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Some finds from several hunts...starting to get out a little more now that the ground has softened up some.. mostly using the Nox but the CTX produced the quarter yesterday...for some reason I usually do well on Christmas Eve so I make it a tradition to hunt in the morning....wishing all my treasure hunting breathen a very happy holidays strick

Too bad there is no palm trees and blue water...There is a bottle cap in almost every scoop and sometimes several so it's a challenging place to hunt...the grill is 10K but the bracelet is stainless...the ring came from a small park and it's sterling with a Gold L in it...I like to use the CTX in bottle cap infested areas and the Nox in open fields and not so trashy places..I can usually tell when it's a bottle cap with the Nox but I have the CTX set up better for hunting in trash. strick

It's not all trash though what you find there. Here are some representative small nuggets from that area.

Nope. It basically does one thing really well (slays silver with its super precise TID at depth), other than that, heavy, slow, not that great in iron and with mid conductors, and unnecessarily complicated UI. Plus, the price drop would probably signal the imminent release of the Multi IQ variant which brings speed, versatility, and perhaps a lighter overall package.

I apologize for hiding it there. The bloody thumb part made me feel guilty enough to confess. Seriously though , perhaps a flash flood in the wash jammed it up in there and buried it. Who knows. In relic hunting, if you are not digging this you aren't really trying. And that's with a GPX wit iron reject...

Merry Christmas everyone and thanks for allowing my business to prosper. How many of you found detector or prospecting tool under the tree? 2020 was a rough year for many of us, but if you took advantage of the beautiful outdoors with your detector, just maybe you were rewarded with a nice nugget/trinket/treasure. Hopefully 2021 is golden to you all and I look forward to viewing your pictures of new discoveries, reading your adventures and maybe even sharing a few of mine. Merry Christmas to all.

Even though 2020 has been awful in a number of ways (a number of milestones in my immediate family were either cancelled or subdued including high school and college graduations and milestone birthdays and anniversaries, close friends and family were affected by the virus, and the list goes on) . But the nature of detecting as a naturally socially distant activity was one bright spot and an effective outlet for all the frustration encountered this year. Below are pics of my finds and site memories over the past 12 months (cheated a little as a few of these go back into the end of 2019). They were pretty much recovered using 3 main detectors - the Deus/Orx (using a number of different coils), the Equinox 800, and Minelab GPX 4800. A couple buttons were also recovered using the Tarsacci which has found a semi-permanent place in the first team detector lineup as well as the Nokta Simplex+ and Tek G2+ as the next tier in specialized situations. All of the below were recovered on private permission property or public beaches in the DMV (DC, VA, MD) region and PA. Enjoy the pics and looking forward to a better, safer, and fun 2021, especially with detector and digger in hand. I'll end it with my bucket lister of all time (so far...) - 1849 $1 Gold and a sequence of stills from the GoPro capturing the first moments of detecting magic. Hope everyone gets to experience similar moments in 2021 and beyond. Detecting is a magic mix of technology, relaxation, excitement, history, discovery, adventure, and most of all great friendship, fellowship and lifetime memories. Happy New Year Everyone! My first relic hunt in 98F heat (usually it is a spring/fall deal after harvest, before planting) but COVID delayed this hunt until the end of June. Still managed some keepers between downing about 10 pints of water including an improvised fishing weight from a carved lead CW minie ball bullet. My first Civil War Token below - an Army/Navy token with an image of the US Capitol Building US Cavalry bridle bit boss...a deep find made even more memorable and unexpected because I had to put the GPX DD coil in cancel mode due to severe electrical interference... My first 1/2 reale above, but Mexican First Republic not Spanish... Some nice old silver quarters below. That seated quarter was literally the first find of the day - it was a good omen As my last keeper of the day was my first dug Confederate Button...An Confederate infantry "Block I" Camp life at CW sites turns up a huge variety of finds...intricate flower button above, a partial harmonica reed, and a pristine campfire annealed square nail devoid of any corrosion. A .69 Caliber minie ball dug below - this thing will do some serious damage just getting thrown at someone, imagine it still travelling 360 feet per second AFTER travelling 1500 yards from the muzzle. Don't forget to take in the sights at the sites... A relaxing day at the beach finding...a 2 cent piece? An exciting day at the farm finding...my first flat round gold!

