Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
An old metal detector is not always a useless metal detector. I have metal detectors that are three or four decades old. Most don't work anymore but a few do. Those that do work are handy. Not only can an old detector serve as back up for when your newer detector might need repairs or be otherwise unavailable, but an old detector can have some especially useful feature or operating characteristic that makes it the absolute best choice for some particular situation.
You have to know your old detector very well to make best use of any special feature or operating characteristic, but if you do know that old detector very well, don't forget about it when the appropriate situation arises.
Some old detectors might have notch discrimination or surface blanking, for example. Surface blanking is not a common metal detector option, but I have one old detector that had that feature. You flipped a switch and the detector would not give a signal to any large surface targets. You might use a feature like that when the ground is littered with junk but you only want to pick out smaller deeper targets.
The same old detector offered both notch reject and notch accept. You could select a high and low range to discriminate out and accept only targets falling between the two.. You could narrow the notch accept range down to accept only a very small range or objects. That could be useful when you have a specific target, perhaps a specific ring of a particular size and composition that you want to find. Of course with detectors that have a meter, you can look for targets giving a specific meter value.
Most often the desired feature offered by an old metal detector is not a setting or option accessed by a switch or knob but just an operating characteristic of that detector. For example, I had one detector that seemed to have a very good response to small platinum rings. Another detector worked well around iron and did a good job of detecting gold through iron junk. And another worked well around electrical interference from electric lines.
Of course you can get a brand new detector with all the advertised fancy features, but your new detector might not have that one feature or operating characteristic that you want for a particular situation, while one of your old detectors might just do that sort of thing very well. If you used your old detector for years, you might trust it for the job because you know exactly how it will work for different situations.
If you never got to really know your old detector, including all of its settings and peculiarities and its strengths and weaknesses, you'll probably never choose an old detector over a brand new detector, but if you have an old detector that you really mastered, you might choose to take advantage of that old detector for special situations.
Since I've found that old detectors can be useful as well as fun, I also believe it is worth taking good care of your old detectors so that you will have them if you need them in the future. In order for an old detector to be useful for years to come, you have to maintain it and keep it in good working order.
If you use your detector on an ocean beach, you should realize how important it is to protect your detector from salt water. A good submersible detector should make that job easier, but even submersible detectors require maintenance. You are probably aware that they should be rinsed with fresh water after they have been submersed in salt water. Even good submersible detectors may have parts that can corrode.
I'll continue this post some other time. That is all I have time for now.
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We're getting some better tides now, even some negative tides, but the surf is still small.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
