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Here are the finds from the two hunts that week.. Modern clad not included and don't remember how many.. I try not do dig shallow clad and concentrate on deeper good signals. Probably 9 hours total hunt time between an early 1900s house and early 1900s park where I found the two key date coins on the same day. I find a surprising number of semi key date wheat pennies and dimes. Living in the PNW we get a lot of S mint coins which helps but also makes the 1921 D Merc. Dime a very nice surprise.

Managed to get out last weekend with Merton. We went to my super secret pounded out by every body and their brother for the last 30 years relic spot. Tried every trick we knew. Large coils, small coils, notching up and notching down, gain full blast, gain on auto. manual ground balance and auto ground balance. Heck Merton even brought out his PI machine for a while (a very short while) Highlights were a real nice 1920's Canadian half dime in excellent condition (not in picture as Merton forgets where he puts things) a toasted seated dime, a very good condition religious pendant marked Oct 7 1901 and a 1899 V nickel. The only down side to the whole experience was when Merton told me he now wants to buy a ctx.... I tried telling him that I'm the only guy allowed out there with a ctx...I don't think he cares strick

I explored some new ground in Sunny Yuma this morning in an area that is not generally regarded as gold producing, more silver/lead. I had found some gold in the area last year with the SDC and figured the ZED should find some deeper ones. It turns out the last storms stirred up a bunch of old cans from a hard rock mine about 3 miles up the canyon. I quickly tired of digging trash and opted for a cross country trek. I hiked up and around a dry 30 ft waterfall to find a narrow gully with exposed bedrock. The gully was about 1/4 mile long and ended in a box canyon with 2 small feeder streams from the high ground. Halfway up the gully I get a screaming signal under a jumble of boulders. I had left the trash behind in the main wash and this little side canyon was pretty much undiscovered. I hadn't dug a single target so far so I was cautiously optimistic. I rolled a few big boulders and started digging,10 inches down the target was out. I had to turn the ZED sensitivity down to 1 to get the coil near the pile. On my second scoop into the pile I see yellow. Wow, a course nugget with host rock still attached. Whooee, I'm going to fill my pack with these babies, virgin ground that had never seen a detector. Well, I finished out the gully without another target. It was getting hot and I had a long walk back to the truck so I didn't explore the hillsides below the box canyon. Maybe next week I'll get up there and try to find the source.

I use 3 very similar UK made digging tools,the smaller one i call my sniping spade it can be used for quick recovery of shallow targets and the other 2 are much larger especially the big fella as that is the one i use for real deep artifact/hoard hunting on sites like pasture or ploughed and rolled. All of mine are basically built of pretty bullit proof stainless steel,why so heavy guage ?? we dont dig on manicured lawns ie parks,tots lots or what ever you call them neither the party lawns at Buckingham Palace If i am digging either single coins or a possible purse drop or scattered hoard then they could be deep,so a strong spade is required,during the peak summer months when the ground is like concrete then the only digging tool that will do the job is a ultra strong shafted specially designed spade for the job,the amount of pressure that you can put on a long spade handle can snap them like carrots if they are el-cheapo wooden garden spades or these plastic handle one are a total waste of time. Buying a decent stainless spades are not cheap,but will in theory last you a lifetime subject to them either not being stolen or you forgetting about them after celebrating about that ultra rare gold coin that you have just found In my finds pouch i also carry a Hori Hori knife for when say you are near tree route or need to peel back the odd turf on someones horse paddock,pinpointing is critical especially as i then once found the centre of the target,lets say a coin on pasture then i dig either a 3 or 4 sides flap of turf or soil and then remove it but going in from a wider angle so as not to damage a possible rare hammered silver or gold coin,that would be gut wrenching to find that you have hit say a celtic gold stater with a trowel or spade and a few choice verbal words into the bargain as well. Must be honest i cringe when i see folks recovering coins from a park across the pond with a screwdriver or knife,i can see that most would be modern change but one can never tell if its a rare date or gold coin as well. Prehaps i am over cautious,but i would rather do that than damage a nice celtic gold stater,these are of course just my personal thoughts and how i recover my coins,we all do it differently,but for me i use good quality stainless digging tools that have lasted me for many years,and they may even use them when they finally carry me out in a 6ft wooden overcoat