I’ve been getting out as much as possible during December before the expected monsoon this year pushes down into where we live, it has finally arrived and we are now pleasantly cool but everything is now rain soaked with constant drizzle. Good for the poor farmers who have been drought ridden but not good for us detectorists thanks to more ground signal and grass growth. It was fun while it lasted and now I have to go about my work with a whole new approach.🥴 I’ve had some good successes this year with some brilliant detecting moments coming along with the hard work and heat. Early starts and detecting till its too hot has been the norm then kicking back to recover in the aircon as a reward, it’s surprising how many hours of quality detecting time I’ve been able to squeeze into this build up to the wet. What was even more surprising was the decent finds I got along the way in well worked areas. 😎 One session was no exception but took a few attempts before I got my coil over a decent piece, first location was a frizzer with the ground I targeted not having enough depth for my liking. I tend to concentrate on ground that is in excess of 12 inches going into deeper ground, this is where my skill set shines and where I have the most success unless I’m patch hunting. The only time this changes is if I put on a smaller coil and even then I’m targeting the deeper ground relative to coil performance. I am always listening for edge of detection target signals. Second location was also a frizzer but it was a good opportunity to wave my coil over a friends test patch nearby to confirm my settings choice and detector behaviour. By this time it was well past 10 am and I was still gold-less, being totally wet through from the humidity didn’t help my enthusiasm to not just down tools and go home but instead relocate, so I sat in the aircon of my 4x4 for 15 minutes and cooled off somewhat while eating a banana 🍌. As a spur of the moment I decided to go to a spot on the way home that has been thrashed to death by many many people over the past 20 years, it’s right beside the track in a well known area and is riddled with dig holes one upon the other. I cringed as I put my backpack back on, it feels horrible putting a pack on over the top of a wet soppy shirt, everything sticks to you and feels extremely uncomfortable. Nevertheless I forced myself to do it and committed to at least an hour of detecting going over the deeper sections methodically before calling it quits. I’m glad I did. 😝 15 minutes of getting my ear into the local conditions and I heard my first faint Low/High signal of the day, 8 inches of soil removal brightened the signal into positivity along with the smile on my face. Next was flurried sweaty digging until close on the 18 inch mark out popped this iron stained 9 gram chunkster. 😊 The next signal was really broad and channel flipped ever so slightly, (High/Low-Low/High) a sure sign of a deep ‘real’ target at max detection range. 😎 This 10 gram nugget was really clean compared to the first one which is interesting considering they were only 15 feet apart. By this time I was physically spent with another deep hole in high temps so it was time to call it a day. Considering I had moved location 3 times and messed around a lot it was an extremely good outcome and a highlight to the detecting year due to the thrashed nature of the patch. It was also good to ping a little picker at good depth along the way just to keep the ego in check. 😇🤣 Total for the session

I'm on my second CTX I sold the first one for $500 less then I paid for it and that machine had paid for itself several times over... if that even matters because I hunt for fun not money... However since the Nox came out my CTX has been sitting... I prefer the Nox for it's speed it's just too fun to swing. I still use the CTX if I'm hunting in trashy parks and a couple very trashy beaches that are loaded with bottle caps.....as far as ergonomics go I feel some of you are giving the CTX a bad rap yes it is heavier overall but the Nox is Nose heavy so thy both have their faults...both with the small coils are effortless to swing...I will say one thing about the CTX it is slower then the Deus and Nox but if you hunt slow with it in nails with the small coils you will be rewarded as it has the uncanny ability to lock on coins and other good targets...like any machine you have to use it a lot to learn it... so for you CTX bashers here was me yesterday with mine in a very old hunted out site 🙂 strick

Looks like ole' man winter has won the battle for the rest of the metal detecting season here in upstate NY. Here's a few finds from the last hunt. A silver ring, 1876 seated dime, a badly roached two cent piece, a couple of wheaties, and three bucks in clad. Hope everyone has a nice Christmas. "There is no crying in metal detecting" CH

