120 Year Old Silver Coins Found Metal Detecting Old West Ghost Town With XP Deus 2

[abenson]

 I’ve been reading some forums and watching some video on the Silver Slayer program for the XP Deus 2. Using notch seems to be the ticket to make the D2 perform well on coins in iron and modern trash. I had experienced a similar phenomenon while hunting for gold nuggets a few months back where I notched out iron on a site that was littered with nails. This resulted in me finding a .40 gram nugget. So, I got to thinking how would using notch work while detecting extremely trashy ghost town sites? Well, I tried it out this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Those of you that hunt ghost towns know that it can be very challenging to pull good targets from all the trash. Not only are there hundreds of nails, you also have to deal with tin cans, bottle caps, stove parts, bolts, etc.

To help deal with all the trash I developed a program for the D2 I call GHOST, for ghost town hunting. It uses the same principles as the Silver Slayer program but at the same time is nothing like it. The GHOST program is set up to find tokens, nickels and IHP or higher coins. You can make adjustments to it to include Chinese cache coins and 3 cent silver if you like but my intent is to cherry pick the most common coins and tokens. I’m sure some of you will agree that you could spend hours in a small trashy area of a ghost town picking through the targets and analyzing every target with different programs to try and get everything possible. But not all of us have that kind of time so that’s where the GHOST program comes in. It’s meant to pull the best targets possible in the least amount of time.

Here is the way I have the D2 setup for the GHOST program. Based off the FAST program. Sensitivity 90, Audio response 4, Silencer 2, Bottle Cap reject 2, PWM audio, Reactivity 3, Notch 0-10, Disc can be setup for anything up to 10 but don’t go above whatever you have notched, 5 tones-first break will be whatever you have your disc set at, second break up to 58 232 Hz, third break 58-62 (or a little higher if you like) 750 or so Hz, fourth break 62-80 550 Hz, fifth break 80-99 901 Hz. In my video the Hz may vary and really you can use whatever Hz you want. The point is to make nickels and IHP/tokens stand out. Now the nickel range you can bump up a bit to 64 or 65 but I find most Jeffersons come in at those higher numbers and I’m really only interested in the Buffalos and older nickels.

Having the D2 setup like this really makes for a more enjoyable hunt experience in my opinion. Nails are totally illuminated. Bottle caps and flat tin can easily be ID’s through broken audio. Very little flat tin type targets give a good audio response unlike other setups I’ve used. Coins, tokens and other relics that fall in the target bins, give clean audio and visual responses. For those target s that fall in the bins you have at lower Hz settings, they can be analyzed individually to determine if you want to dig them.

So now for the proof. I went to 4 different ghost towns over this last weekend. One is on private property which the owner has allowed hunting on for decades. I have personally been there 30 or 40 times over the last 30 years. I’ve used the Equinox, ORX, Deus, Simplex, Racer 2, Explorer, Fisher CZ 6a. eTrac, etc. over those 30 years and never brought more than one coin/token per trip home. Until now. Day 1 we didn’t start hunting until 2 pm. First good signal in the 90-93 range, right next to a fallen down wooden shack with lots of nails around, up pops a 1944-D dime. Not as old as I would have expected but silver non the less. Second good high tone signal in an area littered with flat tin and nails turns out to be a 1902 barber dime.

Day 2 spent most of the morning exploring some other ghost towns in the area on 4 wheelers. Didn’t get the metal detectors out much because it’s BLM and you really should only be searching for minerals or newer relics. Sad because most of these towns have been used as party spots for decades, leaving beer cans and bottle caps littered everywhere. I did pick up a few newer pennies around some of the fire pits. About 3 pm we decided to go back to the private property and search until dark, giving me about 4 hours to find something.  Got a number of high tones in the 83-88 range that all turned out to be items such as aluminum caps, a thimble, drawer pull, harmonica reed plates, etc. But then I got one signal in the 90-93 range and out pops the oldest coin of the trip an 1853 seated dime. Keep hunting along and pulled a few targets that were in the nickel range that all turned out to be brass odds and ends. Then 1 hour before we were ready to leave as I was working my way back to the truck I got a signal right next to a piece of flat tin 95-97 range. But after removing the piece of tin I was still getting 95-97 and it turned out to be an 1894-S Quarter. Now you can say that nobody ever swung over those targets before or a host of other things. But me personally I think the D2 has something special going on when notch is used.

I did a video of the trip below. In the video I show all the audio and visual ID for the coins so you can get an idea of just how good notch works on the D2. Thanks everybody!

 

 

[JCR]

Thanks for the report & video.

[NCtoad]

3 hours ago, abenson said:

 I’ve been reading some forums and watching some video on the Silver Slayer program for the XP Deus 2. Using notch seems to be the ticket to make the D2 perform well on coins in iron and modern trash. I had experienced a similar phenomenon while hunting for gold nuggets a few months back where I notched out iron on a site that was littered with nails. This resulted in me finding a .40 gram nugget. So, I got to thinking how would using notch work while detecting extremely trashy ghost town sites? Well, I tried it out this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Those of you that hunt ghost towns know that it can be very challenging to pull good targets from all the trash. Not only are there hundreds of nails, you also have to deal with tin cans, bottle caps, stove parts, bolts, etc.

