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I normally don't dig for bottles but when my Brother-In-Law told me about all the glass they were seeing at this site, I decided to go take a look. The site dates from and the bottle we were digging are from 1850's to about 1900. Nothing real valuable came out but there were some real heartbreakers (broken bottles) like log cabin bitters, California bitters and a few others. We also recovered marbles, coins and tokens, but nothing real exciting to mention specifically. We used a trenching method to recover the bottles. There was about 8-10 inches of topsoil then a layer of trash that extended down to about 3 feet deep. We would dig about a 3 foot by 3 foot hole straight down and then start trenching and backfilling as we went. Between the 4 people that were there I would guess we recovered about 150 bottles. I will say I'm feeling it this morning after digging about 9 hours over the weekend. Hope to get back there again next weekend and I'll post my finds of that trip next week. Pictured below are the bottles I recovered.

Only an Aussie could pull this one off! A true story from the Mount Isa in Queensland. Recently a routine Police patrol car parked outside a local neighbourhood pub. Late in the evening the officer noticed a man leaving the bar so intoxicated that he could barely walk. The man stumbled around the car park for a few minutes, with the officer quietly observing. After what seemed an eternity and trying his keys on five vehicles. The man managed to find his car, which he fell into. He was there for a few minutes as a number of other patrons left the bar and drove off. Finally he started the car, switched the wipers on and off (it was a fine dry night). Then flicked the indicators on, then off, tooted the horn and then switched on the lights. He moved the vehicle forward a few cm, reversed a little and then remained stationary for a few more minutes as some more vehicles left. At last he pulled out of the car park and started to drive slowly down the road. The Police officer, having patiently waited all this time, now started up the patrol car, put on the flashing lights, promptly pulled the man over and carried out a random breathalyser test. To his amazement the breathalyser indicated no evidence of the man's intoxication. The Police officer said "I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the Police station - this breathalyser equipment must be broken." "I doubt it," said the man, "tonight I'm the designated decoy". Do you have a designated drive (not decoy) system in USA.

When you are pushing the edge, that’s the trade you make, and probably where Equinox gets its particular edge. It’s hard to get the best performance while also being stable. The Apex is priced such that stability makes sense, as it is more likely to hit first time users. The Equinox chirpiness puts some people off, but learning to ride the edge with a little noise is where I get what advantage I might have when it comes to detecting. Apex is a trained horse, where Equinox is more bucking bronco.

Funny how different people like different things. I really like the rod on the Apex, though Garrett could upgrade the twist locks. Only brand I’ve seen where those have to be assembled on arrival. But once done, they work. I think the rod is exceptionally stout, no wiggle. The grip and my hand get on just fine. I prefer S rods on detectors under three pounds, so good there. There is actually very little not to like about the Apex, and I am happy to hear this one had a bad coil. My own use of the Apex has been pretty positive, and had me scratching my head in puzzlement at some of the negative reports. Batch of bad coils? Anyway, good news, and inspired me to order my own 5x8 Ripper coil this morning. From my use, that seems like it would be a perfect match for the machine.

Good news, I have eventually received my Apex back from the European Garrett support ... 🙂 My seller ( Bruno at Lutece detection in Paris ) told me that the pb ( false signals etc see above ) came from a faulty coil . So I received my Apex with a brand new Viper coil , plus a 5X8 Ripper coil that Bruno asked me to test. I decided to restart the tests from the beginning with the static tests on my tests boxes / different targets at different depths. The results were good for both coils , but I decided to try first the Ripper in the field , because I have been very impressed by its light weight ( 330g instead of 400g for the Viper ) and I like light machines ... And also because in france we often detect in iron infested sites , the Viper is a little too big for that and for me the Ripper has the perfect size for searching small/very small coils in nail beds .. So I went to one of my favorite testing locations , a wood near a small town . The soil there is infested with iron trash dating from the medieval up to modern times. A very good place for testing machines in a very difficult iron trashed environment. I will give more details in a new thread , but to summarize the Apex + Ripper have done an excellent job 🙂 . First the Apex has an excellent iron filtering , it was almost silent on the nail bed , just beeping on the good targets , very impressive . The Apex is also very fast , it is much more reactive than a Vanquish or even an Equinox . The signals on targets are very sharp and accurate , perhaps a little too sharp btw , but it is just a matter of getting used to the audio I think . Also the wireless headphones MS3 Zlynk are excellent , no latency and very reliable. For info I used the MF mode during all this test No treasure found during this short outing, mainly 1st WW rubbish , but again I have been very impressed by the Apex with the ripper coil. Clearly at Garretts they have designed/tested the Apex to work on high iron trash environments., as stated in their Apex marketing brochure. And it looks like they have done a very good job ... Just a few things that I do not like , for example the shaft which is clearly outdated Now I need to confirm all this and detect more hours with the Apex to check that everything is ok , no more falsing etc , I will detail all this in the new dedicated thread ... A few pics below , the Apex with a Quest X5 , the Viper and the Ripper coils , the Apex + Ripper weight , and the wood ..

