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Well it is official...........l-the Yank is back He rolled up in a new truck all knocked up ready to go detecting-- I think he is staying in my motorhome tonight--Already ate me out of house and home for dinner! Giving him over to Tremain tomorrow. Lol , great to see you back in the North buddy. ?

I was never much for finding modern coins or hunting newer ballfields but I think my mindset has changed after taking a break from detecting for several years. I sure like finding relics, buttons, and an occasional coin hunting in the woods but 1 or 2 brass buttons in several hours, while really exciting, doesn't buy cofee or cause my wife to encourage me to go out and detect more ? I hit a local soccer field with only an hour till dark and found a few bucks and my first jewelry in a while.

I have the pleasure of sporting the worst cold I have ever had. I should be doing battlefield metal detecting, but for the past 5 days I am just enjoying this cold.? So, not feeling like doing any real work or going anywhere, I decided since my beach hunts are over until fall, I would gather up and count and post all my finds for the whole season…. A season wrap up, if you will. Since I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to do everything in one post I figured I would at least post the good stuff. So here it is – the Gold and Silver finds from last Labor Day thru this Memorial Day. I managed 36 beach trips, not sure how many hours but probably about 250 hours of detecting. The breakdown goes like this: Gold total – 36 pcs, at an average of 1 pc per visit. Silver total (coins and other) – 207 pcs, at an average of 5.75pcs per hunt. The breakdown for silver is: 146 coins consisting of 6 Half Dollars, 27 Quarters, 98 dimes, 15 War Nickels. The other items (rings, chains, earrings, pendants, odd broken pieces etc.… - amounted to 61 pcs. Coming later “someday” will be the clad count, and a breakdown of the junk items to show the ratio of good to bad that comes with the territory. It was a great season for me and I look forward to shifting gears and doing the battlefield hunting and maybe some cellar hole hunting if I get a chance. And since I have neglected my other hobbies, maybe doing some of those until Labor Day. Most of the gold was found because of the Equinox, probably 75-80% of it. Most of the silver was found with the GPX (at depth) probably 90% of it. Not a great comparison since I have found most of that gold in 8 visits and the silver was found with about 28 visits and I was specifically looking for deep silver, so I did not use the Equinox for that, mainly due to the fact that it was busy finding gold Seriously, I was too inexperienced to get that kind of depth out of the Equinox, as most of that silver was in the 14" deep range, basically sitting on a clay layer with the sand above it containing small wisps of very fine black sand. But that combination worked well for me and I'll probably stick with it for a while.

Fred, despite my unfortunate reputation as a bit of a stirrer and even troublemaker, I have enormous respect for Steve for the way he runs this as one of the few serious remaining gold and prospecting forums.

Latest expedition - pocket gold hunting in Oregon. Rough gold found with White's Metal Detectors. Can't be more specific than that. Total weight for the day around 1/2 oz.

With my previous detectors, the last few hunts here were anything but productive yielding no more than 2 to 3 non-ferrous targets. Despite a knee high Rye cover crop that I was not expecting, I was able to make a few finds from this heavily worked old home site. It was a quick hunt of only and hour or so due to the cover (I'll be back) but the Nox and I were able to come up with 7 non-ferrous including a 1895 IH penny. The button came up first and only 20' into the field from where I always park. This entire area leading into where the old home sat in the field has been gridded with every detector I have had in the last 12 years. Toward the end of the hunt I head off to the side a bit where numerous IH pennys were found in the past and the Nox did not disappoint. With a full walk around signal bouncing from 17 to as high as 21 depending on angle of approach and centered, out one popped from only 2-3" deep. The Racer 2 did well in this spot and all those finds were shallow as well. IH The 800 handled the iron here exceedingly well. Field 2 Sensitivity 20-21, Auto GB, recovery 5-7 depending on the iron and IB 0-1.

After being tied up last weekend, I was finally able to get out into the hills with the Equinox today, and decided to spend some time fine-tuning the settings on the Gold Search Mode. I also decided to give max sensitivity a go on the mildly mineralized areas and, while it made the Nox quite sparky, I had no problem sorting out the various noises and homing in on the gold. While gridding a small area that has been hit hard with various VLFs, the Equinox hit a solid, repeatable target that read 1-2 on the display - right in the small nugget range. Upon recovering the target, I found that it was indeed a small nugglet. ? I checked the dig hole before backfilling it and still heard a nice, crisp 1-2; a little more digging and BOOYAH: another golden goodie! This process went on 3 more times, for a total of 5 pieces of gold out of the one hole...I like it when that happens! And just inches away, the EQX snagged 2 more nugglets. Needless to say, I’m astounded by the performance of this machine at locating some pretty tiny gold. Total weight 0.38 of a gram:

Yeah mate, could be a tall order that one. It's like letting a dog off the chain in a butcher shop ?.

