Detector hall of fame

Lots of experienced members on this forum so I would be interested in knowing what detectors members think would be worthy entrants to a hall of fame if such a thing existed ?

CZ-3D, probably in the top ten.

I have used a lot of the more modern detectors and cant really speak for the older ones. For what I need in a detector I vote for the Etrac.

My pick...No particular order.

red baron
mark 1
treasure baron's
Compass Gold Scanner Pro
1265
Sovereign
Explorer
CZ
MXT
T2
5900
Xp's Soon to be
Vistas Soon to be
TDI
Infinium
5000 Soon to be



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 11:45PM by Keith Southern.

XP Deus. Or the XP GMP. For the way I hunt.
EDIT: How could I forget the detector that introduced me to good, quiet, unmasking ability. The TEKNETICS G2!!!! I think I'll rate it above my first answer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2013 03:30PM by Kevin B.

CZ's and, adding the f-75 Anniversary Edition and the f-75 LTD w/ boost.
I have a feeling that almost all the detectors ever made will make the list.

CZ's.....Xlt's......each had a good 20 year run......

I was trying to list the ones that was unique or brought something game changing to the table...The greatest will be the George payne design's..they changed everything....

I read where Dave J. said that Georges Disc circuit was so unique that He would of never of thought of it...

alot of detectors although great are just not unique...

Keith

How about detectorist hall of fame? Keith just named 2 heavy hitters, would love 2 hear some more? (hh) Bell/Watson?

White's Eagle Spectrum for the detecor. If it didn't start the digital detector age it sure fanned the fire.

Dick Stout for my nominee.

My vote the Compass 77B Yukon. I found thousands of silver coins with mine and more gold jewelry than all the VLF discriminating detectors
I've had put together. Perhaps the Fisher 1266X and CZ-3D also.

Sovereign!

These are some of the ones I consider "game-changers," not just popular models.

Alexander G. Bell design, 1881
Fisher 2-box, 1937
SCR-625 (WWII mine detector)
Fisher T-10
White's Coinmaster V Supreme
Technos Phase Readout Gradiometer
Eric Foster PI (? not sure of the model, 1970's... may have been the PulseDec)
A.H. Pro
Bounty Hunter Red Baron
Teknetics Mark 1
White's Eagle
Minelab Sovereign
Minelab SD2000

Modern.... inland/dirt:

CZ
Minelab Sovereign (Then subsequent XS)
T2 (Then subsequent --more powerful/sensitive-- F75)
XP GMP
-----------------

Modern.... Beach wet salt:

CZ
Sovereign
AquaStar
----------------

Modern.... bang-for-the-buck/pricing:

ACE 250
AT Pro


George Payne, Dave Johnson, Bruce Candy, Eric Foster, (XP GMP chief engineer)

Lipservice Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My vote the Compass 77B Yukon. I found thousands
> of silver coins with mine and more gold jewelry
> than all the VLF discriminating detectors
> I've had put together. Perhaps the Fisher 1266X
> and CZ-3D also.

Right on! The 77B was one great detector - too bad the factory burned down. As for all the discoveries with it, those were much easier times too (mid -'70's). No such thing as a water detector then, every common, park and school yard basically virgin unless you had a detector dealer in that town.

Ahhhh, the good ole days!!!

Old days - I have to say the Coinmaster V Supreme. First VLF to do a great job of canceling the ground, not to mention NO MORE HOTROCKS sounding like a quarter lol. Modern days?? Haven't tried a lot of brands or machines, probably the E Trac and the TDI SL.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2013 12:41AM by coinnut.

Metrotech in it's day.
Fisher original Gold Bug. (found lots of gold with it.)

Beach/Wet Sand...

CZ6a ...you're looking for a machine that will work great in salt envirements with lots of depth, splash/rain resistant, depth meter and excellent at identifying low conductor non ferrous targets from the iron and silver.

Minelab Sovereign ...2nd choice because I like depth meters even if they get fooled sometimes, and the CZ's tones are simply for me to understand.



