We're Back...!!

So it's been a while since this was updated... Here's the story...

I sold my metal detector mostly because I didn't have the time to continue it, but also need some cash because I lost my job. Anywho... I bought another, and have been back at for the last week now.

I aslo got another buddy to buy a MD also, and we're both learning our new Metal Detectors. This time I purchased a Garrett GTI 2000. There's not a lot of this model out there. From what I read it contains all the features that the flagship Garrett GTI 2500 has, but the 2500 upgrades some of the electronics. I got a killer deal on it, from eBay, so we'll see how it works.

So far to be honest, I'm finding that the Garrett has a lot of good features, but I'm not sure how useful they are. The depth and imaging features seem great, but they may just take up time that you could be using to dig your target. Then again, maybe I just need to take more time to learn this new MD.

I'll be posting more to come... With great pics or our latest finds...

(2) Dollar Coins - One Park - 3 Minutes

I was having a rough day and had just spent 3o mins finding (1) quarter. Right before I was going to head back to work I went across the street. Started from the sidewalk and 30 steps later, I had (2) dollar coins. Who would have thought... One was a new coin 2000 and the other was 1979.

Where everything still grows....

My First Dollar coin...

FINE, I finally got a better pic of this one.
Found my first dollar this morning... This one showed up on the MD as a tic or two less than a quarter.

No.2

Today I found my second Half-Dollar. The GTI 1500 was right on the money! I actually thought it would be 2 quarters, but sure enough up came a...

So you think Chupacabras are mythical?

Thanks to a certain individual who heard of the chupatreasure blog, he sent me this... HAD to put it up even though it has nothing to do w/ metal detecting. UPDATED w/ another video... (2)

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2009/09/01/roldan.chupacabra.KSAT

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/09/chupacabra-found-and-stuffed-by-taxidermist-in-texas.html

My Quarter was stronger than yours :)

A Half-Quarter?

So, for most of you who have not been out metal detecting, pennies will be the number one thing that makes your detector talk. I also want to say that at some point you will become annoyed with them mainly because they are worth ONE CENT, even worse because over 80% have all been chewed up by lawn mowers. And thats not the end of it, most of the time you can't even tell what the date is on them which makes them even bigger goobers! Im going to have to declare war on all lawn mowers!!! First pennies and now Quarters!?!?!

The things I don't like about metal detecting

It's been a while since I last wrote here, and it's not cuz I haven't went out and visited the quarter factories (aka parks, or any place that produces quarters like a slot machine). I guess it's because the newbie'ness of detecting has wore off. (wait... slot machines don't give out quarters do they?) (OH OH! I know, or any place that produces quarters like a change machine at an arcade when you put a $5 bill in, yeah! yeah! yeah!) Oh sorry... I got off track...

Right.. newbie'ness of MD'n, one update is that I don't even dig up penny's anymore "but Ryan, what if it's an old penny?" Oh well dude, someone else can have it, "I'm high maintenance" :) At this point you're thinking... why did you title this post "The things I don't like about metal detecting", right? Cuz I really haven't talked about that at all.

It dawned on me today as I was driving home from the park (where I cashed in a little over $1, not quite a quarter factory today) this morning, what exactly drives me nuts about MD'n.

I was driving my normal Loonnng way home, to just say "hi" to downtown Chino, some of the fam's houses and the first schoolhouse in Chino when "Don" a Brother-In-Law was reversing out of his driveway. I rolled the window down to say hi and chit chat a little bit in the middle of the street. (yeah that's right... in the middle of the street, eat your heart out L.A.) haha...
So he asked what I was doing and I told him I was on the way home from MD'n. What did he say? "Did you find anything?" Seriously? "Did I find anything?" That's like asking someone if they went to the Beach and then asking.. "did you see any sand or water?" (Rolling my eyes)

The things I don't like about metal detecting...

1) "Did you find anything?" (as Chate's would say.. "Yeah no Duh!")
2) "What are you looking for?" (What do you care? Did you lose something? And where abouts did you lose it?)
3) The starring, (If I was in elementary school, I'd say.. "do you have a starring problem?" - Seriously, we're both at the same park, only I'm looking for (something) and you're just looking at me, who's the weird one?) (Rolling my eyes, AGAIN)
4) "Find anything good?" - (Once again.. what do you care, you just want to bug me so if it was something good, I won't get it )

I will say one thing though... Kids are good, they're the ones that are 100% curious.

