If You Keep "detecting"(even Online) Sometimes You Get Lucky

[Rick K - First Member]

I am super happy that I just got an absolutely "like New" Los Banos 1236X2 on eBay.

It tickles the hell out of me now that I have what might be the only absolutely as new perfect los Banos 1236x2.

This one is SN 90272. Likely never saw dirt.

Came with unused coils...8", 5" and the rare 10X5 elliptical.

I just ordered a new 10.5 coil for it to complete the set.

While I was poking around on various forums about the 1236X2, I found this Hymn to them...by Keith Southern. Pardon if I am cross-posting, because I am not sure which forum it originally appeared on...but

 

Keith

 The 1236-X2 might be the best detector ever built by fisher or any manufacture ..The Machine may not air-test the best or unmask in air-test the best but get it in the dirt where it counts and you will see it goes deep and pulls items out of iron with the best of them..It is a phenomenal detector....

I have pulled some real nice finds with mine and would never be without one...Get the 5 incher for the trash..run it in iron disc pre-set and by all means do not turn that silencer on...

learn the language of the machine...If you run the silencer on you are basically running like any other machine out there... Remember quiet is nice but it kills masked targets and iffy deep targets...with the silencer off you will be hearing the targets that are discriminated out .. they will be pop's and sputter's and spit's..but not round sounding if that makes sense to you..what this allows is a good non-ferrous target to bleed through the discriminated out nail's (when set at the iron preset nails sputter big iron sound junky broken like) so you can hear the target with a nice audio response..these type targets will take awhile to get use to but once you hear the target a few times that is being masked you will know what to listen for...Also try to stay with the low ohm headphones like the stock fisher phones they replicate the detector sound so much better than the killer b type phones and such of high ohms they make it hard to discern a target...the audio which can speak volumes to you is best replicated at around 8 ohms or so..Deep targets have a fuzzy type sound that would be completely quite if the silencer was on..I have ran the 1236 against some big dog detectors in my personal test and the 1236 will hear deep targets just like the big machines but it has its own language...Again what is happening is the 1236 hears it all like ground noise and such and can report a target lurking below the mineralization..a lot of machines when canceling out the mineral also cancel the target since it cant break through the extra filtration of the signal going on from the ground reading..but the 1236 just blends it and you listen for the fuzzy round modulated hit..

Now the 1236 loves round targets be it low conductor buttons or high silver coins...I have actually found coins with the 1236 that I thought I would never find one being a 2 cent Piece out of a thick bed of nails that I had pounded on with probably 12-15 machines and the other being a 177? Spanish 2-Reale which is just about unheard of in my North Georgia area and it too was in a bed of nails.... I have found many relics with it also behind other machine's and in pure machine gun type iron...

Once you get the language down and listen to some noise the 1236 is one hard machine to beat in mineralized dirt and it just can’t hardly be beat in nails...Remember iron sites are a important for making find's because where there is iron like nails and stove parts and horse shoes and busted kettles and such is the habitation sites and that where the finds are at but it is hard to get stuff out of these sites...and the 1236 is one of the better machines I have ever had at picking through sites like this....There's a couple more that will hang with it and they don’t have a meter neither..


Good luck with one of fisher's greatest

[phrunt]

now you're just showing off 🙂

Cool detector, well before my time and look like a Gold Bug 2, It certainly does look pristine, congratulations on the find.

[Desert Dawg]

I had a Los Banos mfg Gold Bug 2 I wish I never let go of. Found a lot of  nuggets with that old machine. Using the 3x6 coil.

[Rick K - First Member]

thanks for everybody's interest...and yes...I am showing off.

Some may have noticed my long absence from the forums. Thankfully it was not that I was deceased or even seriously ill.

Some things interfered with my enjoyment of the whole scene a few years ago and now, I am over it.

Just bought the 1236X2, a Perfect early MXT, and planning my battery to attack Norway for two months this summer...details of the machines to be revealed later!

[Aaron]

Wow! Great find, yeah Keith knows his machines. CONGRATS!

 

Aaron

[☠ Cipher]

I’ll bet it’s a helluva machine to have for seeded silver hunts. 

[sodbuster]

Cool find.  I remember them but never owned one.   Scouting fleebay can sometimes be rewarding if you are persistent.

Congrats Rick!