Push a gold ring into the soil more than 20 centimeters deep. Test the Garrett ACE first and then do the same with the Golden Mask Thracian. There will be no need to continue… And depth isn’t the point. What signal will the machine give you?
Construction
Both metal detectors come with a demountable S-shaped shaft. The lower shaft is used for attaching the search coil, the middle one for adjusting the detector’s length, whereas the upper one is equipped with the control box. In terms of convenience, the Golden Mask Thracian and Garrett ACE are similar.
The Golden Mask Thracian provides a bit better balanced feel. The battery compartment serves as a counterweight to the large coil. But the Garrett ACE is a bit lighter (with the factory coil) and also doesn’t overburden the arm while hunting.
I don’t like a simple handle – the foam grip right on the shaft. With the lapse of time, the foam loses its fixity and starts spinning around the shaft. It has already happened to my Garrett ACE. I don’t think the Golden Mask Thracian has a special handgrip – it will definitely suffer the same fate. Of course, it’s a trifle that has no effect on finds, but your comfort while searching depends on these very trifles.
The Golden Mask Thracian has a metal armrest. And it’s a plus. The fact that my Garrett ACE armrest still remains intact is a mistake. It could have broken down a long time ago. Either in a backpack, or with a large coil, either you accidentally step on it or hit it – one day a plastic armrest will break down anyway.
A metal armrest may corrode (you’ll have to pull out all the stops for this to happen). It weighs a bit more (the difference between this and plastic one starts with 100 grams and more). But a metal armrest is many-fold more reliable than a plastic one.
Search coil
You buy your metal detector as an assembly which includes a search coil. A medium sized mono one, as for instance on my Garrett ACE 250, is really a universal coil. But sooner or later you’ll want (you definitely will) to have a larger one – which provides greater depth, of DD type. Buying the second coil separately as an additional one is always more expensive than purchasing the machine with a large coil in one go.
If you compare the Golden Mask Thracian versus the Garrett ACE 250, everything is clear right away: a 9.5-inch Mono coil and a 12-inch DD one.
I’ve had lots of practice with the Garrett ACE. After trying the 11-13-inch DD coils on the Garrett ACE once, you will never want to use a factory standard coil. You won’t want to realize the fact that you are leaving the finds behind, will you? But you will leave them for sure, whether it be a small or large coil. You are hunting with the Garrett ACE, and that’s what the problem is.
Discrimination
Want to forget about the Garrett ACE once and for all? Take a gold ring, a small silver coin and old signet rings. Dig these targets in the soil to a maximum depth (reachable for your coil) and test the response. And that’s all of it… You can go and will never hunt with the Garrett ACE again.
The Golden Mask Thracian detects these objects with an excellent nonferrous target response, at any depth. Thus, when searching for small items, a high frequency (I have the 18-frequency Golden Mask Thracian) is invariably a real advantage.
The Golden Mask Thracian isn’t a magic machine – rusty wrought iron will give a mixed response (ferrous + non-ferrous metals). But this device will detect non-ferrous objects at maximum depth by giving a positive response and won’t read them as ferrous ones. And here lies the main difference between the Golden Mask Thracian and Garrett ACE.
Screen vs Sound
No screen? But what are you expecting to see on the detector’s screen? A jumping segment on the visual discrimination scale?
Have you ever hunted at the sites with real ancient finds? Even if you use discrimination (some people do exclusively hunt in all metal), the principle is simple – you should dig any non-ferrous signal. And here the screen isn’t needed anymore as discrimination and audio response come to the fore.
A good audio response will tell you everything about the find. To dig or not to dig, the size of the object, its burial depth – the Golden Mask Thracian perfectly copes with all of this without the screen.
The Golden Mask Thracian has no pinpoint mode, whereas the Garrett ACE has this feature… I got my first experience of searching without the pinpoint mode when I was hunting with the Makro CF77 equipped with an 18-inch coil. It’s really easy to get used to it.
One day I was metal detecting with the Golden Mask Thracian along the field road. The soil was so hard that nobody even wanted to examine that site except me. I had to make the holes with a pick to reach the items found – coins, crosses, signet rings. The discoveries were small, so it was necessary to make selective holes. Any mistake in determining a hole location could lead to loss of time as well as result in hollowing out a new hole. But those ones were very difficult. And I did really well without the pinpoint mode.
After the hunt
There are two kinds of metal detectors. Some descend to the level of a treasure hunter. And the Garrett ACE (the entire family of detectors) is that kind of machine. Some pull a detectorist up to their level. And in my opinion, the Golden Mask Thracian is precisely this sort of thing.
At any rate, after testing how both machines react to gold, small silver as well as repousse, and seeing the Golden Mask Thracian in operation, you won’t want to hunt with the Garrett ACE anymore. In fact, both of my Garrett AT PRO and Minelab X-Terra 705 have the similar features. I’ll write about it later.
So that’s what the Golden Mask Thracian metal detector is. Wishing you all happy hunting! All content related to the Golden Mask Thracian is collected here. Plus, there is additional info on Knowledgebase pages.
The Golden Mask Thracian recovery speed test
The same test passed (or, more correctly, not passed) by the Garrett ACE 250
I normally enjoy your blog, but, the comparison test between the ACE250 an superseded detector and the newer Thracian Golden Mask is like comparing my old Garrett Master Hunter ADS7 to my ACE350.
The ACE250 is a good machine, still on offer from Garrett (until parts run out), the ACE250 was a middle of the range machine in the ACE series, it left the factory with a concentric coil and was a very good unit. In fact the ACE250 was one of the most popular coin and relic detector, if not the most popular for a good number of years. However it is superseded technology, the ACE350 was better and the new ACE200, 300 and 400 are far superior to the previous models.
The Golden Mask is an 18kHz machine where the ACE250 is only 6.5kHz, that’s a big difference, the ACE came with a concentric coil of 6.5″ x 9″ where the Golden Mask is an 18kHZ machine with a 12″ DD search coil. Those are big differences, you fail to mention that the Golden Mask requires “10” AA batteries the ACE only ‘4’, those extra kHz’s chew up the power! The Golden Mask has recharageble batteries and charges them while in the machine, however, eventually people will over charge the batteries, cooking them and the detector. I don’t see charging the batteries while in the machine being a bounds and eventually you will run out out of batteries in the field and a quick trip to the nearest shop to buy 10 AA Lithium(?) batteries is not going to be a cheap buy.
A better comparison would have been the Thracian Golden Mask against the Garrett AT-Gold they both have DD coils and are the same frequency…
Ernest, I think they have compared both detectors because they are in a close price range and don’t agree with you about batteries. All Golden Mask detectors comes with a smart charger, which stops to charge when the batteries are full and doesn’t damage them. I think is a good option not buy batteries every time when you go detecting.