Got a new digger for Christmas, which is the same as my old digger, except that it still has all its inches. Its amazing how these things wear down. The one on the top is less than a year and a half old, and has lost a little over an inch in that time.
I haven’t been out in about a week due to the weather and the holidays, and doubt I will be again this year, but we’ll see. I’d like to get one or two more hunts in to try to snag a year end silver.
Reading your blog is the closest I will get to detecting for awhile.
I like that digger design, but can’t imagine anything but a Lesche digger surviving for any length of time here, with all the buried rocks and hard clay. You have described how tough your soil is at times, the proof is your worn down tool, but to be fair you probably dug over 15,000 items with it!
I think this digger is way more efficient than the Lesche. I have a Lesche, and I use it to poke deep in the hole, or between rocks or to pry rocks, or when the dirt is bone dry, but for normal target recovery, this digger is twice to three times as fast, and efficiency matters for bulk silver guys. Digging is expensive, and you want to minimize that cost (sorry for sounding like an economist, cant help it).
These things are rock hard stainless steel, and just as durable as a Lesche. The problem is that they are not marketed to metal detecting people, but to gardeners. (This tool is for digging bulbs, not silver). But, I recommend it to any dectectorist looking for an efficient tool.
And, yeah, I’m pretty close to 20,000 coins. Not sure about the junk I’ve dug, but if you account for it, 15,000 targets on the last digger might be accurate.
In any case, this digger is awesome, and I highly recommend it for park/school usage were small diggers are indicated.
Hah! You don’t just sound like an economist, but also like a manufacturing engineer (which I am). What is the name of the digger? Maybe it will be the other digger in my tool satchel, as opposed to a spare Lesch. Thanks for the reply!
Its a Wilcox All Pro #202. Google that at it should come up.