Opinions: BH Tracker IV as a starter unit

Hi Yukon, without getting too picky, where are you located and have you ever detected before? Bounty Hunter is considered the lowend but you can find coins ,relics, jewelry with just about any machine. Are you going to be doing any beach detecting?

John T.

The Tracker IV was my first detector and I loved it. It is easy to use, easy to swing, well built, and gets GREAT battery life. Best yet, I found a ton of stuff with it. You can check out my finds from the first year at:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=12926

I have since upgraded to the Minelab Sovereign which is gets much better depth and finds more stuff but it is not nearly as fun to use, swings like a side of beef, and was MUCH harder to learn.

So as a starter unit, I think the Tracker IV is pretty tough to beat for the money.

I'm sure others will chime in too.

Good luck!

West Texas John said:

Hi Yukon, without getting too picky, where are you located and have you ever detected before? Bounty Hunter is considered the lowend but you can find coins ,relics, jewelry with just about any machine. Are you going to be doing any beach detecting?

John T.

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We're located in western PA. Probably be doing local parks (if allowed?), school yards and stuff. Basically anywhere we can look. Beaches would be an occasional thing. We sometimes make a run up to Lake Erie, Presque isle. Don't know if you're allowed to look there, but I was planning on checking into that first.

Really I don't care what I find, or if it's valuable or not. I just want to find stuff. Relics, coins, doesn't matter. An interesting piece of junk would be just as exciting as something with material value.

Never done any detecting. Low end is okay with us. We've got kids, so a budget is always involved. We figured we could go around $100-150 each for the starter units.

z118 said:

The Tracker IV was my first detector and I loved it. It is easy to use, easy to swing, well built, and gets GREAT battery life. Best yet, I found a ton of stuff with it. You can check out my finds from the first year at:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=12926

I have since upgraded to the Minelab Sovereign which is gets much better depth and finds more stuff but it is not nearly as fun to use, swings like a side of beef, and was MUCH harder to learn.

So as a starter unit, I think the Tracker IV is pretty tough to beat for the money.

I'm sure others will chime in too.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I ran across that page earlier today. Actually your comments made me look at the Tracker IV rather than the other BH models I was looking at. That is quite the haul you pulled in. Very impressive! How much time or how many outings did you make to accumulate that haul?

You should get an old pirate-looking chest and take some pictures with all your loot heaped in it.

YukonCornelius said:

I ran across that page earlier today. Actually your comments made me look at the Tracker IV rather than the other BH models I was looking at. That is quite the haul you pulled in. Very impressive! How much time or how many outings did you make to accumulate that haul?

You should get an old pirate-looking chest and take some pictures with all your loot heaped in it.

Click to expand...

Ha! Thanks! There are plenty on this forum whose loot puts my meager finds to shame. I'm pretty happy with finding mostly clad coins but there are plenty who have no interest in that and dig up some REALLY good stuff.

I guess the one note of caution is that it took me a TON of time to find all that stuff. 9,000 coins takes a long time to dig up, as well as the other miscellaneous keepers and of course enough junk metal to build a space station. I went on about 300 different hunts that first year, though many days included more than one hunt... I probably got out about 225 different days. I was (and am) a bit obsessed.

I mostly hunted school yards because I found several that gave up tons and tons of coins. I like to dig a lot of targets. I did not do too much hunting for old coins, though I came across a few anyway.

Even if you find some great spots in your area for clad coins and find them as fast as you can dig them, you are not likely to make much more than $2-$3 and hour. This isn't really a money making thing. But the occasion silver or gold jewelry item certainly helps, and an old coin or neat relic every now and then doesn't hurt either.

Where do you picture yourself detecting? Yards, schools, parks, beaches, etc? Will you be happy finding clad coins?