Best detector for coins and jewelry??????

[Jefferson81]

What is the best detector for coins and jewelry? I'm looking to buy an MXT...is it a good choice?

 

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[rmptr]

If you were to buy an MXT and use it for an hour or two at least every other day for a year, it seems to me you would have no regrets.

It's possible it would pay for itself.

R M P T R

 

[Jeffro]

You may as well have asked whats the best car for going fast?

Pretty much any machine you use will be the best for you. this makes sense because if its a top of the line whiz banger with every control under the sun, you're gonna spend more time trying to figure out how to operate it than actual detecting, probably get disgusted with it, and put it in the closet, or on Ebay.

That said, the MXT is a good machine.

I usually recommend to people to get a low end machine to start off with. Not too cheap, cause you don't want some chinese knock off thats gonna fall apart on you. Something in the 200 to 300 dollar range. Most all the major manufacturers have machines in this range, and they won't break you're wallet TOO bad if you find out metal detecting is not for you. Sucks spending a grand and having to sell it cheap because you just don't like it!

After you get a feel for that machine, and spend a good amount of time on here building up some knowledge, you'll have a good idea of a higher end machine that will fit your particular needs.

The Garrett Ace 250 has great reviews for a good all around starter machine. Fisher has just come out with the F-2, but reports are mixed on it so far. Tesoro makes good machines, as does White's.

Ask yourself what will you spend most of your time hunting for? New coins in the park? Old coins out in the ghostowns? Relics? Artifacts? Jewelry in swimming holes? Wet salty sand at the beaches? Or a mix? In other words, coins and jewelry where?

Ask questions, but try to be specific, not general like this one. There are literally thousands of helpful people on this site with a HUGE amount of knowledge for you to pick the brains of. (Did that even make sense or come out right? LOL!)

Anyways... its a great hobby. Its one of the few where you can actually hold something of value in your hand after a good day.

 

[Jefferson81]

thanks for the responses guys....great information

 

[EasyMoney]

Well, I almost walked away from this one, but again, I couldn't resist..

An MXT is not designed for use in high iron soil. It is a beautiful, all-around detector otherwise, and does well in fill dirt or river bottom soil, but it often starts complaining when it's used up in the mountains or on black sand beaches. . It L-O-V-E-S hot rocks, and if you stay in the parks you can avoid a lot of this problem, but if you get into really bad ground it can be a real pain at times. Don't get me wrong, I like the MXT but it's not exactly the right one for a beginner. We have more hot rocks here in a 20 mile radius up in our hills and mountains than they do in the entire State of New Jersey. The MXT was developed by White's from the original GMT nugget detector. That machine was a fairly good nugget hunter, a 4 out of a 5, but it was quite difficult to keep balanced in highly mineralized ground. So is the DFX, but specially the MXT. In fact, it can become a real SOB at times here and in your area in certain parts of the land, especially with the sensitivity turned up too much. Even a DFX has some abnormal problems with it, but not as much as Minelabs do. Minelab Sovereigns and Explorers spend so much time selecting frequencies all the time that they actually cancel out good targets often too now and then, more than any other brand used here. Minelabs are seldom found being used in this type of soil because of this. In fact, I see more Minelabs in pawn shops around here than I do seeing people hunting with them. Detector selection is a whole different set of rules in the iron belt.

YOU (and I) live in the "iron belt". The iron belt is the range of land that was showered by meteors some 10,000 years ago and it left us with a whole crapload of iron ores (meteorites, and meteorite dust) to fight with when using our detectors. This makes having a good, super-fast, auto-ground balance, fast retune detector a MUST in our soil, or, a really GOOOOD ten-turn on of (certain brands and types) other detectors. A low-gain detector works better than a high gain one here. No, I didn't say high power, I said "high-gain".

When I say "our" soil, I am refering to yours and mine, in most places (but not all) here from the Dakotas clear to the West coast. Most detectorists don't even have a CLUE as to how bad OUR soil can affect a detector. That's why people often get a wrong detector for their use. In your particular soil the iron may be even worse, because I've found it that way at times when I was in that part of the country..

