What Every Beginner Needs To Know
About Buying A Metal Detector

OK, so you're interested enough in metal detecting to think about buying a metal detector. Some people build ships in bottles. Others build fantasy baseball teams. Well, this is your hobby, so welcome to it.

Like guys who build ships in little bottles, we metal detectorists (also called treasure hunters, or TH'ers for short) are in the hobby world minority. This is why there aren't many places to get information on buying detectors or refining your TH'ing technique. To many mainstream hobbyists (and even spouses), metal detecting is a the ultimate Geeky Little Hobby. Perhaps it isn't as macho a pursuit as knife throwing or skeet shooting, but there aren't many geeks in prison out of a lack of something better to do with their time.

So welcome to The Geek Boat, my friend. You're in good company, so grab an oar and start rowing.

Your first order of business is to find the detector that's going to be right for you. There are several major considerations:

Brand Choice
The most reliable brands, according to the veteran TH community, are (in no particular order) White, Garrett, Fisher, Tesoro and Minelab. Stick with these five brand names and you'll own a machine that will probably outlive you. Some brands are more sophisticated and have a higher learning curve. Others are the portrait of simplicity and are ready to go right out of the box. Either way, they're all quality machines.

For the most part, TH'ers are fiercely brand loyal, so asking which brand is better than another isn't the most objective question you could ask. If Fisher stuck a wad of chewing gum on the end of a tree branch and called it a metal detector, you can bet there are Fisher devotees who'll swear they used it to find a tooth filling at 40 fathoms.

At any rate, avoid buying a detector from a company not specifically in the business of selling metal detectors. I've seen off-brand detectors being sold dirt cheap in catalogs from outfits selling everything from Army surplus to fishing tackle. These folks might know a thing or two when it comes to fishing lures and canteens, but they know bupkus about TH'ing. You'll also pay more for the detector than it's probably worth.

There are also individuals on the Web with sideline businesses of selling detectors out of their homes. Buying from them is probably no riskier than buying from a commercial store with a Web site, since they're usually authorized agents of the major brand manufacturers. Still, ask for references from other TH'ers who have dealt with these individuals, since the Web/Internet has become the con man's new best friend.

Price, Value and Performance
For anyone serious about finding coins and relics, a brand new entry-level machine starts at $250. Price is probably going to be a big consideration for a you, but it shouldn't be your only consideration. That's because there's another element of the price you pay: Value. You might think you're getting a deal with a $100 detector. However, an off-brand $100 machine will do a fairly miserable job of helping you find valuable coins and relics when compared to a name-brand detector which costs at least $150 more.

In the end, you'll have spent $100 on something that will just sit in your closet, leading you to become a broken, defeated, miserable individual. To fill the void, you will take up golf, a hobby even more expensive and frustrating.

On the other side of the coin, buying a more expensive, high-quality detector doesn't automatically guarantee you'll find more stuff than someone with a less expensive, high-quality machine. In practice, it's the skill of the person operating the detector (and his ability to listen to what his detector is telling him) that's the ultimate measure of performance. (Which, incidentally, is why there are a few old-timers who can find stuff with a homemade detector rigged up from a transistor radio and a wire-wrapped coffee can lid. Seriously.) There are legions of TH'ers who have learned their $250 machines so well they can walk behind novices with $600 machines and find scads of stuff the $600 guys missed.

The stock advice from any veteran TH'er is always: "Buy the best detector you can afford." This is not entirely true. More precise advice would be: "Get the best detector you can afford which will work for the type of hunting you plan on doing." Settle for anything less -- for any reason whatsoever -- and you'll soon be forking out 50 times the amount you thought you saved to some range pro to fix that nasty push slice of yours.

Types Of Detectors
There are two types of metal detectors: manual and automatic. This means they suppress false signals from ferrous oxide (otherwise known as iron) in the soil either automatically or manually. This is called ground balancing. Some detectors come from the factory with the ground balance set to a pre-set level. Others allow you to do it yourself to adjust for various conditions, depending on how much iron shows up naturally in the ground. If you're going to hunt for coins and relics on land on beaches, in parks and around old houses, an automatic is fine. If you plan to hunt for coins and relics or prospect for gold in mountainous areas (where there is a lot of naturally occurring ferrous oxide), you would need a detector with a manual ground balance feature.

There are also detectors made specifically for those who plan to dive, gold prospect or search wet sand areas of salt water beaches, or beaches with black sand. General purpose detectors aren't fully submersible (you can submerge the coil for hunting in very shallow water, but not the control box containing the electronics). On salt water beaches, the interaction of salt in the water makes wet sand conductive. In other words, the wet sand will take on the conductive properties of metal without being naturally metallic. This will cause your detector to "detect" objects that don't exist.