Ok, mine is made and set up. I gave 2 tubes to my neighbor who has a drill press at his work. I marked one hole for the arm cuff at the point where I use it, one hole for the control box and 2 holes for the pin lock again at the point where I use it on the stock shaft. He drilled the 2 top holes with a 3/8" bit (NSC originally stated 9mm for those holes) which are perfect and for the pin lock holes he said either 7/32 or 7/64, he couldn't remember. Those 2 holes could have been one size bigger since the pin doesn't fit all the way through the hole but since the Plugger lock is able to be adjusted and tightened to just about anywhere you want I just left them as is. It's an easy fix down the road if I need to. The good thing about the holes you need to drill is that the only ones that need to be on both sides of the shaft are the arm cuff ones. He put it in a vice to level it, drilled one hole, slid it down to the next mark and drilled the next and so on so they align perfectly. For the Plugger lock, I sanded to end where it connects to the shaft just to rough it up, put some super glue around the shaft itself (I wanted to use gorilla glue but I had brought it to work) and slid the lock on and tightened it down good and left it to dry for the night. I also put super glue around the drill holes so they don't fray. I needed an end cap for it and went to home depot to see what I could find. I ended up buying some chair leg caps, 7/8" and they fit perfect. Here are some pictures... This was super easy to do, the hardest is probably drilling the holes but dewcon is right, they gave you everything you need to just switch it over onto a carbon fiber rod. I have 3 extra rods if anyone that lives around CT is interested in one. I can have it drilled and all you'd need is the Plugger lock

My thoughts exactly, Steve. And since, at the Minelab Americas Annual Partners Conference this past winter, Minelab CEO and President Peter Charlesworth announced that they now consider single frequency VLF technology to be obsolete and will only be designing multi-frequency VLF machines from now on, I fully expect Minelabs’ next dedicated VLF gold machine to be multi frequency. And seeing how the Equinox performs on gold, I can’t wait for that one!

I have been mostly keeping my mouth shut about Multi-IQ and gold because I am operating more from a gut feeling than any direct comparative testing. Yet my use of the Equinox for nugget hunting and the tests I have done so far has me thinking that Multi-IQ is going to prove markedly superior to most VLF gold detectors currently on the market, and that it might possibly prove out to be the next best thing to a PI for larger gold at depth. It certainly has the hots for smaller gold. The old rule about single frequency packing more punch on gold than multifrequency may be something that Minelab really has made obsolete. Gold prospectors however have been inundated the last few years with quite a few machines all promising new edges in technology, etc. That being the case I decided to specifically lay low on that particular aspect of Equinox since it is clearly being marketed primarily to coin, relic, and jewelry hunters. It’s certainly not because I don’t think the capability is not there however - just the opposite. I think we will be seeing lots more posts like yours and Mitchels fairly soon Lunk. Thanks for posting!

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There is an area of a park that I hunt that I have gone over many times with my CTX, Deus, and EQ 800. I have studiously tried to learn how to use the many features of each detector to know good targets from questionable ones. Recently friends have expressed an interest in trying metal detecting so I bought a Quest Q20 to loan them because it is simpler than my other machines while still having minimally useful features. Took it out to the area of the park mentioned above to check it out and....you guessed it....found my best find of the past year, a heavy gold plated silver ring. Which got me to thinking.......(always dangerous). Its been discussed before of course but I wonder how many of us use all the info and adjustments of our machines to find the good stuff but only end up using all that info almost as a reason NOT to dig. Is that why a new detector always seems to "bring hunted out sites back to life"? Is that why, in the face of increasing technology, beep and dig machines are still out there doing well? Knowing your machine(s) is necessary for sure and it's fun tweaking them to get their best. But just what is their best? We've all seen a good strong signal turn out to be something other than what was indicated. Still, there are a few people who can tell an awful lot about a target before digging it and digging every beep is hardly a viable option. Plus you can't sweep every square inch of a site. BUT....... I'll bet most of us just outsmart ourselves more often than not. Or is that just me?

