Your opinion on why the used detector market is so slow

Is it the economy, or lack of interest in the hobby, or just a glut of detectors out there?

Economy

I think in general it's the economy.----If all the major detector manufacturers went to transferable warranties, that may help the used market.

We all want the next best thing so we can dream about finding what we missed. This is the first time I wanted something and just passed on some of the used detectors like the blistool and such and just got the AT gold for iron hunting and said what ever comes out has to blow my sock and shoes off and everyone elses on this forum...Come on Fisher/Tek

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

I think its a combination of both the Economy and the Environment and Hope. Economy is still down, the Environment; drought one place, flooding the other, and the Hope that maybe someone is releasing something really new just around the corner they need to save money for.

I know this for a fact, the mfg don't care one whit for the used market. The used market is a competitor. Yeah, they like it that their reputation keeps a high value on their used machines, but they constantly compete with the used market for dollars.

I myself see the writting on the wall and am trimming down while there is still a little discretionary cash floating around.

HH
Mike

I am not sure that it is. Try and find good used prospecting detectors at a decent price. Good detectors priced right move very fast.

Hi Steve.

Maybe I should clarify my statements with the word, "Hobby". The work horse will always be busy.

HH
Mike

You think it's slow? I thought it was about normal, or above normal. Every machine I've been interested in, has either been sold or in the process of being sold. One thing for sure...I sure ain't happy with my AT Pro right now. If a buddy of mine doesn't want it, it will be on the boards.

Hey Daniel, saw your post before bout the lack of depth...have you been able to try another ATPro in your dirt to see how it compares? I haven't been blown away by mine, but I do find it to be respectable, and I'm in gold country. Maybe you got a lemon. Ray

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You think it's slow? I thought it was about
> normal, or above normal. Every machine I've been
> interested in, has either been sold or in the
> process of being sold. One thing for sure...I
> sure ain't happy with my AT Pro right now. If a
> buddy of mine doesn't want it, it will be on the
> boards.

I just got the Gold. Same detector as the Pro aside from a higher operating frequency. It's a GREAT machine, but, like you, I find the depth sub-par. I'm OK with that though, as I picked mine up as an un-masker. In general, the AT's aren't known for extraordinary depth capabilities, but, a lot has to do with your dirt. Here in NJ, it's pretty mineralized. Not terrible, but, enough. The ONLY units that seem to punch through here for great depths are the multiple frequency machines. Minelab has been the key for me. I've owned many machines over the years (MXT, Omega, F75, and lots more). All worked. All were 'good'. However, the depth - and equally important - it's ability to properly ID targets (even on deep stuff) is simply uncanny.

What kind of hunting did you buy the Pro for?

Joe

Well, when there is news of a new detector, people start selling off the units that they do not use. People who are ready to buy, sit on their money to see what is coming out. This causes the market to stall.
Great time to get some good deals. but not to sell. Fisher is still working on the 2012 Xmas detector. Garrett is coming out with a new unit. And not to mention the European units that are making their way across the water. You have three choices... Sell and loose money, Buy and save money, or just wait then see what happens.

I have done all three at the same time....lol

Tom in SC

deathray Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey Daniel, saw your post before bout the lack of
> depth...have you been able to try another ATPro in
> your dirt to see how it compares? I haven't been
> blown away by mine, but I do find it to be
> respectable, and I'm in gold country. Maybe you
> got a lemon. Ray

