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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/28/2021 in all areas

  1. That's $1,000,000 worth of good luck! Found this unusual token at a park this week. Can't find a lot of information on this token.
    12 points
  2. I did not think I would get a chance to get out this week, but since yesterday opened up for me, I decided to hit my favorite spot. I had a couple of ideas on how I would work this same area, but in reality, it required a bit of trial and error to get these results. It was supposed to rain part of the day, so I figured I would use the Equinox for the morning. I wanted to get as close to the iron areas as possible, so I decided on the 6” coil. If the rain stopped, I would use the GPX with the 18” DD coil to get those deep dimes, in the other section of this spot. It worked, but I had to make a lot of adjustments to get each machine to do what I thought I wanted it to do. I think I have done all I can in this spot to get whatever remains within reach of my machines. If there is more there, I do not know how to get to it. Surprises of the day were the Barber half, Barber dime, and a decent amount of silver. It took a lot of digging, more than just the number of targets shown. The 18” coil is a brute to swing, Lucky you have to swing it very slow to get the good stuff. I am not sure where the next stop will be, but it probably will not be anything like this place has been. Who knows, Tony just fixed my AQ headphones and made me one of his as a spare, so maybe some gold hunting is in the cards. A relic hunt may be in the works for next week also, looking for Native artifacts. I have to hit the woods before the yellow jackets and ticks wake up. 🤬 As always, it's good to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the day!
    9 points
  3. This morning I found a silver Queen Victoria six-pence (1900) in the same hole as this little beauty! I thought at first it might be a pull-tap but Foxy Noxy kept reading a solid 13 instead of flicking between 12/13/14.. am glad I had another dig..
    6 points
  4. In certain situations the GPX is hard to beat. In heavy iron, it will make you quit detecting 😄 I wanted to use the Equinox for pinpointing basically. It does not like this beach's sand mix and does not ID or respond to targets very well. The coins I found were already out of the hole before they read as coins. I dug a random hole (in this target rich area) and used it to find the targets. In the hole, some dimes read -8 up to +15, out of the hole they bounced from 18 to 26 to 35. EMI and the mix of thin layers of black and purple sand drive the Equinox nuts. I ran gold 1 mode. I could only use the EQ this way since there are a decent amount of targets. On the rest of the normal sections of the beach, if you dig random holes you get nothing. Surprisingly, the targets the EQ found included 3/4's of what you see, including half the silver dimes and the Barber half. It was used for most of the hunt. The GPX cleaned up the deep dimes in the area directly below where the EQ was used. Thanks. I'm sure I used up all my luck though 😄 I think you have me mixed up with jim in ma. He posted a beach hunt and you wondered if there was a structure near by. But any beach through the ages has things set up that we have no clue existed. Boardwalks, snack areas, kids sections, events, etc... all gone to history. In my case though, I think I am getting to layers that have been there for 50-80 years undisturbed. I have in the course of 4+ years, found these silver areas at least 4 or 5 times. I must be up to 400 ish silvers from there. You have to grab them when they are available. Thanks Joe. It is an art I guess. Some of the gold guys have fine tuned their senses to hear subtle tone differences that make them hugely successful. I have not those abilities. 🙄 I think of myself as an opportunists, hitting areas that only a deep machine can barely hit. Just beep and dig. Because the beach has removed all the light trash, it's an easier task then if the area is loaded with aluminum and bottle caps. That is why I pound the area as long as it is available. It's not very often that they come up and even rarer that they stay long enough to get most of what is there. Find an area on your beach that has something about it that is different and stay a while before moving on. I will be on the move for another spot next time. Thanks Mitchel, I'm well over due to move on 😄. I've basically run out of real estate. There is another small section I want to try and hit. There are also other sections where I got deep clad (1970's / 1980's), but the chance for silver is way less, so I left those for another day. There is also another beach I have my eyes on, so we'll see. Beaches change so rapidly from day to day, that another section close by could open up at any time. If I lived there I could check it regularly. That is why I stuck with it for so long. Time to get back to searching for whatever I can get.
