One month with Prizm III

BillW313 · Apr 13, 2009

After one month of hunting with my Prizm III, these are my finds.

1 10k gold wedding band
1 Lead soldiers
31 clad quarters
26 clad dimes
1 nickel
34 pennies
Lots of pulltabs, bottlecaps, etc.

Still no wheaties or silver. I guess I'm going to have to find some better places to hunt.

khouse · Apr 17, 2009

If you ask me your doing great! For every 94 coins you dig 1 is a gold ring! All you have to do is get your coil over the silver and it will beep.

Harry(PA) · Apr 22, 2009

PRIZM PROBLEM

Has anyone ever heard of this problem?

A man asked me the following about his whites Prizm detector.

It does not detect silver coins.

It will detect silver jewelry such as rings,necklaces,pendents etc. If he tosses down a silver dime, Quarter, Half or dollar his Prizm will not lock in on it. It will become unstable with lots of noise.

He does not want to ship it in as his detecting time is here.

Hopefully someone can help with this problem.

Harry(PA))[/b]

khouse · Apr 22, 2009

If it picks up jewelry then then it doesn't make sense it wont beep on a high conductor. I don't know why he wouldn't send it in? Does he really want to hunt with it that way all season? I would send it in. That would be like playing tennis with a racket without strings.

Harry(PA) · Apr 22, 2009

I agree with you especilly since it is fairly new and under warrenty.
Perhaps he is looking for a magic cure.

BillW313 · Apr 23, 2009

After reading Harry(PA)'s post, I decided to experiment some more with my Prizm III. The results were less than encouraging. I took a silver dime, quarter and half out to my back yard. I dug a 3" deep plug and tested each coin in the hole. The dime would read only if I used no disc., the quarter and half would read if I only used up to foil disc. Only the half would read if it was standing on end. I then tested in "all metal" mode. All the coins read, even when standing on end. I could not get a steady reading on the item display, although it only bounced between the coin symbols. I made a few passes in the yard with no disc and dug a nickel at "3-"4. I have been digging clad coins at "3-"5 and am totally surprised at the lack of response from silver coins.

Does anyone know the hours the factory is open?

Thanks

Harry(PA) · Apr 23, 2009

Hi Bill;
In regard to this problem;
The man called me and cancled his order for a cheap detector and ordered the much more costly machine. In the mean time he talked to Whites and they had a great conversation. After some info passed back and forth it has been decided that the detector is so far out of tune that is not going deeper than 3 - 4 inches. Whites is going to replace the board inside and tune it up to perfection. Plus they are replacing the key pad and doing some cosmetic repairs .

It is funny how people hate to ship their detectors to the shop even when under warranty. Perhaps your not finding silver is the same problem. I had a problem also at one time and I detected for weeks with a faulty detector just because I hated to go without one for a while.

harry(PA) :coffee2:

Detectnut · Apr 23, 2009

I found a 45 silver quarter with my prizm III today.

Harry(PA) · Apr 23, 2009

How deep??

BillW313 · Apr 24, 2009

Hi Harry,

I talked with a guy from the White's factory last night. He said freshly buried silver will not respond as silver that has been in the ground for 40+ years. He also told me to get max. depth to use minimum disc. and as much sens. as I can. He also said most detectors will read iron on really deep items. He also said the best thing to do is to deep all repeatable signals. After talking to him, I tried the backyard again and did find a nickel surrounded by iron targets. It was hard to pinpoint but I managed to find it. I guess to hunt my yard I will have to dig everything and see what turns up. I have been finding a lot of iron items. It look like I will just have to keep practicing.

deepskyal · May 3, 2009

Ankh said:
Whites now makes a 4X6DD Shooter coil for the Prizm, for extreme trashy area's.This coil will make life nicer for you.When i had my Prizm IV,I got the "Bigfoot" coil to help search betweem the trash. If i still had my Prizm,I would get the 4X6 coil.

Good idea. Smaller coils may lose an inch in depth but you should still be able to tag a target 5-6" deep or more. You don't necessarily need a DD type. Mineralization in Pa isn't that big of an issue. Kellco had the 5.3 eclipse on sale for 99.00.

Al

soopacee · Jun 15, 2009

Ankh said:
In the area that i live, there are alot of hot rocks. They come up as a +94. This area is terrible with the 950 concentric coil. The 4X6 works great and the Bigfoot ( an HH coil ) works good too. Both search in a line instead of a funnel shape. The Bigfoot is like an 18" windshield wiper LOL,and is awesome in ball fields where you need to cover alot of ground in less time.

amen@hot rocks

Yellowhouse · Jun 24, 2009

In my limited experience one of the most error prone ways to test a detector is the bare air test (the one dealers like to demonstrate) or to just bury a coin.....it ain't the same. A buried coin or other object oxidizes even ever so slightly. I learned this thirty years ago with a Garrett. Re-buried coins could barely be detected if at all when returned to the original depth. Disrupted the ionized field.

Make yourself a coin/relic/trash garden where you can test your equipment. Bury bare rings& coins, with rusty nails, foil. Yeah, it can get complicated but its worth it. Especially useful when a buddy comes over with a detector you want to try. About 3 months in the ground, thats a guess though, and you might be near real circumstances.

aladdin · Oct 11, 2009

I had a prizm II! The very 1st coin that I found with it was a silver "rosie". My setting if i recall correctly was set for about nickel and sen max . The depth of the coin about 2"-3" . I never tried to run to much discri- on the prizm II and this seemed to work for me. Found alot of coins with it but never any more silver!! good luck

underdogger · Oct 12, 2009

If I had never found silver with my priz II .I would not have a say in this conversation . So since I have had this P II . I have found alot of silver coins I also have found Close to 49 silver rings at all depths To 7in. The trick is that when your scale goes up Dime Quarter Fifty . or flashes in each one right after the other as you pass over it . I call it running the scale It is either a deep can or its silver . Most jewelry will hit between foil On pull tab or big rings hit quarter or 50 C dollar range . If you get a deep target That runs the scale dig it man I have found silver dimes and they will read just dime but they are shallow . One day I dug a recent tailing pile on erie canal and found 4 barbers dimes The pizm series will find silver in my humble opinion. ROB.

aladdin · Oct 13, 2009

Underdogger way to go man and that is a lot of silver !!Wish I had found more than that one silver dime . But the Prizm II had a lot to offer to me! Silver eluded me, but the Prizm allowed me to hunt the beaches (even in the salt) and find some relics and a lot of coinage! Congrats on your fines !!