As mentioned in the Specific Brands thread, given insufficient information to make an informed choice, I ended up choosing the Tesoro Sidewinder uMax over a Whites Coinmaster Classic III.
Picked it up on Sunday and immediately stopped at Cotichuate S.P. w/ the kids to try it out. Since I really had no clue how to use it yet, we found an awful lot of foil before it got too dark but not much else. Managed to lose my reading glasses in the process. Net gain -$15.
Got back home and read through the manual and played around a bit. Started hunting in the front yard w/ my daughter. Found a rusty bottlecap, multiple pieces of an old can scattered around, a strip of brass, and a big-*** piece of aluminum siding. Took a break, read some more on techniques, and hit the opposite side of the yard with my son's buddy. After a few false starts found my first coin, a 1966 penny that looked like it had been there most of the time since. Worked my way down to the front of the yard and subsequently found a 2001 quarter and a '73 penny. Net gain: $0.27 and some practice not messing up a lawn.
Woke up the next morning and my daughter was all excited to try it out so we headed for the back yard. After trying to explain what I'd figured out so far, she took off and hit a quarter w/in a few feet. After a bit more searching and some iron scraps--darn those halos!--she found an odd piece of bronze that I still have no idea what it is. Net gain: $0.25. (A ways to go to replace the reading glasses.)
Later in the morning while dropping off my son's friend headed to his back yard--house built about 1880--after clearing it w/ his mom. Lots of targets but kept finding big iron things down deep. First was what might be a giant electrical connector. Went from there uphill by the fence. 12" down found a half a cylinder w/ a lip on one end. Still have no idea what that was. Still was getting a signal from the hole but, after going down a couple more inches, I gave up. (The kids were in the house playing by then so weren't much help.) Then tried next to a very old apple tree only to never be able to find the signal source. Then had to drop the kids off at the almost-ex's. Net gain: more experience, including two holes that couldn't tell where I'd been and one that I could have done better at.
Went home, grabbed a beer, then headed of to a beach on the Upper Mystic Lake and spent a couple of hours at it. At least it was easy digging. I managed to find a tiny staple at 4" down! Along w/ msc. bottlecaps, pulltabs, including an old style one, nails, screws, foil, and what might be a zipper pull that looks like a surfboard w/ a fake gem on it. Came to the conclusion afterward that someone who knew what they were doing had probably been there before me. Net gain: Yet more experience and a pretty strong sense that I really didn't know what I was doing. Searching w/ DISC on but at minimum wasn't working very well.
Next chance I got was after work last night. Headed to Harvard Sq. to Charlie's for a beer and a burger and noticed the cobblestone sidewalk was ripped up completely in a couple of places. Visions of old coins dancing in my head, I searched for a policeman after supper to see if there would be any issues searching there. Found one and he amusingly said he thought it would be fine. After going back to the Jeep to pick up the detector, headed to the removed sidewalk only to realize after a few steps that I didn't have my headphones. Aaargh! Oh well, I thought I'd use the audible. But, given that there were dorm windows open and I didn't want to bother anyone, that made it kind of hard to work when I'd switch the DISC off. Found a bunch of things that disappeared as I dug them. Reading since, I'm guessing they were rust halos. Did find a bunch of old broken cast-iron pipe at one point. Came to the conclusion that there probably wasn't much old there and that it had been worked on too much (a lot of sand rather than dirt) and gave up. Net gain: Yet more experience and getting yelled at twice about finding gold, including a "There's gold in them there hills" comment from some passing twerps.
Tonight, with it raining out, I spent some time doing what I should have done before, which was passing a variety of coins, both clad and silver, a gold and a silver ring, and numerous trash (bottlecaps, pulltabs, screws, etc.) that I'd pulled from the beach on Monday in front of the coil and figuring out where they cut out and trying to train my ears to hear any differences. Interesting to note that while some of the pull-tabs would cut out pretty cleanly at about 6.2, there were a few that would inconcistently give a signal up til 8 or 9 similar to a coin but perhaps w/ more chatter. The bottlecaps were all over the map but I think there might be a correlation w/ the amount of rust on them and how far up the DISC scale they went. For some reason, a Morgan silver dollar seemed to give a weaker signal than both clad and silver quarters. Couldn't figure that out. Net gain: hopefully a better sense of when to dig.
Also spent some time the past few days looking at old maps. Found that there's one part of a local river that I thought for sure would have been a well-used bank going back into the 1800s but it was filled in more recently than the turn of the century. But there is another part looks to have been there since at least then and has likely been well used by folks relaxing on the shore. That's one of my next targets. Was going to head there over lunch today but was too busy and it was raining by the time I got out of work. At least I had the headphones and a headlamp ready this time.
Also over the past week, I've found out from the town counsel via a selectman that there are no town bylaws regarding metal detecting, so I should be good to go near the courthouse and library. There's also a building in town that has some significant Revolutionary War history that got me thinking about contacting the local historical society and seeing if I can work with them on that location and perhaps some similar ones. I was thinking that, if we can work something out, plotting the finds in some of those areas of battle could be quite informative to them as well as giving them any relics I might find from that time period and that, besides the historically-related enjoyment, I might find an old coin or two in the process. Anyone else done anything similar or have any suggestions? If I get a go, I need to figure out how to do an accurate plot. From what I've been reading, it sounds like the archeological/historical communities and treasure hunters are starting to work together more, particularly in England. We'll see.
Also thought of where there are some fairgrounds on occasion (though those have probably been hunted).
But my best prospect currently is someone I work for that has an 18th-century house. He and his wife are both fine with me detecting their property and, as far as they know, the soil has not been disturbed, at least since they remodeled it about 5 years ago (except for where they put in a garden and another spot or two). Given that it--a 3- or 4-story house--had been multiple apartments for likely most of the 20th century at least, there's a good chance of undisturbed soil and some nice finds there. I'm dying to find time to hunt there. I'm still a bit leery about my ability to leave no trace in their lawn but, given that they have a sprinkler system, I'm thinking if they'll water beforehand (and perhaps after), that will promote any necessary root growth and the increased conductivity could help me. I'm excited about that one.
I'd still like to find some local THers to do a little digging with. The closest club I've found online is a few towns over and a bit inconvenient for me.
_Rich_ (this was very likely the longest post I'll ever do here)
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