    4 points
  5. Wow! Great responses. Thank you! I did read elsewhere about the DD in mono trick. I do have a 6” DD Minelab coil for my xterra 18.75 kHz that appears to have the same plug as the gpx, but don’t want to damage anything. Only have a about 2 or hrs of time on the gpx, and that’s on my property where there is likely some large ferrous items buried there from a previous owner. I need some virgin ground that is less trashy so I can experiment a bit. Detecting my lot is a crash course in insanity. So many large hits makes it frustrating to practice. Southeast Alaska is my home, but it’s not exactly in the gold belt here. I have so much to learn yet, but that is what keeps my interest. Steve
    4 points
  6. I really enjoy the orx and all it's attributes. for me it is a no nonsense detector with excellent recovery speed and separation, a very clean and clear audio, selectable frequency and wireless everything. add to cart an update that would provide 4 tones and iron volume. oh yes it has great ergonomics too. thank you XP.
    3 points
  7. Good morning all! I saw a post yesterday where someone mentioned the possibility of linking the equinox to an audio analyzer to get a visual readout on target tones and I found the idea fascinating. I've never seen this done and was curious what the old hands here thought about the idea. I'm sure the engineers at minelab (or any other shop) configured the sound of their machines with the human brain in mind, so our wetware may already be the best analyzer there is. But I can't help but wondering if a visualization of the audio would provide interesting heretofore undetected differences in targets that appear to be mostly indistinguishable to a rookie ear, namely uniform can slaw and pulltabs. Anyone here have any idea?
    3 points
  8. P.... we tested mixed and AM the other day at the beach in wet sand with the 12" coil. We wanted to take advantage of both and AM and disc.... but we also want to ensure it was as deep as AM in mixed mode. It was... for the depth and targets we were testing. I dont use disc except to reverse disc. Its just to solid of a tone.... i like a more drawed out tone that AM gives me.... that bang and more pops than false tones. It depending on if your headphones are using speakers or pizzos as to how much modulation you may get. AM in most machines gives a better size and depth modulation..... thus why it may seem like a weaker signal. Its much like the old Explorers ..... i maxed out the gain so all targets sounded the same in trash so those weak signals didnt get lost or filtered out. In open areas i used less gain giving me a little depth modulation on targets. The 12" coil initially for me had more chatter near the surf. The way i had been adjusting the standard coil didnt work...... that was moving the SB higher. What i found was in some cases moving it down cleared it right up. If Aarons post on small aluminum is correct then .... moving the SB lower on this coil may make it more sensitive to some smaller gold. Ive been real pleased with the depth of the targets ive been digging as well of the coverage..... and no i wont be taking it off either.
    3 points
  9. I Finally picked one up (midi)for my Daughter(9).... Happy to say that she loves it.. Fits her small arms and size perfectly and it doesn’t weigh her down like when she (comedically) attempts to drag around the spare Garrett.... It seems very well made and doesn’t have that cheap “kids toy” feel.. No,This Midi Hoard screams quality.. We played with it on the front lawn all afternoon so she could get the hang of it, as she quickly did..(she even wanted to go back out after dark to look for more stuff).. Yeah, It’s pretty cool as a parent when you manage to get your kids something that they genuinely like.... Especially when it’s something that you can both enjoy together...Super Rad..
    3 points
  10. The last couple of days we've had a hard wind blowing in the afternoon. It is not deep energy like swells but it does stir up the bottom a bit depending upon the tide. The first trip I didn't find much but the knife and a couple of cheap rings. At least that is what I thought. These are the finds from the first day. This was the 'cheap' ring upon closer examination. This was the depth of the knife. It was right at 20 inches. These were today's finds in nearly the same area. At the beginning of the hunt was this better knife. It was open when I found it. Then the remainder of the finds. This was a cheap ring. Two day total of 3 rings and 2 knives. Mitchel
    3 points
  11. I’m seeing the same with using the 12” coil, better stability. Can run full sensitivity with 12” in open inland areas, Before with stock couldn’t operate at max. Mix mod is deeper than all-metal mode, have a shield nickel buried at 14.5” inches at a test bed in an actual 1850 relic site. Tarsacci with 12” coil gets it both directions using mix mode and I’m not talking iron audio only it’s both conducive and iron audio, switch to all-metal it’s very faint to almost not there. I don’t care for discrimination mode, it’ll detect the 12.5 buried shield nickel but really don’t care for the short target response. My opinion, using disc mode one can easily miss a deep target, audio response is to narrow kind of like a chirp. Mix mode is definitely my favorite, 12” coil is a winner. Will never slap on the stock coil again, 12” definitely deeper and operates with higher sensitivity. Separation, fantastic! Paul
    3 points
  12. Try the Commander 11” DD coil with the Coil/RX switch set to Mono, in conjunction with the Fine Gold timing; you will effectively have an 11” x 6” pseudo-monoloop, where the left half of the coil is hot, and will be even more sensitive than the Commander 11” mono or the 12” x 8” Goldstalker, with the added benefit of being able to handle mineralized ground better than a straight mono coil. Better yet, try it with a Commander 10” x 5” DD coil.
