Return to hobby after many years of being absent.:clapping:

[Teach]

Hello fellow crazy people!

After many years of being sad about the state of my Garrett XL500 Sea Hunter I have decided to return to the hobby. A year of so after getting my Sea Hunter i put the ole girl into storage as I had to leave town for a while to find work. A couple years went by and when I finally dug out the ole girl I was devastated to find the batteries had leaked acid and had virtually destroyed the circuit board and rendered all knobs and controls useless also. Now keep in mind this was back in the early 1980's. Back in the day I had paid somewhere close to $1100,00 dollars Canadian for that machine........ouch.......that was a lot more money back then than it is now.

Missing the hobby over the last year I decided to contact Garrett and enquire if anything could be done with my detector to repair it or find out if it would be cheaper just to toss it and buy a new one. The fine folks at Garrett suggested based on my description of the unit that it may be in my best interest to simply trade it in on a new one as I would be looking at a complete rebuild which would cost a few hundred dollars which i did not think was too bad considering I knew what state the unit was in but here is the kicker.........Garrett offered me 50% off the price of a new Sea Hunter with a trade in of my old and dead Sea Hunter. So I have decided to take them up on their trade in offer.

So here I am waiting for my new Sea Hunter to arrive. Based on what I knew of my old Sea Hunter I feel very confident that the new one will also make me very happy with it's performance........all things being equal or better.

The only way to wear those older units was with a harness to strap things over your shoulder and around your waist. There were no options of mounting the housing above and below your wrist or mounting the housing on the wand. So in some applications it was cumbersome to use. For that reason I often felt i would like a second detector for dry ground or dry beach work as I mainly used the Sea Hunter in the water near the wave breaking areas of the shore and farther out but never with scuba or skin diving applications. The dry ground units back then like the Master Hunter and Ground Hog were the machines of the day and were a nice compact unit for use on land compared to the Sea Hunter. No cords flopping about.......the ability to swap coils etc. made them much more user friendly on land.

Sorry for this being so lengthy, I'm getting to the point real shortly here;

Here are the things I like to do detecting wise, and also to date actually have done.

Beach work for coins and jewelry both in the water and out
Dry land searching for valuables of all sorts.........schools, parks etc.

These are some of the things I want to do in addition to the above in the future;

Cache hunting
Prospecting for gold and silver
And maybe some relic hunting
Also ghost town'ing

In Canada and especially western Canada the country is relatively young and there is not a tremendous amount to search for with regard to battle fields and that kind of thing like the folks in the USA are fortunate enough to have. So I will be concentrating on the mining history of the area for relic and prospecting as well as the coin and jewelry end of things.

I know the Sea Hunter will serve me well on the beaches both in and out of the water.......so that's a no brain'er. But I'm looking for some input as to a second detector to use for the prospecting, relic and general dry land use.

What do you guys/gals recommend for me as a second unit to compliment my Sea Hunter. I don't want to spend any more money than what the 1500 is worth and I think if I go any lower than say the ACE 250 that I will be short changing myself machine wise. Money really isn't an issue but I don't want to spend 1300 bucks if I can get a good machine to compliment the Sea Hunter for around 6-7 hundred dollars with something like the Scorpion which has caught my eye but I'm not sold on anything as yet. OR do you think I will even need a second detector and that the Sea Hunter will do everything I want it to by itself?

What say you all?

 

[metalhead]

Welcome to the forum!This is a wonderful community and a great place to share info!Welcome back to the hobby of metal detecting!Congrats on getting the Sea Hunter MKII You'll love it. Feel free to ask for advice at any time. There are many friendly and knowledgeable hobbyists on here that are more than willing to help.
As far as getting a second detector, I would suggest that you get the Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger. Check out the Scorpion forum here on Find's. Since you are interested in prospecting the Scorpion would be your best bet. It can also do the other types of hunting that you are interested in. It is so affordable that you will be able to get all kinds of prospecting equipment as well(gold pans, sluice box, rock pick. etc.).
Best of luck to ya!Happy Hunting!

