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I'm at an RV resort on the outer fringes of North Carolina this week, since metal detecting is both allowed and encouraged here I brought the Equinox with the 10x5. I've only been out there for a few hours. The first beach I went to is kinda remote. It's huge and doesn't have a lot of visitors. Got out there early, and searched the rock/shell line. In a couple of hours and about a mile of walking I found one Roosevelt Dime (2014) and a 3oz "frog" sinker, popular for surf fishing on the east coast. People come to this beach mostly for shells and to fish. Last week we had Tropical Storm Elsa that not only kept people out of the water, but because it came from land and went out to sea it seemed to have covered more than it uncovered. There were double red flags that kept everyone out of the water for over a week. They put up the yellow flags yesterday. If you swim or even go in the water on the double red you will be arrested. This morning was a little better, I went to the beach here at the park. Walked again about a mile. There are some hotels up here and a pier, from research this place gets hit pretty hard. I saw one other person with a Garrett AT at one of the hotels just hunting the upper beach. I've been going out at low tide and walking one way at chest height to high tide, (the rock line) and back at knee height, the idea being that most people will just go to the waters' edge. Haven't gone in the water as yet, and haven't searched the areas that people sit. There is a pretty high tide here, but not as bad as Savannah. Probably about 5 feet or so. Finds were all deep. Anyone who says the Coiltek 10x5 doesn't go deep should probably rethink their settings. Almost every coin I dug took 3 or more scoops, and pinpoint with a composite trowel to retrieve. This one was one of the easiest, a nickel about 10" down. This trip I've been alternating between Park 1 and Beach 1. The beach is so clean I don't have to worry about much trash. Sensitivity cranked to 24, no EMI. Ground balance runs from 1 to about 18, I change it as soon as I hear any noise, there is some black sand. I can use Park 1 where the sand is dry. Iron balance is F2=3 so there goes the myth that IB reduces depth 😀 on the 600 that's max. I tested it because of something Chase wrote saying it pushed bottle caps out of the "Digem" range and indeed it does. You get about a 12/13 with a loud iron tone. I dug 2 for fun and proof, I knew what they were. This is the trash I didn't toss. There were some cans but not many, and some large pieces of metal that gave 30s tones that were too heavy to carry. There are trash cans everywhere. Here are the finds so far, all modern clad and a fishing lure that was probably over 12" deep. Should have photographed the hole. The clean quarters were dug at chest height, the cruddy stuff all at knee height to the high tide line. I'm not finding that I have to swing much more with the 10x5, I have my 11" with me but may not bother to use it. This coil is like a razor and ground balances really well. Hope to find some gold!

I figured I'd start a post on my impressions of the 6000 as I learn how to apply it to limited relic hunting and beach hunting. I've put it here so I don't bore the prospector guys with coin/ relic hunting pictures 😄 Their pictures are much better than mine will ever be. So, today I paired the headphones. Took me a bit, but I have never been one to pair things quickly. Tried both the 11" mono and 14" DD coil in my back yard. Mono was noisy as expected in an area with a lot of close houses. Noise cancel did help but not for long. 14DD took care of most EMI, especially if you back down sensitivity a couple of notches. I tried burying a Mercury dime at 10" and the 14DD hit it just barely. A signal I could easily miss. I was running manual full sensitivity. Not bad for a freshly buried coin with fairly heavy EMI. I bought it for the beach, so I'm expecting more depth there. I did not try the mono on the dime. I did notice it hits every small wire from all the fences that were in the yard over the years. Headphones feel nice but sound a bit muddy to me. I'll need more time with them to see if I can get used to them. I like a little crisper defined tone and don't like muddy bottom end frequencies.Tomorrow I'm at the Native village. This is the first test for the 6000 for what I bought it for. If there are any minute scraps of brass there it should find them. The 5000 was able to only find a couple of 2x3mm brass beads, probably due to just getting the coil directly over them at the correct speed and them being shallow @2in. There should be more there. My reservations for the machine are still the same, lack of control of settings is my primary worry. In the fall will be the second reason for the 6000, deep coin hunting at the beach in EMI. I probably will never use this in a park or cellar hole. It loves iron. I'm still trying to figure out the tipping point where the signal changes from high to low - to low to high. On the 5000 it's around the zinc penny range. Getting excited to spend around 5-6 hours at the Village. Pictures to follow. Wish me luck 😄......😶

Using GPX6000 at Tibooburra NSW 11" mono, Auto +, threshold on, I found 0.5 grams at about 250mm (10 inches). sounded clear as a bell. Not sure why the tester could not pick up 1.0 gram piece at 200mm. I have become use to the threshold noises of Auto+ and am now confident that i will hear the sound which tells me to slow down and have another wave - once i do this its like the detector is saying, ok - he wants me to have a good look at this spot - and the signal gets louder if its a target. Is that the Geo Sense?

