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Is The Gpz-7000 A Deep Coin Finder?


GB_Amateur

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I can't remember this being discussed but maybe I've missed it or forgotten it.  Given how deep the Zed has been known to find small nuggets it seems to me it could do well on coins.  Any experience (or reliable hearsay 😁) on this?

As a distantly related sidelight, a couple weeks back on Curse of Oak Island (TV show) Gary Drayton is seen with a GPZ-7000 and it had the ML 19" coil mounted.  It's impossible from watching alone to know how long he swung it but in terms of air time it was minimal and I don't recall any footage of them digging a target he found with it.  Later he was back to his trusty ML CTX3030, so maybe just a publicity/advertising stunt.  (It's also risky to interpret scenes on these shows as reliably chronological, so maybe we'll see more of the 7000 in later episodes.)

 

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2 hours ago, phrunt said:

If there was a place in the world that had deep coins and no junk you would do very well 🙂

I thought that was your Cointopia?  If you don't have such a spot I doubt anyone does.  :laugh:

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You NEED a place where you can dig big, deep holes and I doubt that is on a golf course or in a city park!

Oddly enough that might be the dry sand at some of the beaches.  I personally haven't tried it but ...

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The GPZ7k would probably be the very last machine to use for single coin hunting,of course they do give phenomenal depth but also would pick up about ever other non desirable target going unless you are into detecting sadism and i doubt that many are 😀. They would be fine going in for the kill as i call it when you have been detecting a scattered coin hoard and you have think you have located the centre of the hoard site and its deep.

But i personally would use a VLF machine and on the very odd occasion that a Pulse was required due to the soil conditions then a GPX or TDI Pro would be my option over the GPZ due to these having some sort of iron rejection.

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If you can dig square nails at 2 1/2 feet deep I’m pretty sure you should be able to find a coin 🤣🤣.  My gold is always in garbage. After I take off the first layer of gold and garbage I then try for the second layer and it still has the same amount of gold and garbage 🤣🤣.

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Thanks to all for your replies.  This was (as you may/should have surmised) somewhat hypothetical.  OTOH, even the simultaneous multifrequency IB/VLF detectors lose discrimination as targets go deeper.  Of course eventually they lose all signal from the deep desired target (nothing profound there), and more quickly than today's PI's.  Sounds like on raw depth for small objects the Zed not only has no competition (even from the PI's) but nothing is close.

Another well-known fact (pointed out by Simon above) is that there is no such thing as a trash-free site.  In an overly simplified way, the Zed can be thought of as a non-discriminating IB/VLF with a huge coil (and decreasing the simplification, also better able to see through ground minerals).  Its zone of detection not only goes deeper but also increases laterally (the other two dimensions).  In a practical site it's going to react to the deeper targets but also more shallow targets, specifically those in the neighborhood of that deep target you seek.  That's another property that is true for all detectors but it's exaggerated with the Zed's strength.

I remember my first detector, the Heathkit GD-48.  It had one knob (on/off + gain).  I think it operated near 100 kHz which was common(?) for the early IB detectors (called T/R detectors back then).  This was ~1970 and I found old coins in the 6+ inch depth.  I don't even remember being bothered by trash but I'm sure I dug plenty.  We weren't spoiled with all this ground balancing and discrimination back then, just glad to find treasure.

I am a bit surprised no one has come forward with a story of a deep coin showing up while using the Zed.  We occasionally hear about digging two feet down to recover a lead bullet or brass casing.  Yeh, those are more common out in the wilds but there have to be a few coins out there in washes, etc.  I specifically posted this in the general (main) forum instead of the coins and relics sub-forum, hoping those just interested in natural gold (and thus the GPZ users) would share a story or two of a deep coin that showed up.  Maybe one will still appear.

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Very interesting topic GB and I hope to learn from others on this subject.

I'm no authority at all using the ZED for coins, but did dig one a foot deep on my last trip to MX.  I had found the remains of a nugget patch and was cleaning up what few signals were left.  Right on the bank of a small dry creek bed and up under some heavy brush, my 7000 belched a nice clean loud response of metal.  This was one of those louder goofy signals, which sometimes means bigger of more dense nugget.  At about 10 - 12" down I started getting excited and expecting a solid 1/3rd oz'er to expose itself.  A few more inches of soil removed and I had it out of the hole. 

Well I was quite disappointed at 1st when I realized it was not gold, but pleasantly surprised to see it was 200 yr old coin.  The coin actually ended up being one of my favorite digs of that trip.  No it is not a high dollar value treasures, but the uniqueness and rarity of digging an early Mexican coin was very rewarding in itself.

My ZED would have easily heard the coin even deeper and I expect it would have been a clean signal to around 18-20".

If you want to talk about using the power of PI's, I have much more experience using them for Coins/Rings and CW Relics.

 

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2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

I am a bit surprised no one has come forward with a story of a deep coin showing up while using the Zed.

I've found coins with my Zed but I wouldn't consider them 'deep' like what you describe.  I'm certain lots of us with Zeds find coins but as you said and Gerry said they seem at first disappointing when we are after nuggets.  I bet there have been gold coins found with the Zed and we'll just have to wait for the stories or maybe go to the Minelab site and see what they have there.

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