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What's Your Go To Coin Machine??


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My first pick for an Old coin hunting tool would have to be the Etrac.   It seems to manage my ground mineralization better at depth and I can sweep it extremely slow with good audio tools to pull them up.

My second pick for Old coin hunting in my ground would be the Fisher CoinStrike as it holds the coins in the non-ferrous range longer in hot ground than any other VLF every made.   Takes a bit to get the required sweep speed down but it really does very well in high mineral dirt.     

HH
Mike

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43 minutes ago, Mike Hillis said:

My first pick for an Old coin hunting tool would have to be the Etrac.   It seems to manage my ground mineralization better at depth and I can sweep it extremely slow with good audio tools to pull them up.

My second pick for Old coin hunting in my ground would be the Fisher CoinStrike as it holds the coins in the non-ferrous range longer in hot ground than any other VLF every made.   Takes a bit to get the required sweep speed down but it really does very well in high mineral dirt.

I recall running into (not literally 😁) another detetorist when I was hunting a local park.  Both of us were using Minelab Equinox 800's.  We struck up a conversation and he said that his other current detector was and E-Trac.  His report on that was consistent with yours -- more accurate target ID with the E-Trac but faster allowed swing rate with the Equinox.

Now, regarding the CoinStrike, that's a detector I've heard very little about.  I'm pleasantly surprised that Steve has it in his database.  Sounds like it was developed and released while Dave Johnson was travelling around the rest of the USA detector space (at White's in 2002 when this was released?).  He doesn't list it among his pre-First Texas detectors (see Question 5 of that interview).  It may have some CZ series DNA, though.  Do the CZ coils work on the CoinStrike, and were there ever DD coils made for it (Fisher or 3rd party)?  I assume 6.2 kHz is great for high conductor coins (copper and silver) but what about USA nickels?

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The Fisher engineer responsible for the Coinstrike/GoldStrike/ID Edge/Excel was a man named Dimitar....the same engineer who is now independently making the MDT-8000 that Tom Dankowski is such a fan of.   

The CoinStrike has no CZ Quicksilver DNA and none of the CZ coils will interchange with it.   It was a completely new series of detectors that for some reason never really took off.

The CoinStrike was designed primarily for hot ground and dealt really well with it.   I dug lots of deep dimes with it in ground where they normally moved across to iron id at about 4 inches but the Coinstrike kept them in the non-ferrous range.   One that really stands out in my memory was a good 8" deep and was reading a 42 with a high tone.   A normal dime is TID of 28.   On a regular VLF this would have already wrapped around to iron and been giving iron tone grunts.  But the CoinStrike has an extend high conductive range that allows it to hold high conductors in the high conductive range longer.  

It also has a 99 point iron range so in the worst of dirt that just flings high conductors across the FE barrier, you can still identify them once you learn the ferrous number....

It also has a very mellow audio at depth.  The folks that really got into them often told of elbow deep holes, mostly true, but disbelieved by the general public.  The Key was ground balance and learning and being consistent with the sweep speed it liked.

It was also pretty good on low conductors and it was great in iron, both large and small but really great in large iron.... Guess  who just talked themselves into another one....HA!   I teased up some nice gold rings with .

Here is a helpful webpage.....http://home.insightbb.com/~johnhetti/coinstrike/

HH
Mike

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6 minutes ago, Mike Hillis said:

One that really stands out in my memory was a good 8" deep and was reading a 42 with a high tone.   A normal dime is TID of 28.   On a regular VLF this would have already wrapped around to iron and been giving iron tone grunts.  But the CoinStrike has an extend high conductive range that allows it to hold high conductors in the high conductive range longer.  

It also has a 99 point iron range so in the worst of dirt that just flings high conductors across the FE barrier, you can still identify them once you learn the ferrous number....

That's quite interesting!  Even when deep coins in mineralized soil wrap around to iron you can still determine (from the digital TID now in the iron range) that they are non-ferrous?  Does this mean that true ferrous targets are higher up in the 99 point iron ranage?

Great info, both from an historical PoV but also a performance one.  I guess the only one of my questions you didn't answer was whether or not a DD coil was ever made for it.  I'm now thinking the anwer is 'no'....

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Sorry....No.   no DD coil was every produced for it.   They made a 6" concentric, an 8" concentric and a 10.5" concentric.   But no DD was ever produced for the Coinstrike.

One other feature that was helpful in iron was that that it was very fast,  but when you didn't need the speed you could turn "averaging" on.   It would give a aggreate average TID response when turn one.   Very solid lock on.

It's kryptonite was steel bottle caps.  

HH
Mike

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Hey all,

  So here's my question!!

  Sounds like a variety of great coin machines that everyone had, or has!!  But are they in use? Or collecting dust in the corner, or sold??

