As always it is a pleasure to be asked to assess any Minelab product, but the new Explorer SE now that's something else.
Right from opening up the parcel and first glimpsing the product it just smacked of build quality and the new black livery gives it an almost military precision appearance. Minelab over the years have consistently delivered both build quality and ultimate performance, so I had no reason to doubt their latest product. However actual performance and ease of use in the field would as always be the ultimate testing criteria. I managed a few days on various soils with good clear results.
 Then I decided to visit one of my Roman sites again I departed with over 15 coins and a brooch. A few days later we discovered a fairly large Roman site, the land owner stated no one had detected there before so we were really enthusiastic. Spending over 10 hours on this site revealed over 78 coins, and 15 Roman brooches , the majority of which fell to the Explorer SE..............already this machine was speaking my language. I have always tried to run new products through as wide a variety of home tests and out in the field tests as possible. This is so that I can gain an understanding of performances on variable soils and moisture levels  and hopefully gain the best balanced personal opinion of the equipment being tested. Well as it happens this wide variety would also include the desert, and I mean real desert here. Recently The Great War Archaeology Group invited me to accompany them on a research trip to Jordan. Here we would metal detect a wide variety of sites connected with the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia. These would range from trenches and high ground fortifications, ruined railway station buildings to trecking thousands of feet up mountains to investigate other potential sites.
The other machine I took was my trusted X-Terra 70 fitted with the new 10.5 inch coil. This has proved an incredibly potent combination on UK soils and I was interested to see how it would perform in such a drastic change of terrain. At the first site to be surveyed I set up the SE and immediately I found the new Explorer controls very easy to navigate, but as always have a good old look round the control options. The first site I checked was an old Turkish fortification within seconds I had a signal, this turned out to be fired Mauser (German rifle) shell case dated 1916. Half an hour later I had over thirty examples. I also located "incoming" British Army 0.303 bullets that had been fired at the Turks nearly 90 years before. The ground was a mix of sand and frost fractured flints (Surprisingly Jordan gets frosts and a fair snowfall too), consequently many incoming rounds had hit the flints and become extremely distorted. One signal gave me quite a surprise, as I simply could not find it. In fact some 15 minutes later of sifting fine sand I traced it and called a colleague over to look.
The Explorer SE had registered a modern day shotgun pellet no more than 1.5mm in diameter. It also went on to locate the tiny shreds of copper jackets from smashed 0.303 bullets......incredible!!!. Numerous 10mm lead balls were located too that derived from exploding shrapnel shells. All in all the Explorer was helping this team of archaeologists to gather a very comprehensive picture of the combat. Some of the larger non - ferrous targets were detected at considerable depth, a medium size shell nose cone was found at over two feet. Perhaps here is a good point to emphasize just what a privilege it was to take detectors into Jordan. Normally this is highly restricted in fact one would be more accurate in saying it's simply not allowed at all.
However we had special permission form the Jordanian Antiquities Department and authorisation from at least one member of the Royal Family here. Normally used to detecting Hertfordshire it was quite something to be detecting surrounded by curious local Bedouins wearing Kaffirs, to stop for a moment and then see a train of camels far away on the dune ridges. I was accompanied by at least one official who was very impressed with the accuracy and pinpointing of their archaeological heritage by the Explorer.
Others were impressed too, from senior archaeologists, to members of excavation teams who operate in Europe. The tour organisers stated that without the Minelab products used here in Jordan over a few days it would have taken literally years to achieve the same results. This was also a brilliant opportunity to show some of the old hardliners just how beneficial the responsible use of a metal detector can be, by the end of the trip everyone was of this opinion.
The other detectorist who accompanied me was Martin Plummer who uses a Minelab Sovereign, and both of us were very proud to act as ambassadors for the whole hobby. I took a day off from detecting in order to catalogue the many hundreds of finds that had been made, these ranged from metal detected bullets, shell cases, shrapnel, Turkish army buttons and one ancient Islamic coin. Later Martin popped into the room and plopped a dirty plastic bag in front of me, accompanied by the words "its been a Minelab Day Jules" This is Martins phrase for a knockout detecting session, and he wasn't wrong. I poured the contents of the bag out and there were numerous ancient silver and bronze Islamic coin issues. Next day we went back to the site initially for just two hours as we were needed to detect another site some distance away. We wanted to see if these coins were in a linear loss pattern along the line of the old Pilgrims Road or perhaps nucleated indicating a settlement or market. Well we raced about and pinpointed a 150metre spot that was stuffed with coins, "double bangs" target responses kept resounding in our head phones, on several occasions four or more coins came out of one hole.
I loved the precise clarity of the SE in its target response, simply no messing about. This situation was quite simply a detectorists dream; we were finding big chunky bronze coins covered in Islamic text, and occasionally very thin and sometimes pierced silver Dirhams and three Nabatean pre Roman issues of King Aretas 1V. These Nabatean coins indicated the site had been in some use for over 2000 years. We sped over to Neil Faulkner who was the research director and he granted more time. The Jordanian Antiquities Department representative for this day was a gentleman named Mohammed and he dated some of the Islamic coins to the 13th Century and he could not believe the number being found.
Over 120 coins in total, not only coinage but bronze finger rings, bronze camel bells, belt fittings, harness fittings and trade weights. A few coins were spotted just lying on the surface, baked in the sun the bronze and silver issues went very dark in colour. The Explorer SE also picked out individual coins that lay beneath quite large chunks of rock; I showed this feat to Martin who was amazed. We were later informed that we had discovered a large totally unknown and unrecorded Arabic trading post, probably a market for Camels, Donkeys, Goats and spices.
