Best Tesoro for Coin and Jewlery

[kregh]

Hey guys -

I live in Georgia (red clay) and I am mainly a coin and jewelry hunter - get to an old house every now and then...so hunting silver would be nice..

I am thinking a Compadre or Silver Umax is about all I need... maybe a Vaq(but that seems a little too high-end for my needs)

Any recommendations would be great

Thanks

 

[Arizona Slim]

Vaquero - hands down!

 

[Monte]

don't know that much about your and your experience, or how many detectors you might already have, or have had. At least I don't, as I see you've only made 9 posts as I start my reply.

Hey guys -

I live in Georgia (red clay) and I am mainly a coin and jewelry hunter - get to an old house every now and then...so hunting silver would be nice..

Here you have acknowledged that Georgia might have some interesting ground to deal with. I've never hunted in Georgia, but I have worked a lot of "red clay" sites in a few Western US states and it can vary. I am sure ALL of the ground in the areas you might search will not be the same or that consistent, and that tells me you are likely to deal with changes in ground mineralization.

There is no such thing as a 'perfect' metal detector, but to put the odds in you favor, owning a unit that provides some help to deal with different hunting environments would be to your favor. That mean either a detector with a good automated Ground Balance circuitry, or a model that has manual Ground Balance. Even those considerations are not always easy-to-make because some models, like Tesoro's Lobo Super-TRAQ and Cort

 

[REVIER]

I hunted in Birmingham Ala. in that devil dirt red clay with veins of natural iron ore and tiny round particles of iron you could actually pick up with a magnet thrown in just for fun.
Nobody, and I mean nobody got much depth at all in the worst of that stuff.
My Vaquero, a friends E-Track, all the club guys Whites's...all had pretty much the same depth which was 3-4", maybe 5" on a good day in moist soil.

I got the Vaq and eventually a DD coil to combat this stuff to no avail, but it still found me plenty of great targets because most of them were 5" or less in depth, anyway.

Now here is the weird part.
I purchased an older 7" coil Compadre about a year after getting the Vaq because I am a jewelry hunter at heart.
I have never done any tests, or measured any finds, but I swear that the Compadre was actually getting me slightly deeper than my F2 or my Vaquero with clearer signals on targets at all depths.

Crazy, I know, the Vaq had way more power, manual ground balance and that DD coil, and yet it sure seemed that way to me when I hunted sites with the Compadre I had hunted previously with the Vaquero.
This does not make sense at all and I realize this, but maybe the different circuitry without the low noise high gain of the Vaq, or the true 180 degree ED of the Compadre might have had something to do with it.
Jewelry hunter, the Compadre... and that new 8" coil model should be considered.
For what you want to do I agree the Compadre or Silver should work very well.

 

[slingshot]

I hunted in Birmingham Ala. in that devil dirt red clay with veins of natural iron ore and tiny round particles of iron you could actually pick up with a magnet thrown in just for fun.
Nobody, and I mean nobody got much depth at all in the worst of that stuff.
My Vaquero, a friends E-Track, all the club guys Whites's...all had pretty much the same depth which was 3-4", maybe 5" on a good day in moist soil.

I got the Vaq and eventually a DD coil to combat this stuff to no avail, but it still found me plenty of great targets because most of them were 5" or less in depth, anyway.

Now here is the weird part.
I purchased an older 7" coil Compadre about a year after getting the Vaq because I am a jewelry hunter at heart.
I have never done any tests, or measured any finds, but I swear that the Compadre was actually getting me slightly deeper than my F2 or my Vaquero with clearer signals on targets at all depths.

Crazy, I know, the Vaq had way more power, manual ground balance and that DD coil, and yet it sure seemed that way to me when I hunted sites with the Compadre I had hunted previously with the Vaquero.
This does not make sense at all and I realize this, but maybe the different circuitry without the low noise high gain of the Vaq, or the true 180 degree ED of the Compadre might have had something to do with it.
Jewelry hunter, the Compadre... and that new 8" coil model should be considered.
For what you want to do I agree the Compadre or Silver should work very well.

Had similar experiences, but the discrimination was really close to a/m setting.

 

[kregh]

Monte - Thanks for the insight.

I currently use a ACE 350 - which has been pretty good to me so far. I have been swayed by the almost religious belief the Tesoro's group has in their equipment. So I

want a unit to supplement my ACE 350. And I want something easy for my 12 year old daughter to use - so I am thinking the Compadre or Silver umax would fit the bill.

I dont think we are serious enough hunters to warrant a GB unit - we enjoy to soccer field / park hunts. With the occasional old house/barn(which have been poor performers so far - hoping a Tesoro might give us that extra added punch to locate things the 350 might miss).

Speaking of GB - clue me in to what we are missing by not using a GB unit? Is it depth? accuracy? both? and if its depth - what could we be missing out on? 1 inch? 4 inches? (again - red clay mostly here in Ga.)

Again - Thanks for all the insight from you and the other Tesoro members...