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Prior to using the Manticore on the beach, I would have never contemplated using a pinpointer for beach work ever......but now I'm reconsidering that view due to the power and sensitivity on tiny targets that the Manticore senses...........I keep thinking I'm chasing ghost signals only to finally recover the smallest of targets......and this is using the M15 coil !

I was thinking the same thing but something else as well - they might be there to protect it.

trade pending

I will read the articles occasionally, but on this forum you have two guys posting their stories for free and you have walked right past them. Lanny and Ghostminer both could add to the value of ICMJ

These jacks are fine untill they take a lateral hit. Then the wasabe starts to show us. A bit of coaxe seal protects and also reduces the capacitance problem a lot. cjc

I'm thinking those reapers know where the big gold is.

Very sorry to hear that--a keen student of the hobby who in turn taught us all a lot. GB, clive

If Minelab had released a 5" to 6" sniper style coil then I would have given them a positive response to that size but splitting the difference between the M8 and M11 with the new M9 is about getting current Manticore owners to empty their wallets again to the tune of over $400.

Technically those 'spokes' are known as 'denticles'. According to the Red Book, large cents had diameters as small as 26 mm -- the early ones. I think the quality control back in the early years was lax enough that the diameters of the planchets (blanks) could be different and still make it into production. Is it possible yours is a bit larger than 25 mm diameter? Great hunt you had there! Hopefully the CW buffs here can help you identify your bullets.

looks good John.

well ill be keeping the tdi sl 😃

I still get the magazine, still a good read. I do "third" nominate klunker to add his expansive knowledge to the magazine.

I will continue to support our local dealers of course but my contribution is small without many others doing the same.

May 3 2003 Phantoms And Reapers Last night we were sitting around a small campfire discussing our new exploration project when the temperature dropped a bit and a light mist rolled into camp. It was not enough to get us to move into our campers and we tried to ignore it for a while as we drank a few beers. I threw some extra wood on the fire to ward off the night chill and we resumed our conversation about the canyon with Paul. He seemed to know the canyon pretty well and had spent many Summers there. He told us it was unpredictable. Weather changed quickly and sometimes he saw strange lights flickering in the distance at night. He’d heard voices many times as well but could never find where they were coming from or make out the words. He said he had gotten to the point where he wouldn’t camp there alone. Not even near the entrance where our new camp would be located soon. He said there was something weird going on there but couldn’t figure out what it was. Paul told us that one night he heard voices that woke him up out of a sound sleep. He came out of his tent and saw two figures carrying lanterns but when he hollered out to them they vanished right before his eyes. Jacob just shook his head and said those were phantom reapers. He said he’d seen them back in the 1937 season. He went on to say they are there to collect souls when ready. They might be spirits of miners who died out here. Now all this talk was starting to creep me out some and I did my best to change the subject but Jacob and Paul kept right on talking about them. Finally, I had heard enough and retired to my camper for the night. TO BE CONTINUED ................

all's good just not enough juice in battery my first time with pulse gold machine lots to learn

i see the ctx 3030 is out of stock interesting

Hey John Are you anywhere near where they having some big forest fires? If so you be double careful when out there alone. Chuck

They may have to setup an overseas call centre to deal with this. "Have You tried turning it off and on again?" For the GPX 6000, "Have you performed a factory reset and multiple noise cancels"

This has been my experience. We have had an enormous dealer here in the United States that sells everything. What they do not have however, is anyone that knows what it is they are selling. I think the Minelab dealers here can attest to the fact that they get a multitude of calls from customers who bought from the "BIG GUYS." But, they have questions. So who do they call for support on a detector they did not buy from us dealers? They call us dealers. So I hope Minelab has a bank of well informed actual detectorists to explain things like, "What are soil timings?" Hey, These Gold Monster rods are too short. "Sir how many sections do you have screwed together?" Well there were only two. "Sir do you have a rod attached to the coil? "Yes." Do you have that rod that is attached to the coil screwed into the other two rods? "Ah, No." Well sir if you screw that coil rod into the other two rods you will see that all three rods, when screwed together, make the detector perfectly long enough. "Well I be darned, you're right." This is the same guy that said he didn't get any instructions in English. I said sir, there are multiple languages in the Quick Start Guide, the first language in each section is English. "Oh yeah I see that now." There are plenty of experienced detectorists that do not need support. Then there are newbies who need plenty of support which at times causes us dealers to feel like we need mental health intervention to save our sanity. 😁 It will be interesting. Doc

