GUESS WHAT I FOUND:surprised:

[C.J.M.]

I was surfing on fee-bay and I found this oldie in good shape,last bid was $69, for you guys that vintage detector this is THE one has two coils.FISHER MODEL 660 MOTHER LOAD VLF.

 

[HaroldILL.]

I saw that and thought someone got a steal! I like the fact it is on a s- rod and not a wrist breaker. Let us know how deep it will air test a dime as curious myself.

 

[JJdigs]

She is a beauty NICE score for sure

 

[attackcat1]

Have you tried it out yet?

 

[Hoser John]

OMG the first real gold detector back from 1984. I got to test prototypes with my great old bud from Fisher Erwin Lee RIP. That 10 turn stacked gb was the hot item back in the day...wow 32 years ago....hope it works for ya-covet coils as last heard no more as parts long gone-John

 

[Dave J.]

I remember that one! It was a slightly hot-rodded VLF-441 with an improved DD searchcoil, I think we still use that searchcoil tooling. Introduced I think 1982. It was basically a Louis Ciuffo (production manager) and Jim Lewellen (CEO) project with little involvement on my part, I was too busy developing really new stuff to get dragged into that one. Irwin Lee was an almost-local (Turlock) dealer who sold to the California central mother lode market and was a gold prospector himself, so he was a logical choice to snag for field testing. Unfortunately for the Fisher 660, the Garrett A2B was the better gold machine until we intro'd the "original" Gold Bug about 1986. That Gold Bug was the first metal detector designed from the ground up as a gold prospecting machine: all prior "gold machines" were adaptations of general purpose platforms.

The 441 was designed by a contract engineer Jim Jones (no, not the guy of Guyana fame, nor related to our engineer Marvin Jones) about 1974, in the early days of ground balanced VLF when the high frequency TR's were still popular and not even BFO's had quite been killed off yet. Very good (and clever) design for its time. Jack Gifford adapted it for the late 70's Fisher VLF-555 discriminator, that was before he started Tesoro. The 441 still lives on in our industrial metal detector product lineup, over 40 years later! ..........Jim Jones visited us in Los Banos about 1982, as I recall an Aussie (or maybe British) about 6'4" tall, very smart fellow. I often wondered what other design work he did, he wasn't a permanent fixture in the beep industry like some of the rest of us turned out to be.

 

[tarajudy]

All my FISHER DETECTORS WORKD GREAT IN THE LATE 70s 80s 1235,1265, 1280, had 6 different ones back then. Only have 4 different ones today. f4,f74, cz6a cz21.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Dave, I've started saving all these little snippets you relate because it adds to my enjoyment of the hobby, knowing the history behind it.

Wish you could write a biography or dictate it for someone else to write. Those of us obsessed with this hobby would love it, those that battle ALS would gain courage from it.

Anyway,,, glad you pop on and share stuff like this.

HH
Mike

 

[C.J.M.]

I did not buy it