Ray,

I hunted all day long Tuesday. I'm talking about from 8 a.m. until dark. I was out with a few friends of mine. One of them just got an AT Pro after I bought mine, so that he could do some creek hunting for relics. AquaChigger on YouTube is his hero. lol. Anyway...on the way to the creek site we planned on hunting, one of them said he knew of a camp on this farm that we were getting ready to pass by in the vehicle and that he would love to get to hunt it, but the landowners probably wont let anybody hunt it. Long story short...I told him to pull in their driveway and I'd work my charm, and in about 5 mins of flirting with the daughter of the landowner, I had permission for 48 acres of new land. LOL We didn't really know where to begin hunting...so I picked a spot that looked like it might be camp potential, and we headed for it. One of the guys had a regular T2, and me and the other guy with the AT Pros. This soil had my AT Pro ground balancing at 88-90. The guy with the T2 was right beside of me and he called me over to come check a signal he had; it was his first signal of the day. I ran my coil over the spot he had marked and I got a signal from it...but it read as IRON and gave numbers in the 20s and was really faint sounding to me. I was running my AT Pro in Pro/Zero with Sens almost maxed out, minus one bar. He ran his T2 over it, and it sounded great and was giving him decent ID numbers. I stood there and watched him cut a plug and out pops a Civil War eagle button at approx 4 inches deep. So from then on...I didn't know whether to ignore the iron signals or dig them all. I dug everything that came in above iron...and I left without a single relic. My buddy with the T2 found two dropped minie balls, lots of melted camp lead, and a few brass grommets. I managed to find 4 modern quarters in the middle of the cow pasture. The other guy with the AT Pro, also didn't find anything.

At another spot that evening, this almost repeated itself...only this time, my AT ground balanced in the mid 70s and was what I would consider to be fairly good dirt in comparison to other soils around locally. At this site, I did dig two pennies that were about 4 inches deep that gave a decent signal. However when my buddy called me over to help him with his T2 (he is still new to it) he was having trouble pinpointing a signal he had. I came over..and with my machine, I BARELY got a signal but it would bounce from foil to nickel range, however if I didn't know exactly the spot it was at, I don't know if it would have stopped me or not. It was really faint. It ended up being a heavy brass piece approx the size of a quarter at about 7-8 inches deep.

We did hunt a creek though about mid day and it did okay in the water. However, the only reason I can say this is because the creek we hunted had really shallow bedrock...so nothing was more than 3-4 inches deep anyway, and it was all in hard packed fist size rocks on top of bed rock. It was there I found my only Civil War relic out of the entire day's hunt...and that was a buckle off of a knapsack. There might be other stuff in the creek but we quickly found out that water hunting is a whole different ball game, and is going to require some new tools of the trade if we keep it up. First thing would be a waterproof pinpointer of some kind...and some kind of a pole/rod with a magnet on the end for the magnetic things. And a few other things. True story...and I will close with this because it is hilarious:

One of the guys had a confession to make, as we drove to the creek site. He said he was afraid of snakes. Well...as we were getting ready to leave, we had covered a pretty long stretch of the creek and were making our way back to the truck but still in the water hunting. I was behind the guy that is afraid of snakes...and something caught my attention to my right. I looked over and there was a little 2' long water snake making his way up stream with us. It swam just a couple feet beside me....and was heading right for my buddy. I hollered SNAKE!! And he turned around to cuss me and say "that's not funny dude..." but when he turned around, he saw the wiggling little beauty coming right for him. For a split second, I thought he was going to walk on the water. The more he tried to get away, the more the snake kept coming to him. He got so bent out of shape, he tripped over a rock and went in head first. He was a bit scraped up from the rocks and smashed his finger on a rock when he fell...but it was quite comical seeing him scramble away screaming from such a little bitty non poisonous snake. If he would have stood still, it probably would have just swam on by.

Hey Daniel----I cracked up reading your last paragraph.-----The next time your Bud hears you holler "SNAKE"-----He's gonna KNOW you mean snake!! (poisonous or not) ha ha------Well, I heard the AT's wasn't depth demons but I hope the one I'm getting (AT Pro) gets at least half way respectable depth.---In fact it's supposed to be here today by the brown truck.----Like Ray, I'm in gold country.---Its got both the stock & 5 X 8 DD coils & I'm sure I will be using the small coil on it the most as I got the unit for working trash.----In any case, I'll find out how it does soon enough when I get the thing together & run it thru my "torture chamber" test area.

Well, with those results, can't say I blame you Daniel.I'm guessing that the quality varies a lot from unit to unit. I know there's a lot of variation in the old Sovereigns and heard the same with the Tejons. Funny story too, lol.

