i'm with mudd on this one. Granted, it depends a lot on why you're out detecting. Do you like finding the mercs? Is finding that old 1800 belt buckle worth giving up $20 in clad? If the answer is yes, then you're good to go.
There's lots of guys around my town who ask for and hunt permissions to find old coins. Some even find some decent barbers and slqs, most of them with etracs or ctx3030s. But, none of them come close to the value return i do, swinging my at pro in modern parks and schools, looking for clad and silver/gold drops.
I show them the hundreds of rings i've found in the last 2 years, and their comments are almost always close to, "whoa, i've found like 10-20 rings total lifetime." but when they ask me how many silver coins i've found, it's been a total of three. One rosie, one walking half (on the surface at a school), and one 1993 mexican coin. They laugh, and tell me of the dozens and dozens of silver coins they find. It's just giving up one thing for another.
But... They don't give it up, because they love to find the old coins. I don't give up the parks, because i love to find the rings. We all do what we love, and that's what counts.
But i guarantee, if they're hunting in a spot that has deep silver, they'll do better than me with their etrac and 3030 than i will with the at pro... But likewise, they cannot touch the speed of swing (just doing it normally), coverage, and resulting find rate per hour of the at pro in a modern park where everything is less than 4". I've hunted along side ctx3030 owners, and my coverage is like 2x to 3x theirs... Just due to swing speed alone. And i'm not burning through swings, either. My coils is too heavy to stop the momentum of "really fast," and would kill my shoulder.
Skippy
To be clear…. Volume is not what I’m looking for… I could care less. The IMPORTANT question that comes to me is whether there would be quality coins or something exotic in his mix, or is it all surface clad?
My post is to hopefully among other things, get educated on the differences between the performance of the single frequencies and the full band spectrum machines. Which is better at giving me quality finds all the while increasing the size of my area within a certain time frame?
When I’m out on a hunt, my average day is 8 to 10 hours. Could I effectively cover 10X more ground in the same amount of time with an AT? Would I miss 6” targets at an accelerated speed with the Minelab but NOT with the AT? Are my skills at the newbie level which would defeat my purpose with either machine?
I have read pieces in the Minelab forums where some have said, “There is no need to step up to a more expensive model unless you want more bells and whistles”. And so, I really never gave it another thought to upgrade to an Etrac or an Explorer. But then I’ve read that the AT is in a class all of its own due to its engineering. It is said that the AT for its price, is equal to or better than any Minelab below the CTX3030.
Mudd’s ROI strategy is absolutely correct, if I were doing this to pay my bills or make a profit. I use ROI calculations in my line of work but I would not factor it into this hobby.
The thrill of coin hunting for me is equal to the time and thousands of dollars I spend on my Alaska & Baja fishing trips, Whitetail hunting in the Midwest or my Dove & bird hunts in the Southwest. If ROI were my concern, then I would simply go to the meat market and save my time and cash for something where I could turn a profit… but then my life would be boring and unrewarding.
For me, my ROI is in the hunt. I get ecstatic when I bring an early wheatie to the surface, or a merc, or a rosie, or an old token, or foreign currency. I would much rather dig up ANY one of these over a bag full of clad any day of the week. My passion in this hobby is equal to all others.
When I bring this old coin back from the grave, I clean it, it is mine and I cherish it. I establish “pride of ownership” when all is said and done. This is a feeling that I could never attain walking into a coin shop and purchasing any one of these although inexpensively.
Having said all of this, I just simply want to know for myself if my choice in the Minelab Safari is where I need to be because for me it’s all about quality finds. Maybe I would be better off with ATPro? I don’t know yet because I don’t have a lot of experience under my belt.