I wonder if this Geosense is going to be unique to gold detectors or is going to be something incorporated into other detectors in the future as well? I was reading the patent filed last month and that one seems to written to apply to all kinds of detectors, gold, coin, and relic. And it makes me wonder if it's related to this Geosense. Yeah or nay, either way, a glimpse into what future detectors might incorporate... It goes over 3 things basically: Combining ground timing and sensitivity controls into one "knob". Or buttons on a screen, etc. The idea being simplifying the need to adjust timings, threshold, and sensitivity with each new location. Automating control of such a "knob" by means of what sounds like a program. Simplified control further by making the onboard computer select the best setting combos basically. Adding fineness to the various timings (channels?) to allow the user to adjust for maximum sensitivity to targets while maintaining a quiet threshold mostly free of EMI and ground noise. Or no threshold at all? I can't tell. But this was something I asked for in 2015 and I hope it's in the the GPZ successor. Give me 2 more timings above Normal, 2 between Normal/Difficult, etc. Sounds like this may be something similar? Maybe I am misunderstanding though. And 3b. sounds like finally some degree of signal processing to further eliminate EMI and ground noise via DSP's. Something I've been wondering on forums for 10 years why no one seems to be doing seriously, given the cheap onboard capabilities that have been available for more than a decade now. The lower your noise floor, the more RX gain you can apply, the more effective depth with the same TX power you can obtain. Also, more talk on the depth discrimination, but really who knows what machines this patent might apply to. The depth stuff might be coin/relic machines. Could be something 5 years from now or could be the 6000. They do talk about "hybrid" VLF/PI machines in this patent. "[0054] Further signal processing techniques may then be used to discriminate the deep target from the deeper target, and to reduce or remove the signals due to soil from the output signal." The more control a machine takes, the more it needs to have consistent, dependable measurements from it's sensors. This might explain some adamancy for rigid coil specifications going in to the future, and the chip? Like, a radar that is off by +/- 2mph might be ok for a police officer catching speeders, but for a self driving Tesla it might mean the difference between safe driving and ramming into the car ahead of it. Just a guess, extreme example, but you get the point...

Thought I would share a few Christmas Ornaments for all of you prospectors out there. I realize this time of year is rough on some of us, as the ground is frozen and the gold is hibernating below. If anyone wants to add some pics to spice up the tree, please do so. After all..the heavier it gets, the more it shines. Whoever adds the most interesting photo will get a free Minelab hat (US mailing only). Merry Christmas from Gerry's Detectors

So I thought nothing ventured nothing gained. I have about three blocks of beach where the EMI forces me to turn the sensitivity down to 20. Also sick of hearing all the cell phones coming at me from 20 feet away so......It was not pretty. Did not know what to expect. I WAS FLOORED! Not only did I not hear cell phones any more, my EMI issue completely disappeared. I was able to run a solid 22 sensitivity and even 23 with water contact. On the wet sand [no water contact] I ran 24 all the way back. I have NEVER been able to run at 24 on this beach. Your mileage may very, but I will be out with this again today. Dave

I have just purchase and received the Simplex +. This detector is a upgrade addition to my already collection of detectors. Thanks to all for the ID information that has been posted here. This will help me a lot. I have never had a detector with a DD coil before so I am trying to get use to how it react to coins. To all that has purchase the Simplex + has anyone notice the screen icons flicking or has a heylo look on the screen? I notice this two days ago when I was out detecting. I have already been blessed on my first outing with the Simplex and found a 1943 Walking Liberty Half Dollar. My first ever. I was just shocked. That's all for now. Everyone have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and stay safe...

