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Used E Trac value?

M

Mike Gresham

New member
Well, Santa brought me a brand new CTX 3030. So, I am trying to decide whether to sell my E Trac or to keep it as a back-up. I guess the sale value will be the deciding factor. Anybody have an idea of what a gently used E Trac is worth?

Thanks in advance for replies.
 
I gave 1000.00 with an extra 5" coil and 17 months of warranty left on it.
I have been watching them on the Ebay site ( for a friend thats looking ), Goes4ever has the price right in the ballpark.
 
I sold my first one in less than one hour and I listed it at $875, it came with stock coil only, was 3 yrs old and had ZERO warranty left. I bought a brand new one with a full warranty............I saw no reason to take my chances with keeping a machine out of warranty, with the chances something could go wrong and cost me several hundred to fix it. As I had around 3,000 hours of use on it already
 
OK, thanks for the replies.

I have decided to list it for sale in this forum's classifieds.
 
Just wanted everybody to know that I just reduced the price on my E Trac in classifieds.
 
Goes4ever said:
I sold my first one in less than one hour and I listed it at $875, it came with stock coil only, was 3 yrs old and had ZERO warranty left. I bought a brand new one with a full warranty............I saw no reason to take my chances with keeping a machine out of warranty, with the chances something could go wrong and cost me several hundred to fix it. As I had around 3,000 hours of use on it already
Click to expand...

If it goes wrong and cost you hundreds but you all spend thousands on a CTX !! and that's a big if it goes wrong when if you keep your machines clean and tidy and keep them in the dry whats likely to go wrong ?
We all buy extra's don't we ? so a service every so often is not much of a big deal is it ?
I have 2 ET and I will keep them , I is nearly 2 years old and the other is new , at least for just over the price of 1 CTX I have a constant machine in use in case of faults but with
 
Nuke em, I never bought a ctx, so not sure why you posted that while you quoted my post? When I sold my etrac, I bought another etrac, so to get the full 3 yr warranty again
 
I saw CTX in the sentence , and was rushing LOL and did not read it properly. Sounds like you did the same as me !
Did the same on the Deus front too :D , five years for the Deus instead of 2.
Must Rush off to work now :D
 
??
Nuke em said:
I saw CTX in the sentence , and was rushing LOL and did not read it properly. Sounds like you did the same as me !
Did the same on the Deus front too :D , five years for the Deus instead of 2.
Must Rush off to work now :D
Click to expand...
 
You better look at floodplaindetector post of "2013 finds" that should change your mind about selling off your E-Trac. He also had a CTX but sounds and does looks like the E-Trac is his choice for finding all that loot !!!!! The big E all the way !!!!
 
I had a CTX, had to sell it, bought a used E-trac with warranty for around $800. I don't plan on changing back to the CTX.
 
Its quite amazing that people think that way about the ET versus the CTX , and I am in that opinion as well . The ET does just as well as the CTX but at 60% of the cost.
It may lack the ground balance , waterproof , and the 2 target track thing and the GPS stuff but I find the ET brilliant . If minelab decide to bring out a new ET then I will look at it and decide but I will never again rush into buying a new machine just because its a supposed ET replacement , it will take a lot more than Gizmo's to replace the best !
 
Nuke em said:
I saw CTX in the sentence , and was rushing LOL and did not read it properly. Sounds like you did the same as me !
Did the same on the Deus front too :D , five years for the Deus instead of 2.
Must Rush off to work now :D
Click to expand...
Ummm, re-read my post I never said ctx........:rofl:
 
Grey hair moment I think then.:D
 
Nuke em said:
Its quite amazing that people think that way about the ET versus the CTX , and I am in that opinion as well . The ET does just as well as the CTX but at 60% of the cost.
It may lack the ground balance , waterproof , and the 2 target track thing and the GPS stuff but I find the ET brilliant . If minelab decide to bring out a new ET then I will look at it and decide but I will never again rush into buying a new machine just because its a supposed ET replacement , it will take a lot more than Gizmo's to replace the best !
Click to expand...

