Advice in choosing a 2nd hand machine

[Plodder]

Hello

I’d be very grateful for some advice in selecting a 2nd hand detector, up to £450 …

I’m fortunate enough to have access to a 150 acre farm in Carmarthenshire. Inspired by the find of a Roman hoard nearby (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5089504.stm), I bought myself a 2nd hand detector on eBay – a Tesoro Silver Sabre II.

I’ve been out for a total of 30 hours now and only found:

•   Lumps of rusty iron e.g. horse shoes, fence posts, wire, the odd nail
•   A lump of lead

The farm is a mixture of pasture and woodland. No ploughing takes place.

I normally use the machine in All Metal mode and turn on Discrimination when I get a signal. Often I get a good signal in Discrimination, only to dig up another lump of iron.

Sometimes I can walk for 20 minutes and not get any signal at all, so there is not issue with “naily” conditions.

I’m certain there must be something of interest out there and so I plan to invest in another 2nd hand machine.

I’d really love to find some gold and silver coins, or jewellery.

Given all of that, can anyone recommend a suitable detector?

Thanks in advance
Howard

[DIGGA]

hi there howard  im in the same boat mate   been out but not found much yet  but dont give up ,,,,,,,,,,,,,  its everyone s dream on here to find a nice gold hoard  but  its a rare thing ......you never know  bud  if you walk over it  you will find it    ive learned that patience and persistance is the best way  just keep going out and the goodies will come .............................
as for a machine ............ well for that price you could get a second hand minelab  from ebay and still have  money to spend      an example is  my   detecting mate stig  got a second hand minelab xterra  for  less than £150    also if you click onto  forum  (top left)  on this site  then scroll down   you will prob find a few  excellent detectors on here for sale,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  hope this helps  and  a warm  welcome to the site fella 

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

Howard , give it time before changing machines, it took me ages to get 'into the flow' , not all fields will come up with the goodies. When you say you're still digging up lumps of iron , are they largish lumps, cos big iron will trick most machines into giving a false signal , especially where that big iron is deepish , if you've not had any buttons , or pre decimal coins, you need to double check your settings and maybe rethink the land you're on. Try and concentrate near the entrance to the fields or by any styles that are there. If its partially forested then maybe it was all forest as recent as 50 years ago. So there would be little foot fall. Theres lots of reasons for low signal count , but i dont think changing your machine is the solution yet.

Good Luck.

[steven king]

You are right Rob - even with the high-end minelabs a large piece of deep iron can give a 'good' signal.  The best thing to do Howard is to go along slowly, over-lapping your sweeps with the search head flat to the ground.  Have a practice with a few pre-decimal coins on the surface just to get an idea of the sound of a good signal - 'in air' tests are never totally the same as when a target is in the ground, but it gives a good indication of the 'size' of the signal.  Good hunting !

[Charles Cater]

Good advice, Steven.
When I was able to detect I was taught not only, as you say, overlap the coil on the ground but mark about a 30 yard square and go North to South then East to West and then diagonally.

It is a bit of a clonk but I can tell you it pays in the end. I often saw my members swinging away like a pendelum and then in the end tell me they have not found a thing, only dross, and they wondered why?   

This is in answer to Steven's post and not in answer to the question of "which is the best detector for pasture"..

A detector is only as good as the person operating it.I had at first a Fisher 1220X,
When I bought it in 978 it wouldn't find a dustbin lid on the surface until I tweaked up the potentionometer  (I think that is how you spell it?)  inside the detector  to 10 and backed  down to 9. Now that made the difference to the sensitivity. I think it was made for the American market rather that British.

 it was OK and I found a lot of stuff with it but the technology these days has improved - if only then and not now eh!!!!

[Chef Geoff]

Hi Howard and welcome to the site.
While all the previous posts are right I guess none are really answering your question.

As has been said all detectors will be fooled by large lumps or odd shapes of iron so don't even worry about it, it's something we all have to live with.

The Tesoro silver sabre is a great little machine, I had one when they came out in the early 80's and have hundreds of finds to show how good it is, BUT, it is only good for about the first six inches, which on ploughed land is not a problem as that's where most of your finds turn up.

On pasture however, especially pasture that has not been ploughed in lets say 50 years, your older finds are going to be out of reach.
So on to your question, which is now, "which second hand machine for pasture?".
I would say that the Sovereign xs2a pro (the best sov made) that is in the for sale section is perfect for the job, as Sov's are renowned for beach and pasture and at that price you could look around for a 12x15 SEF coil for it.

I use an E-trac but if I'm on pasture I will usually take my sov elite as experience has shown me it gets the finds.

Hope this helps.

[Plodder]

Thanks to everyone that replied - some really useful info there.