I'll start off by letting everyone know I am a total noob at metal detecting. Started back in August looking for nails after a roof replacement. The entire story is in my Meet and Greet entry. I retired in October, and have been outside every day I can with my Garrett ACE 400. Honestly I didn't have high expectations of what I would find. I read lots of pro advice and decided to start in my yard with the ACE, the AT Pro pinpointer that came with it, and a Lesche Samson shovel. I bought the Samson as it seemed to have the most favorable reviews. I read up a lot on the best ways to use the ACE. I also watched a lot of Hoover Boys videos, and marveled at what they dug up. I had no real expectation of finding the sort of things they do, much less coins. In the first few passes I found some old colonial buttons, and a WW1 Army jacket button. Just about every day I dug up something that was relevant to the area, mostly colonial artifacts some possibly related to the War of 1812. My county is very old, and still mostly rural farming. I have about 150 acres of farm in front of my house. There was a lot of trash from the construction of my house. Most annoying were little triangles of gutter and flashing aluminum that I found everywhere. For just a yard my results were astonishing! On the coin side of things, not so much, I only found 27 cents, all from about the time my house was built. My yard was entirely "Harley Raked" before we moved in. Just as I finished my yard, the next day the farmer came to pick up his crop. I was excited as it is much easier to search farmland after a soybean crop than a corn crop. I asked him if I could search the farm, and offered him any finds that he liked. He told me he was in no way sentimentally connected, and I could "have at it" and keep everything I found. He also directed me to 200 other acres they own near me That I could search. I set up a grid search scheme using 6 6-foot driveway markers from Lowe's that I began using about a quarter of the way through my yard when I decided that trying to figure out where I last was wasn't enough. What I did was place 3 on each side of the field, and moved two on each pass. I always have something to line up on. The later addition of the Tect o Trak app shows me how effective this is. This farm overlooks a river where a Steamboat landing was in the 1800s. Right away colonial buttons, some copper, some pewter, and some lead started turning up, and about the 10th pass I dug a sun pendant with stones for eyes. Soon I dug a 1/4 cut 2 Real coin, and then another. I also dug a 1890 half cent, and an 1879 Indian head penny. The Indian Head was in excellent shape. I also think I found a very old British copper coin that gives no details, but rings when dropped on a table. Every day it has been something, a silver plated button, a gilt one, and even one that was oval and I think solid silver. After covering about an acre and a half the finds cut off, being more iron bits (there were plenty of them everywhere along with shotgun shells and shot), and beer cans and pull tabs. I pressed on regardless and today found another decorated button which I can only assume is very old. I really like my ACE. I'm impressed by how many relics I have found. I don't see many articles here about the ACE 400, and am kinda surprised. It is not an AT Pro or Max but it sure does find things, even 10" + deep. Check out my photos, everything was found with this detector. I found the Indian head penny when checking the hole after I found the buckshot I was originally seeing, it was 10" down. Always check the hole again! One of the quirks the machine has I appreciate is the high tone you get if you pass over a low tone item too fast. I t keeps me in check. I always dig items with mixed signals. I confess that next week I will be going back over my yard with a Minelab Equinox 600. I'm hooked for sure. I will continue to post finds with the Garrett, as I plan to use it in the farm, the Equinox in the river, or whenever I think I should search an area in the farm again. I have no special settings; Zero discrimination, one bar short of full sensitivity on the farm, two in the yard. I want to hear it all. I think I am doing rather well! Any comments and suggestions are welcome. I have updated my finds cases, shown below. Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!

Is that even possible?

Thanks for the offer to hunt your areas. Likewise, you can come just north to hunt these areas. I've never panned for gold. I'll bait you with a few of the older silver finds from a few years back. Most were found at Christian County farms. The 1851 Trime, and the 1855 Canadian 5 cent piece were found within inches of each other near Lake Springfield.

Gerry and oneguy, you both have some outstanding specimens. Thanks for sharing! Merry Christmas to everyone else on the forum! Here's my 12 days of Christmas:

Today was out in a park, shooting coins with a friend. (Between us, got three forties wheats, 1940 Jefferson, a Mercury, and a silver ring) Beauty weather for December: high fifties, sunny. Nice day. In the middle of it all, whilst I was rooting in a hole, my TRX pinpointer started playing a song! I thought it was telling me to change the battery. No, it was playing a weird little ditty. Neither my friend or I could recognize the tune. Anyone have any light to shed on this? I found a YouTube video from 6 six years ago, but I'm not even sure it was the same song... I wish I had thought to record the song with my phone, but I admit I failed to think fast enough. 😞 Oh, White's Electronics, you shall be missed!