Kid-
"Mommy, what is that man doing?".

Mom-
Grabs kids hand an tries to rush off (What? Is MD'n borderline psycho?)

Kid-
(thinks to herself) If mom won't tell me I'll just ask him... "What are you doing?"

Me-
Smile at mom (as if to say... it's not a gun, calm down) and tell the kid.. "It's a metal detector, I'm looking for metal, now in the future, whenever you see some quarters (at the house or in the car or in your mom's pocket) save them and next time you're at this park, throw them all over the ground"

Awwww such a sweet kid!
:)

Look what I found around the campfire!

Sitting by the fire one night I lost my car key... Didn't really know until the wife asked for it. But have no fear, my Metal Detector is here!!! While looking for the key I couldn't help but dig up some other metallic items that were worth value. Here they are...

p.s. while we were camping, a brother in law received a silver quarter from the cedar grove store as change for an "It's IT" ice cream. Why? Why? Why? He wasn't even looking for one!

One Last Hunt Before Kings Canyon...

This is my first post here at ECT! Now, let me introduce my self, I am the co-owner of the blog and mi nombre es Miguel. : ) Anyway, lets get to the good stuff... So, tonight I decided to to hit a local school, I entered the school and decided I would search the backside; since it was the way I entered. I began searching under a very large tree and my GTI quickly began talking to me. The plethora :) of targets were quickly identified and up came some coins in addition to one very shiny object, a gold ring.

How much do I have so far?

Well here's a few pics of the coins that I've found so far. They're in order from smallest denomination to greatest. The first few piles to the left are pennies, then nickels, then dimes, then quaters... (pesos and chucky cheese tokens).

4 Stacks of penny's, 1 stack of Nickels, 1 Stack of Dime's and then the QTR's... (yeah I put the standing liberty qtr in there, why? :)

The park in El Segundo, CA

I dunno what was in this park's soil, but everything I took out of it was completely damaged. It was like there was acid in the soil. One penny even had a hole right in the middle of it. It's not a very good picture, but you can get the idea!
Also my first pesos :)

The Standing Liberty Quarter

Wow I've metal detected for less than a month and I've already found a Standing Liberty Quarter? haha NO! So the man I bought the metal detector off of included the qtr w/ my purchase. And my conscience is telling me that I can't exactly claim it as found, however I can technically say that I have it only because I got a metal detector.

So I figured that I'll include it once here to set the record straight. I did not find it, but the metal detector allow it to be inherited by me :)

The Metal Detector of Choice

I wish I could say that I chose my metal detector based on a plethora of information gathered from a diverse sample and I was certain that it was exactly what I wanted, but that's just not the truth. I began searching knowing that I wanted a beyond par metal detector, but didn't want to pay the big bucks (probably sounds like a lot of people). What this equates to in my world is that I will be purchasing a used metal detector.

I've always been a fan of eBay and haven't ever been taken advantage of (yet) so I began looking there. I first searched for detectors that were used (that were NOT bounty hunters) and then looked up the model and type on multiple websites to compare them and see the ratings. If anyone does this you'll find quickly that there will be some people that say a certain model is the best and others that say it was a waste of money.

I bidded on many different detectors hoping to win, but they often ended the auction at the wrong times. I was either out eating and/or at an engagement where I couldn't send in my last moment bid to win. Each time this happened, (once w/ a White's Matix M6 and other w/ a Minelab X-Terra 70) I just chalked it up to equating "this was just not the one for me). Both of those detectors had some of the highest reviews (at least on the site I chose to pay attention to) , but most of all someone was selling them for an inexpensive price.

My third item I found was a Garrett GTP 1350. I read quite a bit on this detector and it had the highest rating out most of the other detectors I was reviewing (white's, minelab, garrett). I chose to take this auction a little more seriously and waited up until 12:30am to sneak in (or snipe as eBay calls it) the last bid and outbid the current highest bid.

What did ya know I won the auction and a week and a half later my metal detector showed up. I had purchased it from another "detectorist" who claims he purchased it to compare between other Garrett models. He had his own website and all, so I chose to believe him. If what he said was true, but the detector only had around 2 or less hours on it.