Not far from here is an old town on the north fork of the Feather River with a fabulous history. One of the few residents there posted a sign "Welcome to Rich Bar. A quaint drinking town with a mining problem". I, being a very self disciplined prospector, only drink when I'm depressed because I found no gold or when I celebrate because I found gold.

This is where having a relationship with a good dealer pays off. Weird. I pounded the table for this 5x10 coil from day one, but I guess when I gave up a year ago, after waiting over two years, I really just gave up. I might end up with one someday, but after three years, I find I don’t care that much any more. In sales it’s important for manufacturers to be there when the customers wants them. Timing. For coils, Minelab, and I, timing has been a miss more often than not as of late. I sold my GPZ 7000 due to lack of coils, and these coils I did without long enough that I can probably continue to do so. If there is one area Minelab is really irritating it’s best customers, it’s coils.

Me and my buddies did back when we were in the Army. It wasn't the police that worried us too much back then it was our First Sergeant. He made it very clear what would happen if we got thrown in jail. He had this 4 foot by 4 foot hole 3 feet deep. Your punishment was to move that hole until he got tired of telling you where he wanted it this was after your regular duties plus whatever crap he had for you.

Yes .. They are Russians ... who make these modifications to the coils on Equinox .., I give a link to this page ... it's an interesting option in case .. if you need a coil of a certain size .. http://foxmd.ru/index.php?route=product/category&path=20_44_93. ....On the other hand, there is Coiltek who started producing 3 new different large coils for Equinox ...- you are buying a new coil ... without additional costs.

You got that right, Steve. Thanks to Keith at Ft. Bedford Detectors. Testing the 10x5 out this week. So far I love this thing... Since I now have a decent multipurpose compact coil and not a ridiculous hockey puck on my collapsible Equinox backpack rig, I see a 6 inch round coil ending up on the classifieds very soon.

Since the pinpointer will react to any change in ground phase above it's initial refrence point (established when you turn on the pinpointer), about the only conclusion you can draw from your observation is that the clay probably has a higher degree of ground reactivity than your topsoil. However, whether that reactivity is due to ferrimagnetic mineralization (most likely) or another mineral, the type of ferrimagnetic mineralization (magnetite, the most common, or maghemite), and the absolute level of mineralization (none, low, medium, high) is anyone's guess. The only way to know for sure is to use a standalone mineralization meter or a detector with a built-in mineralization meter that indirectly measures magnetite levels in soil such as the higher end Fishers and Teknetics detectors, Deus, and some of the Noktas like the Simplex. HTH.

Wish I'd heard of this scheme while still in high school.

Yes it is for me what makes the difference for me beween the Apex and the ML mulifreqs ( Vanquish , Equinox , Etrac ... ). the Apex is almost silent in high iron trashed areas while the MLs are noisy and quite unstable there . On the other hand the MLs seem to be deeper than the Apex on big coins in low/medium iron trashed areas

Nice looking bottles, was it an old junk yard or trash site? Kind of unusual to find so many items in one spot like that isn't it? Good Hunting and good luck on your next outing.

So what caused it to break away? Here is more on that theory. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/remains-impact-created-moon-may-lie-deep-within-earth

I want some Swamp Root! Might fix my knees, back, shoulder and even give my MK an extra 4" in depth! Awesome finds. Love the old snake oil bottles. Generations from now all they will have is plastic bottles of miracle meds like prevogen to help with memory that all the users are vague on exactly when they first started taking it 🙂

Hey Glenn, Just to put my money where my mouth is 😀 I just put this together today. 1mm Snake chain, bezel for a Mercury Dime, and of course the only other American silver coin I've found so far in my area than a Trime which they don't make a bezel for. This will be for good luck at the beach. I wish the coin wasn't stained but here we are. 🙄 Didn't want to get too aggressive on it.

We got permission to hunt a park that use to be a Girl Scout camp from the 1920's to the 1990's when it closed down.The head caretaker of the park is a great guy and gave us the green light to detect there.We gave him a few scout relics which he would put in the park museum and he was very grateful for are finds.He told us that one capsule was found but a old farmer said a other one was still missing and gave us the area it could be in.It is probably from the 30's or 40's.I think the one is in a museum around here and we hope to see what it is made of.Have any of you heard of other Scout capsules and what could be in them ?I hope they are detectable.If not we could still stumble on to some silver coins or rings for a consolation prize. If found we will give the capsule to the caretaker to be put in a museum.