This little beauty came out of another patch. This particular patch is an elementary school's wood chip playground that is adjacent to a park. I found my first gold ring ever there back in 2005. (I think it was 2005, might have been 2006 as I think it took me nearly 2 years to find my first gold ring). Over the years this patch has yielded some nice finds. It dried up after a while and I put it on a 6 month cycle. I found this ring there yesterday morning. 10k gold. About a size 7 I think. Ring is marked 10k and CZ so the stones are probably cubic-zirconia. Very pretty. My wife laid claim to this one for Mother's Day. HH Mike

So after my debacle with Cabela's, I finally got to give my Knox a run. A nickle shy of 5 bucks the first time out. Penny, nickle, dime, quarter, half dollar is what I found. I started the day following the advise of one of the members. A very good post about touch nothing, except sensitivity, ground balance, noise cancellation. I also dug all targets to start understanding the tones, Park 1 has 5 tones (plus I don't want Steve to ban me for breaking golden rule 1). This went on for awhile, unsure the exact time frame. But after a time I made a few tweaks nothing major. I turned on 50 tone towards the end of the run. Did this to see what was what. It is different I can say that. Not sure I need that many tones but I will give it time. After awhile I started to skip over trash that I knew was trash after digging it repeatedly and monitoring the display. This went on for awhile till I was sure I had a handle on things. The Nox target id is superb. Then I broke the don't touch anything rule. I did this by pushing up the reject number to ten. I went back to swinging for a little longer. Then I figured in stead of mentally ignoring 14 and 15, which was always cans and the like. I notched them out to see how the Nox would handle it. Excellently is the answer. I know there are valuables that peg that range, but not in this park. Plus it was about "can this unit cherry pick". Boy can it!!! I forgot to mention one of the first things I did was back down the sensitivity to 10. That was after digging foot deep holes in a park. Not my cup of tea. I save that for my nugget hunting. Even at setting 10, I was still picking things up 8 inches down regularly. So yep even at less than half power the Nox KO's targets. The last thing I changed was target ID speed, I moved it to 7. That is the only thing I noticed with the Nox. I hit a few pockets of coins. The Nox registered the higher Target but not the other targets. Only after removing the higher Target AKA quarter did the dimes register. This might just be a learning thing. Now to what matters most. I can say without reservation 95% of the time I dug a Target I knew where it was and what it was, before I removed it. That is what makes a GREAT DETECTOR. All detectors find stuff, that is not what makes a detector good to me. What truly matters is that you can pickup a detector and in a reasonable time frame understand it and be one with it. This is why I like Makro stuff. It is intuitive, simple, effective and right price point. Minelab makes great stuff not saying they don't. But what I am saying is they have been king of the hill for so long that they can and do, produce a detector the way they want and force the customer to adapt to that methodology. This makes it hard to change brands. Minelab's can be hard to run. I picked up a monster to see what it was all about. ( Steve pre warned me, I already had a great unit and that they where about the same) but I had to see. The short of it is, I didn' like the monster or trust it. I never knew what I was digging. I never once had the eureka moment with that unit. How does this apply to the Nox. Simple, each coin I hit was "cash register sound going of in my mind". I dug far less trash today then I do with my Racer 2. I punched too deep, at times lol. After only a few hours I am confident with this machine. I have used the 30/30, etrac. This unit is far better, for the price, ease of use and ability to pocket the targets you want to pocket. It is the best minelab I have used hands down. Not to say the others are bad, they are not. But I have done alot of hunting with the same people using those machines. The Nox is intuitive, quick to learn, excellent price point, there's more power then you need. I will take this unit to the gold fields and Tahoe soon, just to see if it holds up against a Makro gold racer or a 30/30 in their respective niches. I truley believe the little Nox can. silver coins and gold nuggets are bucket loads of smiles and I can't wait to start smiling. I couldn't sleep last night for the excitement of running The Nox. I kept waking up too early. Like going to Disney World as a kid. Hopefully this post will help the next person that is on the fence, landing them on the Nox buying side. Sidenote, go big. Don't get the 600, the 800 is worth twice what they are selling it for. You don't get a little more, you get buckets more. Those fine tuning abilities make all the diffrences. Better yet don't get a Nox, I love having an advantage on the other guy swinging.

I didn't do much better today unless you count 2 junk toe rings.

Good luck

Good luck keeping him under control you guys

Actually polite disagreement is what makes this forum go. It is the differences that add to our knowledge. It's especially true when people with an abundance of knowledge and experience, work out their differences in ways that educate us all. Thanks...

