Surf PI Pro Metal Detector - Is This a Good Choice for a Newbie?

[Madonna of Utrecht]

Hello Treasure Hunters par Excellance - Happy New Year's 2007 . I have never done too much metal detecting, most of my research is done in archives; however, I really would like to start metal detecting on some of the beaches near my home in San Francisco.

There are a wide variety of substrates and beach matrix - ranging from basaltic black sand, to white silica-rich sand, to shores consisting of almost entirely pebble and rock-sized aggregates. Just from reading testimonials and company literature, I was narrowing down my choice to the Surf PI Pro Metal Detector.

This may also be a silly question, but can a metal detector pick up a signature for pottery that contains a significant amount of iron or lead glaze?

Best Regards to You All,

Madonna of Utrecht

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Welcome to Tresure Net.

I will leave the recommendation to the masters, as I am a newbie, but you may be digging a LOT of iron. I had a friend who sold his at Christmas as he was tired of digging iron at the beach.

Not saying anything bad against it, just that he hunted with me several times and was gripping about all the bobby pins and nails he was digging.

 

[seas1to2]

I have 1 I have had for a few months an have already found quite a few rings an ear rings. It will not miss any metal, no matter how small, gold, silver an yes iron, an it does go deep, so get a good scoop. its a pretty simple setup, get a beep an start digging, with a little prastice you will learn by the sound if its a coin size object or something bigger or longer. Being the fact that you have to dig everthing you will miss NOTHING.

 

[Sandman]

Welcome to the hobby and forum. The Whites Surf PI Pro may not be the best beach detector for a newbie as it will have almost no discrimination to long iron things, nails, bobby pins, etc. Worse it will find them very deep so it will tire you out with all the digging. With all the movement of the beach sand though it will also find gold rings and coins deep. There are Minelab Excalibur 1000 detectors that are almost as deep as a PI, but have a Iron Mask feature that will ignore iron and still detect the good target under the it.

The Excal is the beach detector of choice for many of us hunters because of it ignoring the iron. No ground balance, just hunting time.

As for a metal detector finding pottery with the iron content, no. There would have to be lots more iron than the ground matrix and if your detector was that sensitive, you'd find it impossible to use.

To learn more about hunting beaches, check out the Golden Olde site at thegoldenolde.com/

Good Luck,
Sandman

 

[MadMorgan]

To learn more about hunting beaches, check out the Golden Olde site at thegoldenolde.com/

Wow, what a great site. Thanks for posting that. I get hints of the information here and there, but that was a great read.

 

[Madonna of Utrecht]

Gentlemen Treasure Hunters,

Thank you very, very, much for the excellent input and advice. I will try to decide how much digging I am into - however, I guess I should get ready to do a lot of digging anyway. This is part and parcel to the activity and may result in a lot of exercise and some treasures. I will keep my eye on this post for any other advice.

Madonna of Utrecht

 

[fishnmaine]

I would go with the Whites Beach Hunter ID.............. at least you got discrimination that you can turn off or on

 

[seas1to2]

you might want to try an talk to some locals an see what machines are best for your beaches, diffrent sands might not work well with all machines

 

[jimmy1956]

I bought a Surf PI Pro late last summer. Love it but boy you do dig and dig. Deep and often. Nails, bobbie pins, shell casings, scrap stuff. I also get the coins and rings and stuff. I use it when I'm in the surf or very wet sand. I use my MXT in the dry sand. Also the PI Pro does not fair well with the black sand.