This may be a old thread but its relevant to me as i have just bought a new Hipstick off Ebay recently and this weekend is going to be the 1st time using it. I have a personal invite to go on a roman hoard/artifact site over the weekend,so decided that the big fella outfit will come out to play,this being the new TDI Pro and the 20'' Sierra Grande from Jimmy Sierra,which basically becomes a heavy old beast to swing for any length of time. I use either a full GPX harness or my preferred option a UK made full harness from Pro-Tectors,the harness on its own works great on coils sizes upto say 15'' but i find that it tends to pull the harness down on the one side that the bungee is attached to,so not sure what the Hipstick was like or even if it was going to work,but as mentioned above i bought this Hipstick brand new from a private seller including the Docs top model harness and some cable clips that fit on the stem,all for under half price. Last night i set the full harness that i had before up and added the Hipstick setup,this thing is a joy to use and totally transformed how this heavy rig swings,it does exactly what it says on the tin as they say,and transferred the weight totally off the shoulder to the hip and i can swing the real heavy setup with basically just 2 fingers. Very pleased with the decision to not only buy the Hipstick new at a very advantageous price but also with a load of additional items as well,this thing is simple to operate and install and does not hamper you in anyway in the ability to swing my 20'' Mono coil,infact i would say its 'possibly' easier to swing than using the stock coil without the hipstick,also have just tried using it with the Minelab 15x12 Commander mono coil on the TDI Pro and that could be swung all day as well. The Hipstick is a simple design but 'simply fantastic' to use.

Clark- For coin hunting the ctx is hard to beat. Good stable ID even on deep stuff. For park hunting it's a no brainier ctx all the way. I swing the ctx till my arm gets sore then switch over to the Deus. Or if I'm walking in a long way the Deus will break down and fit into my back pack. Hunting in nail beds its all Deus as it's got a faster processor then the ctx. With the ctx in nails you just got to slow down a little and it will do just fine as long as you are running the small coil. 95% of the time I grab the ctx before the Deus and that's because of the ID and I like the tones better. I run it in combined tones. With metal detectors it's not one or the other...buy as many as you can afford!

Gerry's Detectors also offers detector training in Arizona during December through March.

Not a problem I got a good Aussie Pick that Luke made so I'm right aye, Your welcome to come here, I will find you a spot.

I'm always talking Dirty, lol Here is one bloke in OZ who went and got an MXT after using an Etrac/Explorer and he could not believe the fact he had done this ground to death and then hit it with the MXT, john http://www.thunting.com/smf/whites/picking_up_my_mxt_pro_today-t60079.0.html

You trash talking john , I mean talking about trash :)

I agree with John,the No1 beach VLF machine in the UK is the Sovereign range,why Mineslab ever stopped production of that machine is beyond me,they then bring out the 'kiddies toy' detector called the Go-Find that no one want and those that did fall for the hype cannot sell them, possibly the biggest white elephant that Mineslab have ever bought out. When a decent Sovereign come on say Ebay they command top dollar,with a WOT coil or other after market coils they just work superbly on the beach,if you do alot of beach work then its worth keeping,but of course if you plan on say doing the odd days detecting or just a bit of fun then it would be a waste of a good detector. I would also agree and i can only say from experience of UK detecting the MXT for the everyday machine and the Sovereign for the beach,best of both worlds and proven to fill your finds bag with quality finds.

The only Minelab coil/s that will work on a Whites machine are the GPX/GP on the TDI range,the Commander coil is the one that i am currently using on the TDI at the moment,but they wont work the other way around ie Whites on the GPX.