We felt as chuffed as Lord Caernarvon and Howard Carter did at the Valley of the Kings, to arrive in a foreign country and discover an important piece of archaeology so quickly was a real thrill; our Minelabs had really had a "Minelab Day". We came to unravel the First World War sites here and had revealed a section of a much bigger picture of the landscape we were searching.
Martin and I were absolutely overwhelmed as were all the others. We came back from the site to have a look at the main excavation of a ruined Turkish building. We were greeted with "Hi lads you guys found much" to reach for our finds bags in silence pour out the contents and see the thrill on peoples faces as they handled ancient coins in such numbers is another section of what metal detecting is all about. One lady Susannah asked if we could show her how to use a detector on the site, as she had never used one before. So being such martyrs we jettisoned our lunch break and took her back.
Using another make of detector she made a few non-ferrous finds but she really wanted a coin. So I decided to lend her the Explorer SE to see how she got on with that, even as a beginner she took to the controls like the proverbial duck and after about 15 minutes I heard a whoop of joy............ Susannah had her coin, another ancient Islamic issue. David Thorpe another team director had some suspicions about an area of high ground to the West of our newly found site. He suspected that Turkish troops had been garrisoned there in about 1916-1918 and asked if we could help him prove it. So in the back of a 4x4 with the hot desert wind streaming back over us and being jostled about by the huge tires impacting the large flints strewn everywhere we finally arrived.
We noticed some circular enclosures so turned our machines on, almost instantly the Explorer SE indicated a target not too deep, with a lovely "double bang" again another coin I considered. Sadly it wasn't, it was better!!!! as the fine grains of sand poured from between my fingers a button was left there. Turning it over I saw the crescent moon and star, a button from the tunic of a Turkish soldier. We called David over the mobile and he said he would be there shortly. Well he arrived some 40 minutes later and by this time Martin and I proudly showed him over 30 examples of Turkish buttons!!! David was speechless, detecting was showing itself to be one of the most valuable tools a modern day historical researcher can possess.
Without being a big head sometimes it's so nice to sit back and realise that you have worked hard and really delivered above and far beyond what was really expected. It is possible that other makes of detectors may have delivered results too, but because of our familiarity with what is definitely the leading technology of metal detection, we both believe and know that Minelab gave us the cutting edge in performance here. This can be quantified by the fact that two other well known makes of detector were brought by other people and simply failed to find the volume of finds in the different terrains. Used on our trading site one of these machines only found three coins in over two hours of use, and this was used by an experienced detectorist.
So without going into all the technical side of performance (Field tests will assess these angles), the nitty gritty for me from the beginning was could this new product maintain the existing pedigree of Minelab products and really deliver the goods? Well many people from experienced to total novices have tested the machine I took to Jordan and not one criticism of design, controls, weight or appearance was given.
For me the new Explorer SE is the current pinnacle of a long line of runners from the quality stable of Minelab, it didn't let me down, looked good and belted out the finds for me when I was placed in a unique opportunity to detect in Jordan. Who knows but this may be just the actions to make similar countries relax their metal detecting laws a little and let more people become involved with unearthing and preserving their heritage. Later on as we drove past the market site Martin and I pleaded for a final detect here, given just half an hour we popped another 36 coins, Martin with his Sovereign and me with my X-Terra 70. Our colleague with a mid-range model of another make accompanied us for this final search and found four coins....................does any more need to be said? |
Unnnn-believable!Sighhhhh. I don't think I would have believed this story had I not dug it myself. I went to the latest field where there are numerous detectorists there everyday. After searching the lower grass area for awhile and finding nothing of note I moved toward the far right corner where I had found my two good bullets the other day. I got a good signal on one of the banks leading towards the railroad track and found another nice confederate gardner bullet about 6 inches down.
I had no idea what I was about to find. I made my way up to the very corner of the field and saw a dug hole there. This was an almost perfectly cylindrical hole about 6 inches across and about 9 inches deep. Now, about half the time when I'm out there and I come across a hole, filled in or not, I run my coil over it to see if the previous digger missed something. I did this with this hole and got a very loud tone that sounded like a surface soda can.
" Wow", I said. "What the heck is that and why didn't they dig it up?" I thought may be the digger had found some junk and left it in the bottom of the hole but I felt down to the bottom and felt undug, packed earth. I then stuck my probe in the hole to see if I could pin point where the object was. The sound was strong over the entire bottom of the hole.
" What in the world?" Taking my shovel, I started to open up the perimeter of the backside of the hole to see if I could get a better approach to what was in there. Digging deep and behind the signal I started to bring up the shovel full of dirt when I saw something come up. I sat there stunned for a second trying to comphrehend what I was looking at as I was looking at the backside. I plucked the item up and turned it over.
What I was staring at was a Union (most likely officer's) sword belt plate. The plate is in great shape with just the backside hook being broken; probably the reason why it was discarded. Someone actually left this in the ground??? The only thing I can gather is that maybe the digger had started digging this hole when it was getting dark, they didn't have a flashlight, and they didn't have a probe.
But would anyone actually leave a signal that strong in a civil war relic field that was 10 inches in the ground? I guess so. And I thought finding the 1819 Large Cent around other holes in that field was amazing. All I could keep saying all the way home was "Unbelievable", and "Thank you God." |
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On October 22, 2006 I was relic hunting near Fredericksburg, Virginia. I had just dug three Confederate Gardner bullets and received another signal on my Explorer XS that sounded and IDed like another bullet.