Finds Financed - A New Detector The Old Way

Back in the day, unlike nowadays, you did not just go out and buy a more advanced or newer machine just because you wanted one...although, I'll admit some did...but more didn't. It was a point of honor, back then, to find enough cash, silver, gold and jewels with the old machine to finance a new machine. You'd save all your clad, cash in all the precious metals, sell the jewelry, and count the proceeds. If you were almost there, price-wise, close to enough to purchase one of those shiny new Whites 6000Dj Coinmaster or a frog-green Garrett Groundhog, it was acceptable to sell your old machine to get to the price point.

My old Garrett American...finds paid the price!

What did you get for this? Bragging rights...bragging rights that would cost you friends, acquaintances, marriages, and party invites. But still. It was a beautiful thing. You lived for the moment someone (obviously, someone who didn't know you) would ask how much you paid for that amazing metal detector. "Well (short pause) I bought it with finds from my previous detector!!!" Eyes would widen, people would gasp, children would hide and dogs would bark. For a few seconds you would bask in the sunshine of admiration from newbies and old-timers. You were a master-hunter and here's the doggone proof...in crinkle-green paint sporting bright yellow instrument lettering and Bakelite knobs with toggle switches galore!

Nowadays, someone wants a newer machine, they look at a computer screen, pick the one they want and simply order it. The detector is on their porch the next day and on social media seconds later...for the "un-boxing?!?!?!"  Where is the honor in that? 

I got to go...just heard the United Parcel Service guy at my door!

Coil Cover Cleaning - Mystery Signals Revealed!

Far be it for me to tell you how to metal detect, treasure hunt, or any of the intermediary things involved, but there is something you ought to know about your coil; that little device way out on the business end of your machine. Especially if you are part of the group known in social media circles as the New-To-This-Great-Hobby! crowd. Now if you are not mad at me yet, like most everyone else is for one reason or another, you soon will be. No one likes to know the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy (who I always thought was Joey Heatherton doing some part-time work!) but I need to tell you something.

I don't know how to break this to you, but coil-covers or skid-plates, as they are sometimes called, are not really necessary. As a matter of fact, they are usually a pain in the larger scheme of things! "But...but...but...what are you saying?" you stutter, sweating profusely and thinking about the cash you just spent on that skid-plate for the inverted barbecue-grill-sized coil you use for deep cache hunting. 

What I'm saying is the usual story is that they keep your coil from wearing out on the bottom...physically wearing out. But do they really? No, not really. I have coils I've used for more than 10 years without a coil-cover; detecting over sand, soil, rocks and debris. After a decade of hard use, barely a scratch appears on the bottom of the hard epoxy base of my search coil. The thin-thermoplastic coil cover's real talent, though, is collecting and holding salt-water, sand, dirt, clay, fertilizer, smelly cow manure, plant-debris and whatever else your coil has motored thru that day...or the previous day. A veritable toxic waste dump of mineralization has leaked into the base of your plastic skid plate. 

Stuff builds up in the coil cover without you realizing it...salt sand, water...you name it

And that means false signals, trouble ground balancing the metal detector, and the general loss in depth and sensitivity of your expensive search coil. Searching over dry beach sand with a coil cover full of stagnant salt water or damp salty sand in the base confuses the liven dickens out of your detector ground balance circuits and can create havoc with a machine in all phases of the hunt. A lot of new people, who have no idea this is happening, and with only a few months or weeks in the hobby itself, can usually be found liberally bashing a metal detector brand on social media as a lousy machine, as if they were now an expert in metal detecting dynamics. Other newbies, unaware they are reading another inexperienced newbies opinion, can start a rumor mill that lasts for weeks, months or years, as misinformation is taken as gospel, reinforced by other un-knowledgeable comments by others. I've seen this happen at least twice in social media circles with all attempts at putting them straight come to naught.

