Classic 111scores in nails

[cedarswamp]

A two track drive way in front of an old church had produced a few Indian heads in the past with several high end machines however the winner in nails is the Whites classic 111sl.After a recent sweep of this forty foot drive way I found a 1883 and 1902 Indian head plus 1937 wheaty.After reading about Montes nail board test I went and bought a sl at a pawn shop.It out shines several of my high end machines in nails with a ten inch coil including the etrac. mxt.cz3d.musketeer x.exception my tiger shark which does a fine job separating.Coins were being found with three or more nails in the same hole, in standard trash parks ect. I would choose another machine but in nails its my classic 111 hands down.CEDARSWAMP

 

[Tom_in_CA]

There is no doubt that 2-filter machines like the Classic III will see through nails (ie.: superior "averaging") than the power house depth demons. If you put a nail on top of a dime, while knocking out nails, most super power house machines, like the Explorer, will struggled to get a hint of a conductive target there. But 2 filter machines, while not known for depth, will still get a conductive hit on the coin under the nail. Sometimes up to 2 or 3 nails, depending on the placement of the nails, how rusty, how big, etc....

About the only thing superior in nail-riddled ghost town environments would be a Compass 77b. It will see through 3 or 4 nails with ease, to reach a coin, while rejecting the nails if they sat there alone. However, the benefits end there. They were a bear to keep balances, lagged in mineralized ground, lacked any other form of disc, suffered worse depth than modern 2-filter machines, etc... But man they were great where nails were so thick that they resembled tooth picks lying all over the ground. Like for sticking under where wooden porches had been in burned down houses, etc....

 

[cedarswamp]

In my ground here in M ichigan the classic hits a dime 7-8 inches with ease in my test garden with the ten inch coil not shabby depth where most coins are being found.

 

[PulltabPirate]

Classic 111??? PLEASE tell me where to learn more!!

 

[cedarswamp]

Check out montes nail board test there is a web that you can grab off this sight if you haven't already sounds like your doing good enough seeing pics of your finds.Tryed the xlt didnt like it as well as the mxt which I now have.It wasn't the programing that bothered me it was the lack of clarity separating targets compared to mxt.however love the classic hits my coin garden better than the xlt.I can hit the same coin with the 4x6 coil 7 inches with the mxt deeper machine but don't separate as well as the clas.111 Print out the test and see for your self.I have a cz3d.mxt musky. etrack,clas.111.tesoro tiger shark.The clas 111 and the tigershark are best with this test heres the real proof Just bought the classic saturday 1888 seated dime 1883 indian 1902 indian 1937 wheaty in an area hit hard by myself also.Tryed the t2 fast process-er like the f75 want to try the g2 CEDARSWAMP P.S.been detecting sense 67

 

[PulltabPirate]

I read Monte's "Nail board" PDF & I'll try that when I get my new MXT Pro. Sure wish I'd have taken that Classic 3 more seriously when they were being made!! (I did dream of that Compass 77B when I was a kid! Gotta White's 4000 something instead! & cedarswamp - you've got 10 years or so on me. I'd love to know what you used back then?? BFO??

 

[cedarswamp]

I thought about it a bit and think it was closer to 1969 when I got my first metal detector it was a Fisher metroteck it was bought in Oscoda Michigan.Back then most people didn't believe that metal detectors really worked my Dad thought it was a scam when I showed him old west books back pages of there finds on white sheets and fellas posing with there detectors.The convince r for him was talking to a fellow worker who had success with one.Got permission to hunt an old fairground and the last year it was held was 1935 nothing but a corn field then found a 1902 silver dollar and several other silver some on top of the ground dating in the 1800s.Graduated to a Whites gold master left the hobby in the late 70s picked back up in about 1980s when ever the Whites 6db came out then to the hip mount series with depth meters.From here it was a tesoro siver saber and Whites 5900 to tesoro super lobo track .to Fisher cz3d to Whites mxt .to Minelab sov. to minelab explorer xs to etrack.Had to sell my excal to finance the etrack.Somewhere in the middle picked up a musketeer x .OH almost forgot had about the T2 and the xlt . tiger shark.vaquero. and last the classic 111.In summery there is no perfect detector but the ones mentioned have all retrieved old coins.I hunt about four hours a day leaning to lighter machines thinking about the teknetics omega 8000 David Johnsons favorite.The classics have slipped by me also pulltabpirate because I was always looking for high end machines.P.S. no finds of any value today tomorrow another day holler when ya hit treasure.CEDARSWAMP.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Cedar, thanx for the trip down memory lane I started with a used 66TR, in about 1975. That was a circa late '60s, or very early 1970s all-metal TR, and obviously already a "dinasour" by 1975-ish. So it's always interesting to hear about others who started in the 1960s.

Fisher, however, did not make Metrotech. Those are two different manufacturers. So which did you have? The Metrotech or the Fisher? I have heard that the Metrotech (introduced in about 1964-ish) was way ahead of its time. Could actually find coin-sized targets to decent depths (4 or 5"?) considering the era.

 

[cedarswamp]

I assumed it was a fisher it was a metrotec with world war two style earphones that turned the machine on when you plugged them in.It was grey with a meter on top of a can with a rod going straight to a coil about ten inch.The electronics were epoxied or sealed so as to hide the design.I stand corrected.CEDARSWAMP

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Yup, your physical description fits a metrotech. Is this what yours looked like?

http://jb-ms.com/images/Stuff/metrotech.jpg

In your recollection, how deep could this machine find a coin at? Like say a dime? A quarter? etc....

 

[cedarswamp]

Thats it to a tee, thanks you brought some great memories seeing that machine again.I remember burying a coin 5 inches as a test garden if you kept it tuned really close to the ground might squeak out 6 inches however with the halo effect I might have dug coins 7 inches.You had to constantly adjust the tuning when on the ground if you raised the coil would false.Thanks for the pic is that your machine tell me more.CEDARSWAMP

 

[Tom_in_CA]

no, that's not my machine. I just found the pix on the net, and transported them to insert here

I talked to a fellow from southern CA, who said that in about '64 or '65, he saw someone with one of those on the beach (probably only working the dry sand, 'cuz I doubt they'd have worked on wet salt). He thought that looked interesting, so he went about trying to find where he could buy one. Pretty soon, he too was the owner of a Metrotech. He said that there were quite a few of them on the beaches there in So. CA, but he soon learned that he could do quite well doing sandboxes around Los Angeles and the suburbs. He recalled that in a few hours, he could usually have himself $3 or $4 in change. That would be enough to fill his gas tank (go figure, gas was probably still .25 p/gallon?) and get a 6 pack of beer. Sounds silly now, but back then, when minimum wage was only $1.25 p/h, this was "serious money" for a college age kid

And as virgin as things probably were then, he says he never had the presence of mind to try exotic places. Ie.: stage stops, forts, historic monuments type places, old-town urban demolition, etc... He said he simply looked at it as only something to work sand, and only for current coins. Of course, those "current" coins at the time were all silver. But it didn't occur to him to save them, as they were still spending those coins, as the time.

I never got to actually handle one, and never saw one in action (I started in the mid 1970s). Thanx for the info you have that they could get around 6 or 7". That's pretty respectable for that era! Ah if only we could go back in time and know what we know now about hunting sites, and have something even as primitive as that