Dry Dirt...

CZ3D ...for cherry picking, lots of depth, depth meter, older coins identified as "coins" and easy to understand tone system.

AT Pro ...almost a waterproof CZ6a with digital readout and better iron ID and seperation, just not as deep.

Used and own/owned all of these (plus several more) except the Minelab, so I'm using an educated guess on that one.

Compass Yukon 77-B
White's Coinmaster V Supreme
Original Fisher Gold Bug
White's Eagle
Minelab SD2000
Fisher CZ-5
MInelab Sovereign

Steve Herschbach
Find me on Facebook

How about the Nautilus IIb? Or the Wilson RC II or RC IV Detectors as they are deep seekers for sure.

We are talking about a Hall Of Fame here. Red Grange is in the Football Hall Of Fame.He played halfback in the 1920s. He weighed 180lbs. He was GREAT for his time but I doubt he would have all those great statistics playing against
todays modern defensive players. So we are talking about metal detectors of their own era. Sure an E-Trac is a great modern detector, as are several others. But we can't compare apples to oranges.
I said my top choice was a Compass 77B.



It's an old picture of a 77B. If you can't read it the type says:
DON PEPPER, of Los Angeles found 12,005 coins between
May 20th and September 15th using a COMPASS 77-B with a
8" loop. Don was the winner of the West Coast Chamionship
Treasure Hunt with his COMPASS!

As I stated in one of my old posts here the 77B was a huge part of my sucsess in the 70s. When I cashed in a lot of my silver and gold it was enough to buy a new Chevy pickup and a new Honda Civic for my wife.
I had amassed 3 - 5 gallon pails of wheat cents at that time also.

That is why it is a Hall Of Fame detector.

I still think the original Gold Bug deserves Hall Of Fame status, it was way better than anything else when it was introduced. If your using amount of stuff found as the criteria, I have found many pounds of gold nuggets with the original G.B.

[www.goldgold.com] finally found some good info hope you enjoy HH

Thanks for the link rapidroy7, I did enjoy it.

forerunner of the terrific judge 2 & judge 6 (high frequency) (tr)
detectors."outrageous" detectors during the 70's

I'll throw in my two cents...

Sovereign GT (Raw power, depth, stability, along with a few other unique features)
Explorer (What can you say about the unique VDI setup and a few other major perks?)
Whites QXT/QXT Pro (Same machine, just Pro might be a tad hotter maybe, unless the sensitivity numbers were just re-scaled to make it appear that way)
Whites 6000 Pro XL (As good as it gets in splitting hairs on silver and clad with that meter)
Tesoro Bandido II Umax (Not going to find anything lighter when that's a concern, and very good sensitivity to tiny stuff)

In reverse order...

Tesoro Bandido II Umax- Unbelievably light, and it's sensitivity to fine and thin targets is exceptional. However, in my soil it's depth and stability suffered greatly, and the lack of a VDI or tone alerts meant I'd resort to cranking up discrimination and costing myself more depth. No doubt though for backpacking into a site on a long hike this is the machine I'd want to lug.

The Whites 6000 Pro XL- What can you say about the pinacle of analog detectors? Loved it for cherry picking silver in nice yards, and also it's ability (like the QXT) to detune a few times while pin pointing and pop targets out fast with little damage using a screwdriver.

If it only had tone alerts (which I know they can mod for these days) it would have been even more perfect of a machine, because I didn't care for watching that slugish analog needle as I worked the trash using no discrimination on anything as I always like to do with detectors. I would have also prefered a digital meter readout instead of the analog to eliminate the needle lag.

It's depth was about on par with the QXT, although the QXT seemed to have about a half inch more depth in some instances. Both maxed out at around 7.5" or so in my mineralized soil on a silver dime.