Did you return it yet? haha

You're off to a great start. Just like real estate, the 3 most important aspects of detecting are location, location, location and you've shown that once again. That's a nice collection and displays. Thanks for showing the photos. You will be best off if you can find old maps and newspaper/book articles that show the locations of long gone hot spots (churches, schools, gathering places in general, homesites,...). Local libraries (and the associated helpful librarians) should have plenty of reference material to lead you to those juicy hunting grounds. You mentioned 200 acres the farmer has given you permission to detect. That sounds like a gold mine but you won't be able to search it all properly. That's where research pays divdends.

Trash has managed to find its way into some pretty baffling situations. Just goes to show that some places aren’t quite as remote as we might think. “Why!?” -Me, every time I think I’m the first visitor in 140 years... heck 90 years!

I think my ML Profind 35 plays green acres in monotone but that could be the iron audio if I hold it just right...

I have a small box with all my nuggets and a large drum with all the garbage I find. I call the drum the "drum of tears"

At least in this hobby, we can make up excuses when we get skunks that make us feel good about ourselves 😂 Truly stewardship.

The numbers displayed on the GM 24k when swinging over targets are probability estimates of ferrous or non ferrous targets. The lower numbers are usually iron or small non-ferrous targets (like small gold or aluminum/lead trash) that are having their conductive qualities shifted into the iron probability range due to mineralization or masking. Also, on any VLF detector rusting, cracked iron objects will be difficult to categorize so your detector will give ferrous and non-ferrous readings for things like rusty bent nails, barbed wire, you name it. It is a really good idea to dig it all if possible, especially if there are shallower and larger ferrous or aluminum targets near the surface that could partially or totally mask smaller gold targets near them. I agree with Jim and when I used my 24K I would discriminate in the iron range only if the ground noise/hot rocks were too much for the 24K's ground balance abilities.

It was still a good day! It just started with a gross tease.

Near the waters edge at a local beach, I found 5 bullets in the beach. There were no shell casings to be found.

I knew i was doing it wrong!! But i make these look good!👍👍

Now there's product waiting to be marketed. The idea just needs to be incorporated into a fabric cover.

Gerry, even though I'm ineligible to win the hat, I'm posting some ornaments that I like to deck the halls with anyway. Merry Xmas all!

OneGuy - Snow pic is beautiful and so are some of those slugs.

Free Hat????? What the heck...I'll enter these. Gerry, that's some beautiful stuff you've pulled! Thought about it and it wouldn't be Xmas without a nice snow pic so added this pic of Trackzilla up on the mtn at 7,000ft....

Thunderstorms and unstable weather have been an issue atmospherically for the past few months, but the ground has been bone dry which is good in the more conductive ground types around Clermont. I always try to hit the ground early while the atmosphere is at its most stable, the GPZ is very good for Sferic type noise so is pretty quiet until things really start to heat up. In conductive variable ground the signal increases with the moisture, so what was a faint murmur when dry and easily managed by the Semi-Auto G balance become more defined and positive when wet or damp, making it hard to listen for edge of detection signal responses. JP

Yes Merry Christmas to my Idaho friends! strick

Merry Christmas, Gerry!

Here is a screenshot of the Tect o Trak app showing the locations of some of my finds, I bought it after I searched the first area which yielded a lot of what is in my photos. The red dots are the tracking, and the stars are find locations. Useful!

Very nice finds, and I have to ask if they were from the old road to Vandalia the old capital. There were several trading spots in farm fields along the trail/road at that time. We will have to get together come spring/summer. Have a good Christmas.

I could not agree more. Some people claim to distinguish trash from gold just by the sound. I am not on that level and don't think it is a reliable way since so many factors influence the target sound. This was a smooth symmetrical low/high, as you would expect it from deeper gold. Oh well, that's why I have such a huge drum of trash 🙂

Angry Orchard has been around that long!? Or is this photo a re-enactment 😂

Aluminum makes a great heat sink! If you have ever disassembled a computer, you will notice the large finned block of aluminum in direct contact with the CPU! Foil on the outside of the pod won't do much to dissipate heat, but if it blocks EMI, and reflects heat externally( sun from the black housing)! Than its worth the application! You can leave the speaker area open for heat dissipation, if your worried! 👍👍