Cheers
Howard

[U.K. Brian]

Hi Howard

Unfortunately there's a heck of a lot of land round Carmarthenshire that never seems to see the pough and I think the locals would be paid in turnips because the coin losses are a small percentage of what you would find over the bridge in the same time. On the other hand when you do find something its not as likely to have been wrecked by the plough.
There's also many sites where a top machine struggles to manage a couple of inches on a larger hammered coin !

I liked Whites for many years and still won't part with my XLT. "Upgraded" to the DFX and found I had to go out of area to get the best out of it and it might have well been a single frequency machine for the use the twin modes got. I ran the T2 and the Fisher F75 together for a few months and kept the T2. I also have low and high frequency XP's which can be good or pretty bad on local sites. A couple of Shadows to which the same applies.
The Treasure Baron works fairly well with the right coils but weighs a ton. Nautilus very well but another heavy machine unless you buy the new version with the revised shaft.
On the beach I rarely use anything except a P.I. though I have Minelab and the Beach Hunter I.D.

Its a bit of an odd area. If you had your Silver Sabre on the ploughed/rolled fields of the South East you would be cleaning up even though its an old design detector. Could be your machine has been fiddled with or the coil be on its way out. I'm a bit worried about the lack of nails and lead scrap in your ground. Your not running the discrimination a little high by any chance ?

Brian

[Plodder]

Today I made my first find - a 1995 five pence piece. OK, you've got to start somewhere. 

I'm now using the machine in Disc mode, with the discrim set at 1 (higher values give more discrim).

However, to get any depth in this mode, I have to turn the "threshold" knob at the back of the machine all the way down to zero.

The manual says "There is no threshold sound present when in the Disc Mode" and "Once the control is adjusted to the desired threshold, it will not require frequent resetting".

Can anyone help me decipher what the threshold control is actually doing, particularly in Disc mode? Should it be set at zero, like I have it at the moment?

Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Howard

[willow tree]

hi dont give up look at some of the finds on here sometimes i think my detectors beep beep has forgotten what it s supposed to do i use a minelab soveriegn elite with id meter fantastic machine good luck willow tree

[U.K. Brian]

I haven't used the Silver Sabre II since it came out but from what I remember the threshold should be set whilest in the all metal/pinpoint mode which is non motion.

When in the motion/discrim. mode I think you should be able to get away with a setting of 0 which will cut out the smaller iron. With later Tesoro's setting at 0 might be zero discrimination but with your older model there's already sufficient rejection applied even at the zero setting.

Check targets in both motion and non motion modes and compare the results. Also raise the coil a couple of inches and see the result on the target audio.
Remember your looking for a non broken signal thats repeatable from all directions.

Threshold in your case is not applicable to the motion/discrim. mode which you are using as your primary search mode and when in all metal it should not be at zero.

Keep a mental note of the depth you are finding targets. The "automatic" ground balance they claim your detector has is a fixed one as in the case of many machines. It may well be that someone has been in the control box and adjusted the trimmer to suit their sites or you need to do this yourself.

Another thing is to find out from the farmer if the area has been detected before. The old Carmarthen Club worked most of the ground round that area.

[dazipoo]

Hi Plodder,
I search in carmarthenshire living not too far from Llandeilo. I have been very lucky in having good historical sites to search and have found a small roman coin hoard being 4th century bronzes which now reside in Carmarthen museum. But its true to say that a lot of the area has seen very little activity over the years and finds can be very hard to come by.

Out of interest what machine do you use?  Myself i use a goldmaxx and a adx 250 and rarley dig iron with either machine.

If your not to far away from the llandeilo area pm me and at some point and you can have a try of either machine.

Daz

[Plodder]

OK, in the end I did go for an upgrade - a Minelab Sovereign GT (2nd hand on eBay). On the first outing I came back with: a nice butterfly brooch, 2 x George V pennies, a bed knob, a pen knife, etc. This was from land which I previously searched with the Tesoro (and missed).

I'm sticking with the GT, it finds targets at a depth which are too deep for the Silver Sabre.

Just come back from my first beach trip. Apart from lots of ring pulls and bottle tops, I found a pound coin, which would have paid for the trip. 

Thanks for the messages

[U.K. Brian]

For those who have or are considering a Silver Sabre Its got to be born in mind that it was a second from bottom machine in the Tesoro line up for years and was never claimed to be a deep seeker.
There are losts of sites though where it will compete with or beat much more expensive detectors.

Gary on his web site  www.garysukdetecting.co.uk  provides a very good summary of the machines strengths.

[Jeb]

I would agree with Brian. The Silver Sabre 1 & 2 were never going to get you depth. What they were going to get you was great sensitivity to tiny silver and thin hammered. I feel the member Plodder did himself a GREAT favor in choosing the Sov GT for pasture work .Its probably going to serve him well on it.
 Don`t forget the Ground Tracking only works in all metal though.But use all metal and you have one of the deepest seeking detectors out there.If i didn`t have tennis elbow & frozen shoulder probs, i`d have one myself for pasture .