Some people say this phenomenon of nature confuses a metal detector. But truly, it doesn't. The machine is simply doing what it's made to do, which is to detect items with conductive properties. Like any other electronic gizmo, metal detectors are blind. Conductive is conductive is conductive.

Luckily, as a total package they're not truly blind, since they're also made to detect varying degrees of conductivity. For instance, the pull tab of an aluminum beer can is less conductive than a quarter, but it's more conductive than a small gold ring. This is where discrimination circuitry -- the most important feature of any detector -- comes into play. Discrimination lets you cancel out metallic trash like pull tabs, screw-off bottle caps and iron nails when you're hunting for coins. Some detectors do this using varying tones. Others use a notch system, which relies on either a simple dial or more sophisticated computerized program to accept or reject items within a numeric conductivity range.

Bells And Whistles
The less money you spend, the fewer bells and whistles you get. The more expensive detectors use LCD target identification and depth meters. For all I know, someone probably makes a $50,000 detector that'll tell you what year a coin was minted. Like anything else electronic, target ID isn't foolproof -- even on the most expensive metal detectors. There are plenty of guys with $600 detectors getting horned by trash being "misread" as a coin. That's because target ID only tells you what an object most probably is, not what it definately is. While most target ID meters are accurate only to about 5 to 6 inches, their depth readings are generally accurate.

Do you absolutely need a detector with these two conveniences? Nope ... no more than anyone without arthritic hands absolutely needs a camera with an automatic film winder. These niceties will come in handy, though, to someone who's a casual TH'er without the time or inclination to learn to detect by tone alone. However, as anyone who's ever bought a gallon of milk from 7-Eleven knows, convenience is always costs more. Once you get the hang of your style of metal detecting (and find out whether you really do need an LCD meter), you can always upgrade.

Weight
This is a biggie. General-purpose detectors range in weight from 2 to 4 pounds. Get the lightest model you can find for the money you plan to spend. Swinging a heavier detector takes its toll on your arms, especially if you're at it for a few hours. In fact, they all take a toll on your arms. The lighter ones will just wear you out more slowly.

New Or Used?
Good news here is most serious TH'ers take exceptionally good care of their machines. They also upgrade to better equipment sooner. That said, the probability of getting horned on a used detector is statistically slimmer than for buying a used car. Personally, I'd go with a new machine for one reason alone: You really have to beat the bushes to find someone with a used detector for sale when you want to buy one. Especially someone with the exact brand and model you want. Also, some manufacturer's warranties aren't transferable from one owner to the next.

If you have a few weeks to hunt the newspaper classifieds and online news groups (or even your neighborhood pawn shops), fine. For the time you'd invest doing this (instead of just buying something new and getting out and detecting in a matter of days), you'd end up saving in the long run buying new.

Whose Goes Deepest?
The answer to this $50,000 question is: Nobody's. I'm certain there are plenty of people who will disagree, but that's usually personal brand loyalty or manufacturer's propaganda doing the talking. There are just too many variables involved in metal detecting for any one brand or model to claim to be The Undisputed Depth King.

The five major brands all do a great job of finding objects in the 5- to 7-inch range. This is where you'll find just about everything. If you're going to be a spend all your time on the beach, your finds will be even shallower (between 1-3 inches). Detectors in the $250+ range can indeed find objects in the 1.5- to 2-foot range. However, stuff that deep (or deeper) is simply a pain in the ass to deal with, and usually more trouble than it's worth. At that point, you're an archaeologist, not a casual TH'er. Truth is, digging that deep with a hand trowel is very time consuming. I recently spent the better part of 30 minutes at a Chicago beach digging up what turned out to be an aluminum sardine can just past the 2.5-foot level.

Since then, I've arrived at the opinion I don't have the time or inclination to dig to China if the target is still in the hole once I reach the 16-inch mark.

Analysis Paralysis
Finally, figure out what kind of detecting you want to do, how much you can comfortably spend, and which model from which manufacturer will do the best job for you. Then go out and actually buy the damn thing. You're buying a metal detector, not a life insurance policy.

If you only have $300 to spend, don't waste your time looking at a manufacturer's higher-line models. You can't afford it. And putting more than you can afford on a credit card or looting the family nest egg will just piss off your spouse. Don't waste your time looking at a manufacturer's cheaper models, either. If you have $300 to throw around, you're obviously someone who intends on devoting some serious time and effort toward getting good at finding coins and relics in the most trying of conditions. A cheaper detector will hinder you more than it'll help.

One last word: If you buy a detector from the five major manufacturers, don't worry about whether you'll be kicking yourself later -- especially over the price you paid. If you buy from a Web-based shop, know that just about everyone charges the same (plus or minus $5) for the same model. Most of all, avoid the temptation to pull your hair and wail mournfully to Allah should some smart aleck mention he bought his detector (or a "better" one) for a lot less than you did. People lie like rugs.

Buy yours, enjoy it and never look back.

© 1998 Scott Buckner