Chase, Great summation of 2020 my friend! And the finds you have are fantastic in my view! I would love to be in Civil War era area's making discoveries! Those are just as special as any 1715 wreck finds on the Treasure Coast, but maybe a little easier to acquire! The stories behind the last people to hold these personal objects are sad, but amazing! I wish you and everyone else here, a Merry Christmas! And plentiful finds in 2021! May we all hit some bucket listers in the coming year!🌲 👍👍

For the most part, you can only discriminate ferrous from non-ferrous. You'll have to dig all the shell casings, and birdshot, and pulltabs if you want to find the nuggets. I usually dig everything when nugget hunting, as using discrimination will cost you some sensitivity. Each person has their own view on discrimination, however. Sometimes the site your detecting has so much iron junk, you simply have to use it. Jim

This time of year you could use the foil, but when summer comes along you better let the unit get rid of the heat.

Interesting, I had some tinkering ideas along these lines myself. I think it could work better if the shield (foil) was electrically connected to the zero volts / power ground of the electronics. This is accessible in two places, the M12 coil connector, pin 2 ( Transmit cold ) and more conveniently, the USB port. As you look at the rear of the control pod, it's the bottom-right contact. If you carefully cut a piece of PVC electrical insulating tape so it covered the other 3 contacts, leaving just the one exposed, it would make the experiment safer. As an electronics guy, I have some small sprung-loaded contacts ( similar to those used on the XP Deus coil charging clip), and was going to use one to make the connection, but there's lots of improvised ways to do it. I had the idea of having a short length of 3mm threaded stud sticking out. The foil would be fitted over this, punching a small hole in it, then a nut screwed on top to clamp the foil, and make the electrical connection. I do have some special solder that is for aluminium, and works OK on kitchen foil, that I could attach a small brass washer to the foil for a higher calibre bodge.

Now all you need is an F75 and you can add data to this thread. 😁 Regarding the discussion of air gap, I just remembered I have some (four, I think) ziplock bags with soil in them. Each one is about 1" thick, so short of having more targets buried at increasing depths as you have, I can utilize those to get a more realistic ground effect. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the Detech Ultimate. Simon would never forgive me if I did. But today is another one with good enough detecting weather that I probably won't get any testing done until later.

I got this bit about 50 yards away from JPs bit. Pushed about a foot of soil of with loader, then almost 3 foot into the calcrete/cap rock. With the gpx5000 and 16” round NF. Weighed 1.5kg, had 330g of yellow. And a action shot of Paul on the patch with the jackhammer.

Wanted to give the Multi Kruzer a go with the Superfly coil at the beach. Kept the machine in 5khz, manual ground balance as it would drift with tracking on. Was a little bit noisier in spots compared to the stock but on the damn and dry sand it had excellent depth with very stable numbers. Gain was kept around 93 without issue even in the wet. One thing I didn't like is if I got any water behind the scuff it would false a bit but outside of that its a good combo. Managed to sneak out a Barber dime at 10" in the damp sand in my my 3 hour run, called it a day when I broke my scoop handle.

Alas its not as easy as picking other folks brains on what settings to use,what settings works for someone will not necessary work for anyone one else.How a machine is setup across the pond for the local coinage and conditions in your specific location can be totally different to how we setup a machine here in the UK. Things like ground conditions,metal used in the coins and coins size ie for the most part in the US the coinage is milled and to a certain extent a consistent standard in the metal/s used so you can be pretty certain of the consistency but here in the UK for many 100s of years the coinage was hammered and not milled and the size although pretty standard for each specific coin/s the purity of the gold and silver can vary by a massive margin and is basically dictated by how the economy was doing at the the time if it was going through a lean time then the silver quality could be reduced by a fair amount and i guess gold could also be as well but not to the extent of silver coinage and other silver artefacts. Also another factor and a major one as well is what is the ground conditions and also are the soil condition pretty clean or is alot of trash due to human habitation around the detecting site,if its a trashy site then one would not use the stock or large coil so this then could also means possibly using the smaller coil and then you would also need to adjust settings accordingly. In detecting no one set of settings do it all,you can also get a high amount of different suggested setting that folks could post up but non may work as we dont have the full knowledge of your condition.