Most people mean well when they offer advice on a new detector, but you need to be very careful and as Jeffro just pointed out..

Here is a list of detectors that work well in your (our) soil and aren't real costly..

Any White's Prisms
Any White's Classic
Any, yes, I said ANY Fisher, new , up to ten years old.
Any Compass up to 20 years old
Any low-priced Tesoro up to 20 years old, especially the Silver Saber and Silver uMax.

And even better yet, the more expensive Lobo Super Traq, if you have the money.

I have found more coins and jewelry with an old Tesoro Silver Saber on the high-magnetite Oregon salt beaches here than I have with any other detector, and it works BEAUTIFULLY there too. Flawless.

Fishers (new or old) and Compasses handle this crap ground here the best of the best though. Minelabs don't becauce of a multitude of factors, especially with their super-slow processors tha make them miss targets if swung too fast. . Garretts even have a worse time of it than do the Minelabs, even with their after-market factory chip upgrades. An MXT OR DFX works better here in our soil than either a Minelab multi-freq or Garrett VLF.

The rest of most detectors will be too problematic for you, and when I say this, I mean in many, many ways, and some of them are for very complex reasons too.

Hope this helps.

EasyMoney

 

[TORRERO]

ALONG THIS SAME LINE, WHICH MACHINE HAS THE BEST SENSATIVITY TO SMALL GOLD ON A
SALT WATER BEACH. ?

SOMETHING THAT CAN PICK UP A FINE GOLD CHAIN OR SMALL GOLD EARRING
IN THE WET SALT WATER SAND.

I HAD A TESORO STINGRAY YEARS AGO THAT WAS VERY GOOD FOR THIS, BUT I HAVE NOT
SEEN ANY OTHER MACHINE THAT CAN GET THESE VERY DIFFICULT TARGETS IN THIS INVIROMENT.

ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN SAY WITH CERTAINTY THAT A MACHINE THEY KNOW OF
OR HAVE HEARD OF CAN PICK THIS STUFF UP AND STILL BE QUIET IN THE WET SAND ?

 

[Michigan Badger]

What is the best detector for coins and jewelry? I'm looking to buy an MXT...is it a good choice?

The MXT is a great choice.

 

[Keppy]

Well, I almost walked away from this one, but again, I couldn't resist..

An MXT is not designed for use in high iron soil. It is a beautiful, all-around detector otherwise, and does well in fill dirt or river bottom soil, but it often starts complaining when it's used up in the mountains or on black sand beaches. . It L-O-V-E-S hot rocks, and if you stay in the parks you can avoid a lot of this problem, but if you get into really bad ground it can be a real pain at times. Don't get me wrong, I like the MXT but it's not exactly the right one for a beginner. We have more hot rocks here in a 20 mile radius up in our hills and mountains than they do in the entire State of New Jersey. The MXT was developed by White's from the original GMT nugget detector. That machine was a fairly good nugget hunter, a 4 out of a 5, but it was quite difficult to keep balanced in highly mineralized ground. So is the DFX, but specially the MXT. In fact, it can become a real SOB at times here and in your area in certain parts of the land, especially with the sensitivity turned up too much. Even a DFX has some abnormal problems with it, but not as much as Minelabs do. Minelab Sovereigns and Explorers spend so much time selecting frequencies all the time that they actually cancel out good targets often too now and then, more than any other brand used here. Minelabs are seldom found being used in this type of soil because of this. In fact, I see more Minelabs in pawn shops around here than I do seeing people hunting with them. Detector selection is a whole different set of rules in the iron belt.

YOU (and I) live in the "iron belt". The iron belt is the range of land that was showered by meteors some 10,000 years ago and it left us with a whole crapload of iron ores (meteorites, and meteorite dust) to fight with when using our detectors. This makes having a good, super-fast, auto-ground balance, fast retune detector a MUST in our soil, or, a really GOOOOD ten-turn on of (certain brands and types) other detectors. A low-gain detector works better than a high gain one here. No, I didn't say high power, I said "high-gain".

