Super DEEP or Just lucky

[Michigan Badger]

I've been at this hobby now for 40+ years and hope to do it at least another 10.

Lately I've been thinking about depth and my old records from the 60's. Back then I was using a TR machine (Whites CoinMaster IV).

One day I dug a V nickel (still have it) at 4 1/2 inches. Another day I dug a 1936 silver quarter at 5+ inches. In 1983 using a Wilson Newman GBDII I dug 5 Indian pennies in one small area that were 7-9 inches deep. The area was fill dirt around a park restroom. I was using all-metal mode when I made the finds.

My average Indian head penny during the 1980's was just under 4 inches deep and gave a good signal while using my Fisher 1260-X.

Anyway, my point is, these depths are almost exactly the depths I'm seeing today. I'm digging the same types of coins at the same depths and getting about the same loudness of signal.

All of this makes me wonder just how far we have come since the 1960's.

I've read stories on this forum about digging coins at almost unbelievable depths. I have done this myself on occasion. I recall back in 1982 I dug a small silver watch fob that was so deep I was up to my elbow into the hole before I finally brought it up. I was using a Tecknetics (sp) 8500 in all-metal mode as I recall.

Are today's detectors really deeper or is it that sometimes soil conditions are just right and we dig that unusual mega deep find?

I know this thread probably won't last long but I'm just curious what some of you really think about all the hype today over depth.

Badger

 

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[Dimeman]

I remember my old Bounty Hunter in 1982 could get excellent
depth in all metal mode even compared to many of todays top
of the line detectors , but when you got tired of digging rusty nails
at 12 inches and switched to disc mode , you'd be darn lucky to
find anything below 2 or 3 inches in ideal conditions. Modern detectors
get deep even in disc mode , are MUCH lighter and the feedback info
to the user is MUCH better. So in my opinion thats where the greatest
improvements have been. Today , a total noob can go out in the yard with his new detector and come back in a couple hours with decent finds , not so in the old days.

Doozis

30 years ago the detectors were fairly shallow in reading the targets......5 or 6 inches was normal for a coin depth to dig.And you dug everything.
20 years ago the electronics were much better, got better in the way the detector filters out the ground minerals, which increased the better target finds. You could be a bit selective in digging targets with the adjustable discrimination, and ground canceling adjustments.
Now there are Notch filters, more accurate target identification, almost perfect depth accuracy,tones for the different targets,which have increased the detectors performance, also increasing the way the detector "see's" the targets.


You can tell much better now, what is in the ground before you dig. <----- ( This is an appoximate statement for the 30 year old detectors vs. new detectors...)

A sidelight, one Texas detector advertiser in the 1980's claimed his home built detectors, were so sensitive, they could tell the difference in paper bills....$1, $5, $10, and $20..
and offered he would guess what bill was in a sealed brown envelope...while he scanned the envelope, while blindfolded, that he had the bills in ,and you had picked out........
if he could not guess the exact bill, he would give you the money in the envelope.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Badger, I have only been in this for 30-ish years (since the mid 1970s). But I started with a 66TR, which was circa late 1960s technology. Only 6 or 7 yr. old used machine when I started, but ...... swinging that thing for a year, gave me a taste of what the entire mid to late 1960s was like. Also hunted with a few guys in those early years, who were still swinging 77b's. So I'm fully aware of the entire evolution of TRs, to discriminating TRs, to VLF/TRs, to motion machines (the advent of the 6000D and Red Baron era) to today's powerhouse machines.

I can assure you, that while it is true that all-metal VLF depth is about the same, ever since it came out in the mid 1970s, yet discrimination depth has dramatically improved. Both in depth and TID. This has lent itself to oodles more finds, as people can subconsciously pick out targets they want, and leave flitty little cr*p in the ground. In the old days to get the maximum depth, you had to dig everything. I'm making better finds today, than I did back in the old days, despite that things were more virgin then.

 

[Jim DE]

It had to be a MD'er who invented the new pop tops on aluminum cans and the elimination of pull tabs. That to me is the most significant invention for metal detecting over the past 10 years

The inventor of the pull tab should be punished with sore knees and blistered hands the rest of their lives ....... Like we have been since the first drunk tore one off and threw it on the ground.

 

[Kas]

Hunting in all metal mode no matter what year you pick is always going to be deeper.

All metal mode isn't going to get any deeper now, than it was then. The coil is the only difference.

So, I think you're right. Want deeper, get a bigger coil.