The QXT- For starters, it's outstanding speed for a machine of it's day and age (and even today) in a computerized/computer screen detector. Just enough computer controls to max things out for max depth without getting bogged down in settings. Most machines back then, and many to this day, suffer from software lag due to heavy processing which can put the audio and ID out of phase with each other. Not so on the QXT. Recovery speed to me is over rated provided you use a quality DD coil with a sharp DD line and don't swing like your killing snakes, but it was nice not having to slow down on days I wanted to move fast while working heavy trash or iron.

Even with the 9.5" concentric it would pop silver in a very impressive way in trash. Part of that reason being the other unique aspect of this machine- The ability to assign high or low tones to any of the 8 zones. For that reason I kept nothing discriminated out, and just listened for the high tones I was looking for in certain zones among the low tones. Truly a "by ear" detector in that respect when working heavy trash. You can do that with the numerous tones on a Minelab, but it's far easier to just listen for any given target zones your after by that attention causing high tone you assigned to it. The audio was fairly detailed too to judge target traits, although not nearly as well as the GT provides. Just wish it had numerical target IDs and it would have been even better, but it's flowing sizing display made up for that in certain respects and is also unique among detectors.

It's depth was also as good as it got for a long time in my soil out of all the various machines I owned, provided you set it up right. If they had some larger coils like a 12x10 in a DD for that unit it might do some serious depth damage even in this day and age in my mineralized soil. There is now a dongle out (not the simple pin re-configurations) that allow you to use Fisher compatiable coils like the 12x10 with the low freq Whites line. I'm still waiting to hear how well it mates the coil to these machines and any performance reports in further depths or separation that might be gained with a 12x10 on it.

Explorer- Back when I owned my prior three the 12x10 didn't exist, nor did the Pro Coil, and I never cared for that stock 10" coil in my soil for various reasons. I figure a 12x10 might do for it what it did for my GT in both depth and separation. The flutey tone on silver is one of it's major strong points. Very unique in it's hints to that, although the GT also has a certain extra special "sweetness" to silver as well that I like.

The screen on the Explorers is mesmerizing watching that smart find cross hair tick away and offer subtle hints to target potential. I much prefer it's non-compressed ferrous # for that. That VDI is a classic for the ages for sure. The odd rare tweaks for a given situation I also miss, so one day a used SE Pro with a 12x10 on it will be in my hanger of machines.

The Sovereign- For it's raw depth and stability even in the worst of grounds. And it's seeming special ability to pull non-ferrous signals out of iron and sound off to them when it's a mixed two target signal. IE: Both being washed in the detection field at the same time due to same depth and close enough together where that's possible.

The super high resolution in the foil to copper penny range is also stellar for land hunting for rings, relics, or certain old coins that read lower on the VDI scale, while avoiding billions of tabs in the process. Above copper penny it clumps all coins into the same 180 number, but that's OK with me because when I'm old coin hunting I don't care about what type of coin the machine thinks it is. Dug too many silvers shallow in trash or at depth that a machine thought was a clad due to various reasons to trust the fine distinctions in conductivity between coins above a zinc penny. The VDI is also very "instant" on this unit, not being sent through heavy layers of processing. What you hear you instantly see.

The long detailed audio like the best of the old analog units, combined with the numerous tone alerts of a digital Minelab, makes it a very unique beast to me as well.

Nice large selection of coils to suit any situation, both in depth or in separation (unmasking), although the 12x10 gives me both in that respect.

The low hassle analog-style controls are also very unique to me in such an advanced digital detector.

PP mode I'm fast realizing is like having a PI mode built right in with PI-like depth, and it's further ability to cut through the worst of minerals that even BBS disc mode can't handle well, which is saying a lot. Got two machines in one here. Four if you count all metal tracking and all metal fixed for certain situations.



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2013 04:59PM by critterhunter.

Gold machine- original Gold bug. Water hunting-Whites Dual Field for PI and Minelab Excal for its descrimination in wet salt conditions. Land detectors- Fisher Cz6a is my favorite for its ability to work most anywhere. Too many great machines that I never have gotten to try out but will have to keep notes on you old timers favorites and maybe I will get to try at least some of them out before I die.