When I say "our" soil, I am refering to yours and mine, in most places (but not all) here from the Dakotas clear to the West coast. Most detectorists don't even have a CLUE as to how bad OUR soil can affect a detector. That's why people often get a wrong detector for their use. In your particular soil the iron may be even worse, because I've found it that way at times when I was in that part of the country..

Most people mean well when they offer advice on a new detector, but you need to be very careful and as Jeffro just pointed out..

Here is a list of detectors that work well in your (our) soil and aren't real costly..

Any White's Prisms
Any White's Classic
Any, yes, I said ANY Fisher, new , up to ten years old.
Any Compass up to 20 years old
Any low-priced Tesoro up to 20 years old, especially the Silver Saber and Silver uMax.

And even better yet, the more expensive Lobo Super Traq, if you have the money.

I have found more coins and jewelry with an old Tesoro Silver Saber on the high-magnetite Oregon salt beaches here than I have with any other detector, and it works BEAUTIFULLY there too. Flawless.

Fishers (new or old) and Compasses handle this crap ground here the best of the best though. Minelabs don't becauce of a multitude of factors, especially with their super-slow processors tha make them miss targets if swung too fast. . Garretts even have a worse time of it than do the Minelabs, even with their after-market factory chip upgrades. An MXT OR DFX works better here in our soil than either a Minelab multi-freq or Garrett VLF.

The rest of most detectors will be too problematic for you, and when I say this, I mean in many, many ways, and some of them are for very complex reasons too.

Hope this helps.

EasyMoney

.................Easy Money what about the..Garrett Infinium..........==Jim==

 

[EasyMoney]

A Compass Relic & Coin or a Compass Goldscanner Pro or au 2000 or au 52 (all four nugget hunting machines), can find a BB sized nugget or a teardrop sized gold earring on Oregon, California, and Washington State beaches up to a depth of 6" in discriminate OR in all-metal. They do it very quietly and smoothly too. No other VLF or detector can do that here as well, not even a GB2. A multi can do it in rare cases, but not as well nor as frequently, and multis often walk right over those little guys. I've seen it.

Compass made one of the fastest auto retunes ever made in all history of metal detecting (hell, they invented it), and the Compasses were and are a designed, bonafide, dedicated super nugget-machines, not made over ones from an older unit, like the MXT. Remember too, that these old Compasses DOMINATED the nugget hunting game for 15 years before the Fisher GB2 came along. Even so, the GB2 doesn't handle bad ground as well as the Compasses do, it's super high freq disallows it that ability. The Compass au 2000 has both a 52 Khz AND a 13.77 Khz in order to allow it to operate well in different soils.

On public record, the Compass au 52 found the very smallest speck of gold ever documented, inside a 4 1/2" piece of quartz now hanging in a Casino in Nevada. The nugget is about the size of a dot on an "I".

An MXT cannot match the old Compasses on these nasty beaches here (as smoothly) when looking for tiny gold or jewelry. It never could, and I have $$ to bet someone if they think they prove me wrong. (You too Badger :-) ). Wanna make a little wager? The MXT also has troubles with minerals that are anomolies (hot rocks), because of it's too high gain. So do Tejons and Vaqueros and Cortezes, and have even more troubles with high magnetite and hematite, to a point that they can't even be properly ground balanced in some soils. High gain plays hell in bad soils, and everybody knows it too.

Again, I'm not saying that the MXT is a bad machine, but I AM saying that it is a good all-around detector that has been spread a bit too thin in it's applications. If someone wants a dedicated detector to find tiny gold or small gold jewelry in bad ground they need to buy one SPECIFICALLY designed for that use, not one that isn't. The MXT is a fine detector, but there are better choices for coin and jewelry hunting in the soil in question.

I'm very sure of this tiny gold thing, and I have the $$ right in front of me to make a serious bet about it too. I'd like to take someone else's money again. I like it that way, showing a few that opinions don't quite cut it in the real world, and that facts do. No other single freq or multi VLF detector can find tiny items as well or as deep in bad ground as these old Compasses can. My $$ is waiting. Who wants to take a chance?

