Customer Reviews

Modern Metal Detectors: Prospecting and Treasure Hunting

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I borrowed this book from our public library in hopes of finding out something about how metal detectors work and how they are used. What I found appears to me to be 400+ pages of promotion for Mr. Garrett, his products and his company. The product placement, self-congratulatory product descriptions, and blantant promotion of his firm and dealers in his products are so thick that I found it impossible to extract any useful information from this volume at all. He even insists on including 11 pages of (quote) Letters and certificates received by Garrett electronics and the author (unquote), from everyone from Ronald Reagan to the US Department of Defense. While some readers might consider this amusing, I find it insulting. I am glad that I did not pay money to read this massive advertising piece. What makes this situation exceptionally disappointing is that there exist wonderful books that promote the author's products and still deliver incredible value, such as (for example) Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction : Wood and West System Materials. There was no need to write something as unreadable as Modern Metal Detectors.

I think most of us that read books for information do so knowing the problems that any writer faces especially when writing about a fast evolving technology such as anything using electronics. Think about how electronics evolve so quickly that it doubles its information every two years. As it can take four or five years to collect the needed data to be able to write a book of this type. I was totally surprised that even now this book is not outdated and is covering very up to date technology in great detail. I for one would have liked for this book to have gone into theory with a lot more detail. Still this is not a book on how to build your own metal detector. It is however a very good book on what makes a metal detector tick. Also it gives you some idea of the who and how metal detectors came to be and how they are now in use to find all sorts of very valuable items. From Gold to Coins to Jewelery and treasure of immense value not only in a dollar value but in its historical help for reconstruction of Things that happened hundreds of years ago. The emptiness of Al Capone's Safe not with standing. 73 dray