Detectors through the years

[Bum Luck]

It occurred to me that in order to detect intelligently, we need to know what model detectors there were in what decades.

I know that the WW2 mine detector was a great surplus machine post WW2 that started many folks on the hobby, but was there anything else before that, and how about in the 50's? 60's? 70's? 80's? 90's?

A part of the discussion should be the different types, such as BFO, TR, etc.

Does anyone remember what was used when?

 

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[mrwilburino]

I can tell you what I remember of the 1970’s………

Lots of cheap BFO’s. Lots of brands: Jetco, Relco, Goldak, Bounty Hunter, TreasureRay, D-Tex, etc.. The big four were Whites, Garrett, Fisher, and Compass. Of that group, I believe that only Garrett sold both TR’s and BFO’s, the rest went strictly with the more popular TR’s. It seemed like everyone was swinging a White’s Coinmaster back then. Simple ferrous/nonferrous BFO discriminators were around in the early 70’s. Some manufactures resisted the move to discrimination, stating the still popular argument that “if you don’t dig everything you will miss valuable targets.” Could be that they were just stalling for time until a decent TR discriminator was perfected. By ’75 or ’76, TR’s with adjustable discrimination had taken over the market. A year or two later VLF’s hit the scene. Some say that we haven’t come very far since then……

 

[Sandman]

Maybe this will help too. http://members6.boardhost.com/classicdetector/index.html

I started in the early 70's with a C&G Bobcat which was a TR and there was one BFO before that but I can't remember that one well.

 

[Bum Luck]

One recent story that rocked me to the core was from a classmate of mine.

She has a very nice $5 gold piece on a necklace, and one day she told me that her dad found it on an old school lot here in town. It had to have been in the 60's, and so I wonder just how many other places he (and others) hit around here.

I knew him, and he was persistent. And smart.

That's got to be part of our search for good places to hunt.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Bum-luck, it's easy to think that the yester-year hunters (early 1970s and before) had all the luck, virgin sites, easy finds, etc.... But believe it or not, they hey-day of easy-pickens and such were probably the later '70s into the early '80s. Because machine's capable of finding single coins in the '60s were quite crude, hard to use, lacked depth, didn't work in minerals, etc.... So they too struggled for their finds. Unless they were simply in an utterly easy spot (underneath ferris wheels, or right in front of consession stands, etc...)

If you ever talk to guys who coin/relic hunted in the 1960s, they would tell you that even though they might have hunted admittely virgin ghost-towns, they're "take" for the day's hunt might have been only two old coins, for example. Flash forward to the early TR era (early 1970s, with machines like the 77b), and yes, things got better, and again, their "take" for the day hunting the same areas, might be 2 more old coins. Flash forward to the mid to late 70s with TR disc, VLF-all-metal, etc... And again, yes, they'd farm out a few more coins from the same ghost town patch! Flash forward to motion disc era of the later '70s/early '80s, and they'd get another few from the SAME patches. And so forth, and so on, up to the present So you see, even though parks and ghost towns were virgin in the early days, it's all relative to the machine's ability.

I too heard stories from my city, of a fellow who, in '64 -ish appears to have been the first to ever detect some school yards here (blt. 1920's). And yes, it was all silver then, and yes, he found a lot. But in retrospect, it was all mercs and roosies at probably no more than 2" deep. A barber would have been a REALLY good day, and seateds were only what dreams were made of. Contrast to today, nearly 50 years later, and a simple look at the finds forums shows that we're still finding seateds, barbers, etc.... simply because we can go so much deeper now. I started in the mid 1970s, and never even found my first seated till the early 1980s (on account of the older TR all-metal and TR disc. were so slow and cumbersome, and also that we simply didn't have the mind-set and patience for exotic things like demolition site hunting, ruins hunting, etc...). Now it's no big deal to find spanish reales, seateds, etc.... when logic might *seem* to dictate that those very objects were *easier* in the early days. They weren't.

 

[goldentruth]

Tom, you are so right!
It is not the right time at the right place, it is being at the right place.
I have a early vintage 1980's VLF Tesoro which was one of the earliest for the company built with almost the same dials as the high priced Cortez but it does not have a dial or computer assisted circuts with ground canceling but my unit I can set to ground cancil if I want and it does detect "All Metals & Discriminates well, it is a dependable soldier in the field. (The Tesoro people said it is a great Coin Machine that will bring in a ton of coins.) I have recovered a lot of cool artifacts. I was told their was a small gold rush in the 80's where many companys started re-tooling and puting out newer models due to many peoples interest in finding coins & gold.
So early 1980 you can put in your book of the early Tesoro years and Whites getting popular then.
Thank you for this subject/post... Good luck.

 

[Keppy]

It occurred to me that in order to detect intelligently, we need to know what model detectors there were in what decades.

I am not trying to be a wise guy... But in order to detect intelligently .....Why do i have to know what detector's were used in the past ?? I really have to know how to use my modern day detector........ It's like saying to drive my new car with it's automatic transmission intelligently........ I will have to know what model of cars there were in the 1940's 50's 60's.......... Knowing that will not help me drive my new model car or use my new model metal detector.................??

 

[Roland58]

It occurred to me that in order to detect intelligently, we need to know what model detectors there were in what decades.

I am not trying to be a wise guy... But in order to detect intelligently .....Why do i have to know what detector's were used in the past ?? I really have to know how to use my modern day detector........ It's like saying to drive my new car with it's automatic transmission intelligently........ I will have to know what model of cars there were in the 1940's 50's 60's.......... Knowing that will not help me drive my new model car or use my new model metal detector.................??