D&P-OR -- My machine has me scratching my head. In my test garden, it does okay...there are some targets in there that it can't hit...but those are mostly targets I buried when I had pulse machines. It's just in the actual field hunting...I'm not even digging deeper trash targets...unless it's large. I did dig a flattened soda can about 8" deep that sounded very good. My machine air tests okay...approx 10 inches or so on a coin in Pro/Zero mode.

Some people are deathly afraid of snakes.

I was on a winter job site in my youth working as a laborer. The job was is in the Villas, New Jersey and we were there 7 months, being put up at a motel. We were digging footings with a backhoe and I was in the trench making it pretty. The backhoe operator took out a scoop and I noticed a few snakes in a frozen state so I told the operator to stop.

I grabbed two of the snakes and put them near the burn barrel remembering, one of the big ole grumpy Italian bricklayers was afraid of snakes. The snakes warmed up and started striking at everything, they weren't happy.

I had gloves on so I grabbed a snake and went over to where the bricklayers were, on a scaffold working. I was a good 100 feet away, held up the snake, yelled out "Rudy" he turns to look at me and started mumbling and cussing as he nervously hurried off the scaffold. He actually ran away, off to his car and drove back to the motel.

I thought 'holy mackerel, what did I just do' now I feel bad. His brother said while laughing 'I told you he was afraid of snakes,' everyone was laughing. The job boss found out later and told me while chuckling not to do that sh!7 any more. When the day was done, we got back to the motel and Rudy was sitting at the table with a half empty 1/2 gallon bottle of dago red. He wouldn't look or talk to me. I tried to apologize and he just mumbled cuss words in his deep voice. I think he said 'you punk a$$ son of a ^%$#, get out of my face', or something like that.

Jeez, I could have given that ole boy a heart attack...I felt bad. A few days went by and Rudy was back to his grumpy self, even when ribbed by the other workers...I didn't tease him at all.

Daniel, your experiences with the Pro mirror mine with the Gold 110%!

I didn't get mine for depth, that's what my Safari & CZ are for. I got it for tough iron patches where the ML & CZ go crazy. I've found it SUPER good for that ONE specific application so far, but, for regular old coinshooting (which is my thing), this Gold is the pits. First few times I tried it, it was SO light & fun to swing compared to the Safari. I also picked up a V nickel & a couple of war nickels in heavy iron. So, figured I would try it in my non-iron hunting spots. Same story as you...

I get good solid hits coin hits, 80's or 90's, dig down and it's foil! Or pull tabs! My Safari would EASILY call them junk the majority of the time, but, not so with the Gold. And we're only talking a few inches!!! To be fair, I wasn't expecting ML type depth with the thing, but geez, certainly not the lack of depth I'm getting...and I'm running in all metal!!! Like you, I even had a buddy call me over to check a dime signal. He uses the Safari, too. His signal came in clear as day. Crisp. Solid. The Gold could hear it, but, it was VERY faint, and the VDI looked like it was on crack, lol. Again...

I'm new to the unit. But from what I've seen so far, it is SUPERB in heavy iron. Go all metal or disc 1, turn the iron audio on & wait till you hear the clean tones...then dig. Still gonna pull trash, but, you'll get a lot of things other hunters missed. IMO, this unit is great for going in heavy iron & saying "dig me" when it's a non-iron item (unless its deep, then all bets are off). But...

As a unit to use in clean ground, I'm quickly finding out that in my dirt, the Gold isn't up to the task. Bare bones depth. VDI is extremely jumpy. Calls junk as high tone hits.

Joe

Hey Joe, the gold uses the small coil tight? I have heard others say the small coil is almost as deep as the bigger coil...I call bs on that...not even close. But I used a Sovereign with a sunray12 inch coil for almost 10 years...and I pulled coins consistantly in the 8-10 inch range and got an indian head at the depth of an entire lesche...so the AT aint competing with that...but.I believe my vista gold will. Ray