Aircraft have transponders. radio transmitter-responder. to assist in identifying them on air traffic control radar. detectors pick up the signal. as long as im posting, here is a pic of today's gold.

I was fortunate to be able to attend the 13th Welcome to Hunt Outing (WTHO) in Northeast Nevada (Wells locale) this past month. A bit of background (from what I know, which may not be totally accurate): Monte Berry began these in 2015, taking people to ghost towns that he had been detecting for decades. As you can see from the numbers there have been about two per year, most at a handful of sites in Elko County, NV (the extreme Northeast county of the state), but a couple were other states such as Oregon and Utah. Unfortunately due to his recent move from Oregon to Texas, Monte was unable to attend but he turned the reigns over to a quite qualified (and I say that now from experience) Oregon Gregg (member here). This year four ghost towns were on the rotation. I'm not going to list their names since I don't know if this is public knowledge, nor do I know for sure who owns them, etc. (I know that one is on private property but not sure about the others.) The four have several things in common. GT1 is the oldest and was a railroad town back when the USA and its territories were first tied together by the TransContinental RR in the late 1860's. GT2 was also built on the RR around the turn of the century. GT3 was a real estate development (speculation) started around 1910. GT4 was another RR town which was also established around the same time -- late in the first decade of the 20th Century. I'll give a bit more info as a go through my itinerary. One other thing these four towns have in common, and likely in common with thousands of Western ghost towns -- they grew voraciously in their first few years (meaning 5 years or less) and then started declining. The decline took longer (20-30 years, ballpark) as there always seem to be a few individuals who get comfortable enough they don't want to move on and rebuild. But "boom and bust" really does a good job of describing these and many others in the Western USA. Day 1 (Tuesday 8 June). I arrived a day early compared to the initial start date and Oregon Gregg and Utah Rich (another member here) had been around doing preliminary investigating and detecting since the weekend. They invited me to meet them just of I-80 at an exit near GT1 and GT2. I followed Gregg to those while Rich took a different route. After showing me GT2 Gregg said that he and Rich would be detecting GT1 that day so I followed him there. I spent 6 consecutive hours in the near Soltice baking sun getting a feel for that site, the oldest and from what I've heard, most productive as far as old coins of the four in this year's rotation. I was swinging the Fisher F75 w/4"x6" concentric coil and getting lots of non-ferrous (as well as some ferrous) hits. Most of what I was recovering was in the first 3 inches of the surface which Gregg told me is typical. I spent most of my time between the foundation of a hotel and the railroad (still in operation), hoping that was a path used frequently by tired, careless travelers. Here's a photo of my 'finds': Don't get too excited. I'm new at this Ghost Town detecting and still learning (at the elementary level). I've arranged things in five columns. Leftmost are mostly utilitarian copper & alloy items -- plumbing pieces, electrical fixtures, copper wire. The top of column 2 are melted "sand cast" lead pieces, most of which were found close to the RR tracks. Fires were very common back then (just ask San Francisco) and possibly these occurred during one of those. But I learned that lots of metal (especially raw forms) fell from RR cars so maybe that is their origin. Lower part of 2nd column are various other misc. metal (unknown composition) pieces. The third column is the most interesting (note, 'most interesting' is relative ). Bottom left is what others in the group thought might have come off a cast iron stove. It has the word 'July' imprinted in block letters. Above it is a broken rose headed spike. Directly above that is a leather piece with a circular brass disk embedded in it. A piece of horse tack or possibly something worn by a human? Above that is some kind of suspender buckle, I think. (This gets an asterisk since Gregg noticed it sitting on top of the ground and tossed it to me.) Top disk appears to be the back of a watch/timepiece. Fourth column is the usual bullets, casings, and one cartridge. At the very top is a copper scrap which I think was likely a jacket (of a large bullet!). Last column is misc. bits that I haven't ID'ed. Most of the attendees spent nearly their full time at this GT1, hoping for old coins, I guess. The above was my only day there. Several of us met at the Iron Skillet restaurant at the Petro Truck Stop in Wells for dinner that evening. This is the standard meeting spot each dinnertime for anyone who wants to jaw between mouthfulls of chicken fried steak, etc. Days 2&3 (Wed-Thu). Utah Rich was kind enough to take a few of us to GT3 on Wednesday morning. This is the most unique of the four towns since it was a Real Estate development (boondoggle) that didn't make it. The carrot for attracting residents was the building of a large reservoir which could then be used for irrigation. Problem is that those living downstream didn't take kindly to their water source being cut off and won in the courts. Although a town was laid out which was planned to house 25,000 residents (how's that