I have to agree with you, Keppy. It would be kinda like needing to know how my tube tv worked with a VHF antenna, so I could 'intelligently' operate my HD flatscreen on a satellite. I just can't see the correlation. That being said, if one wanted to know how the originals worked and the improvements made over the years thanks to the advancements in technology in order to thoroughly understand and talk 'intelligently' about them, that would be needed.

 

[sandtrout]

How about "pictures" of detectors through the years for those of us who a still relatively new?

 

[Keppy]

It occurred to me that in order to detect intelligently, we need to know what model detectors there were in what decades.

I am not trying to be a wise guy... But in order to detect intelligently .....Why do i have to know what detector's were used in the past ?? I really have to know how to use my modern day detector........ It's like saying to drive my new car with it's automatic transmission intelligently........ I will have to know what model of cars there were in the 1940's 50's 60's.......... Knowing that will not help me drive my new model car or use my new model metal detector.................??

I have to agree with you, Keppy. It would be kinda like needing to know how my tube tv worked with a VHF antenna, so I could 'intelligently' operate my HD flatscreen on a satellite. I just can't see the correlation. That being said, if one wanted to know how the originals worked and the improvements made over the years thanks to the advancements in technology in order to thoroughly understand and talk 'intelligently' about them, that would be needed.

Your right Roland58... If the question was put that way it would make sense....... But the way it was put the new hunters that are out there can not intelligently hunt........... For they do not know about the old technology detectors............For all i know i have been doing this about 40 years and do not know about all the older detectors that have been made........... So could be i can't hunt intelligently..........

 

[Roland58]

It occurred to me that in order to detect intelligently, we need to know what model detectors there were in what decades.

I am not trying to be a wise guy... But in order to detect intelligently .....Why do i have to know what detector's were used in the past ?? I really have to know how to use my modern day detector........ It's like saying to drive my new car with it's automatic transmission intelligently........ I will have to know what model of cars there were in the 1940's 50's 60's.......... Knowing that will not help me drive my new model car or use my new model metal detector.................??

I have to agree with you, Keppy. It would be kinda like needing to know how my tube tv worked with a VHF antenna, so I could 'intelligently' operate my HD flatscreen on a satellite. I just can't see the correlation. That being said, if one wanted to know how the originals worked and the improvements made over the years thanks to the advancements in technology in order to thoroughly understand and talk 'intelligently' about them, that would be needed.

Your right Roland58... If the question was put that way it would make sense....... But the way it was put the new hunters that are out there can not intelligently hunt........... For they do not know about the old technology detectors............For all i know i have been doing this about 40 years and do not know about all the older detectors that have been made........... So could be i can't hunt intelligently..........

We are in a VERY large boat.

 

[Keppy]

We are in a VERY large boat.

Yes we are..... in a VERY large boat...

 

[mlayers]

my boat sunk........

 

[Keppy]

my boat sunk........

Sorry about your boat.............

 

[justanotherbarber]

I don't know what kind it was, but my grandpa had a detector with a wooden coil, (I'm very serious). Might have to google this. I started out on a Garrett BFO and was happy to get 3 inches. Found a lot of half dollars with that one.

 

[Cool Hand Fluke]

Here are some old units. The red one is a Goldak Commander from about 1964. The blue one is a Relco Pacesetter from about 1975.
Both machines are pretty primitive by todays standards. You'd probably try to shoot yourself after trying to use one of these!

 

[CASPER-2]

I started at age 12 in 1975
my first machine was a Compass 94B
then got a Compass 77 with a large coil

I remember the Mighty Mites cheap TR's
the White's G.E.Bs which came after their TR's
took a lot of nerves to use a BFO - it would drive you batty
I won a Daytona detector at a hunt - had a different style box and coil - lot of hype - I never found much with it
I remember the Bounty Hunter Red Baron was a hot machine back then - for nostalgia reasons I found one in mint shape on ebay a few years back - when I turned it on - it burst into flames
the Mark I and Mark IIs that were cheap little TR's
I remember the Bobcats - pretty hot little machine with fat coils
I remember there being such a wide variety of makes and models at hunts
where now a days guys have narrowed down the field

 

[lonesomebob]

In 1960 I hand built my machine,from a diagram in,I think populat electronics. The coil was bare bell wire ,wound arond a square piece of perfboard,mounted on a wood stick. The unit was also on breadboad, made up of What you could buy at radio shack{when theyknewwhat parts were.} This beat against a small transistor radio taped to the handle, no phones. still have it somewhere. Bob

 

[BFO]

I remember reading in a book at school in 1968 about finding metal by attaching a coin[good conductive type]to the end of a,approximately three foot forked stick.Then you would hold[grip tightly] the two ends of the stick one end in each hand.
You would then walk with the coin end pointing up and when you came to metal the coin end would strongly dip down.Anybody that can witch for water can make this work.I knew someone who could make it work,but it would't work for me.I've known several people who could find water with a plain stick.Some could determine the depth of the water in feet by the measurement from where the stick started to drop to the point where it went down signaling the water source. I personally observed finding a barber dime and indian cent in the same hole,they were down there pretty good.I,d say at least 6 inches.Then another two barber dimes and an 1800s Canadian bank token[separate holes].Also more modern coins and numerous iron artifacts.I think they recommend witch hazel or apple tree wood for stick,but soft maple worked. probably other woods would work.The stick should be freshly cut ,higher moisture content[better conductivity]. This could be the forerunner to BFO.It could be called Vht[v stick,hands,treasure].This was also the original silent search!Has anybody else experienced this? Happy hunting..

 

[Terry Soloman]

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