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Deep Coins Which Would You Choose Pi Or VLF ?


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Maybe a stupid question but I do need an answer as I have been mostly nugget hunting and been away form coin hunting for many years.  I may have an opportunity to hunt a part of Europe with great potential of finding some nice roman coins. If one was going to hunt coins, and jewelry would you bring a vlf detector or a pulse induction like lets say a sdc 2300 for more depth.  I know all about vlf disc and benefits of p.i. in mineralized soils and all the stuff.  What I an interested in is depth and not so much avoiding iron junk, I was thinking sdc because its compact and water proof. Does the sdc 2300 go deeper then lets say a Minelab 800 on a small coin ?

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European here.
You're looking for your Roman coins on ploughed/plowed land ? The Roman coins are there to be found because of the ploughing, bringing ( some of ) them within detection range.
A deep detector is not your primary weapon. .. one that can discriminate out iron ( or audibly allow you to distinguish it ), pluck out non-ferrous from among iron, with reasonably fast recovery, is what you need. Your Eqx is going to be just fine.
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I know you say you are interested in "...  not so much avoiding iron junk ....", but .... you could be hating life.

 

A standard coin machine will get coins up to a foot deep these days.  Heck, the CTX or Sov. with monster bigger coils, perhaps to 14" with ease.   And yes:  Various nugget pulse machines can do 16 or 18" on a coin.  Woohoo, who can argue with a few more inches, right ?   But the devil is in the details :  When every birdshot or paper clip or nail 'rings the bells of notre dame', you may wish you had a regular machine .  JMHO

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The 800 I have with the stock 11 inch coil has found some nice coins down to almost 12 inches without any problems.

The 800 is an amazing detector that with the right coil will find anything you want.

I would go with a bigger coil for more depth, but I think the stock coil will be fine for you.

Good luck and good hunting.

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to search for coins in Europe, use a VLF detector - which has 3 important properties..
1. on the deep program - it has a good depth of detection.. and good VDI on deep targets..
2. it has a fast program - really good separation in the iron... and in the ideal case... it can give a really correct VDI even when unmasking the target
3.. detector ...do not give too many false signals to iron targets....and it is also important that the VDI of these false signals from iron is not, for example, in the VDI zone of the searched coins..

keep in mind that you can dig up a lot of non-ferrous waste... but you have a better chance of finding good coins...
 

IMG_20220709_195312.jpg

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I would use a VLF detector too , like the XP Deus2 , using deep modes like DEEP HC or RELIC , with a 11 coil especially if your roman coins are big coins ...

I have tested a GPX 4500 a few years ago it is unusable over here because of the iron trash density , unless your are looking from coins from a coin spill or an hoard in a very limited area ...

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Thank you all for the great advice, VLF it is then on searching for coins in Europe. It makes sense to have that ability to use disc and truthfully I do use it on my MXT when I take a break from nugget hunting I mean who the heck wants to dig all that trash. A nice size coin at 10-12 inches is pretty good. 

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Let’s say you hit a place that produced multiple finds that were very valuable to you. You used all the best VLFs until there was nothing more to be found. Yes, a good PI could reveal more of those finds. Yes, you will dig junk in the process. A PI is what every single serious hunter turns to if they are convinced a site still holds valuable finds that a VLF can’t produce. It’s up to you to decide if the price in junk dug is worth what you are after.

As a nugget hunter, I look at the incredible amount of what I think is just junk that relic hunters dig for a few good finds, and have to smile. Non-ferrous junk is no better than ferrous junk as far as I’m concerned, and I’d be tossing most of the “treasure” that relics hunters show in the trash bin. Pretending a VLF is better because it digs a worthless beat up brass shell casing instead of a nail? All I have to do is define square nails as desired relics, and all the sudden my PI finds almost no junk at all! :smile:

I’m not trying to take a swing at the relic hunters here. I’m just pointing out that digging junk is part of this game, no matter what type of detecting you like. Want gold jewelry, you better be digging aluminum. Relic hunters better at least dig all non-ferrous, even if most of it is junk. While passing some valuable ferrous relics, I might add. I use PIs almost exclusively, and I certainly dig many pounds of junk, but I also dig pounds of gold. Seems acceptable to me. :wink:

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Your question "Does the SDC 2300 go deeper than lets say an Equinox 800 on a small coin?"

That is a very relative question. Does the SDC 2300 have its original 8" coil or has it been upgraded to one of the larger Coiltek coils? Equinox 800 has a 15X12 Minelab coil and there are bigger coils from Coiltek. 

If the ground one is hunting isn't too mineralized and a 14" coin is not being masked.......SDC 2300 8" vs Equinox 800 15X12" that would be an interesting scenario. I have found 14" deep coins and larger caliber fired bullets with an Equinox using its 11" coil in moderately mineralized ground. Those targets were identified as non-ferrous and actually had some correct target IDs mixed in with some up averaged ones.

GPX 4000 to 5000 with the same sized coil as an Equinox 800 would get deeper raw depth. The Equinox however will very likely give more useable target ID information if the ground is only moderately mineralized on any non-ferrous, edge of detection target that it can hit. The same can be said for Deus 2 and the Nokta Legend from my experience. 

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  • The title was changed to Deep Coins Which Would You Choose Pi Or VLF ?
On 11/10/2022 at 11:11 AM, IronDigger said:

Maybe a stupid question but I do need an answer as I have been mostly nugget hunting and been away form coin hunting for many years.  I may have an opportunity to hunt a part of Europe with great potential of finding some nice roman coins. If one was going to hunt coins, and jewelry would you bring a vlf detector or a pulse induction like lets say a sdc 2300 for more depth.  I know all about vlf disc and benefits of p.i. in mineralized soils and all the stuff.  What I an interested in is depth and not so much avoiding iron junk, I was thinking sdc because its compact and water proof. Does the sdc 2300 go deeper then lets say a Minelab 800 on a small coin ?

With both having the same sized coil and adjusted for max depth, I'd say yes.....but, at what price in effort. If you're after raw depth without consideration of what target is there, why not get a GPZ7000 and really go for it? I would imagine that after your 3rd or 4th rusty nail two feet down in hard pan, you'll change your mind about not having discrimination. As mentioned, if you find a hoard and have detected everything in range with a VLF, sure, use a PI to clean up any stragglers that might be out of range. 

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