All the talking is done, now let's see who wants to put some rubber on the road.

......................................!

Haaaappy New Year to allll!

 

[bavarianminister]

I would prefer the Garretts for jewelry. They just seem to produce for me. My Tesoro Cibola comes in second - really light weight - you can swing one longer resulting in more good finds.

Bavarian

 

[EasyMoney]

Nothing wrong with the Garrett Infinium, but if we are going that direction most newbies would be a bit troubled with the complexity of a PI as a first detector, , or at least I would.

If I was only doing beach hunting that's what I'd get, an Infinium, and nothing else. I have a Sov Elite Pro and it misses a lot of small stuff on the beaches here, and misses nickels almost as often. The Sov GT is supposed to have the same circuitry (when I looked at the schematics) as the Elite, with minor changes, but in bad soil neither do as well as many other detectors. When it comes to VLF's the subject becomes apples and oranges. When it comes to PI's, it's all bananas. Every one of em, some bigger, some a little better, but always a lot sweeter.

That was a good question though.

BTW, we still seem to forget that his soil isn't in Georgia, it's some of the worst soil on the planet, and that requires a very special detector, not a hybrid or a dedicated beach machine, a whole lot of differences between the two.

OH, one more thing. If you contact White's electronics in Sweet Home, Oregon, you can learn that the stock 9.5 coil is a major part of the problem with the MXT's hot rock and high iron soil noises. There is more to the equation too, as my old Quantum mechanics and Venn Diagram college math Professor used to say when I was studying electronics engineering a few years ago.

I often offer this coil change solution of a different coil other than the 950 every other day when MXT users complain to me about it. All it takes to kill most of that GB problem is to buy a smaller or larger coil. That's ok I suppose, but who wants to do that when all you really needed was a different detector to use in high iron soil to begin with?

*Ok, I decided to put up a site for those who do not quite yet understand why a (high-gain) detector like the GMT, MXT, Tejon, various Minelabs, most Garretts, Vaqueros, and other have a bit too much trouble in the iron belt, so here it is. Read and enjoy. Basically though, when the detector is really high gain it can never be turned down enough to handle the bad soil and it causes a lot of porblems with detector operation. The detector starts viewing the ground as one big target constantly changing in size, and that is why they make a lot of noise in bad ground (high black sand or iron minerals) and much less noise in lightly mineralized ground, such as the N and S and E parts of the USA. If you have questions about it, feel free to ask me, I (may) have an answer. Remember that my answers are not going to be my opinions. I have no opinions, I just like to deal with the facts in electronics because it works out better in the long run, and if I don't know the answer I will tell you so too. Count on it..

http://www.treasurejoe.com/index.php?module=article&view=22

Have fun.

EasyMoney

 

[TORRERO]

The MXT also has troubles with minerals that are anomalies (hot rocks), because of it's too high gain. So do Tejons and Vaqueros and Cortezes, and have even more troubles with high magnetite and hematite, to a point that they can't even be properly ground balanced in some soils. High gain plays hell in bad soils, and everybody knows it too.

I bought a Cortés for my wife to use on the beach 2 years ago, and it kept picking up these little tiny pieces
of ?? I don't know what they were....
They looked like pieces of iron, but my DFX would not make a sound on them no mater what mode it was set to.
(not even in all metal)

she would get what sounded like a repeatable signal, dig and dig and dig and not be able to find it.
I would come over and my DFX would not pick up anything in the hole.

Several times she actually got some of these pieces of (magnetite and hematite) out of the holes and showed me
that the machine was signaling on them, no amount of adjusting the machine would take these out, higher discrime
and she still got them, and after we discovered that this was the same on all beaches from Florida to Myrtle Beach
she has since refused to hunt with me anymore.

I can't blame her.... digging for things you can't find, finding things that can't be discriminated out...
after more than 20 years experience using all manner of machines in all kinds of soils I have never seen anything
like that.....