I had to look that up. Very nice I wish they sold that style here in the US.

Given that's about as difficult of an 'opponent' to defeat as there is, this doesn't really sound negative at all to me. (Also, you've shown in previous posts regarding other detectors that you are a tough grader when it comes to weight and balance. 😁) That is the most intriguing part of your report, IMO. I'm pretty sure Monte has an Apex in his arsenal and I hope he brings it to Wells in June. Either way I'll be interested in hearing his opinion on this capability. Thanks, palzynski, for your objective review.

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!

Concerning the rod , I prefer the Vanquish or Deus telescopic rods . They are faster to assemblei in the field. They can be adjusted very precisely and they are lighter than the Apex rod, at least for the Deus. Just my opinion A quick summary of the Apex pros and cons from my standpoint : ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - The things that I like about the Apex : . excellent iron filtering on iron trashed areas . fast and reactive/accurate on targets . sensitive to tiny targets like small/very small coins as well as bigger ones ( multifrequency ) . the thin control box . simple to use . the excellent MS3 wireless headphones . the excellent Ripper coil - The things that I do not like about the Apex : . the rod . the weight/balance which is good but not as good as a Deus or Orx: ( Apex ripper 1140g , Apex viper 1210g , Deus Orx 800g ) . no dedicated backlight button . the running freq mode ( 5,10,15,20, MF or MS) not displayed on the main detection screen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So globally the results are largely positive up to now .... to be confirmed with more tests ... Ha yes my seller told me he has now a few Apex customers having the false signal issue. He thinks that Garrett had a pb with some of the first hundreds of Apex delivered to customers ... But he does not know exactly the technical reason . Apart from that the weather is warm over here , 22 celsius deg today ... 🙂

If performance is very close to the nox, and its priced a bit less, and has a great selection of coils, they could steal a chunk of nox sales. The simplex sure is a big bang for the buck. I wish them well.

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.

Whoa! That is some great glass there Abenson!! They look to be in perfect condition for the age. The Great Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root is my fav!! Of course, my last name is Root, so that may be why 😉.

Welcome sapper, Good to have you on board! Lots to learn! Make room for some Yanks up there, if things continue here on there current path!🤣 Good luck!👍👍

Time for some deep fried cicadas!! "Shrimp of the trees", yum!!👌👍👍

Welcome to the forum - nice little nugget If I was going to Southeast Alaska, I would take the Gold Monster before the GPX 5000. The gold in the region is generally very small, and in general it’s hard rock country, not placer. Glacial terrain, high mineral coastal belt. The mineralization calls for a PI, but a GPX 5000, no matter what coil, will never match a good VLF on small gold. A GPX 5000, I would get either an 8” Commander Mono, or Nugget Finder 6x8 Sadie Coil, and try to run Sensitive Extra The problem with small gold is you need a hot detector. But a hot detector struggles with bad ground and hot rocks. It’s a balancing act. Sensitive Extra may be too hot for your area, so use Fine Gold instead. It can handle the hottest ground, but it misses more gold than Sensitive Extra. And the fact is neither setting on a GPX 5000 will be good on the smallest gold, that a Gold Monster can easily hit. Frankly, I’d go SDC 2300 before GPX 5000 for your region. With an eye on the new GPX 6000. But for working with what you have, I’d grab Gold Monster first. If the ground defeats it, then GPX 5000 with Sadie coil. Glacial terrain offers complex challenges for metal detecting, with gold almost anywhere or nowhere. Glaciers are like bulldozers, mixing and making a mess of everything. Placers are very new, generally lean. Learn about things like moraines and eskers, and study where water flows around existing glaciers for clues. Gold placers can exist in lateral moraines halfway up valley walls. Like I say, use your imagination, and put the coil over everything. Good luck! Glaciers and Gold

Sorry to hear that cudamark. My AQ was in for repair for quite awhile but it is back in my hands now. Fisher told me they replaced the complete electronics. I had a little surgery the day after I received the AQ and that has kept me away from hunting, but am just getting back into the swing of things again. I have a total of 8 hours on the wet sand with it and all is well. Good luck!