    3 points
  13. Pilgrim Lanes is now a dr's park. Token probably worth more than the barbar hahah
    3 points
  14. Also think 1,000,000. There was a stretch of time when 1,000,000 was a big number and if you achieved it, you could retire. So they capitalized on that thought. Today, a million does not hold the same wow factor as it once did. So that token could be from the depression days up to the 60's or so. Just a guess using the number provided.
    2 points
  15. This time I do not want to be one of the first, assuming they do finally appear. I'd like to see a better track record for reliability this time before I pull the trigger, so will let some other brave souls take the plunge first. The lack of transferable warranty in particular is a bugaboo, as it makes buy and try an expensive proposition. It cost me around $400 this last go just to satisfy my curiosity. That's fine as it was not unexpected (should not have bought the extra battery for $200), but the reason mainly is the person buying it got no warranty, even though two years were left on mine. Anyway, that left me in less of a rush for the next go.
    2 points
  16. This comes from good target results. It is how you use your detector to interrogate your targets. There are simply beaches without good targets. It may take you 5 times to a big beach to find that out and move on to another beach that does have good targets. How patient are you? What is your time worth?
    2 points
  17. Here's one that sold on Ebay for $44. (I would have taken the Merc instead. Shows what I know.) Other sites say possibly from the 1930's. One thing I've noticed about dating things on the internet (especially on Ebay) -- someone gives a date of origin without evidence and others glom onto it like it's fact. Tokens seem to get resurrected, too. I have some that I think are from the 1940's and others (same depiction) that are probably '80s or '90s. This is probably brass. If you have Wheaties you've found in that same location, compare the patina. If they typically are this nice after recovery, that's evidence this has been in the ground a similar amount of time (> 40 years). Most of my Wheaties come with a green scale so I expect my old brass tokens to have a similar property. (Your low humidity out West seems to be nicer to copper alloy coins than our damp Eastern USA.) Unusual find, IMO, and a good chance it's Great Depression Era. BTW, the Eureka Club in greater Denver has a token category in their monthly meetings. A veteran there may be a good source of info as to whether or not anyone has ever entered one of these. (A "no" is another good sign it's quite old. A "lots of them" just the opposite.)
    2 points
  18. If I were you, I'd cash in on that 😄 Ask for silver, gold and military relics 😉 Never seen one like that before. Looks rather new from the patina. maybe a game piece?
    2 points
  19. Hit the river bank for an hour, just caught low tide. Bit of clad, game token and snagged this 1903 barber dime (1 year older than GB's Iffy one).
    2 points
  20. If you hit a large virgin patch you will find most worthwhile nuggets you will get are in the 0.1 to 1.0gms range. in most of the area you cover this will be the case, but you may get a few bit ranging from double number gm to multi ounce bits but they are easily heard till you hit deeper ground. At this stage a bigger coil is the way to go. As Lunk said using a double DD coil in pseudo-monoloop will really help in cleaning up tiny bits. I have used this method many times when I was too lazy to go back to the 4WD for a smaller coil. Note when pinpointing in this mode the centre of the signal will be on the side and centre of the transmit coil, the same goes with using the edge of the coil it is on the transmit side also.
    2 points
  21. The 12x8" Nugget Finder Evo coil running in Fine Gold will get you closest to the sensitivity of the Gold Monster, but will punch deeper and handle the ground a lot better.