Yeah it was a good one when it first came out and it is a good machine, But in order to buy one a person needs a reason to out lay that kind of dough, I'd like one but to be honest I don't have a reason to warrant buying one, I have the TDI SL for bad ground and they go very deep on larger Items and the TDI Pro is even better but I can't justify buying anything bigger because in my soils with the MXT I can hit Beer cans at 3 or 4 feet with the coils I have and I still can disc out junk so I don't see any reason to buy anything else. john

Now if you just want your nuggets to shine I've found that white vinegar will do it. I put them in and every couple days I'll turn them over. I just keep them in the vinegar until I'm happy with the way they look Chuck.

That's why I chose to hf this specimen. It did not look good on the outside, but the continuity tester told me it was all connected and the specific gravity test confirmed how much gold was in it. That was the topic of my article in ICMJ.

how about this? http://www.keeneeng.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=KES&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HAS

This is what it looks like after the hf treatment. Sorry LipCa, I couldn't find the after pictures this morning.

Very nice haul!

so, about 5 years ago, someone came into the station and bought several pack of smokes, and paid for them with silver dollars, I was able to buy the newest one from the till. 1938 I think, the boss got the rest. another time couple of years ago, I was playing 7 card stud, 25cent ante, at boomtown near reno, I dragged a pot and one of the quarters was a 1938. just this week, I walked around front of the shop and found a wheat cent on the floor mat near the door. no detector needed!

Don't know if you want to move down to a GP 4000 but there is one at Gerry's Detectors for sale: Minelab GPX-4000 with 3 coils & Training $1950. You would get free training with it as well but you would have to go to Nevada or Oregon and if you can't go there they might offer a small discount? The GPX's I searched on Ebay are too high. I was also quoted a really good price for a new GPX 4500 from this same company when I bought my GPX fairly recently. You would have to call Scott at 208 345-8898 (Mountain time USA).

J66(Jim) has a second hand mxt in all pro config with coils ,looks the goods , will take it if he responds . Do you boys know anyone selling a GPX 5000 in U.S. Willing to sell here , if so I would jump on that like a crazy man

Well I would try and get hold of a good used MXT pro or all Pro first, and get some practice In not just learning the machine but learning Coil control, which ever VLF you get you need to get use to that because a PI will have working like a man possessed, Even now I still try to use a VLF first on any site just for the quiet life, because a PI will have you up and down like a Brides Nighty. John

There are not that many people who do this as getting the full beauty out of a gold specimen really is an art and HF is dangerous stuff. I would recommend contacting Dave Variboff of gold bay. Dave does a lot of that type of work.

Shhh don't tell Steve or he will want to get the Loan of it

Sorry you're having difficulties Chuck. If I understand your earlier posts you can't run detectors higher than 4 sensitivity/gain? I took my MX Sport out this weekend and was able to run it wide open the whole time. I'd guess that you have some EMI where you're running yours, but other things are possible too - bad coil maybe? But our techs check them out whenever a machine comes back. Better safe than sorry. The real bummer is that this sounds like it's keeping you from detecting. Which is the opposite of what we want here at White's - we want people out there hitting the dirt and finding stuff. Let me know how I can help further.

I'd get your SDC2300 back and also pick up an F19

It looks so simple and it is...but it took Chris Porter to make it up.. Probably worth it's weight in gold to all the sore shouldered old timers ....... and even the young bloods who are smart enough enough to use it before they wreck their shoulder! Enjoy! My pleasure! paul

I have a hipstick waiting for me in OZ from a mate of mine. I appreciate the feed back on my silly question. I've never quite figured out why such a tool is so often overlooked or shunned. Though in klunkers case I suppose it could be beneficial in a brawl True enough that in some areas its just not very practical or feasible to use a support but I keep shaking my head when I hear about how heavy a detector is. And there I am with the same gear, only supported, zipping right along still shaking my head. Main reasons I seem to hear are that : The harness is to hot, I don't like the way it feels, I don't need it: for not using a support bungee or other device. Maybe a bit of machismo?

If your swinging a GPZ, a Bungie is a must! The stock Breast Plate on the Pro Swing 45 restricts my normal wide swing, so I use a Hip Stick...works great! Until the next hunt Rick