Dusting off a Dinosaur

[Canewrap]

Is there anyone that reads this forum and has been detecting for more than 20 years? Ok, out of that show of hands, how many still have an old detector that they used to detect with in the 1980s? Have you ever compared it to a modern, top-of-the-line machine? Would someone be willing to do it and post their results? I think it would be real helpful to know how far things have come. Is it only more bells and whistles? Do the new machines detect deeper, more consistent? Can they handle bad ground better? Sometimes it really helps to know how things have developed to have some idea of how much they might progress into the future.

TIA,
Bill W.

 

[morelic55]

Does 1970 count? I still have my 1st, a Bounty Hunter I Today's machines are like comparing the Wright Brothers plane to the Stealth Bomber.........Depth was a whopping 4" on a quarter on the BH I.....

 

[BarberBill]

In the 70s I had a Jetco. No discrimination, needed constant retuning, wasn't all that deep, but it did find metal.
BB

 

[woodwizard]

not sure of yr but had an old whites something-any way it used enough batteries to power the shuttle.i think it took 8 aa and maybe also a 9v.did need lots of attention to keep detecting.today with F5 ,drop in 2/9v turn on and go -hit gb once in awhile.same with the wader except no gb

 

[woodwizard]

not sure of yr but had an old whites something-any way it used enough batteries to power the shuttle.i think it took 8 aa and maybe also a 9v.did need lots of attention to keep detecting.then used a BH 202 for quite a long time-today with F5 ,drop in 2/9v turn on and go -hit gb once in awhile.same with the wader except no gb

 

[coinviper]

Nice ! I had the bounty III, A good machine.

 

[jim tn]

Got started with a Jetco in 1974. Turn it on and dig everything down to a whopping 2," maybe. I still have it, but I don't think I'll run any comparison tests between it and my F 75LTD. HH jim tn

 

[hershey1]

I still have my Tesoro Golden Sabre II. late 70s I think. Still looks and works great. Even got the original manual. Will still get coins and pop tops at 8 inchs. Back when I first got it my arms got big as Popeyes because I dug everything. Now with the modern machines you can be more selective. But your arms won't be as big. I go with my son and still use the Tesoro hunting civil war relics. It won't go as deep as his V-3 but a lot of that is in the coils.HH

 

[Sven]

Tried some vintage early high end 80's detectors again over the past 6 years. Garrett Groundhog & Master Hunter ADS , White's Coinmaster 5000, Detex CK20, SK50, Fisher 555, 552.
Can tell you that they had some very respectable air tests comparable to some high end units of today.
Took them out for a test run, they ran smooth as silk in VLF all metal mode and could find a coin in Georgia's hot soil to 3-5". In TR Disc mode 1-3" max.
Terribly disappointing.
I remember the same units (Garrett, Detex, Fisher 555) when I lived up in Western New York could easily pop out a dime up to 10" or so using a 10-12" coil in VLF mode. In disc. mode I don't think I ever picked up a coin more than 6". The Whites did perform as good as the others.

Here's a real Kicker, once owned a Whites Coinmaster 2 GEB, I believe was the model. This unit was a loaner for newbies to try when they came along with me.
It had really good depth, comparable to the Coinmaster 5 without the bells and whistles. We went down to a organized hunt near Boston, Mass one year, damn thing signaled on a coin at 15" deep in GEB mode at an old park there , I was shocked. Must have been a fluke or super mild ground.

I still think the above units depending on the ground conditions still make great detectors in VLF-GEB all metal modes. Can't say they will compete with current models hunting in Disc. mode. As older units were TR disc. modes. You had to keep the coil height at the same level you tuned it for. Otherwise the tone would change every time coil height did. I hunted a lot in TR-Disc. mode for coins and when relic hunting or coin hunted old areas hunted in All metal modes and used TR Disc. mode to check targets.

So if you wanted to hunt with some high end vintage detectors today, remember they are heavy and not very well balanced. If you ever hunted with a current
Minelab Sovereign in forward mounted position, just think how sore your arm felt after a short while of hunting............you'll get the idea how those oldies made your arm feel. Many of the oldies had optional hip mounting products you could buy for them.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

For the most part new units are lighter and go deeper with batteries lasting longer...Having said the above I know some 1990's units such as the CZ's and XLT's in the hands of a capable operator are as good or better than many new models on the market..Considering the world around us evolutions in the industry have not kept up with other products when we look at Flat screen TV's, blackberries, I phones, I pads and the like....

 

[Cliff KS]

My first detector was a Christmas gift in the late 70's, '78 or '79 I think. It was a "Treasure Locator" made for Sears by Whites -- a TR discriminator. The control box is made out of metal and the size/shape of a small shoe box. It has 2 battery holders -- one holds 8 batteries and the other holds 6 batteries, for a whopping total of 14 AA batteries. Kinda' heavy and balance not the greatest as you might guess. Don't recall finding any coin size objects any deeper than about 5 or 6 inches. Best finds were a piece of a women's silver broach and a brass watch fob with a replica of a Kellogg's Corn Flake box engraved on it.

 

[Bill - De]

I started with a Compass Judge back in the 70's, but I don't have it anymore. Actually threw it away about 2 years ago; wish I had kept it just fot the heck of it. It was a pretty neat detector for it's day. It used 12 AA batteries, and they didn't last all that long. It was heavy, too, but it worked, and I think it was as about good as you could get, at that time.

 

[mick65]

man that bounty hunter, sure brings back memories for me i had one back in the late 60's i found a lot of stuff with it, i say stuff because i dug everything back then. the very first thing i found with it was a silver half dollar in my front yard.

