Yes it can be difficult to find a place to hunt. And like most hobbies it can get expensive if you let it. I am looking to get an all around detector, coin & jewelry, relics, and gold prospecting. I have narrowed down my search to either  the Minelab X-Terra 705 or the Whites MXT.

Yep, keep us posted. Georgia and I both don't seem to have any interest in metal detecting, but who knows, if you come up with some treasures that might just change our minds.

2fortheroad wrote:

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 I'll do the detecting and DW can do the digg'n.

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 That sounds like the way we do things

I bought one of the $99 metal detectors from a local sports store. It worked for a while but I was never real happy with the quality of finds. Lots of junk metal stuff.

A friends has a Whites and it is very accurate. It will indicate whether the find is worth digging for. The only valuable he has found is his wife's ring. She lost it in deep pile carpeting. They had tried to find it for an hour and then he remembered the metal detector.
Found it in less than a minute.

The prospecting show on OLN seems to lean towards the White product line.

I've watched them find gold nuggets in dried up river beds out in the middle of the desert with a Whites metal detector.

As soon as I have an extra $1000 burning a hole in my pocket, I plan to get a Whites.   One guy we met in a campground, says he has found in a year of just detecting at campsites as they travel, over $86 in coins and a gold engagement ring with a 1 carat diamond. 

-- Edited by thebearII on Monday 29th of March 2010 08:24:36 AM

Tesoro, White & Garrett are all excellent brands.  I happen to use a Tesoro and love it.  I have 2 kids (8 & 10) and they love doing the digging for me when we get a hit :)  Beaches are excellent places to go because they are easy digging and you find all kinds of nifty things (jewelry, money, toys etc.), plus no one hassles you about digging :)  Late fall, early spring and winter are the best times to hit fresh or salt water beaches as there usually aren't too many people there.  You have to be super careful with historic sites and private property as you can get in trouble pretty quickly there.  Most campgrounds that I've been to don't seem to have a problem with it in your site or at their beach.

Generally, cheap MD's are terrible and cannot discriminate between trash and treasure.  Stay away from Radio Shack and "store brand" metal detectors as they are very low quality (even the more expensive ones).

So far, we've found: Old Boy Scout Neck fastener, jewelry, money, horse shoes, sleigh bells, old license plate, toys (lots of match box cars at the beach) and assorted other trinkets.

There are also groups around the country that organize MD outings at historic locations were all the finds are donated to the local site museum.

There are usually 2 distinct types of MDing; artifact hunting (historic artifacts) and treasure hunting (jewelry, coins, etc.)

Oh and don't forget to fill in yer holes, it's proper MD etiquette.

Btw, this is my first post here, seems like a really great group of people :)

Ken

 Hey there Mike sounds like you some opion on medal detectors. I have pretty much narrowed down my choise to the Minelab X-Terra 705. Seems to be a good all around detector. What did it for me was that it has the multi tone option and seems to work better in salt water conditions over the the MXT. Since we will be traveling I wanted one that would work best in all  terrains, and seems to be more newbee friendly.

-- Edited by 2fortheroad on Thursday 29th of April 2010 06:05:56 PM