What was the first detector that you purchased?

White's Silver Eagle bought in 1996.

Bounty Hunter 740 discriminator
Found bunches of stuff with it but was ergonomic disaster in design!

Tesoro Compadre 5.75", Lesche, ProPointer...........that combination found me gold, silver, and many Civil War relics.

Had a cheap BFO in 1970...can't remember it's name...but officially bought a Bounty Hunter TR 840 after I got out of the military in 1974.

My first detector was a cheap Radio Shack brand. My first real detector was a Tesoro Silver uMax.

My first was a used Whites 66TR (circa 1972 to '73-ish). Bought used in about 1975 or '76, in about 8th grade. The school chum who got me into this was using a Compass 94b auto, or a 77b auto. And it spanked my 66TR. We just hunted around the city's school yards of the old schools . For wheaties, buffalos, etc.... On a real good day, you might get a merc. Woohoo !

It was about that time that we were also hearing about "discriminators". But had heard that "you might miss rings". So we poo-poo'd the idea (even though, truth-be-told, it wasn't exactly like we were finding gold rings in the first place, doh !). And by 1979 or '80, we began to see guys swinging motion discriminators. We laughed at them since *obviously* they weren't swinging the coil correctly, eh ? But the moment we saw their tallies, we stopped laughing. And rushed out to buy discriminators. At first, I made the mistake of getting a TR discriminator : The Garrett Groundhog, which was still being sold at that time in 1980-ish. But it couldn't hold a candle to what motion discriminators (6000d, Red Baron, etc...) were accomplishing. So in 1982, I got the Garrett ADS II . Which was Garrett's attempted answer to the 6000d.

Sheesk, that was a million years ago .

Fisher 1265X,
Bought new 1986/7ish !?!,,,,Still have, still use regularly,,
Still pulls those amazingly deep 'whisper silvers',,,

Relco 12T BFO Kit detector that once assembled worked using an am radio for the signal. Found lots of junk with it we had a burned down cabin on the property.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2018 12:11AM by MXT SNIPER.

Curbdog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tesoro Compadre 5.75", Lesche, ProPointer.........
> ..that combination found me gold, silver, and many
> Civil War relics.


outrageous bargain!..outstanding value!
great little coin and jewelry sniper!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

I see the Relco being posted more than once.

Here are few recent pics of a very good condition one a friend of mine scored. Might bring back some nostalgia for some of you.

Relco

My YouTube - [www.youtube.com]
Website - [www.thehuntergt.com]

Not my first detector, but My oldest coin - 1st century AD Roman - minted in Mesopotamia - found in a site in Riyadh Saud Arabia - a site now covered by a vehicle scrap yard - found with a Tesoro Compadre - on the surface - depth - don’t always need it.

And before anybody asks if you can metal detect in Saudi Arabia ... first, I left there in 1995 - second, as we used to say ...

“Saudi - all that is permitted is compulsory - all else is forbidden”

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Like Craig, my first was a Fisher F2. It was a gateway detector and my addiction has blazed unabated ever since. Any one want to buy 10 used detectors? I think I can limp along on four...

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

Bounty Hunter Tracker IV.

HH
Mike

1966-D-Tex deluxe-created some new curse words with that piece of s--t.

Fisher Coin$trike about twelve years ago.

Compass Judge 2, at ten years old, couldn't master it.
Garrett GTI 2500 as an adult around 1995 or so, been at it steady, many detectors in the interim.

bounty hunter tracker IV. I paid maybe $60 for it on a sale, I think normal price was around $100. I easily found that much in clad on the dry beach over 2 months before I upgraded to the CZ21 because I wanted to detect the wet sand. Man that bounty hunter was great though. I think its a great entry level machine. Its cheap, light, easy to use, and just works. I allowed friends to use it when they wanted to tag along before selling it at a yard sale for maybe $40. I told the guy that bought it all about it, showed him how to use it, where to use it, etc. Heck he should of paid me $40 for my free detecting 101 lesson haha. I hope he found some good stuff.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

White's Coinmaster TR with the 8" TR2D coil. Metal / Mineral. Got it for my birthday. Use to take it out to the old ghosts towns in the West Desert on our Boy Scout Camps. Mid-70's seem like forever ago now. Lots of different detectors since then.

Rich (Utah)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Just one more good target before I go.

Silver UMax then CZ3D.

Whites Coinmaster IV in 1971.

Whites Goldmaster 66..... very heavy and not easy to use. You could swing it for 10 minutes then exhaust yourself and it cost a small fortune feeding it batteries.

Up to my ____ in Pulltabs, Grant

Hey Cal, you might get a 2nd chance at a Gargov “Wunderwaffen”!

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Micronta 4003 as well for my first, purchased from Tandy Electronics (Australian version of Radio Shack) Took it gold detecting and found nothing but fencing wire, turned out I had no idea on how to use it properly being an impatient teen. Guess the thought of it having lots of knobs at the time meant it was a good detector, maybe not so.

First "real" gold detector purchased was a second hand Minelab XT17000, and first decent coin detector was a Tesoro Vaquero - that netted me my first ever big silver.

I bought a Whites blue & grey pro at Gettysburg electronics in 1998. It's been all down hill since.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2018 11:21AM by Digger70pa.

You guys are making me feel like such a newbie!

Mine was a Tesoro Cibola in 2008.

BTW Calabash, it did detect silver...

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey Cal, you might get a 2nd chance at a Gargov “Wunderwaffen”!

The C$ wasn't a bad machine at all, but it was a handful for a 1st machine!! I almost wouldn't mind playing around with one again, hopefully I've picked up a few bits of knowledge since swinging that thing, but had a love/hate relationship between owners. What killed it for me was that it was highly susceptible to EMI. There were several times that it was simply shut down with EMI. Ironically I switched to the F75 LTD, which lets be honest, wasn't exactly stellar with EMI either, but it was much better then the C$ and then after upgrading it with the LTD2 board swap, it handled EMI pretty well with DST (off or on - LOL!).

Fisher 441, 1978.

These guys really were hunting back in the day! The pioneers of our hobby...TheHunterGT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I see the Relco being posted more than once.
>
> Here are few recent pics of a very good condition
> one a friend of mine scored. Might bring back som
> e nostalgia for some of you.
>
> [url=http://thehuntergt.com/forums/showthread.php?
> tid=962&pid=5865#pid5865]Relco[/url]

I constructed a detector off a schematic in Mechanic Illustrated or Popular Science about 1967. I couldn't get it to work. A few months later I purchased a kit from Heathkit. My first coin was a half dollar under a swing in the park. They had me by then. I mail ordered a Detex BFO discriminator. It was amazing what I found with that machine in those early days.

A Ray Jefferson all metal deal given to me as a kid in the early 70's. First one I "bought" myself was a Garrett Deepseeker 3 I bought used from a dedicated Nautilus user.