I am one who did switch to the CTX and I am happy. I was never unhappy with the E-Trac and I still have it and would not part with it as it is a trusty reliable friend. I decided to try the CTX for the same reason I decided to get the E-Trac, I personally saw the results generated by people that switched. A couple of my club members who were E-Trac users switched to CTX and while hunting the same yards found so much more than before. A friend lent me his CTX for a week I took it out to an old school yard and hit an area I and a friend had pounded with our E-Tracs and I was able to dig 8 nickels in an area filled with pull tabs, pencil ends (which are foolers) and trash. The thing was I was confident that these were going to be nickels and I am sure we passed these up before because of the scratchy signals which now on the CTX were cleaner. The Target Trace on the CTX is very helpful in determining whether your target is a coin or shall I say coin like object. Three or four times during field hunts I have gotten a target which I was correctly able to determine were forks or spoons because of the Target Trace capabilities. Now I have found some really amazing coins in the three months I have had the CTX and I know most of them I probably would have found with my E-Trac but I have had a couple that I am positive that I would not have gotten with my E-Trac. Now my decision to change was a personal one, I also like the better balance of the CTX I can swing it longer than the E-Trac and not feel the weight. Being water proof is nice not because I am going water hunting but if you get caught in rain you do not have much to worry about. Once you familiarize yourself with the menu the ease in programming it is simpler and quicker than the E-Trac. I also notice a better separation ability on the CTX. Now would I advise everyone to go out and dump their E-Trac...heavens no! For me it was a good choice. Realistically buying new there are deals out there that make the price difference less than the MSP listing you need to look for them. If you are proficient with your E-Trac and I mean GOES4EVER proficient then there would be little reason to change if you are not and most of us aren't then it is something to be considered. Now this is just my opinion take it for what you feel it is worth.
 
Same here Bell-Two. I see people say they don't think the CTX is any better but I can say it seems to find stuff in locations my E-Trac stopped producing from.
 
I found the opposite to you both. I had the CTX for 10 months and just could not gel with it , and every time I went out with the ET I was finding loads more.
The things I did not like about the CTX were ,
1- it was back end heavy and if you took the arm cup strap off it would fall from your arm. (I hate wearing arm straps), probably will break the lugs of the arm cup in the longer run.
2- it seemed slower on the display than the ET
3- the tones were slightly different to the ET which made for very hard target i.d. on the beaches I do
4- it is heavier and I search for many hour and sometimes upto 12 in a go ( I don't like bungee's)
5- the cost, it just did not match the ET for cost of machine compared to finds rate , it takes a lot of effort to find
 
I understand where you are coming from for what you want to do there are better detectors to choose from probably than the CTX. I am not worried about my detector "paying" for itself. Now don't get me wrong I am just as happy as anyone else would be to find a gold ring with a large diamond as the next guy....but that is not my focus. My goal is to find old coins, tokens, buttons and related relics and I find the CTX is doing very well for that. As for being rear end heavy that is by design for if you use the arm strap it is more balanced and less strain on the shoulder and arm than the E-Trac was for me. Now if you do not like the arm strap that is fine but that is not the way the CTX was designed to be used it was meant to be used with the arm strap so it is not a design "flaw" by any means. Any tool whether it is a saw, a drill or a metal detector was designed to be used in a certain manner so if you choose not to use it in that manner that is not the fault of the design. I think some coming from an E-Trac thought the CTX was an "improved" E-Trac now Minelab never claimed it to be and never promoted it to be that, always stating it is it's own platform and even in their ads they say it is not "a waterproof" E-Trac. Yes the tones are different and that takes a bit of getting used to. The CTX has the capability to assign tones by the pitch within the target ID you choose, if you make them distinct enough you can tell by tone what the likely target is. I am sure when you got your E-Trac it took awhile to learn it's "language" and while there are similarities between the machines they do speak a slightly different language. As for the GPS my perception is more users in England use this feature than here in US now I may be wrong but I see more reference from English sources. You have a definite set of goals and methods for what you want to find and have developed a fine technique to achieve them and that is fantastic and I have seen your posts and know the things you have found and I wouldn't change what I was doing or using either. Everyone has a choice of what detector to use and we tend to choose what works best FOR US and that is what is the smartest thing to do. Besides the CTX I have an inexpensive Tesoro Compadre which does a very good job in squeaking out a conductive signal amidst massive iron and I have made a couple of nice finds with it that most likely the CTX or E-Trac would not have found....now would I recommend using it for all types of hunting ....no but for such circumstances it is a little champ. Use the tool for the job you want to do, you could take a wrench and if you hit a nail hard enough and long enough you might drive it in ....but a hammer works much better!
 
#1 that Nuke em said was a HUGE deal breaker for me, I hate arm straps with a passion.........and I mean I HATE them, I NEVER use the etrac strap, it drives me crazy and I can swing my etrac for 8 hours with zero arm fatigue, but after just a mere 2 hours swinging the CTX my forearm was so sore I hated it. It is poorly balanced, a bad design in my opinion, making it so back heavy was a big mistake IMHO.

A lot of you might think this is no big deal but I have tendonitis and carpal tunnel in both arms. I had my right arm fixed two yrs ago, still have it in my left, so balance and weight distibution to me is a HUGE deal.
 
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