for optimism?), in reality fewer than 1000 ever took up residence, and that number likely included many who lived on farms nearby, not in the town itself. Still, there was a fancy hotel, historic schoolhouse, "entertainment center", church, and several homes built as well as a railroad spur. When the downstream residents put a stop to the utopian dam the gig was up and in less than 2 years the population topped out and quickly started declining. Here's a photo of my finds for those two days (first day with above F75 setup and second day with ML Equinox and 6" DD): Highlights include the only old coin (Wheatie) I found over the five days in NE Nevada (more on that later), a Model-T hubcap (likely from the 1920's, but I haven't got it dated for sure), and right above it another Ford embossed (but unknown) part. As you hear about every detecting site (regardless of type of detecting) -- some say this town is hunted out. The ring shaped item with three mounting holes (near the left edge of the photo) came up a clean 28-30 on the Equinox, which is solid in the silver zone between dime and quarter. Who rejects digging that? It's actually a brass closet rod hangar (and, yes, I was disappointed). Regarding weather, the second of these two days was the windiest day I've ever detected, with sustained wins 20-30 mph and gusts over 40 mph, all day long. The temp only got up to about 60 F (15 C) and I wore a sweatshirt and denim jacket most of the day. This was only a week before the Western USA's first heat wave (highs over 100F = 38C in most of Western 1/4 - 1/3 of the Continental USA). I didn't complain about the cool temps even before I had to deal with that! Great sleeping weather as I was 'camping' in the back of my Jeep Compass. Days 4-5 (Friday-Saturday) -- I got in a bit of early morning detecting at GT3 (note: I mentioned in an earlier post here that I successfuly used my magetic rake to clear both dead vegetation and iron bits before detecting a spot I had covered previously). Then we broke camp and moved to GT4, another railroad town from the early part of the 20th Century. Here's the haul from that one: The large chunk at upper left is some kind of RR scrap. Tiny (jewelry) ring on left and rusty denim button at at bottom will be detailed shortly. Note the (German) Hohner harmonica housing piece at lower left. You can't see it in this photo but it had a lot of marking, including dates of awards from the 1920's. I don't know if the reed in the upper right is from it, but I think I found it several hundred meters away, so likely not. Now for a closeup of the most interesting finds from GT3 & GT4: Top two items are from old clothing -- left is a Lee button (likely off blue jeans) with their slogan "can't bust 'em" which an internet search reveals was first used in the 1940's, so this was likely from a railroad worker and not a town resident of GT4. The small brass/bronze rivet (from GT3) says "L.S. & Co S.F." for Levi Straus & Company, San Francisco. Again the internet clued me in that this particular rivet (the saying started earlier, BTW) is from early in the 20th Century. The middle two items didn't photo as well as I'd liked. RH is the Ford embossed broken piece of metal from GT3. Left is my only ghost town coin (not counting a very disappointing Zincoln -- damn railroad workers, or should I blame previous detectoris?). After hearing and reading so many stories here at detectorprospector.com of -S and -CC (Western mints) mintmarked coins from the 19th and early 20th Century I was optimistic this Wheatie was going to be an early -S minted semi-key. Imagine my disappointment when I got home and was able to see '1919' (no mintmark). That happens to be the highest mintage Lincoln cent minted prior to 1940, a span of 31 years! And it came all the way from Philadelphia!! What a disappointment. Lower left is a 45 caliber steel jacketed WCC 42 cartridge from GT4. Again, an internet search showed that the '42' meant it was made in 1942. The current mystery is a) whether or not it was military issue, and b) why it is steel jacketed lead. I doubt this was dropped recently (look at the patina) but as to whether a GI dropped it on his way to fight Hitler or it has a less romantic story (hunter who bought them by the gross at a surplus store) will probably never be known. Finally, the child's ring found near the train station at GT4. Rang up a solid, consistent 12 (USA nickel TID) on the Equinox with 11" coil, depth in the 2"-3" range. I thought I handled it carefully but it broke, showing strong orange interior (copper) so it's silver plated. The 'stone' looks like glass to me. Still my best find, and recovered near the most frequently hunted spot in that town -- right next to the train depot (now just a foundation). Was I really the first person to get my coil over it? The comaraderie was enjoyable although besides my sister and partner, only Mike from Alaska, Tom from Arizona, and Mike from Utah detected the towns I was in at the times I was in those. Most everyone (22 was the unofficial count, I think) concentrated on the oldest (GT1) town. The round-the-dinner-table discussions were the pleasurable social hour. There were a few old coins found, including a seated dime and a seated quarter. Oregon Gregg found a beautiful and rare trade token, likely worth in the 3 figures. I hope there are more of these WTHO's as I'm ready to move on from 'beginner' and I just know there's an early -S mint coin with my name on it. Thanks to Monte, Gregg, Rich, and all involved.

