Stormrider51
New member
I recently came back to THing after about a ten year break spent doing other things. I bought a Garrett Ace 250 slightly used for $100 and set about learning the machine. It works well enough. If it locks onto a target and says, for instance, "quarter" you can bet the ranch that is what's under there at about the indicated depth. It doesn't work so well on wet beach sand but that's another story. This isn't my first microprocessor machine and I remembered something, they make me wonder what I'm missing. Sometimes it beeps and bleats and can't make its mind up what is down there. To dig or not to dig? And what's this silent thing? Detectors used to be adjusted to emit a continuous soft tone. Sometimes the tone would whisper to me that something worth digging was way down there. I found my first 1929 Mercury dime at about 6" that way years ago. The Ace makes no sound at all until it beeps at a set volume. What am I missing? It bugs me.
Last week I started haunting Ebay looking for a non-computerized machine. I was amazed at the prices some of the oldies are bringing. I bid $250 on a Garrett Grand Master Hunter and was outbid. Then I bid $200 on a Master Hunter 7 and was again outbid. Apparently I'm not the only one out there with a yen for the old ways. I finally found a White's Coinmaster 5900/Di Pro at a local dealer for $125.00 and bought it. I stopped at a park owned by the local homeowners association on the way home to check the machine out. Would it be like I remembered? The park was relatively new so the best I could hope for was probably clad coins and maybe a few copper cents mixed with corroding zincs.
Some things we never forget how to do. I adjusted the GEB on the detector. I adjusted the tuner knob so the speaker emitted a soft tone, just the way I remembered. Then I tossed a nickle and my wedding ring on the ground and set the discrimination to accept both. I started hunting. I started finding a surprising number of coins. True, they were all newer but I expected that. The detector seemed to be rock-solid on I.D. and depth. And then, there it was. A whisper. The meter read between "penny" and "dime". I pulled the trigger to pinpoint. The depth read 5". That's a ways down for a new park. I started probing, found something the right depth, and carefully opened the hole. Did I have silver on my first time out in years and in an unlikely place at that? No, what came out of the hole was a bullet. I recognized it as probably a .380 ACP and it must have been fired straight down into the ground. Not silver but ample proof that the old detector still had depth capability.
I'm not knocking the super-duper do-everything-but-clean-the-coins microprocessor equipped detectors of today. My wife likes the simplicity of the Ace because she can just turn it on and go. But I started out with a BFO unit in the early 1970's before graduating to a TR and then a discriminator. I want my detector to whisper to me.
John
Last week I started haunting Ebay looking for a non-computerized machine. I was amazed at the prices some of the oldies are bringing. I bid $250 on a Garrett Grand Master Hunter and was outbid. Then I bid $200 on a Master Hunter 7 and was again outbid. Apparently I'm not the only one out there with a yen for the old ways. I finally found a White's Coinmaster 5900/Di Pro at a local dealer for $125.00 and bought it. I stopped at a park owned by the local homeowners association on the way home to check the machine out. Would it be like I remembered? The park was relatively new so the best I could hope for was probably clad coins and maybe a few copper cents mixed with corroding zincs.
Some things we never forget how to do. I adjusted the GEB on the detector. I adjusted the tuner knob so the speaker emitted a soft tone, just the way I remembered. Then I tossed a nickle and my wedding ring on the ground and set the discrimination to accept both. I started hunting. I started finding a surprising number of coins. True, they were all newer but I expected that. The detector seemed to be rock-solid on I.D. and depth. And then, there it was. A whisper. The meter read between "penny" and "dime". I pulled the trigger to pinpoint. The depth read 5". That's a ways down for a new park. I started probing, found something the right depth, and carefully opened the hole. Did I have silver on my first time out in years and in an unlikely place at that? No, what came out of the hole was a bullet. I recognized it as probably a .380 ACP and it must have been fired straight down into the ground. Not silver but ample proof that the old detector still had depth capability.
I'm not knocking the super-duper do-everything-but-clean-the-coins microprocessor equipped detectors of today. My wife likes the simplicity of the Ace because she can just turn it on and go. But I started out with a BFO unit in the early 1970's before graduating to a TR and then a discriminator. I want my detector to whisper to me.
John
