newbie buyer April 09, 2004 at 07:30:45

Hi all I live in St Maarten (an island in the Caribbean)and my trade is a goldsmith and gemcutter.This place has a 400 year history with forts,battles pirates and well populated beaches. I want to buy a metal detector to do beach work and also relic searching around the forts. I have done research on the net and the apparent best seems to be the White's XLT,and there are some ok ones on E-Bay. Now the questions: Does it matter if the model is,say, 1995 or 1999,that is to say, are there major changes between an old model and a younger one? Is the XLT good for beach (not underwater) and relic detecting? I want to spend about 600 dollars on my first detector, and is there a good brand new model in that price range? Does anyone know if metal detecting has been done on St. Maarten? Regards,Hans Meevis