To me, the most important part of Dilek's video was her clearly stating that the new Nokta Makro simultaneous multi frequency detector is being built to be a direct competitor of the Equinox. She also made it clear without naming names that Nokta Makro does not consider the unnamed Garrett APEX as a viable competitor for the new Nokta Makro SMF detector. I hope Nokta Makro is right in their assessment of their new SMF detector. That would be great for a more competitive market and for us most of all. I have always been extremely impressed with Nokta Makro's detectors. I don't currently own one but I have owned five of them in the past and they are outstanding.........just not as outstanding where I detect as the two detectors she discussed in the video without mentioning names (Equinox and Deus). So, do I save a little money and buy the Nokta Makro SMF or get a personal loan/sell a car/dip into my retirement/or sell all of my personal belongings (except my detectors) for the GPX 6000?

That is interesting! I wonder now how much I have been missing in the farms because of the deep negative numbers. 🤔 Probably a good thing, there will be more for me this fall. Rest assured I will dig everything where I'm going. High potential for historic items in one place. Just not sure about large holes... I don't think there will be black sand. I've never had a problem with EMI. The only time I have ever heard it here is when I am over a buried power line, that is common here. Kind of a good thing! I keep my cellphone in my back pocket and only hear it when I am taking a photo of my find. Thanks for your replies! You have a great toolbox there.

I was able to find an Audiosears 2463 headphone speaker and after installing it and resoldering all the connections, the Sunray Pro Gold headphones work great. Total cost, not counting my time, was about $24 versus the $130 or so online.

We're well beyond the Equinox 900. Now that ML raised the price to $949 MAP, I think we're talking the Equinox 950, now.

I guess for some people, with certain applications and/or with mid-size to larger-size targets to go after, some of the 'aftermarket' search coils might be helpful. For me and the types of places I usually hunt, big-size coils are not the answer. Helpful at times, yes, but not when a location has too many targets, too closely spaced and at varying depths. I know we can'r simply go by a coil brand or model / size just because a similar coil worked OK on a different make & model due to different circuitry. In this case, I used to evaluate and use several Detech coils on Minelab FBS series models, and most of them were okay. But I tried a 13" Ultimate on a couple of other brand detectors and didn't care for the weight and balance, nor the performance. I've used some bigger-size NEL coils, a brand I like better, but the coil and detector were not a good match for the location I worked. To me it is interesting to see how many people gravitate to larger-size search coils. With the Apex and for the variety of urban and remote places I go, I'm comfortable with the Ripper mounted on one unit as a general-purpose coil. I'll give the NEL 5" 'Sharp'some serious time and most likely it will fill a void and be mounted on my 2nd Apex. For open grassy parks or hitting a plowed field, the new 'Raider' DD is likely to be my coil-of-choice and I don't see a larger-size coil providing me much improvement n smaller-size coins and the like. I am going to check out a few aftermarket coils n some 'depth tests' on US coins, but I am not holding out hopes of improvement. Monte

December 2022 Update: Main new release thread is below, please post there, instead of this year and a half old thread. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/20419-equinox-900-new-release-info/ What is known about this rumor that is being talked about in a Facebook group?

The issue with counterfeit metal detectors is getting bad. eBay in particular is full of them. Amazon not as bad but they are there. If you Google for lowest pricing, you will find scammers. Be careful buying used now, could just be a front for a scammer. Fake Gold Bugs Destroyed It’s pretty simple. Metal detector products generally have enforced minimum advertised prices. That’s the price you see most often and at all the legitimate sites. It’s the price I list in the Detector Database. Anybody pretending to be a dealer and selling the item for significantly less is likely to be a scam. Either accept that you have to deal with legitimate dealers selling at the higher prices, or find yourself a scammer selling for less. If all you care about is finding the lowest price on the internet, you WILL get ripped off. Well, not really. It’s voluntary. I am deleting all the links to these rip off sites when people post them. Outfits like King Detectors or Alibaba. The links below list a lot of them. I don’t mind identifying them by name but I do not want to advertise for them with links. Just accept that they are out there. Thanks. However, there can also be scammers selling at the minimum advertised price and really making a killing. All manufacturers have lists of legitimate dealers on their websites. You want to stay safe, stick with those. Just a tip however. They can sell for less than the advertised prices... just call them and find your best deal. Tell them you don’t need the “free stuff”, you just want their best deal. Genuine Bounty Hunter Metal Detector Dealers Genuine Fisher Metal Detector Dealers Genuine Garrett Metal Detector Dealers Genuine Minelab Metal Detector Dealers Genuine Nokta/Makro Metal Detector Dealers Genuine Teknetics Metal Detector Dealers Genuine XP Metal Detector Dealers (U.S.) Genuine XP Metal Detector Dealers (International)

PART ONE: Pictured below are four gold specimens that I have found and I will discuss what methods I use to remove the host rock revealing mother nature's treasure. I gave each specimen a "letter" designation so you can follow the progress from start to finish on each specimen. Part Two I will discuss the chemicals and equipment I use to clean gold or mineral specimens.