    2 points
  22. We're lucky that Australian silver coins minted between 1910 and 1945 contain 92.5% pure silver (sterling silver), later dates until decimal coinage was introduced in 1966 contain 50% silver.. There are some parallels to British silver coins after WWII with Australian silver coins dropping to 50% just as yours did in 1920.. Who says history doesn't repeat itself? Most of my pre-decimal coins were found at a spot I've called the 'Silver Mine'.. It's on the edge of where a grassy embankment meets the beach.. every time there is a heavy downpour or a really high tide, a huge amount of water runs down from inland creeks as well as up from the sea, continually exposing silver coins..
    2 points
  23. Thanks! Already went back the next day and started gridding the same area.
    2 points
  24. I took a ride to a local beach and saw this hole that was never there before. Some one had a machine and moved the sand around and left a hole. I have detected this area Quiet with my TDI BH in the past. Today I dug for 3.5 hours non stop all targets were deep as it looks like there was about 6 inches or more of sand removed. I was amazed at what was below. The best of it 3 Buffalos a silver dime a 1956 class ring and a ring like I have never seen, it has the head of a wolf with its mouth open.
    2 points
  25. I know the Whites let's you chose your own adventure by displaying a probability histogram of target ID but it is also not processing the target signal with Multi IQ. Interesting, but honestly if my Equinox was showing me that on every target I'd be sending it in for repair. The tone ID is either stable (singular metal, symmetric shaped target) or unstable (multi targets - e.g., mixed coin spill or multi alloyed target - e.g. bottlecap, irregular shape - can slaw), and solid (button, ring, coin) or hollow/distorted (e.g. can slaw) audio that's all I need out of the audio - visual aids can't achieve those nuances or are merely redundant to the audio. Plus it violates the KISS principle that is mostly embraced by the overall Equinox design (vs. the etrac and ctx). But perhaps I am misunderstanding the concept.
    2 points
  26. Is that a histogram of VDI's from the three frequencies? I'd be thrilled with just a single histogram of the digital TID's in a single mode with the Equinox. I try to do that in my head but we humans are so biased -- we see what we want to see.... Here is a mockup of what I'd like to see on the Eqx screen: You wouldn't need multiple channel outputs or audio signal processing. It could be done inside the Equinox now, possibly with a memory upgrade and of course some extra lines of code. Do the FBS detectors already do this?
    2 points
  27. I still think that this idea of using Equinox's sound output for graphic analysis of sound is still current ...👍 I still think that this idea of using Equinox's sound output for graphic analysis of sound is still current ... Although I have no problem using classic really good analog detectors / Tesoro Mojave, Vista Gold Gain, and Golden Mask-Coin killer / .. I still saw ... and I see with digital detectors that there is a possibility to achieve some progress in additional information not only from from the point of view of the VDI number itself but also with the additional Graphic signaling signal ... I have several detectors that also have a graphically showing identification signal ... / WHITES Spectra V3, AKA Signum MFD, Rutus ALTER 71 v.2, Minelab Etrac .. for which this graph definitely helps in the detection of so-called good signals .. Since Equinox does not have such a possibility of "graphic display of the signal ... one of the possibilities can be the use and display of audio in a 50-ton multitone to display this signal in a graphic sound analyzer. ...we can use the Whites Spectra V3 detector as a good example of the possibility of graphical signal display ...
    2 points
  28. Well done that man!!! RR
    1 point
  29. Here is the link to what I did, later in the post I used better software so the audio wasn't clipped. First recording were too hot. I used the wired audio jack for the headphones and plugged them into the microphone jack. Then using Audacity I recorded the audio as I passed different targets across the coil. Kept the swing speed as consistent as possible and same with distance. With the Tejon I used disc mode. All Metal VCO will show much more nuances but I don't usually hunt all metal on that machine. So to get a computer or other device to hear the proprietary bluetooth signal that most detector headphones use might be way more work than getting an audio headphone adapter.