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Garrett's Scorpion is in the $500 price range and would complement your type of hunting that your planning on doing.
John Edmonton uses it extensively and does well in the jewelry(ring) and coin finds.
It's basically a unit to use for prospecting but very versatile for other forms of detecting.
Good luck with your choices !

 

[fongu]

Welcome home, Teach! Garrett offers some of the best deals in the industry. Offering you a new detector with 50% off for the old one is the kind of excellent customer service we have come to expect from Garrett. Happy hunting and the Scorpion will probably be your best bet for a second detector since you are interested in prospecting. Best of luck to you. Hope you post some pictures of your finds.

 

[deepseeker442]

welcome back to the hobby of teach

 

[Teach]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcomes. I see most have latched onto the prospecting part of my post and rightfully so. I should have been more clear. I saw the Scorpion as a second detector to use also for coin and jewelry hunting as John-Edmonton does but I did not know if it was tuned primarily for gold or if it was versatile enough for other things as well other than gold. John has certainly been pulling out the rings for sure! Quite frankly that is one of my favorite things to find as I am sure it is with most everyone Whats not to like about a nice gold ring?

The other thing that I should probably state is the fact that in about three years time the wife and I are planning on spending our winters in Lake Chapala Jalisco Mexico. There are fresh water beaches there though I an not aware of what the soil make up is like for minerals. I suspect most detecting I would do there be up on the dry beach for coin and jewelery and some other stull like relic and nugget hunting for gold and mostly silver. But this is all just speculation at this point but I bring it up to be considered for the type of second detector to get. I'm still wondering if with the new style Sea Hunter I will even need a second machine or whether or not I can make due with the Sea Hunter alone. Input?

One thing I did not understand on Garretts site was why they do not recommend the use of either the Infinium or the Sea Hunter as detectors to use for ghost town hunting. I do know that both these units are of the pulse type but don't understand why that would be a detriment? Comments?

Lately I have been back reading through old detecting literature and I have to admit........I'm really anxious to get out there and rake in the loot once again!

 

[John-Edmonton]

The Sea Hunter is one deep machine to hunt with. I had one and dug a lot of coins with it in the water. I have had some people tell me that PI's aren't a good choice for fresh water hunting. All I could do is laugh after such a ridiculous statement. I have dug so many gold, silver and other rings out of lakes that I have lost count. I have dug rings left behind by VLT hunters including Excalibur's because they were too deep or simply disc-ed out. The fun of detecting is the "WHAT COULD IT BE" factor, and using a PI gives you so much more opportunity to put this to the test. If you always use a VLF machine and use discrimination, you leave soooooooo many good targets for the PI guys.

For a backup detector, I suggest the Scorpion Stinger. It loves all our Canadian coins and that 15kHz groundhog Circuitry really bangs hard on gold rings. You might be surprised at how much depth the Scorpion gets too.

Good luck with whatever you get, and welcome back to the hobby!

 

[Teach]

You guys have brought in some amazing hauls from what I have seen here so far. John......I fully understand the "What MIGHT IT BE" factor! Very very addictive! Wouldn't be half the fun if it weren't hehehe.

Question about the forum here; I don't yet see a feature to PM private message fellow posters on a board level. Can we PM each other on here or not? Folks don't like to publish their emails publicly so how do we converse with each other without posting? Thanks

 

[Uncle Willy]

For what you want to hunt the Scorpion would be your best shot as that "other" machine. Primarily a gold detector it is so versatile you can also hunt coins, rings, jewelry, and relics with it. As has been proven it is a real ring magnet. With its VLF/TR 15 khz circuit you can do ore sampling and eliminate hot rocks and cut through heavy mineralization to scrounge up those little nuggets. Also welcome back to the hobby and to the best forum on the internet. Good luck on your endeavor.

Bill

 

[oldranger]

Welcome back Youll find the folks on
this forum REALLY helpfull..

Ron

Rangers Lead The Way

 

[Old Katz]

There are in my opinion only two companies I would buy from: Garretts and Whites
and all because of the customer service. They are the TOP OF THE LINE.
Katz

 

[Fishrgal]

Welcome back, but just remember, take the batteries out if you will be away from it for awhile.

 

[Teach]

Ahhh Fishrgal, nothin like a little salt in the wounds hmmm? big grin!