I am with Bryan on this, 12-13. I've dug a bunch of deep targets bordering 12-13 on either side, but it seems that nickels will find 12-13. There are some newer square tabs hitting this same spot and, of course, folded pull tab tongues (beaver tails). My nickel percentage has jumped significantly with the 800 using 5 tones and a narrow segment of 12-13 just for nickels. Rich -

Had some business to do out in the country over the weekend and hit a recommended spot that produced in the old days. It's been hard, hard hit, so hard hit it was left to wither away. I don't mind taking a crack at those kind of sites. At any rate, I gave it a try for a few hours and was pleasantly impressed with what I was able to dig up on this site left to die. I think I may have dug a half to one of those cheap stamped brass 49er buckles, but this one is a plain Jane. Also got a civil war era eagle button but it's seen better days. Some kind of neat buckle all twisted up, but the prize was a surface find - I believe that tiny bottle is an opium bottle? And of course, leave it to me to find a merc that's likely 100 years newer then the site!!! The canslaw was punishing!! Not too many small arms shells, zero shotgun shells (amazingly!) but some BIG OLD LEAD (bottom) !!! As large as a couple of those pieces are, there could be anything from a gold coin to a silver dollar still out there IMO ? Aside from aluminum, not many conductors left! This poor eagle button: Felt good to get out!! I did a lot better at the sale I was picking stuff up from, but there's nothing like detecting old sites HH, Cal

The irony, but still

Way to go sniffing out the merc ?

Agree, the only person I need to convince regarding the Equinox is me. In fact, I don't really want to be seeing more of them at the beach.

Bring both....Catch dinner first, then detect for gold Thanks, but it's Minelab that deserves the credit for these finds. Even my other Minelab machines never found this much gold.

100% true For me it already paid off to dig them - been on the same small beach as 4 days before and it was noticeably easier to recover some fresh coins - 10,50€ in 2h - I've done worse

Nice relics

Sweet! HH Mike

A well reasoned response from reasonable people...very nice! fred

Id buy a 9"....... well provide ML learns how to measure. I seem to remember their 8" was 7 1/4". We tend to loose an inch or so on each end of those coils on deep targets.... so id think it would really work a trashy area even in the water. We have 4 distinct modes on the 800.... each could benefit from certain coil sizes and types.

You done good Lunk.

Ferrite balancing is a "Calibration", the detector could care less where it gets its "X" excitation from but IMO using the supplied Ferrite is more accurate than having a random potentially inaccurate reading from the ground. The Ferrite "Calibration" will remain constant if the localised detecting conditions remain the same relative to ambient temperature and the temperature of the electronics, it has nothing to do with the ground except for aquiring an X balance either through having no Ferrite or if the X signal in the ground is different to the Calibration setting potentially causing spurious signals. If there is no X signal in the ground your working then the calibration of the detector is not so important, however there can be a lot of X signal in ground with minimal mineralsation so it is hard to tell by eye when it is present or not. Best bet in my opinion is to always "Calibrate" the detector with the Ferrite, use in Semi-Auto mode and check the Ferrite periodically, especially if Ambient temps fluctuate a lot. Hope this helps JP

Staffydog the Equinox does not need defending. It speaks for itself. People that knock it are like those driving a Camero's knocking Corvette owners because they can't afford one. Most people know that every detector has a niche in the marketplace whether it be price or a better relic detector or coin shooter.. That's why so many guys are in love with different brands and different models of detectors but in my eyes the Equinox is the best all around detector on the market in the price range

Uh oh...there go all my readers.... Lol

I was wondering if anyone would want to share pictures of there display cases, not so much shadow boxes but anyone with larger display cases. I love old and nice ones so thought it would be cool to see some...ive got one i pulled out of a general store that opened in the 1930s and been working on it for awhile getting it cleaned up, also have a smaller one that i literally seen in a junk pile on the side of the road that ive been working on replacing rotten wood and for sum reason they lined the inside with wallpaper so been cleaning that up to.. i found the smaller one and amazingly the old glass didnt even have a crack in it..

Your expertise shows...good job!!!

