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Are You Considering a Whites XLT metal detectors?


Well, are you ready to splash out on one of the best that money can buy (In my opinion)?

When I started seriously detecting I dived straight in and bought a machine which cost me a grand (brand new) despite mild protests from my wife. After a dozen trips or so I decided that I was hooked on the hobby and longed to upgrade to the Whites XLT after hearing so much about it and having joined a club who mostly use Whites machines.

Can you imagine how difficult it was to explain to my bemused wife in February this year that I needed to upgrade to another pricey detector? To be honest she was as ‘good as gold’ about the whole thing and although she failed to understand why a relative novice who had been detecting less than six months needed a top of the range machine,she agreed to the purchase.

Half the battle of detecting is knowing that you are waving the ultimate machine over potential targets. I still go home with junk in my finds pouch and precious little to show after six hours in the field but I know that I can’t blame my machine and that any bad returns are either down to a poor choice of site or poor technique on my part. I have found some incredibly small and deep targets.

Metal Detecting Books for Beginners


New hobbyists are often hungry to learn as much as they can about metal detecting.

My advice to them is check the public library for metal detecting books. Your library catalogue may even be accessible on line from home. You can see what they have and sometimes if you find a book you want at another library they can get it loaned out to you.

There are many, many books out there on detecting. Charles Garrett has written many, Dick Stout, and many other authors to look at.

While you are checking the library look also at books about the history of your town, and maps – that way you can locate the old coins or other treasures.

Beginner Interested in Metal Detecting


My neighbor Chris is after a good metal detector.  The only thing he knows about metal detecting is that he once spent 100 dollars for a detector that turned out to be junk.

He came to ask me what I recommend as a good, reliable metal detector.  Besides looking for treasure, he wants to search his property for nails and/or other debris causing flat tires.

My advice to him was to invest in a used Garrett, Compass, or White’s machine. These can be found at Ebay for very good prices.  In regard to the Garrett machines, you can get the Operator’s Manual on Adobe PDF format (i.e. you can download it and print it out) from their website.  I had an old KellyCo Scorpion several years ago, bought it when it was on sale. It’s a great detector for finding ALL kinds of metal. It’s a little tougher to figure out how to find just certain kinds of things.

This is an interesting hobby.  I recently searched the parking strips in an old town and found 83 coins on just one street.  If Chris is willing to look for nails and debris then he will surely enjoy finding his first old coin.  My first oldie was from 1828.

From what I’ve seen, you need to spend $250-350 to get anything decent, so watch for sales and used ads, or shop online for a bargain.

Now all I’ve got to do is make sure Chris doesn’t get rid of all the nails and trash by throwing them into my yard! 😉