They had given notice the past couple of years in investor reports this is coming, they were trialing it in Asia before gradually rolling it out everywhere. You can see their Asian distributor selling direct here. https://www.minelab-asean.com Now the US distributor is doing the same, not a surprise at all, only surprised it took them so long. It should be beneficial to the customer with stock too, as the central distribution hub is where the orders come from, not dealers buying from wholesalers and having limited stock or none at all. Minelab will have a much greater idea of what's selling and how much of products to hold in stock to ensure they always have stock on hand. Big dealers like some on here likely kept well stocked, I bet many smaller backyard jobs were a disaster by comparison. I'm many hours' drive to a dealer, so I have to order online anyway, and I'll buy from whoever is cheapest as to me, it makes no difference who I buy from, I get no benefits from buying from our dealers, no training which wouldn't be viable but they don't do it anyway, no extras thrown in, nothing, so I'd buy from who sells cheapest, and with Minelab taking care of the warranty, not the dealer they're just there to ship the goods to me which anyone can do. There are probably a lot of people like me around the world. Minelab taking over their own repairs and ditching 3rd parties was all part of this big plan. They recently setup a warehouse in NZ, I suspect a small building in an Industrial area, and I think the reason was to do the same, they'll ship direct from the warehouse. I just hope by cutting out the middle men, or at least competing with them they're able to lower their pricing, as the dealers get their cut, without them the prices should be able to be lowered while maintaining the same profit margin. I notice they have the fields for discount and promo codes when items are in the cart for checkout. While it sucks for the dealers on this forum, I hope that their customers remain loyal to them as they do provide a reason to buy from dealers with their training etc, for people like me dealers were of no benefit at all and I'd rather buy direct.

Didn't Minelab try this a few years back?

Manufacturer “direct sales” seem both short sighted and impersonal. I for one will be expecting for some major factory direct discounts.

Ben Harvey who was the V.P. of Minelab U.S. Operations. Is now President of Minelab Worldwide if my information is correct. Ben is a big picture guy and he has done an absolutely amazing job building the Minelab Brand. His job is to penetrate the market and capture more than the lion's share of the business. Remember Minelab is owned by Codan, a publicly traded company. A company that has shareholders to answer to. Those shareholders are interested in the bottom line. While this may not be the optimum situation for dealers; companies have to grow. They have to produce profit. They have to increase their capital so they can continue to develop new and innovative products. So being a dealer, I feel the position from our side. It's sort of a bitter pill to swallow. From the position of being a business man who has built two successful businesses, I also understand these moves from a business perspective. Congratulations to Ben. He deserves this promotion as he has worked extremely hard to build the Minelab brand and open up new sales channels. Onward and upward. Doc

I too have dug way too many deep nails, hoping for deep coins. Over the last months I have corrected that issue quite a bit with more hours on the machine, I also did the update finally. I now run my sensitivity lower than I used to, I also run in ATG mode, ATHC was just more than I could handle. In a trashy park I run speed at 6, low target zones I drop down to 2 or 3. Sensitivity from 18 to 23. Good audio is the key. Iron targets tend to have some hesitancy in the audio. When I first get alerted to a possible good target with audio, and its deep, I massage the signal with short sweeps. I look at the depth meter, I watch the number read out . Copper cents tend to bounce from the mid 60's to mid 70's, where as deep iron nails often bounce from the 60's into the mid 90's. If there is trash next to a coin, often times the audio seems biased towards the coin. The good audio tries to override the trash. Its been a few years since I have done this well in the pounded parks I hunt. The manticore is a beast, it takes some time to tame. Its a work in progress for me.