When Did Your Detector Pay Off

I have a White's DFX that I bought last summer and was able to use it for about three months before the snow fell. I found about $500 in clad and collectible coins. In addition to that, I found three gold rings and some miscellaneous vintage jewelry. 99 per cent of that came from only two local parks. Both of these parks are over a hundred years old and had seen a lot of activity over those years. Also, they were heavily hunted for the past twenty years but with new technology, the machines of today can still make these areas produce good targets. The advice to "dig everything" is very important and will result in far more good targets that may be otherwise masked by junk. Do your research. Find out what areas were popular forty, fifty or more years ago and think outside the box. A lot of parks have had their layouts altered thoughout the years due to development. Try to find those out of the way places. They can be pretty rewarding.

I bought a bounty hunter Quick Silver for 150$ from Dicks sporting goods. So far everytime I go out I find coins. I havent found anything over face value but usually about a dollars worth when I search a park. I dont search the whole park though. Usually around the picnic tables and playgrounds. I would say that If I go detecting twice a week for the next year at this rate it may pay for its self in that time.

Hi,

I've owned 5 detectors over the years. Have been only a little active for the last 5 (because of my location where a 1912 home is "histroic"), but hunted a lot for the 20 before that and intend to get back into it this summer.

If you want cost efficiency, by a mid level detector and get an over-sized (12-15 inch) head. I had a worthless Whites 4000 15 years ago that I changed the 8 inch head for a 12 inch. Al of a sudden it was on steroids. My $450 machine (with the $150 head) found $150 FACE silver in one summer along with ($1,000 clad+ no kidding) 15 gold rings, large cents, many Indians etc. I sold the silver for about $2K.

I have had very elegant machines since (Whites Eagle, Spectrum etc) and have found many good things. But for cost effectiveness get the cheapest target ID machine and get an over sized head.