   And has this post inspired anyone to pull one out that they still have, and crank it up for a hunt again??

   Sounds like it's about time for an old detector shootout!🤣👍👍

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On 9/9/2020 at 12:52 PM, Joe D. said:

Hey all,

  So here's my question!!

  Sounds like a variety of great coin machines that everyone had, or has!!  But are they in use? Or collecting dust in the corner, or sold??

   And has this post inspired anyone to pull one out that they still have, and crank it up for a hunt again??

   Sounds like it's about time for an old detector shootout!🤣👍👍

 

So the other day I took it upon myself to mess around with just what your saying here in my own test garden.

I had an opprotunity to do some testing with some other units this week.

 

Here are the ones I was testing against my current XP Deus ond ORX.

1. Whites 6000 DI pro sl

2. MXT Tracker

3. Teknetics T2

4. A few Tesoro units.

 

These were all compared to my current Deus and ORX with the 9" HF coil. All of the units I tested were tested with the stock coil the machine came with. The MXT is the original tracker with the 950 concentric coil. The tesoro units all had the 8" brown concentric. The 6000 DI pro had the  950 concentric and the T2 had the 11x7 DD stock coil.

I was a long time user of Tesoro as well and I had to put them all up against the XP line up. The only thing the Tesoro's had above the others mentioned above was their light weight and the convenience of being small to get in and out of vehicles with. I am sorry but that is about it. I was a long time fan of the company and have had a ton of them. some of my favorite relic finds have been with a Tesoro. But modern technology has surpassed them a while back.

 

The 6000 DI pro sl was one of the best at correct ID and depth of the coins in my test garden. It even breaks up on bottle caps. I have used one in the past but it has been a very long time since I have had one in my hands. As far as a coin shooting machine, this one surpassed all of the others in this test for that. It is a great unit as far as performance goes it lacks the ability to pick a coin up next to iron due the the handicap of the stock concentric coil and the only other thing going against this machine is the large control box and the weight of it. Although it was still balanced well, it would let you know after a while of swinging it that it was a heavier unit. For average old open yards and parks it would be a very good unit still for coin shooting purposes.

 

The Teknetics T2 is a fast unit. It balances pretty well too. It can pick out a target pretty darn good next to trash. I like the unit over all. The best thing about this unit to me is the fact that it runs only on 4 AA batteries. It is balanced well and has good depth. It's separation is still very good for picking stuff out next to trash. It does lack a little on locking on with the target ID number as it bounces around a bit. This particular one that I have now is a very quiet one so I can crank it on up and it does not chatter until it gets above 90 on sensitivity. It is pre DSL or what ever they call it that is supposed to be quieter than the older T2 units.

 

The MXT Tracker it one of my all time favorite units. I have had a few in the past and I really learned this machine inside and out. It has great depth, the target ID locks on better than the T2 does on deeper items.  It suffers from not being able to pick good items up next to iron with the concentric coil, however it can depending on what angle of attack you approach the item next to iron. It is well made and balances in the hand good too. It has a fast enough recovery speed although it is not as fast as a First Texas unit but it is faster than a lot of other units. It is a good one for parks inside the city limits due to the fact it does not suffer from EMI issues hardly at all. It has the auto notch feature for notching out pull tabs in the coin and jewelry mode. It is my favorite of the others I have tested this week due to all of the time I have had with one under my belt.

 

So, for what it is worth, after several hours of having fun and some eye opening experiences these past few days with some units, that are to me  very fine metal detectors even still to this day, I have come to my own conclusion below.

 

None of these that I have tested are as fast on recovery, can separate targets next to trash as good, are as light weight, are  as deep and have a stable numeric target ID number on deeper items better than my current XP machines.  The only thing that any of these had over the XP units was the Whites built like a tank durability and the 95% correct probability of  correct identifiaction of the coin ID of the Whites 6000. That's about it.

 

Technology has come a long way. I remember back in the 1990's when metal detectors had a leap in technology. I think we are there again the past few years. I see guys keep on wanting the XP company to come up with a multi freq format for the Deus. I personally do not think it needs it for where I live.

 

Anyway this is just some thoughts from my own little experiment this week. Maybe some of you will enjoy this little write up!!

 

 

 

 

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I've had all the same detectors in the past. MXT, T2, 6000 Di Pro- and several Tesoros. I agree with your assessment 100%. Thanks for doing the testing and the post. Kind of like reliving the past, and much appreciated.

 

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Well I appreciate your kind words!! I am glad to know that someone enjoyed my little write up of thoughts!!

 

I like doing this kind of stuff. It is a little too dry to get out at the moment so I have been doing at home test if you will. 

 

It keeps my mind active a bit. 

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