Best metal detector for 400usd?

[stefs]

Can you tell me the best metal detector for 400 usd?
What do you think about?
Golden Mask 1+ SEF Pro, Golden Mask 1+ Spider Pro 18kH, FISHER F22 and Land Ranger Pro?

 

[enamel7]

Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, this question comes up a few times each week. First thing is everyone will recommend the detector they use. It's more important to know what type of detecting you're going to do. Relic? Beach? Water? Prospecting? Just let us know!

 

[Terry Soloman]

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...used-two-coils-extra-items-lesche-digger.html

 

[stefs]

In mountain areas and on the beach.
Somethimes i use this on usual ground.

 

[stefs]

 

[Deft Tones]

If salt beaches you may want a multi-frequency machine. That will put you in the used detectors classifieds section if you only drop $400.

Freshwater beaches and mountains.... single frequency vlf should be fine. Operating frequency is important so keep that in mind when doing comparisons.

Evaluate your needs and select accordingly.

 

[stefs]

what do you mean about garret ace 300?

 

[Twinkletoes]

I'd consider the White's Treasure Pro. It has features usually found in more expensive detectors. Good luck with your selection! H Digs!

 

[digger27]

I picked up a Fisher F70 for $400 and I know a few others that have done the same and a few even cheaper.
This is a big boys detector...top of the line with multiple settings and abilities that can conquor any site, conditions or situation.

 

[smokeythecat]

I love my Tesoro Cibola. Used it in wet and dry sand at the ocean, lawns, Civil War camps, new at about $369. Lifetime warranty.

 

[stefs]

Do you have any predlogs for first post?

 

[stefs]

i see that metal detectors have options for: discrimination, all metals, coins etc.
Can i configure metal detector for gold, silver nad coins at once?

 

[digger27]

Sure, and as an added bonus you will also pick up foil, tabs, can slaw, pieces of aluminum and all sorts of other metal objects.
That is the object and goal of this hobby...
Using your chosen detector and all of its language and discrimination abilities to dig more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff.

Starting out it is usually like 90% bad to 10% good for most of us then as we get better at this those numbers change and drop on one end and raise up on the other.
Do we ever get to 100% good and 0% bad?
Not for anyone I know of and for those that think they do are missing things whether they know it or not.
Getting as close to that percentage as possible is what we all aim for and we all have a great amount of fun all along the way if you have a good attitude and continue to learn on that journey.

 

[stefs]

thank you my friend, this is really inspiring for me.
My english is bad.
I dont best undestand you.
Can i in options costumize to search: silver, gold and coins at once time?
Not to search silver, gold and coins separately in two times.]
Do you understand me?

 

[digger27]

Detectors have discrimination abilities, think if it like the volume knob on a stereo.
Wide open and the loudest would be like hunting in all metal with which you would pick up all metal.
As you lower that volume knob the sound starts to get quieter...on a detector as you raise the discrimination the amount of different metals your detector will alert you to will decrease.
Iron is the lowest metal, then foil, nickel and so on up the range and it all has to do with the different conductivity of metals and even though many are completely different many might act exactly the same.
You can turn up the disc high and avoid must junk and go after only the higher conductivity items like silver coins and jewelry but you will be cutting out all the lower objects.
You can let those lower objects back in but you will be digging a lot more junk too.
Not all coins are silver or copper and many come in lower, most gold can come in up and down the entire range from iron up to the top on a big, pure gold coin.
You use your discrimination to pick and choose how much of the lower stuff you want to deal with and you use all your knowledge gained to further classify all targets down to a manageable level and make the best educated guesses to dig what you choose to dig and what to avoid digging.

Some gold rings can act exactly like a pull tab or a piece of shredded soda can and a bunch of other trash, coins can too and so can most everything else including precious metal jewelry.
It is all about conductivity and physics.
All chains act strange because of the links they are designed with and not like solid targets like coins.
In this country we have had gold coins circulating in our past, the larger ones come in pretty high but the smallest ones come in at about the same low place as one of our most troublesome trash...foil.
Add in other metals that can be close to the good targets we are looking for, iron nails next to old silver coins for instance, and this can change the signals we get and fool us.

The universe is not kind to us in this hobby and likes to mess with us all the time.
That is why I stated what I did in that post up higher...we use our detectors, that discrimination feature AND all the knowledge we gain along the way to try to figure it all out and everyone is different.
Look at the pic below of the range of things we can possibly find.
Lower discrimination you have a shot at finding it all, raise the discrimination and you limit what we might find.
Some only go after the higher range silver and copper coins so they turn the disc up high and have never found gold even after hunting for decades...but they don't really care.
Others want coins, all gold they come across and everything else or they want the best chance at it all so they use very little discrimination, get tons of signals and dig just about every signal they come across.
Hunters like me want every great thing I can possibly dig up but still want to avoid digging as much trash as possible so I use combinations of settings, discrimination and knowledge about target behavior I have learned to try to do that.

