Sand

MPeter

Question about Gulf of Mexico/Florida Panhandle beaches. I have a White's Classic II Coinmaster detector that I purchased in the mid 1990's. It works great on land, but my question is whether the technology of this particular detector can handle the Gulf sands???? I've detected the sand a few times, but haven't really come up with anything. I'm hoping it's just bad luck. Anybody ever use this type of detector?

Hulk21074

I owned a Whites detector way back when I used to metal detect (back into the hobby again). My Whites detector was ok for its time, this was 15 to 20 years ago. I used to search on the beaches @ Ocean City Marylandand do ok; various money people lost while sunworshiping, a few rings, etc. Never any relics though. I purchased a Garrett detectorand hope to have it deliverd by first of next week. I'm sure I'llsee a big improvement over that old Whites, that my oldest daughter accidently dunked in water and ruinedit years ago.

r

lordmarcovan

I'm not sure if it can handle wet salt sand or not. That's tricky. I never have been able to get my Garretts to work properly on the beach, even with a low sensitivity setting, but have seen other folks with similar models doing okay. My old White's TR unit from the early 1980s sure couldn't handle it. But then again, I might not have been tuning it properly. My current Garrett GTI-2500 has a salt sand setting so it should work, though I have not gotten around to trying it on the beaches here. The only machines I've had any success with on the beaches were my old Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut and, to a lesser degree, my Troy Shadow X2.

Try reducing the sensitivity until you can get it to work. You might end up with a really low setting. Bury a coin and see if the machine works and runs stably without false signals. Beyond that, I will defer to more experienced beach hunters for their advice.

PS- sometimes it isn't just the detector. There are wide swaths of beach here where you can walk for almost a mile without getting a signal, aside from the odd falsing. One has to learn what parts of the beach to hunt and at what time. Beachcombing detectorists know their tides, when sand is being deposited and when it is being removed. Low tide after a storm is a good time to hunt, which is why the Atlantic coast Floridians flock to the shipwreck beaches with their detectors in hand at such times.

Often you'll find stuff midway between the high and low water marks, strung out in a narrow line where it was washed up. If you find a coin or piece of jewelry (heck, even a piece of trash), see if you can find "the zone" by walking in a line from it, parallel to the surf. Oftentimes there will be such a line. You can also tell by seeing where the beach has deposited shells and other stuff.

I never did much beach hunting, preferring to find older stuff (mostly coins) inland, but I did manage to find a couple of nice rings during my brief beachcombing career. If you're in it for jewelry, the beach is definitely the place to go.

I usually hunt with low sensitivity and zero discrimination and dig everything. But our beaches were so sparse on signals that I could go a long time between finds. Perhaps I was not hunting at the optimum time.