I agree with everyone here. My nickels are generally 13, deeper (older ones) are 12-13 bounces, in many cases. I've had a VERY occasional bounce down to 11, or up to 14, but mostly 12/13. I did dig one Jefferson that was a 12 in the ground, and a perfect 12 even in an air test, but those are usually solid 13. Deeper/older ones, I expect some 12s mixed in. But, like others have said, for me it's location dependent, and also depth dependent, as to what I dig. In an old location (especially a home site) with old coins, I'll reach for a slightly larger range around that "13" number when trying to dig nickels...but in a trashy park, an 11 or 12 is usually a beaver tail, and a 14, or even a 13/14 bouncer, is usually a rectangular tab. For what it's worth, I personally have yet to dig a nickel where I have seen a "10" show up, even once, or a "15." All have been within the 11-14 range, and ALL of them with plenty of either 12 or 13 numbers -- usually both (on a deep one). Steve

Tis indeed a homemade solid skid plate, Simon, and quite simple to make. $5 plastic tote, trace coil pattern onto it, cut it out, apply sticky-back velcro to it and bottom of coil, slap them together and voilà - job done.?

For a VLF, I would imagine that the EQX would shoot surprisingly deep on the larger bits.

Thanks Geof. That better? Would still like to know why the ring came on the scene some time after the 7000 was introduced, and then treated like it was always a part of the plan. Was this a 'patch up' tactic to rectify some initial shortcoming?

I have to say it may be useful for me BUT i can't use mechanical aid on the Thames i can imagines all the little coins and artefacts............... RR

No time to metal detect with all the family festivities anyway. Our hobby is going to be outlawed in every city park in a few years. ☹️

Hi Ya'll! We're leaving Obion County tomorrow and going to Louisville, KY. My baby girl's getting her Master's Degree on Friday! Then we're finally heading west. The Polaris and the 800 can't wait. Check out my throne on the back. ?

Hi Bado, In the wood chips I use the F75LTD with DST and the little 5x10" DD coil. HH Mike

Mike,a terrific article and and very apt at the moment,i have a very shallow river very near me and this has been a magnet for travellers for well over a 1000 years,this has not only a ford crossing which for the most part was the main way of crossing the river but 300 years ago a humpback bridge was built so this allowed more modern forms of transport ie horse and carts etc. What makes this specific site interesting is that because the water is shallow and has a sandy bank on both side of the river,its like a magnet for children with say fishing nets and building sand castles,of course when kids come down with mums too play in the river,the young mums usually have grannies old victorian gold rings on her finger which as a general rule have quality lumps of ice in the settings,and we are all aware what happens with fingers and rings when fingers get wet the rings fall off into the water and for the most part they will never find them again. Over recent years i have offered my services in recovering these types of jewellery usually suggesting if i find them they make a small donation to a local cancer charity.Have never taken any reward money although it is offered i dont get a buzz out of that,but i do get a buzz out of hunting for this type of jewellery.Detectors that i use can be both VLF and Pulse,as the water is very shallow ie only about 6-8'' maximum a older Tesoro with a small 4'' coil works wonders on gold ring size items and has of course superb discrimination into the bargain,but if its a small item like a small chain with a clasp or a charm on it then i use a Pulse with a very small coil,of late this has been a TDI Pro with a small folded mono coil on.One secret weapon which is also one i use is possibly the least expensive detector going and that is the Tesoro Compadre mine has the little 4'' coil on it and is deadly on small fine gold jewellery. Its a public holiday here in the UK on monday and as the weather is really good over the long weekend this inturn will bring the mums and kids again out playing in the river,so i am expecting a possible call mid week asking for some help recovering a ring or some other form of jewellery. Mike a terrific article and only just seen it,this is how i locate potential high value rings and jewellery,it gives me a big buzz when i find it again and hand it back too the owner who will hand it down the family line again.

Now that you mention it, when First Texas first started teasing the "F75+" on their Facebook page, most of us got the impression that there would be some new features added, and I had hoped they would add the features of the G2+ like the one by one VDI notching and variable tone break etc. Many of us were very dissapointed that it was only a repackaged Bundle to promote the pinpointer. Good deal nonetheless, but they had to know people would expect more the way they were teasing and hyping it up as if it were a new release.

Well, whatever else, I will always consider the F75 to have been one of the best detectors I ever used. I love the ergonomics and overall performance plus coil selection. My only real gripe is the inability to change the ferrous break in two tone, which for my purposes made the two tone setting useless since the preset break is too aggressive for gold. I usually ran full metal or single tone. http://www.fisherlab.com/hobby/finds-Steve-Herschbach.htm

Hmmm... It's well written. I enjoyed it and I agree with it. I've come to many of the same conclusions. If I might suggest also working a patch in layers of 2"-3", generally encompassing tip #3-5. Thanks again!

Now that is a great find Steve!! Much better than the stuff I found at moore creek the year you sold it. LOL