Nobody has Superman's X-Ray vision, nobody has invented a detector yet that can tell anyone 100% what are coils are passing over buried in the ground so it is all a big educated guess before we dig.
Some detectors have features that help us guess a little more correct than others, some hunters have gained skills over the years that might give them a bit more edge also but it is all still about locating and digging up metals hidden underground and out of view.

If it was simple and easy everyone would be doing it and finding every great thing out there...but it's not.
That's the challenge and the goal and why we feel the joy we do when we do find something great and these forums are here for others that think like we do, know what we know about how easy, (or hard), it is and also as a place to post pics and brag a little.
When we are new digging up your oldest coin that might only be 50 years old and worth very little might give you the same thrill as a veteran that digs up a gold ring.
For most of us when we are new or maybe even a little more experienced when we dig up our first gold ring or a rarer old coin after digging up a huge amount of trash to that point the feeling of accomplishment and joy we can get can be like nothing else we have experienced in our lives.
That is a lot to ask from a simple hobby but that is exactly what this hobby can give back to us and a big reason why many of us do it.

That is the great thing about treasure hunting...it is different can be different things for every one of us whether you hunt for lost hidden gold in sunken ships or common modern coins shallow at your local park.
It's all good.

 

[Deft Tones]

thank you my friend, this is really inspiring for me.
My english is bad.
I dont best undestand you.
Can i in options costumize to search: silver, gold and coins at once time?
Not to search silver, gold and coins separately in two times.]
Do you understand me?

The short answer is yes, you can hunt them all in one go at it. You would either hunt in discrimination mode and turn down the setting to a very low setting so only iron is rejected, or you would use all metal mode and find the good that way. Either one can work for what you are asking.

 

[marjam]

A used whites dfx, mxt, or one of the fisher machines. Just from my experience. I haven't owned the at pro but you might get one used for that price.

 

[stefs]

The short answer is yes, you can hunt them all in one go at it. You would either hunt in discrimination mode and turn down the setting to a very low setting so only iron is rejected, or you would use all metal mode and find the good that way. Either one can work for what you are asking.

You dont understand me, can i get in settings to search only gold, silver and coins, not every metal?
Because in display have a different options for this.

 

[digger27]

Metal detectors find metal, how they do this is they send signals into the ground from the coil and when the scanning field gets interrupted by metal the signals return to the coil and then electronics in the detector will tell you about that metal using audio tones, numbers on the screen or meters.
There are different sections on many screens from iron on up, detectors can give you an idea of the target type using something called a conductivity reading...each different metal type will emit signals in different areas when energized because each one registers at different conductivity levels.
Different coins at a few, gold in different areas, silver up high usually but it all depends on the size, shape and more.
It is true you can use discrimination and set your unit to only tell you about certain conductivity readings, or not tell you about them so you can avoid them, but what about other things that come in at those same exact readings which much of the trash we come across does.
Tabs and some coins can be exactly the same, many foreign countries use steel in their coins and those usually come in low just like iron does, big pieces of cans can mimic many coins exactly, gold can disguise itself as a whole slew of other trash metals up and down the range.
One kind of trash metal or iron next to a good metal can combine both conductivity readings and show up on our screens and in the audio as something else in neither area...this is called masking.
Discriminate out some trash and you might also miss good targets too, assume that every perfect coin reading is going to be a coin, or silver or gold, and pretty quickly you will see how wrong you can be.
The universe does not make things as simple and easy as you might hope it would...the laws of physics rule, always.

What you are asking about is if there is a miracle machine, one that can tell you it has found and is scanning ONLY coins, silver and gold but there is no such thing, these are just machines and everything they do is governed by their programming and nobody has been able to come out with one that is that precise.
Invent one and you will be rich in a very short time.

That is the fun and object of this hobby...get all the signals, readings, data and clues that we can and try to figure it all out and make educated decisions trying to dig more of the good ones while avoiding the bad.
Or, digging every signal good and bad which is the highest percentage way to find the most but at the risk of wasting a lot of time or at least using up a lot of your energy.

Honestly if someone did ever invent a detector that actually could only tell you about the good targets and ignore 100% of the bad ones this hobby would not be very challenging anymore and much of the joy and sense of accomplishment would not be there anymore either and those are a few of the main reasons we do this.

We post pictures of our finds on these forums exactly because it is not easy to find the great stuff, it gives us a chance to brag and feel proud for awhile and be appreciated for being successful in a hobby where it is not easy to do and by others that understand all this and the challenges that need to be overcome to have that success.

 

[Andy Nunez]

Stefs question is hard to explain. On an expensive VDI you could probably mask out all but silver coins (dimes, quarters, halves, etc.). You would be losing lesser coins and you would be losing most gold items. Why losing gold? Because, depending on the karat rating and the alloy used, gold items will read from the range of a nickel all the way up, so you can dig silver and gold and lots of trash, like pulltabs, or just dig primarily silver and never see any gold because when you discriminate or notch out items in the non-silver range, you lose all gold and some small silver like 3 cent pieces. I dig from nickel on up and have a box for the trash items. I know its a pain to have to dig up a lot of trash, but its the price of getting gold objects. Just my opinion, of course.