I don't know the details of your story. If your business is in a barely-get-by situation I can see where spending $1,000+ for a detector might not be a good idea. On the other hand, if we are looking at a situation where hubby just wants to control you, keep you staying at home, minding the kids, having his dinner ready, etc, then it is something else altogether. The truth is hopefully somewhere in the middle. Regardless, here's how I approach detecting. It's a business. You might toss this concept at him. I carefully record all income from finds and services given and all monies spent for everything from detectors to batteries to gas for the truck. I post ads on free advertising websites and offer to rent detectors, find lost valuables, locate survey stakes, and so on. Just this year I have located four pieces of jewelry on church grounds where I've been given permission to search. I donate the jewelry to the church resale shop or Goodwill. Tax write-off. We live in the country and have a 40'X38' metal building on the place. Part of it is dedicated to detector storage, cleaning equipment for finds, and so on. Tax write-off. Do I remember you saying that you and your husband always owe taxes at the end of the year? Your detecting business can help lower these.
So how to justify an E-trac? After all, it is in the upper range of detector prices. But how many of them will you have to buy? My rental machine is a Garrett Ace 250. Anybody can run that thing. Five minutes in the target garden and they are ready to go have fun. The E-trac is a different matter. You need to plan on spending some serious time getting to know this machine. But once you do, it's amazing. My finds today amounted to a few dollars in modern coins. I'm talking copper pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters. Hey, it's money and it spends. More importantly, I came home with only four pull tabs and two other odd bits of metallic trash. To a guy who is accustomed to digging a high ratio of trash to good things, this is downright amazing. My ageing back and knees appreciate it too. Did I mention that I only dug four corroded zinc pennies? If the signal says 12-37 and shallow I move on. I've dug enough of them to trust the machine.
I hope all of this is at least food for thought. To those who don't detect the idea of finding anything worthwhile seems like a pipe dream or a Get Rich Quick scheme. Well, I never got rich doing it but I still have to admit that it is the only hobby I've had that paid for itself.
Storm
so learned my lesson..that won't work =(
