I have returned, new Garrett in hand!

kevinstang · August 11, 2008 4:46AM

I couldn't stand it anymore, so last Wednesday I bought an ACE 250 off of a dealer on ebay, couldn't believe it when I found it on my doorstep Friday afternoon! Really hadn't planned on having it until this week, oh boy a new toy for the weekend! Being that my last detector for the better part of ten years was a Garrett 1000 power master, the ACE 250 was a sinch to learn for me. I took it out immediately to the side yard and found a couple of pennies and a dime- all looked to have been in the ground a while- not bad since I figured I had worked the area over pretty good in the past.

I was going into my parents that night so I took the new ACE along, this is the house I grew up in and that my parents have lived in for over 50 years and a lot that I have worked over with my 3 previous detectors since the early 1980's. Having had 7 older siblings that left many a coin for me the youngest to find over the years, but never any silver. I had just about 1/2 hour before the rain came to do a little sampling and to continue getting used to the sounds of the ACE. I thought for a moment right dead center in the yard I might have paid for the ACE with one find- a gold colored ring with a large stone in the center popped out of one of my first holes- strange it gave a 1 cent reading, as I wiped the dirt off a second stone appeared (diamond shape again) and a spot for a third stone that was missing became evident as well- then I noticed the plating was falling off as I cleaned the dirt off and I could see the copper color underneath, oh well, still not a bad find for an old tired yard!

Saturday I was going to help my brother over at his house that has a new addition going on it, its a large 3 Victorian home complete with stained glass windows, fireplaces etc.., originally built in the 1800's by a doctor and which pretty much for the next 100+ years served as a home for a succession of doctors until the late 1990's when a family bought it and then my brother bought it about 3 years ago. I had done the yard with my old Garrett but never had much luck, most of the yard was covered by a concrete slab which had at once gone around an old swimming pool which took up most of the back yard- the pool was simply filled and covered by the prior owners. This project is what got my hopes up and got me to go out and buy another detector- the addition involved ripping up all that old concrete and digging holes for the new foundation! What could lay under all that old concrete! A quick surface examination revealed 3 small complete glass medicine bottles, ones not much bigger than a thumb so my hopes were high, but an old shed and porch had also been torn down and the contractor had really covered the area with debris/fill by the time I got there. I'm hoping to stop by tonight and see if they have cleaned it up further and/or dug any holes for the footings that will be get below the trash area. All I managed to find besides the bottles were a couple of silver plated spoons. Discouraged, before leaving my brothers house I did a little detecting of the front yard-again an area I had worked over pretty good in the past couple of years. Was surprised to find a dime, then a few pennies and then I dug two larger coins side by side- could they be....nope, two gas station tokens, one a Minnesota copper colored piece and the other a Shell Wisconsin piece. I think in the past I had dug two similar tokens from the same yard.

On to Sunday, got up early before heading over to help my brother again and had about 1/2 hour to hit one of the large trees that had been blown over a couple of weeks ago in a storm, another reason I wanted to get a detector last week so bad. In the past I had found several old coins and items around this particular trees base which the local news paper had "called the oldest tree in the city". The crater in the ground is about 10 feet deep in the center but for now the local DPW has just removed the main tree trunk and pushed the base stump partially back in the hole- it was a very large tree (maple I believe), diameter had to have been 6 feet or more if I had to guess. When it fell over it heaved up lots of surrounding ground and part of a sidewalk, I am sure eventually the DPW will remove the rest and repair the area. Unfortunately this is in the town where the police chief essentially told me to take a hike one day because the parks and rec department didn't want any digging on city property- the reason I sold my last detector and was about to give up detecting, but oh well here I am back! I don't think they will bother me too much in this area if I stick to it on the weekend- they would have to walk a considerable distance along a trail to reach the site and I don't think I bother them that much- another detectorist I know has continued to hunt the cities other parks this summer and they have still not told him to leave- and he really tears up the grounds- I've left parks before that he was hunitng because I didn't want to be accused of leaving the ground the way he leaves it- but thats another topic, back to the stump hunt and the findings- kind of a dissapointment for the morning, found one quarter - 1965 and one dime, again both had been there a while and both were in an area I had hunted pretty good with my last detector- see a pattern developing?

Finished up helping my brother and stopped by my parents again- and since I happened to have the detecting in my car from the morning hunt- well why not try the front yard and again more success- two quarters, some dimes and two wheats- one a 1941 and the other a deep 1913! Well maybe this ACE is going to live up to its reputation, its definately going deep and really locking onto some targets. After I finished off and headed home I had about an hour of daylight left and decided to test it out on the small local school yard in my community- again an area worked over pretty good by me and a couple of other detectorists I know of- my oldest coin personally from this site was an 1865 Indian head penny. I soon found myself digging signal after signal- mostly pennies but a couple of dimes, two of the pennies where wheats from the 1950's and as well I dug a 1949-D nickel. I was working up a sweat from all the digging and unfortunately this was noticed- by the local mosquito population- and no bug spray in the car, it was getting dark besides, but I had only worked about 1/10 of the schoolyard park and was pretty impressed with the finds. Even dug what I thought might have been gold- a small name plate which says "Carl", it again gave a strong 1 cent reading like the ring, so I am assuming its plated copper--I did scratch it in a couple of spots and no color other than gold was revealed, no markings, looks to have been part of something else- perhaps a badge or bracelet.

All told I was pretty impressed for the finds I made with the ACE over the weekend with a less than four hours of hunting I uncovered 5 quarters, 6 dimes, 2 nickels, 37 pennies ( 4 of them wheats and two Canadian). And I didn't even have my headphones, they just came in todays mail. The little detector seems to have pretty good depth, finding coins repeatidly over the weekend in areas I had really covered with my old Garrett. I especially liked the depth scale onscreen at the same time as signal identity bars- a definate improvement over my old Garrett GTAX1000. Guess I sound like I'm writing a review for the ACE, but I was really quite impressed with the machine I got for $212 shipped to me, it seems to have matched up quite well with my old Garrett which I payed three times as much for over 12 years ago! Now hopefully I will find some silver with it this week at my brothers house - HH