Compadre Vs. Silver uMax

[wheatymike]

Seriously thinking about one of these two as a backup. Some of you guys who have experience with both chime in and tell me what you like and don't like and why. Thanks in advance Michael

 

[KVM2]

I have both.A 7inch Compadre (blank card), and a silver, second one I owned..Also a Vaquero..Have been trying to make time to do air testing.. For example the Vaquero was deepest on an earing post(14Kt), then the Compadre, which the silver didn't see..Depth Vaquero deepest on an Indian, then the Silver, . I'm going back to a really searched out field.Will take the Compadre and silver.. All in all , they may have kicked better than the Vaquero there..I know in one area that I had gone over with the "V", just screwing around a week later impressed me with the coins I missed and a guy with(I think) a V-3....Absolute novice,, but will not go hunting with me because I am too liberal... Loved it, didn't agree with what I said, and called me names. Any way,he did not know how to use the V-3......(.Equipment list that day did include one S.Colt)...However, I am going to wring the Compadre out, then go back with the Silver..Which one to buy...the one that comes up first at a good price.However, my leaning is toward the Compadre...It is like the little guy you are friends with...., Push comes to shove, it will flat out kick hind end all over the place... One thing many people are missing, the small gold found by the Tab Dog was very close to the surface...I sold my last 5.75 to a friend, need to get another to ground scrape in tot lots..Just to see..Sorry I am not more specific.Will do a three way air test on all three looking at the little stuff and gold..Week or two out yet I consider the Silver to be the link between the Compadre and a deeper, more " Manly" machine....(LOL)

 

[slingshot]

I have both but if you made me keep just one, it would be the Compadre. Had a four way test with 4 fixed g/b detectors and none could outdo it. Plus, it found nickels the others missed.

 

[MercuryMan]

Silver Umax, and if you set disc between iron/nickel and learn what the tone I.D. is saying you won't miss nickels, my wife has been using hers for about 3 years and I have a Vaquero, and she will consistently do as well as I do when we go coin shooting.

 

[wheatymike]

Thanks for the replies. I currently hunt with the V. I would like to get a backup that is simple like the comp or silver , so if I take someone else hunting it will be a turn on and go affair. I will also use it as a detector to just keep on me for when an opportunity presents itself . I really like hunting with the V. and I think that thing rocks, but sometimes its nice to just go hunt and not think too much about setup thanks again.

 

[KVM2]

Had a long hard talk about which of my three Tesoros to sell or keep..Decided there was a young lady in Pa, that needed to start with a Compadre, so I sold it to her dad..That leaves the Silver UMax as a back up/ loaner for the present,, and the workings for a water machine this Spring........And, the "V"., which is always shouting DIG !!!! Going on 63 years of digging, it is time to slow down ????? You didn't hear that??? I didn't say that?? Must be ghosts around here..........

 

[wheatymike]

So which Tesoro do you like the best?

Had a long hard talk about which of my three Tesoros to sell or keep..Decided there was a young lady in Pa, that needed to start with a Compadre, so I sold it to her dad..That leaves the Silver UMax as a back up/ loaner for the present,, and the workings for a water machine this Spring........And, the "V"., which is always shouting DIG !!!! Going on 63 years of digging, it is time to slow down ????? You didn't hear that??? I didn't say that?? Must be ghosts around here..........

 

[Monte]

did you start using a traditional type (recreational type) of metal detector? How old are you, out of curiosity? I start my 49th year of detecting in March.

Just curios as I know a lot of folks were into dump digging, bottle digging, outhouse and cellar digging, etc., early on, then got into the metal detecting aspect in the '60s, like I did, and most sometime in the early '70s to

 

[KVM2]

Monte, hit the wrong button 53 years, at our respective young ages we don't need to add any...Does anyone remember. or know what year the T-20B came out? Am 74, may have a year or two on you there. So, if you need some hunting advice,, "Bigger and better knee pads"...Actually, played with a metal detector(I still call them metal locators) in 56 or 57 Seaside Heights, new jersey.. Some character had a , BFO, and I found a quarter with it.. He had a bag that must have weighted ten pounds of coin and other metal items.. Searching the beaches was his living, and I think he went to Florida in the Winter time.. In 1960, there was no clad, and with the prices, and the coins you could find, I considered" treasure hunting", what we now call " coin shooting" instead of working 40 hours..My income really took off when the T-20 came out..Much deeper than the BFO's.. Next time I hit the keys , will wear glasses.. I am chomping at the bit, and the snow is insult to injury.In 73 ,I tried bringing out Raymond Dow's Treasure Trove Club news letter...Mimeographed....

 

[Calif_quake]

I want a back up to my vaq and thinking Tejon. But what ever I get I think I need manual GB

 

[wheatymike]

Sorry Monte, I wasn't sure if your post was for me or the other gentlemen who posted. I have been detecting for 11 years. My first and only other detector was a bounty hunter pioneer 202. I got more serious about it around a year ago when my uncle loaned me his Fisher CZ3d. That's when I went out and bought the Vequero. Michael

did you start using a traditional type (recreational type) of metal detector? How old are you, out of curiosity? I start my 49th year of detecting in March.