    1 point
  30. Thanks for the links and information. I think your right about the Great Depression Era time period.
    1 point
  31. Wow. That needs to be put on a chain, not in a pocket, you'll lose it. 😀 What size is the token? You can get coin holders for just about any size and put 'em on a snake chain. They're called coin bezels. https://www.amazon.com/Sterling-Silver-Dollar-Bezel-Screw/dp/B0018AWKZO/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=coin+bezel&qid=1616932876&sr=8-10
    1 point
  32. I really got beat up over some of the things i thought the machine needed to improve on before the production model comes out. A few of those were fixed...... the battery was a huge one to me.... and still seems to be less than expected with Joe being able to do what they couldnt/wouldnt. I was kind of hoping for a 9" coil as well. Im still not certain we will see the machine in July as some have predicted. But hopefully you will get first choice on one Steve.
    1 point
  33. Some sweet finds there Mitchel- congrats!!!
    1 point
  34. I haven't had a lot of time to post lately because work has been picking up, so I added some pictures of my favorite of my better finds. So in my town there was a water main break last Friday and it shut down one of the main thoroughfare through town. I took the detour Saturday, and realized it took me past a park I had only detected once with the simplex. I hated this park because of intense emi, and few signals. There is no baseball backstop, no playground, no soccer goal, but every time I've driven past or stopped to watch, there has been someone throwing a ball for their dog. All week I have been wondering how the new equinox would do there. After work, I stopped by and started working in the area where I seen the dog owners stand. Found a bunch of change, a bunch of pull tabs, but on the 12th to 15th signal I got a solid 17 that just sounded too good to pass up. I started digging thinking it was a bottle cap, and ok it popped the 14k ring. Very next signal 10 feet away was the 925 horse ring. It came in at 28-29 and I was thinking quarter the whole time. All the other finds have been since getting the equinox early February.
    1 point
  35. Hi Jasong Our company owns an olimpus vanta. I have also used the Nitton gold3+ too. It costs $50 000 aud + extras so it a bit out of reach of the hobby prospector. For gold exploration you need the Rhodium xray tube as the accuracy with the other tubes (tungsten or silver) is very low on Au and PGM's. And a lot of the gold areas we are chasing have mostly free gold and little of the pathfinder elements accociated with them. Although the pathfinders are always elevated near the deposit in relation to the backgound norm for the areas, they may only have a small halo and this may only be slightly elevated. This is probably due to the large amount of water we get in such a little time here with our tropical wetseason. Which can render the pathfinders of little use to the explorer up here in parts of northern Australia. But in the more arid areas they are of much greater use. Our xrf has the gold and pathfinders suite but we also got the rare earth and base metals suite's too. But each program is expensive and an added extra. A suitable xrf is an essential tool in a modern technologically advanced exploration company. We have developed 2 special ways that we prepair our samples which increase the accuracy of the scanner and allow it to accuratly detect down in the lower end of its recomended minimum ppm. Our results closely mirror our assay results since developing these methods. Which further increased the usfulness and reliability of the xrf results for field use. The scanner saves the savvy user 1000's in assays and weeks in waiting time for assays which can be a real pain if you are in a remote location, as you may have to return after good results to resample a hot area further. It is much easier to be able to make on the spot decisions on the viability of further samples and when a hot area is discovered you can concentrate your efforts on that area rather than just taking grid samples and sending them to assay. There is also another technology that is of use to the modern gold explorer it is called LIBS. LIBS as an Emerging Analytical Tool for Mineral Exploration - SciAps https://www.sciaps.com/newly-published-research-libs-as-an-emerging-analytical-tool-for-mineral-exploration/ I am are looking at ways of increasing libs usefulness in gold exploration. Its limiting factor is that it only scans a very small area which can give you inaccurate results but Im trying to addapt the same technology but from a different sector where they use it in a different way that should prove very useful when addapted to exploration.
    1 point
  36. The first one that Joe showed is great I have used mine for years when bushwalking. It was more than great for digging holes for toilet use in all ground type. The titanium is super.
    1 point
  37. Here is the scoop that never found wet sand that it can't handle. If targets are deep this will go after them more easily than the pull scoop but for shallow targets it is too much.