Any comments ?
Richard

 

[EasyMoney]

The Cortez is a decent machine, however, it too is as I just said, highly sensitive because of it's high-gain running, even at it's lowest settings. Many machines are designed for the Eastern US and most of Europe, and this detector is one of them. So are the high-end White's and most Garretts.

Assuming that your wife was running in discrimination, it appears that there is a problem with it's discrimination circuitry. What I mean is that it is not functioning properly. Inside you will find a pot that controls it's amount of discrimination. Sometimes that pot deteriorates or the connection is damages due to high heat, dropping or banging the box on something, or damage from battery acid left from leaving the batteries in the detector during storage, or, has corrosion built up causing what we ET's refer to as "contact resistence". If so, the ground balance no longer has the same innate propensity to cover either the lower range of parameters or the higher end, or the entire band because the R factor is off. The pot probably needs to be replaced. In all-metal though, it SHOULD find the magnetite and so should the DFX . If the DFX won't find it in all-metal then it needs to go right back to White's for some repairs to both modes.

There is another way to remedy the problem on the Cortez if you want to destroy the guarantee, but I don't recommend that to anybody except for a detector repairman like myself, (if) Tesoro won't fix it free for you;

I have a Compass RM7 that I bought f0r $25 and because it had a bad pot I installed one with a much wider range of + and - for it to run on. The pot I installed was not quite sufficient, but I also laid a resistor alongside it to make it cover the range I wanted. Now I can put a piece of 6 inch by six inch by one half inch steel plate in front of the coil, cancel the plate entirely so that no matter what I do the plate causes no sound to come from the detector. Then I can lay a nickel on the 1/2" steel plate and get a clear signal from the nickel RIGHT ON TOP OF THE STEEL PLATE!

I can now hunt not only STONIES, I can also hunt for sodium or other minerals much easier now.

Tesoro though has one of the best repair records of all manufacturers. They would likely repair the detector for free and reset the GB for you in your soil too - if you send them a dirt sample to match it to. I have never seen a Cortez completely ground balance in extreme soil until it has been reset by the factory. I'm not saying that (all) Cortezes are like that, but since the circuitry is all the same in all of them and the parameters are the same too, it is probably true with every one of them, and their other high-end detectors too. Most people don't know this, but the upper-end Tesoro detectors are NOT designed for bad soil, just like White's and Garretts and Minelabs. Only some Tesoros, most Fishers and a select few others are intended for the really bad stuff. This is why my favorite assembly-line detectors are the Compasses and Fishers first, and low-end Tesoros a very VERY close second. Low priced White's aren't bad either in real bad ground.

Your problem is more likely because of a minor readjustment being needed at the Tesoro factory. The Cortez is an exceptional cherry-picker and discriminator, as are ALL Tesoros, even the Tejon and Vaquero, although the real bad ground makes things nearly impossible for them in this regard... Your DFX needs some work too (assuming that you had it set up correctly) and White's may or may not fix it free.

 

[TORRERO]

I will be honest with you I don't know what it is that the Tesoro was picking up,
But I do not seem to have any trouble with the DFX picking up Iron or small targets.
What it looked like was the Iron that comes off of a large piece of Iron metal when it rusts.
or more like the Rust flakes that have not desolved to dust....

I've never seen a machine that would just pick up the flakes from a rusted object without the object there...

It did not surprise me the DFX did not pick it up I just assumed that it was seeing it as
ground, and nothing more...

 

[EasyMoney]

I know what you're telling me Torrero. But the White's DFX should also pick up the rusted iron, maybe not as easily as a Tejon or a Compass, but it should make an audio on it or at least register it is iron.

In case you are wondering, I went hunting with a woman who uses a Cortez and she found these little pieces of scrap iron too, but not in discriminate. With my Compass I can separate the things as long as they are 1" apart and no smaller than BB size, while using all-metal. So can a Tejon, and a DFX and Cortez can do it when they are 2" apart.

EasyMoney