For sure on that! A schematic would be a life saver. I could draw one up but it would take a fair bit of time to do it. I just don't have one to reverse engineer. Trouble is with the ST is what I have seen as at current here in the photo posted, they are SMD which makes it tougher to do. I have attempted to track down this info myself and spent a good amount of time to come up with NOTHING yet. Someone has to have this info but finding out who is the deal and it would probably require a subscription fee to access that info. I used to have that kind of access years ago when I was doing repair work on electronics, I gave that up because a lot of the time it cost more to fix stuff then it did to replace it. The ST has a bunch of additional circuitry for the auto track which has made it much more complicated, and the parts are much smaller too, things are a lot more crowded on the board.

JoeD, had to google Blue Def to see what you meant, now I see, we are just a wee bit behind (or is that ahead) in that stuff but tis getting us too. DPF is currently OK here, but not for long. Go back only 10 years diesel was deemed better for the eco than petrol/gas, but their all doomed, whilst I`ll probably not live to have an all electric powered 4WD, I can just drool over their capabilities once refined with an electric motor on each wheel, no diffs, gearbox etc hanging underneath to get caught up, be able to climb an electric power pole, well nearly.😉

I agree. There are a couple rods better than the Apex rod. Maybe 100 that are worse. You are not saying the Apex rod is bad, just not as good as the best of the best. I’m certain most people used to most other detectors would find the Apex rod to be in the upper tiers. How’s that sound? I think we both in general like the Apex, so that’s three people anyway (counting Monte).

Very good info! Thanks. Looks like I will be digging more - numbers at the beach! Your digging reminds me of the experiment Tom Dankowski did. HH

My sister was a Girl Scout and they placed a time capsule in the ground. She gave a scarf with a bolo into it. So you may have enough metal inside one to find it. Good luck on finding it.

Nice to have you on DP Sapper, Hope all of us can help with all your questions. Looking forward to your input here. Thanks for joining.

It hasn't been underwater yet, so, I doubt that it's a leak, but, who knows, I do rinse it off after every use.

This is photo of what my circuit board looked like on the Lobo ST. The pot circled in red is the ground balance pot. The one next to it is a disc pot. On mine I marked the ground balance pot before I turned it counter clockwise. I turned it a little less than 1/2 way. In my mild ground with the 8" concentric coil it would hit my 10" test dime.

Even though there are obvious limitations with anayzing audio signals from detectors, there are definitely implications that could benefit the hearing impared in this hobby. I'm about chest deep into this now and working on some possible useable solutions. As I make initial builds and testing, I will post my observations. I will also post all of the instructions and list of parts and where to find them so that anyone can make it or help in the progression of this idea. I'm also trying to keep the builds as simple and cost effective as possible so everyone can to do this if they want to.

always leave a space on the basement floor... cjc

How about they just get the Pulse Induction part right. With the imminent release of the GPX 6000 which is like Minelab's umpteenth generation of PI and Multi IQ which is their 4th generation of simultaneous multifrequency, no one is even in the same league as ML at the moment. One step at a time. The Minelab GPX 5000 and forthcoming Fisher Impulse AQ both incorporate very effective implementations of ferrous discrimination/rejection, BTW. Nokta is one of the few detector companies innovating right now, but it really surprised me (and perhaps Nokta themselves) that Garrett beat them to being the first besides ML of late to release a new simultaneous frequency machine with the Ace Apex. Hopefully, that is motivating Nokta to eclipse the Garrett offering with something really compelling as a counter to Equinox.

Steve what were your other settings if you remember? and were you using tracking ground balance? On thing I've learned about the Tarsacci is it's usually better to have it run stable than push it. At the point the machine becomes bubbly (hard to explain) it's time to back off either the Threshold or sensitivity. I personally like to decrease sensitivity down first because reducing threshold takes away from the target (Ability to hear deep targets). Yes black sand seems to reduce the transmission voltage as every time I've used it On vs OFF when comparing signals from targets, On always sounds worse. Another thing is I always salt balance even if it doesn't make sense for the area you are using it. Salt balance coupled with ground balance can be used to manipulate the Tarsacci to do some cool stuff. A discussion for some other time. But to answer your question no I have not had my Tarsacci audio completely shut down. I have had it blank out momentarily but I always thought that was my wireless headphones losing connection and maybe it was.

Agree, but the Apex is not the one worth jumping ship for. Hopefully, 2nd gen addresses the shortcomings (tone limitations, recovery), but they appear to be brand fixtures at this point. Rooting for Garrett to prove me wrong, because having multiple coil options is a great thing.