Just curios as I know a lot of folks were into dump digging, bottle digging, outhouse and cellar digging, etc., early on, then got into the metal detecting aspect in the '60s, like I did, and most sometime in the early '70s to

 

[Monte]

Sorry Monte, I wasn't sure if your post was for me or the other gentlemen who posted. I have been detecting for 11 years. My first and only other detector was a bounty hunter pioneer 202. I got more serious about it around a year ago when my uncle loaned me his Fisher CZ3d. That's when I went out and bought the Vequero. Michael

While the BH Pioneer 202 wasn't/isn't on my 'hot' list, neither was the CZ3D. I felt it never came up to the level of the CZ5 I had when I compared them side-by-side.

Michael, I know this is the Tesoro Forum, and there have been a number of Tesoro models that were/are my favorites. Having owned 4 Vaqueros, I can't tell you that it isn't among them, either, but it is a much better detector (in my opinion) than the BH or CZ you mentioned. "Getting serious" about this hobby, and about learning your detector and others, to know them well, is a key to success. Consider all the different hunting environments you plan to work and make sure you have ad use the best search coil for the site conditions.

KVM2, I'll be 64 in just a few months, and started detecting in March of '65 after I built a "Metal/Mineral Locator" from a kit. That BFO, an the others I worked on after, carried me through until my first factory-produced detector, a White's GhostTowner BFO, in the summer of '68. I used mostly BFO's until I went to some IB (TR) units in '71 and started carrying and using a detector battery for different needs. Back then, I used a BFO and TR, and later added a model with Discrimination.

Hindsight tells me I should have quit working (tough to do when I was just married in '71 and soon had kids (6) on the way) and concentrated on detecting. I look back at the period from '68 on through the early '80s and the amount of coins that I recovered, especially for a decade from '68, and know I would have done much better than the dinky pay I got from work. I detected every chance I have had, but the years when I would get 60,000 to 130,000 coins, a lot of them silver, could have easily tripled, if I devoted myself full-time to the effort. Tough to make that level of success today because, quite frankly, a lot of the coinage that was once lost has been found over the past half-century, and that means the bulk of the lost silver coins and other older-date change.

Then, too, back hen we mainly dealt with iron nails, bobby pins, bottle caps and small foil from gum wrappers or bigger foil from cigarette packs., and most of the foil was a viewable fresh discard.. Today we have oddball change, like zinc cents being eaten way, a much greater amount of foil and bottle caps, and the exceedingly annoying pull-tabs and screw caps to make hings worse. And the amount and percentage of that unwanted crap far exceeds the amount of change being lost because people are just slobs.

Yes, there are still coins being lost, but not silver coins, and the coin-to-trash ratio is much different than it once was.

The 'fun' is still there, but, for me, I seek older sites to go after older coins and trade tokens and I know that it might take a little more work, a little more time, a little more research, but the rewards are satisfying.

Those who remember how it once was, because they enjoyed it back then, know what I am referring to. If you haven't had the thrill of finding more dated coins and neat stuff, then I wish you were able to join me, and maybe a half-dozen of my closest detecting buddies, and you could experience the beauty of desert ghost towns, old out-of-use and even unknown (without serious research) resort sites, and other lonely and lost from memory places in old towns, or in some mountainous locations. There's a reason why, after closing in on the start of my 49th year of detecting, I have found more Seated Liberty Dimes and Quarters than I have Barber's. About 30-to-1, or more!

Monte

Oh, and since this is the Tesoro Forum, I'll add that the bulk of the old coins, tokens and gold and silver jewelry I found from when I became a Tesoro Dealer in '77, and even after I quit in November of '04, came by way of sch work-horse models as the Inca, Royal Sabre, 'original' Eldorado, Bandido, Silver Sabre II, Bandido II, Bandido II

 

[slingshot]

I well remember those days, Monte. I had a Garrett BFO-the first being the D-tex Mity Mite (sp.?) and was mesmerized by that tiny walking-cane detector finding all those coins. Back then, the Compass was the thing. Never had a Tesoro until I read your and Tabdog's articles. I met my first Tesoro dealer right after that and he and I became good friends.

 

[wheatymike]

Thanks for the replies, and thanks for the advice Monte. All of the stuff you write on this web site that I have read seems to be good advice and very helpful to a greenhorn like myself.
That beaning said, you still didn't answer my original question on the post, which is the better backup detector for me to buy. Oh well to late. I didn't buy either . I found a clean, used, Silver Sabre uMax and it is on its way. I hope I did well. thanks again Michael

 

[KVM2]

the Silver UMax is a fun detector.When the 1266 burned me out, I bought a Silver. Had I not, I would have quit detecting 4 or 5 years ago.. Silver is deeper than the Compadre, works well in my mild soil, but does not find those VERY small earring posts...It was so light and responsive , that for the first time in a long time, I was like the kid with the BFO all over again..Amazing how serious we can make detecting...Now, the locator you need to wring out is the Tesoro " OH Mio", a very limited production 5 foot Willow fork with a polished Crotal Bell to you wake you up....Before I get accused of jacking again (long winded), I will return control of the horizontal, vertical, and all the rest, back to the original intent...