    1 point
  38. Great. Could be educational for many!
    1 point
  39. That's well said, Steve and herein lies the power of this machine--in conjunction with the reject. I also think that this detector has good, clean optimization--and with practice--this will work well with the amount of audio detail. Those narrow clean high tones are "the money." cjc
    1 point
  40. Targets were still plentiful 6 wheats 4 silver coins a silver ring and a silver religious metal. It looks like they pushed the sand out in to the water. Cant forget this.
    1 point
  41. I don't want to derail the 6000 stuff so I will make it's own post when I get some time on it. XMET 7500 with a lot of mining calibrations installed. It was priced low enough I thought it might have been a scam, but it wasn't! Cheap enough I could put it on my CC like I was getting close to doing with a 6000.
    1 point
  42. Nice hunt and you got gold ! I hunted last weeks windstorm and scored 4 gold and $22in clad , along with some silver. That was an 8 hour hunt. Today , complete opposite. 2 beaches , 3.5 hours = 43 cents and an iPhone. Just bad. Looks like I may have to head a little more south ! Haha🤣
    1 point
  43. Personally, I am sick and tired of the slow drip feed of bullshit 25 second clips from Minelab that tell you almost nothing ! Whoever in marketing thinks that this is smart has lost the plot. I am more inclined now not to buy one, just on principle. Minelab are taking us for granted and treating us like mugs ! And I'm sorry JP, but no amount of defending Minelab will put this right. They are just taking the piss ! A once great small Australian company, that produced the goods in Australia, is now run by corporate bean counters and built overseas, where cheap labour will maximise profits. The Australian ( and seemingly US ) market are now being treated as second class citizens, where we don't even have the choice of what coil pack we get, and only one battery supplied ! This is the trouble when you have NO competition ! Rant over ! Rick
    1 point
  44. Reality is Minelab has been producing machines like clockwork, that, once the dust settles, deliver performance comparable to their position in the Minelab lineup. The question generally is not whether you will be using a Minelab to prospect for gold, but which Minelab you will be using. The GPX 6000 is positioned above the GPX 5000, but below the GPZ 7000. That should tell anyone who knows how the game works with Minelab all they need to know. Those people know this detector does not replace the GPZ 7000, but that Minelab considers it to be the next best thing to having a GPZ 7000. Anyone like me is already lined up to get a GPX 6000 based purely on that equation, along with weight and price. Others can stick with the 7000, safe in the knowledge that it’s still Minelab’s top offering. Minelab knows all this, and they also know they can’t make these fast enough to satisfy demand in Africa for at least the next year, let alone any for us. If you accept any of this as near reality, then you will see that, in general, every dollar spent promoting the GPX 6000, is a dollar wasted. It does not matter what Minelab does, and in fact they need do nothing else. No testers need to report, no more information. Nothing. The machine will still sell, early buyers will give it a thumbs up (that’s all that matters), so instead Minelab is making efforts to actually produce and deliver the machine. Marketing can blow it completely, and still come up smelling like a rose. That’s the problem. They do whatever, machines sell.... why change? That’s reality. Another is that I’m angling for a production model of the GPX 6000 as soon as I can lay hands on one. I think it’s safe to say the units seen so far are not production models, but hand assembled preproduction units shipped out for promotional purposes. The real deal is yet to come. Minelab GPX 6000 Data & Reviews
    1 point
  45. Whether or not @EL NINO77 misspoke I still think it's an interesting concept, and hearing folks such as yourself explain that you can in fact sometimes hear a differentiating audio signal between similar looking targets leads me to believe that there are subtle differences that might be readily obvious with spectrum analysis, if not to an untrained ear. I think one immediate issue is that while the equinox can connect to headphones with Bluetooth, is not clear whether you could make a connection to say a computer or smartphone the same way.
    1 point
  46. So it is either a large mono or as concentric would it be similar to the dual field more than an actual concentric coil? You lifting weights during the lock down to get into shape to swing that beast? :)
    1 point
  47. So it has its own dedicated toggle switch to switch between the modes? What setting do you use on the GPX itself - DD? And what happens if you reposition the the coil switch on the GPX control box to Cancel/Mono? Can it be used in noise cancel mode, too? It also talks about a mineralization mode - what's that? Very littlle information on the website itself.
    1 point
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