Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Gold Claddagh Ring Detector Find |
As I've pointed out in the past, Claddagh rings are among the more common ring designs. Claddagh rings have been made for centuries. You'll find them in both silver and gold. If you detect very long you'll find a few.
James F. has been detecting for around 45 years. He started, like I did, down in South Florida.
Here are some of his intelligent and thoughtful views as expressed in a recent email to me.
I thought you might be interested in some of my views along the same lines. I agree that many of the high-end machines with all the bells and whistles are not for everybody, and it depends, a lot, on the type of hunting they are going to do and where they are going to do it. I, for one, still have at least one thirty-year-old machine still in use, but all things being equal, I have no love loss for the old machines, though they were the top of the technical ladder then, and we were quite mesmerized by their performance at the time. I run pretty much on all metal nowadays when searching any beach anyway...as the computerized E-Trac still gives you information on the target composition, (and runs on 28 frequencies simultaneously) thru both a digital value and audio, and the Excaliber, running on 17 different frequencies, gives you some pretty accurate tonalities along the same lines. My single frequency older machine goes bonkers near damp sand soaked with salty water...sure I can continually ground balance the thing, and set the discrimination way up so it somewhat ignores the mineralization, BUT I lose a good portion of my detecting range and thus the targets I seek. The old machine has one tone fits everything...just a beep on target acquisition...same beep on a gold ring, candy wrapper, bottle top, poptab, zinc, copper, silver you name it...thus you dig literally EVERYTHING. You can, of course, set the discrimination up high enough to blank out most of the trash, as well as blank out most of the jewelry. So I think the newer more capable machines are quite an advancement over the old days IF you take the time learn how to use their capabilities and practice a bit. At least that's my view...I do have friends that use some pretty old equipment and seem quite satisfied with the performance and finds they get in general, so there's that.
Thanks for sharing James.
One of the key lines above is when James says it depends on the type of hunting they are going to do and where they are going to do it. That is very true and very important.
I don't disagree with anything that James says.
I had some exceptionally good detectors that were custom made for exactly my type of hunting. Also I tend to use what I believe to be a fairly unique strategy, and that strategy has a lot to do with what I want out of a detector.
The metal detectors I used a lot back around thirty years ago were like those that I showed a couple of days ago. They did one thing very well - detected small gold deep. Those detectors also detected coins and other things very deep in wet sand and salt water, as well as on dry land, but I specifically targeted gold.
They did null on iron, but that is the extent of the discrimination for those detectors.
I was not really interested in most coins. I would give up bunches of coins for one piece of gold most any day. That was part of my strategy and had something to do with how I hunted. I'll elaborate on that in a future post.
I would quickly purchase either of the two old detectors that I showed the other day today if they were available at a reasonable price. A more recent version of one of those is available today. It is the successor to the Turbo, but it costs over $5000. But that isn't the reason I don't buy it. The problem is that only one person provides service for that detector, and I understand he is not good to deal with. As a result I'll settle for a new major brand detector.
If the guys that made my old detectors were still around, I would still be using one of their detectors today.
I remember back about twenty plus years ago I ran into a Treasure Coast detector dealer on a Treasure Coast beach. He didn't know me at all. He told me he would never use a detector made in a garage. I just laughed and told him that is all I have used for the past ten or fifteen years.
I did own and on rare occasion use a couple brand name detectors for special situations back then, but 99% or more of the time I used those home-made or modified detectors. I was targeting gold in wet sand and in the water and those old detectors blew away anything else that I had seen up to that time and were as good, or better in most cases, for that one purpose, in my opinion, than anything I've seen today.
The thing is that those old detectors were constructed exactly for the type of hunting I did. They suited how I hunted. How I hunt, including the strategies I use, made those detectors a perfect fit for me.
I won't try to describe how deep they detected. I didn't do precise measurements, and it wouldn't sound real to some of you anyhow. Just let it be said that they did the job very well.
The most important thing, however, that distinguishes my style of hunting, is my search strategy. The search strategy that I typically use is the thing that makes discrimination and such features so unimportant to me.
I'll try to explain my search strategy better some time in the future.
A statue purchased for two dollars is worth $150,000.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/07/08/antiques-roadshow-small-statue-sells-for-over-150-000-dollar/20926672/
On July 12 we will have what is called a Thunder Moon or Buck Moon. The moonrise will be around 8:30 PM Easter Time. There will be a 4-foot plus high tide that will occur around 8:41 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time along the Florida East Coast.
Here is the link if you want to learn more about the Thunder Moon.
http://space.brevardtimes.com/2014/07/next-full-moon-is-super-moon-in-july.html
On the Treasure Coast we're still stuck with a 1 to 2 foot surf, but we will have a good high tide.
I've been working on what I think will be a very good post. Hopefully I'll have it ready in a day or two.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
