Continuing with my dowsing for treasure exploits using a baited rod, designed and built by my Greek friend Takis, my gold and silver finds definitely increased. Then Takis said what I really needed was a vintage Anderson PMR-II. This wasn’t the first time I had been told this, for in 2010 I had some dowsing and treasure hunting lessons from Jerry Nokes who clearly thought that this rod was the best thing since sliced bread! Jerry said that he had bought one in 1977 and it had almost dragged him across a field to a treasure target, which he was able to dig up without even needing to use a metal detector. Praise indeed!
Now Takis, Jerry and many others were saying you have to get an older model which was made by Carl Anderson, the inventor himself, as the formula for the crystal charge installed in the rod was lost when he died. The PMR-II is still made today by Carl Anderson’s son-in-law, Russ Simmons, who wrote the book Dowsing for Treasure, which started my interest in baited dowsing rods in the first place. The cut-off point is 2003 according to Jerry, which is presumably when Carl Anderson died. Now these rods are still being made and sold today so they have stood the test of time and the lost secret formula may just be an urban myth. Nevertheless I went with the given advice and on the third attempt bought a vintage PMR-II on Ebay, from the USA, for around $400.
The picture shows Takis using a PMR-II. The device is certainly very well constructed and handles well. The concept is a main tubular body, pre-charged with radioactive crystals, according to the instruction sheet, which has a bait chamber behind a removable cap. You can use it as is but the main idea is to put a sample of gold, silver or whatever you are looking for, in the chamber. An adjustable antenna attaches to and extends from the body, while a variety of handles can be attached at right angles or in line with the body. I only had two handles with mine at the time, a single-handed bearing handle, which makes it work like an L-rod and a spring handle, which makes it work somewhat like a pendulum.
To familiarize myself with the device, I started off by using it as an L-rod, without the antenna extended as advised by Takis and marked targets for later retrieval when I would use a metal detector and spade. Now while I did find a number of gold or silver plated buttons, which tied in with the sample in the chamber, I also found a lot of iron! Would it work better if I used the Anderson in one hand and metal detector in the other as I did with the L-rod?