 

[salmonriverhotrock]

Have used my Garrett Freedom II Coin Commander since I bought it new in 1987. Has been a very reliable machine and would never part with it. I cut my ears on detecting strictly by sounds in 1982 and ever since, sound, not meters and screens, has been my preference. All this new stuff is ok but then what do the new machines really require of a person to actually know to run one beyond changing batteries or swinging it? Even the new machines can be fooled by odd metallic alloy contents and the displays take at least some of the excitement out of the find. Kind of like having an ultra sound to see what kind of kid your going to have before it's born.

I will say though that my Bounty Hunter 505 did pull one more coin, a penny, out of my yard previously hunted by my Dinosaur Garrett Freedom II. The 505 does have though an 8" stock coil that is at or about 1-1/2 to 2" bigger than the Freedom II stock coil. It could be I simply missed it by not overlapping enough or the BH had an edge on depth but I hardly found it reason to believe my Garrett had just had it's rear kicked.

Back in the 90's, I located a survey stake for a friend on his property. I was able to hear it (with head phones) through the trash but it was barely. I had him dig and when he found junk, he was convinced that was what I was hearing. I told him to keep digging because I could still hear it and kept pin pointing on the same spot and then we hit the top of a nail in a wooden stake. He thought that was it but I told him I could still hear it. At 14" depth, we hit the top of a 1/2" round metal survey stake. He was so impressed, he bought himself a top of the line Garrett and took up detecting himself back then.

 

[UK Brian]

Best discrimination was from the Off Resonance based machines produced by companies such as Tesoro, C-Scope and A.H. Pro. To take the A.H.Pro's for example they had three machines ("Backpackers") that weighed less than 2lbs and each collapsed smaller than modern detectors. Average battery life of even the flagship Super Pro Fine Tune that had a meter was 80 hours.

 

[UK Brian]

Referring back to a British dealers catalogue of 1977 as so many posts are referring to the older machines being arm breakers and having poor battery life there are four detectors at a little above the one pound weight and another eleven at 2 lbs. Average battery life between 40 and 60 hours though there is the odd machine as I mentioned in my post below that could achieve 80 hours.

The fact that the old I.B.'s, TR's and VLF/TR's were not motion so required a constant coil height above the ground to stop them sounding off is mentioned by Sven. This in fact was not a drawback its a positive advantage as it forces you to detect correctly for maximum depth. No penduluming down the fields as you see today. Another drawback with motion is that the filters (they are in fact poles and the number quoted for each machine is never right there's always more than stated) require the detector to be used at a speed to suit the filtering set up. Take say a Spectrum that requires a fast sweep speed for maximum depth and best discrimination. You can only achieve the optimum speed over the few feet directly in front of you. Each side of that your either slowing down or speeding up. This suggests your best going for a two filter design that will work at near zero movement but two filter designs don't cope with mineralisation as well.

Many of the older designs didn't have discrimination as such but most I.B. designs were highly insensitive to iron. This could also provide "iron see-through" not equalled on modern detectors.

The drawbacks of the very old machines were no ground balance at the start and when it was introduced it needed a bit of care to set up. Then you need coil discipline in keeping the coil level over the full width of sweep. Discrimination does seem to have shed depth performance at a faster rate than on some modern detectors but the manufacture would state quite clearly that you should only use the minimum you could put up with. For land this would be knocking out small iron nails, for the beach small foil. Now days your given the idea that there's not much of a price to be paid in upping the discrimination or notch.

One great leap forward in today's detectors is that you can have one machine that will work on most sites, even wet sand. In the old days you really had to have a pulse machine for the wet and a second one for land use. You could get on the wet by using the discrimination when it came in as a ground balance as the salt effect is balanced out at roughly the position where silver foil is rejected but this led to engagement type rings being rejected.
Another plus today is ground tracking but it has its problems which is why there's still not that many detectors that track and those that do often have the facility to turn it off or lock it.
As for detecting deeper and more consistently ? For depth your still best using all metal. Rely on an I.D. meter and it will be telling you that wanted items are iron. The old original deep seeking discriminators that are still made and used over all of Europe have a primary all metal search mode and a ferrous/non ferrous meter. So you miss nothing. The minimal discrimination applied to the meter means that good items are not rejected to the same extent and if the target is beyond accurate I.D. depth and there's no meter deflection you just skin off a few inch's of soil until a proper deflection is obtained. Nearest thing to this in the States is the Nautilus DMC which though having come third this year in the G.N.R.S. normally wins year in, year out. Nice thing is that with detectors like the T2 you can coin shoot for modern coins at the park or use it in all metal with the meter to aid I.D. The drawback remains that with old machines while you could just dig a coil sized hole and drop the coil down towards the target motion machines require a bigger hole and directly you start any sweep the I.D. reading is open to being influenced by nearby metal.

 

[Nitro]

I still have that exact unit....doesn't work anymore but I keep it around for sentimental reasons My favorite tried and true machine is the 6000 Di Pro SL....still use it as my main detector. She's a tad heavy but a great detector nonetheless.

 

[bassmavrik]

Still have a 1979 Whites 6000D and 1985 6000Di...both found a lot of coins and jewelry. First detector was a Compass.

 

[1seeker]

Still have my Whites coinmaster 4 ,its gotta short ,i still have it,now i run cz70pro 12.5 sunray coil.f75,excalibur NY 800,excalibur blue 800,Not happy with FT ,leaning more towards ML,New explorer 4 coming out late 2010 ,20 inches on coins ,color Hd,sreen Double stacked coils ,claims 40% more depth,everyone HAPPY HUNTING !!! Earl Maryland