If you absolutely are convinced that your thin thermoplastic coil covers do, without a doubt, keep those rock-hard epoxy coils of yours from being worn down like pencil erasers from hard use, then by all means, keep em' on your coil. However, do yourself a favor and after every hunt involving fine sand, water, salt-water, or mud, remove the skid-plate and thoroughly wash and dry the interior, and wash off the base of your coil, before putting it back in place. Better still, use the coil cover inverted on your coffee table and fill it with a nice party mix; peanuts, pretzels, almonds, cashews and the like. It would certainly be put to better use that way and I'd be likely to visit you a lot more after the hunt. Cheers!

Remember This - It May Save Your Life Out Detecting

Something you don't think about much while you are out metal detecting in Florida, with headphones on and a hum in your ear, poking along the river's edge for coins and artifacts, is death. Your death in particular. Good grief, Jim, what an unpleasant thing to say! I was so relaxed and enjoying...!!! Indeed you were...exactly the same state of mind you were in on your day off, out metal detecting the freshwater lakes, rivers and marshes of Florida. Something you have not noticed in your elevator-music world, however, is that a creature whose genus has existed for the last 65 million years has noticed you. The reminder comes with a screaming burning pain, as the last living member of the dinosaurs, the alligator, grabs your leg!

"I was going for the leg...dang!"  

You quickly pull out your iPhone and search for the "STOP GATOR!" app, through the blinding pain, which of course does not now and will never exist...at least on the iPhone 6 anyway. You've wasted precious seconds as the big lizard clamps his 3,000 pounds-per-square inch jaws even tighter on you leg and drags you backward toward the dark water and your gruesome, still pending, death. Gators historically kill you by drowning you then stuffing your lunchtime-goodness under an old log or embankment to get ripe. At this point, you are scared and in pain, maybe even going into shock, but we are talking about your life here; not a Patriots game on ESPN! It's the end of everything you know and are and ever will be...and don't forget those expensive metal detectors you recently bought...you've hardly read the manuals yet!!! You have, by now, miserably failed alligator basic training rule #1, and that is to RUN as soon as you spot an alligator coming out of the water toward you...don't stop to pick up your pin-pointer, or your digger...I mean RUN like the devil himself or your ex-wive's lawyer is behind you, and zig-zag a bit on the way out...for your children and your children's children sake RUN! 

Now, having been nabbed and in it's jaws, you need to get Rule #2 locked and loaded, which is to grab a rock, or the heel of the boot on you foot that is free, and slam the alligator as hard as possible on the nose...their snoot is rather sensitive, like a shark's, and a good hard slam may get it to open it's mouth and release you. Rule #3 is to get a stick or a finger into it's eye...blinding it is painful and again it might let you go. Since you ignored #1, run away, and while #2 and #3 didn't seem to work , Rule #4 is to poke your fingers into it's nostrils and cut off it's breathing. Alligators do most of their breathing through the nostrils and it is a distinct shock to them not to be able to draw a breath. It will need to open it's mouth to breath. At which point rule #1 comes back into play and you RUN!!! The last trick, fingers in it's nostrils was utilized by a 10-year old girl who was grabbed by a 17-foot alligator in Moss Park, Orlando, Florida in 2017. It let her go and she got away, Later in the hospital she said she had remembered an alligator trainer at GATORLAND had mentioned if they were ever attacked by an alligator, plugging it's nose was a good way to get it to let you go.

The main point, in addition to these techniques, is to not panic and NEVER stop fighting...kicking screaming jamming it's eyes, nostrils and nose may cause it to let you go...you may be just too much trouble for it's lunch or dinner when a fish would do. My wife says if you'd like to see an example of what kind of fight you should put up, see the movie "Atomic Blonde," she says you'll figure it out.

Gator Fighting Video...a good "fighting" example anyway

Be safe, be aware and remember these techniques if the worst should happen...remember the Boy Scouts of America motto : Be prepared! It can and will save your life. Cheers!