To help deal with all the trash I developed a program for the D2 I call GHOST, for ghost town hunting. It uses the same principles as the Silver Slayer program but at the same time is nothing like it. The GHOST program is set up to find tokens, nickels and IHP or higher coins. You can make adjustments to it to include Chinese cache coins and 3 cent silver if you like but my intent is to cherry pick the most common coins and tokens. I’m sure some of you will agree that you could spend hours in a small trashy area of a ghost town picking through the targets and analyzing every target with different programs to try and get everything possible. But not all of us have that kind of time so that’s where the GHOST program comes in. It’s meant to pull the best targets possible in the least amount of time.

Here is the way I have the D2 setup for the GHOST program. Based off the FAST program. Sensitivity 90, Audio response 4, Silencer 2, Bottle Cap reject 2, PWM audio, Reactivity 3, Notch 0-10, Disc can be setup for anything up to 10 but don’t go above whatever you have notched, 5 tones-first break will be whatever you have your disc set at, second break up to 58 232 Hz, third break 58-62 (or a little higher if you like) 750 or so Hz, fourth break 62-80 550 Hz, fifth break 80-99 901 Hz. In my video the Hz may vary and really you can use whatever Hz you want. The point is to make nickels and IHP/tokens stand out. Now the nickel range you can bump up a bit to 64 or 65 but I find most Jeffersons come in at those higher numbers and I’m really only interested in the Buffalos and older nickels.

Having the D2 setup like this really makes for a more enjoyable hunt experience in my opinion. Nails are totally illuminated. Bottle caps and flat tin can easily be ID’s through broken audio. Very little flat tin type targets give a good audio response unlike other setups I’ve used. Coins, tokens and other relics that fall in the target bins, give clean audio and visual responses. For those target s that fall in the bins you have at lower Hz settings, they can be analyzed individually to determine if you want to dig them.

So now for the proof. I went to 4 different ghost towns over this last weekend. One is on private property which the owner has allowed hunting on for decades. I have personally been there 30 or 40 times over the last 30 years. I’ve used the Equinox, ORX, Deus, Simplex, Racer 2, Explorer, Fisher CZ 6a. eTrac, etc. over those 30 years and never brought more than one coin/token per trip home. Until now. Day 1 we didn’t start hunting until 2 pm. First good signal in the 90-93 range, right next to a fallen down wooden shack with lots of nails around, up pops a 1944-D dime. Not as old as I would have expected but silver non the less. Second good high tone signal in an area littered with flat tin and nails turns out to be a 1902 barber dime.

Day 2 spent most of the morning exploring some other ghost towns in the area on 4 wheelers. Didn’t get the metal detectors out much because it’s BLM and you really should only be searching for minerals or newer relics. Sad because most of these towns have been used as party spots for decades, leaving beer cans and bottle caps littered everywhere. I did pick up a few newer pennies around some of the fire pits. About 3 pm we decided to go back to the private property and search until dark, giving me about 4 hours to find something.  Got a number of high tones in the 83-88 range that all turned out to be items such as aluminum caps, a thimble, drawer pull, harmonica reed plates, etc. But then I got one signal in the 90-93 range and out pops the oldest coin of the trip an 1853 seated dime. Keep hunting along and pulled a few targets that were in the nickel range that all turned out to be brass odds and ends. Then 1 hour before we were ready to leave as I was working my way back to the truck I got a signal right next to a piece of flat tin 95-97 range. But after removing the piece of tin I was still getting 95-97 and it turned out to be an 1894-S Quarter. Now you can say that nobody ever swung over those targets before or a host of other things. But me personally I think the D2 has something special going on when notch is used.

I did a video of the trip below. In the video I show all the audio and visual ID for the coins so you can get an idea of just how good notch works on the D2. Thanks everybody!

 

 

Abenson, you deserve a “Hell Yeah” for not only getting 4 silvers, but for getting them out of a site that you’ve pounded for years!   I agree that there’s some special mojo going on with the deus and notching.  Congrats!

[dogodog]

Congrats on the coins!!! Sometimes experimenting with setups makes a big difference. 1 bias adjustment can make for a huge change in the machines overall performance and will reward you with some good finds. Take it to another spot and it might fall on its face. That's why I always have a setup for everywhere I detect. I'm glad you are playing with the settings and not using some generic program that everyone else is playing with. Keep at it, your doing very well. Thanks for the post.

[phrunt]

Your videos are very professional, felt like I was watching a TV Show.  Good going on the silvers, i can't believe how shallow targets are in that spot even though they've been there 100 years, incredible. 

[F350Platinum]

Nice coins Andy. 👍 Looks like an interesting program you've developed. Pretty cool you get to hunt ghost towns, even better you actually find something after the place has been hit hard. Awesome.

[Cal_Cobra]

Great hunting Andy 👍  

We like the same kind of sites, I love detecting ghost towns.  Most of them (especially on BLM land) have been hunted hard, but they didn't get it all 🤠

[Rattlehead]

Nice finds and a very well done video!

[abenson]

3 hours ago, NCtoad said:

Abenson, you deserve a “Hell Yeah” for not only getting 4 silvers, but for getting them out of a site that you’ve pounded for years!   I agree that there’s some special mojo going on with the deus and notching.  Congrats!

Thanks. Yea notching on the Deus 2 has the potential to really open up some sites IMO.

[abenson]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Your videos are very professional, felt like I was watching a TV Show.  Good going on the silvers, i can't believe how shallow targets are in that spot even though they've been there 100 years, incredible. 

Well thanks Simon. But I think they are far from professional LOL. The stuff is literally sitting on top of the ground or just below the surface. This is why the nail board teat has relevance to the sites I hunt.