile also?Would love 2 hear of any leads? HH
Wooden Nickel
New member
Paul - Did you position the old one so we couldn't see the acid oozing out of the back?
MarkCZ
Well-known member
History of the Metal Detector
In 1881, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first metal detector. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet, Alexander Graham Bell hurriedly invented a crude metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug. Bell's metal detector was an electromagnetic device he called the induction balance.
The more to this story I read was the reason for it being unsuccessful (not able to find the bullet) was they later found wasn't due to the detector but the bed Mr. Garfield was laying on had metal springs.
Mark
In 1881, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first metal detector. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet, Alexander Graham Bell hurriedly invented a crude metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug. Bell's metal detector was an electromagnetic device he called the induction balance.
The more to this story I read was the reason for it being unsuccessful (not able to find the bullet) was they later found wasn't due to the detector but the bed Mr. Garfield was laying on had metal springs.
Mark
Interesting discussion. One thing about being in night school - in Ecomp, they never let you use or cite information from Wiki-anything because anyone can go out there and modify it; it's "iffy" information.
The discussion here is not unlike "who invented photography?" or many other things. Multiple people hit on the same or similar ideas; some got patents, others didn't, some developed it further than others too. It's important to know the history of something, I'm not disputing that. It's been good reading though.
The discussion here is not unlike "who invented photography?" or many other things. Multiple people hit on the same or similar ideas; some got patents, others didn't, some developed it further than others too. It's important to know the history of something, I'm not disputing that. It's been good reading though.
And a toast to the primitive man who found a rock that would attract iron partials ... although he couldn't explain what he found then but it was the first metal detector but his name might have been Fred Flintstone LoL !... and the first modern metal detector made for the masses was built by Fisher ...
IMHO , Woodstock
IMHO , Woodstock