Around the same time, the only other member of the "chupas treasure club" Miguel purchased a Garrett GTI 1500. We both got our metal detectors within one day of each other and we quickly compared the two.

First of all, the Garrett we chose both had some form of Graphic Target Prospecting or Graphic Target Imaging. Each of these (in different ways) were able to give you an indication of the size of the target. I thought this would be a very useful feature since my use of the Bounty Hunter didn't prove very accurate. What this can help you with is that if you're detector indicates that your target is a $0.25, but it shows up as being larger than a Quarter size, then the object is something that has the same conductivity yet not a Quarter.

The differences between the GTP 1350 and the GTI 1500 is that the GTI 1500 indicates 5 different sizes possibilities and the GTP 1350 only indicates 3. Also the GTI does its sizing analysis during the pinpointing procedure and the GTP 1350 performs it's size imaging right after the pinpointing. I've found that becuase it performs the procuedure after the pinpointing and not right after, that it's sometimes not used. Most of the time, if it's conducive like a QTR, then it's QTR. Only if I am having trouble finding the target will I go back over it and make sure its size matches the conductivity. Also the GTP needs additional action to find the size, you must go over the object right after pinpointing (they say around 7 inches each side of the target) so the processor can determine the size. When you're using the GTI 1500 it does not need addition detector swings to find the size and also indicates the size on the same screen and during the same procudure as pinpointing. (one up for GTI) However I'm still happy w/ the GTP as it performs as I had expected.

First Findings

My first day and first items was found using the Bounty Hunter 2200 Discovery that I borrowed from a buddy at work. I soon found that this md was going to make my life miserable if I wanted to take md'ing seriously. Regardless I did find a coin (penny) in my front yard after digging a whole half way to China (that's not a spelling error... not Chino, CHINA!). After 15 minutes or so, out came a 1967 penny. Fairly old I thought... This sparked my interest even further w/ the history of my surroundings.

A little background

To begin w/, this blog was created because of a sudden fascination w/ metal detecting. It was something I thought was interesting since the days my family and I spent a week at Newport Beach for vacation every year. I can remember seeing (normally old guys) people metal detecting and remember telling myself "here I am sitting on this chair doing absolutely nothing, when this guy is getting some exercise (not much but more than I was) and finding money at the same time.

Well that was all I really ever thought about until one day my Pastor talked about it. All the old memories came into remembrance and I began talking to co-workers about it. Little did I know that one of them had a metal detector. (ChaChing!!) He asked if I wanted to borrow it, calmy (as if I wasn't too excited) I answered "sure dude". And off I went w/ a Bounty Hunter 2200 Discovery.

As I began telling friends and family that I was borrowing a metal detector from a co-worker, many would just laugh. Little did they know that the little Bounty Hunter 2200 Discovery would spark an intense desire to find treasure. My next interest became 'Where in the world can I find valuable treasure'. So I began to investigate all the oldest areas around where I live and what has not been developed on yet, figuring those places might still contain old coins, or interesting artifacts. I hence have learned more about the city I live in (in the last month) than my entire life. (now I'm thinking about running against a friend / nephew-in-law for mayor of Chino (one day Chris, one day).

The next part of this story merges into another friend who I talked to about metal detecting, and lucky me he was interested from the get go. Miguel and I, from about the time we both heard our Pastor talk about metal detecting jumped on the trained and investigated which metal detectors was best for what we wanted. After weeks of investigating we went w/ the same manufacturer, but slightly different models. Lucky for us both, we got our detectors within 1 day of each other. What happened to the Bounty Hunter Discovery 2200? I'll have to save that for another post.

So from the first day we took our metal detectors out, we thought of this great idea to start a blog about some of the stuff we find. Since then we've mostly looked for coins and occasional jewelry at the beach, but found interesting things. And instead of those things (that we really don't care about) being trash, now we have a reason to keep them. We'll post pics of them along w/ what else we find on this blog.

Last but not least, why the name "El Chupacabras Treasure" well you may never fully understand, but that's an inside joke w/ another close buddy Zac who represents TX. When he visits we always find something to laugh about, this last time was Chupacababras or as I say it... ChupasCabras.

That's it for now... More soon to come...