Metal Detecting

[brokenujoint]

phewww.... What a hobby


It all started for me last summer when I decided to start desert prospecting. I bought a Garvin Roof rack for the jeep (craigslist) and large travel cases for it. Some 5 gal containers for gas and water, a dry washer to prospect with, shovels, picks, a gps, gold pans, a rock vac, a Gold specific metal detector blah blah blah.. I went to big bear and did in fact find some gold. Not enough to cover my gas however. Then I went to Quartzsite AZ for a few days.. BUST.
So after spending a couple hundred in gas and nothing to show for it I decided to keep it local in San Diego. I started hitting up parks. In one month of detecting for a good 20 hrs of laborious fun I found 3 gold rings, one silver bracelet and about 120.00 in change. Hard work but it's addictive.

The other week I sold a rear seat out of my jeep and the guy was also a detector-ist. He's a beach comber. My gold specific detector BLOWS at the beach water. Simply won't work. So yesterday I bought a water machine. Today was the 1st time I got to take it into the water. TALK ABOUT A WORKOUT! The day was basically a bust for me but that's expected since I don't really know the ins and outs of this machine yet. My buddy? Well he has the same machine as mine and at the same beach about 20 yards behind me, found 4 gold rings and a silver bracelet. The bastard.
I'm gonna hit the beach as much as possible. Wish me luck...

[daniel_buck]

If I had alot of free time, I would totally get into that. I love exploring, and finding old stuff.

[dirtman13]

That's cool. I have always wanted to get one of those. Good luck.

[brokenujoint]

That's cool. I have always wanted to get one of those. Good luck.

you can get a decent one off CL if you look. I bought a Garrett AT Gold for metal detecting. It has a brother called AT PRO which a better machine if you're not a gold prospector. With either you can go down 6 ft in water but the Gold wont go in salt water because the frequency isn't good with the alkoline levels. Very high freq for finding gold. The AT GOLD sells for about 700.00. It's a coin and jewelry monster at your local parks. I've followed AT Pro owners and found a lot of stuff that they missed.
The other day I bought a used Minelab Excalibur 1000 for 800.00 (retails around 1700.00) which is a BEAST at the beach. I was up to my chest in water finding stuff. It's good up to 200 ft down in water and is often used for scuba. The excalibur 1000 is an older model to the Excalibur II but is a better machine. The II has leak issues and a few tech issues as well.
I started getting carpal tunnel/tendinitus symptoms from the "S" shape of the shafts that ea detector has so I upgraded to carbon fiber straight shafts. Helps balance them out and lessen weight as well. Expensive hobby to start up but it's one of the only ones I know of that pays itself off in no time..and then some.
If anyone is interested here's a great website for detector geeks who are selling stuff on the cheap. WWW. treasureclassifieds.com

[dirtman13]

Cool. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Britain]

I have a Whites Goldmaster II with a twin coil. Found a chuckie cheese token.