Metal detectors

[deepwoods]

Hi everybody,as a new member I want to broach a topic that Im sure has been covered in the past-locating old dumps with metal detectors.I have a book by Adams somewhere in which he claims to have had outstanding success finding long buried dumps with no visible surface traces-including pontil age stuff and stoneware. Thoughts,experiences? J.D

 

[woody]

I NEVER go bottle digging without my metal detector. Esp. if I'm searching new areas where I'm not sure where the dump may be.
I use a White's Spectrum XLT and it has more than paid for itself with some of the nice bottles that I have found with it.
I have all three of John Adams bottle books and I couldn't agree with him more.
Some of the earliest glass I have found has been with the help of my metal detector.

 

[Gunsmoke47]

I agree with Woody 100%. I would not even have found this wonderful hobby of bottles had it not been for a metal detector. I, like Woody use a Whites XLT and it has been great! Most pits have buried cans with the bottles and the older pits have the cans of the leaded variety. This will give you a distinct signal with a little practice. You just have to hope some of those cans are close to the top![] Kelley

 

[deepwoods]

Thanks for the info guys,so far Ive just been digging spots in heavily wooded areas where there is visible evidence-usually glass shards,stoneware fragments etc;with some success-this is an early settled area (western N.Y), but a lot of this area has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb since the 50s -(one older guy that I know sold off his collection-all dug for 10,000 in the 70s) but judgeing from what Ive found near the surface,I know theres gotta be a lot of stuff still buried...J.D

 

[kendolbottles1black]

yep; they are a great invention i know a lot of guys use them around old farming areas because the farmers used to through any thing sharp or jagered down the holes so livestock would not get injured bottles and metal ; well thats my farming talk for the day[] take care ken[]

 

[Pontiled]

Well, I've got most of you beat by many years metal detecting sites! When I began metal-detecting, many years ago, you had the choices of either a military mine detector or a Metrotech metal detector, if you did not try to build one yourself! Then I moved up, using White's metal detectors or Garrett's metal detectors. Each one performed well under different conditions. I branched out and became a treasure hunter (fantastic time!), a bottle hunter, a coin shooter, and a relic hunter (Civil War) in Virginia. I even used the metal detectors for law enforcement in Arlington, Va.

They can be great pieces for locating the dump site or, if there is no bottle dump, they can be used to provide a day of coin shooting! You can't beat them! Now, to get you really wound up, I bought my first truck with the money received from silver coins dug up and unloaded just 3 days before the Hunt brothers fiasco when silver and gold reached their peaks! That, my friends, was just plain dumb luck, but I did it!

 

[mysonthedigger]

Do you need a particularly good metal detector? Where do you look with the detector to best judge your digging spots?

Thanks,
Barbie

 

[crozet86]

Hi,
I dont use mine much but when i do i try the back of the house along the woodlines.i
also like to use it in suspicous looking ravines or creek banks.I just said to myself a few days ago that i needed to take mine along when im bottle digging.well, Happy hunting all!


Eddie

 

[IRISH]

I use an old Garret detector, it won't go down deep and it picks up Iron better than any other metal but it's what I've got and I still find a lot with it. The detector you need depends a lot on what you are going to do with it and your budget. Most of my Gold hunting is through digging shafts and the only spots I can be bothered coin shooting are the ones noone else has done and I don't do a lot anymore (to busy bottle digging [] ) so an old one is fine for me.
If you want to work parks, find deep tips, detect goldfield's etc. you will need to spend a bit and get a good newer detector.

 

[David E Dearden]

I agree with Irish and I had a nice Whites and found many coins and jewlery with it, but it got to heavy for me so I use a Garrett GTA in the bush(anyway used to). And that is how I got into bottles. Got a little frosty on the ground and couldn't dig so went into woods where soil was not frosted. And that's where I found my first bottles and became adicted.