It has been a few weeks since I found any gold but today was the day! I got the 10k/2.65g diamond (tested real) ring by following a pattern of the washed up rocks. This is not a zigzag pattern that can be used to find the line. This is a look at the rock line and just stick with it no matter what. When you find something you can do a little circle but when the tide is coming in you have to keep going or you lose the opportunity. Today it worked out.

I didn’t watch the video, but a 20 grammer at 300mm sounds like a Coke can, I have tried it. My experience similar to Vic, have found over 100 sub gram bits at 10”. I only ever use Auto+ and have never had any noise problems. Tends to prove why utube videos comparing is a waste of time, don’t think I have ever watched one which wasn’t biased in some direction, not hearing a 20g bit at 300mm is definitely involving some sort of trickery.

The riverbeds can be almost without water during this period .. ,, but there are places where even in summer there is still a reasonable amount of water .., which can nicely refresh the eventual visitor of such a locality

Lost my pick today but found it, also lost my beloved Goldmonster scoop, couldn't find it and damned glad I had a spare with me! Anyways....7 bits from pounded area for .788g and one of them was 8" deep so the 6 is doing what it does pretty damned good imo...... Using manual 1 and 2....

Hello Friends, I just wanted to share with you a couple short (3 hr) hunts I had last week. The weather here in LA county has been stifling, but luckily my limited hunt time these days is a welcomed sight...hunt in the morning and leave around noon. My first hunt last week was at a few parks that my buddies and I have hunted countless times over the years. This day only one of the parks produced silver, but it was a silver none of my buddies have found at this park before: a Walker Half. I ended the short hunt with 8 wheaties and the Walker. This past Sunday, I met a buddy at another heavily pillaged park. This park has produced many old 30's-50's era coins (a % of these are lawnmower clipped), and high counts of clad quarters. One of my buddies found over 60 quarters at this park one day a couple years ago. After finding a couple clipped Rosies within the first hour, I dug a merc with a ‘40 Jefferson in the hole. I then was swinging my coil in a mostly dirt turf area, and just as I swung my coil in front of me, I noticed a glimmer of gold laying in the dirt. The small ring is 14k, 2.32 grams, with a sapphire colored stone, and 10 diamond chips. The ring ID’d as an 8 on my Nox. I never would have dug ID’s that low at a trashy park, so I’m thankful I was able to spot it laying in the dirt. It straightened out perfectly on my mandrel. My buddy and I detected on for another hour before the humidity blasted both of us. I finished my hunt with the gold ring, 3 Rosies, 1 merc, 12 wheats, 25 quarters, and a Washington dollar coin. The marble (maybe a dyed agate marble??) I found in my pic was peeking out of a dirt spot and is coincidentally the same color as the center stone in the ring I found. Go figure! 😉 Thanks for looking! Good luck to everyone! HH, Raphis (Dan)

Meanwhile in New Zealand 🙂 Only problem is the queues are big with it being school holidays. There is gold in those gullies. That should cool you all down a bit 🙂

You can make the threshold smooth by just reducing sensitivity to 1 or 2. It is then rock stable (mostly) and still very sensitive to shallow gold. A very pleasant experience then, combined with the light weight. Agreed on the video.

Nice ring! I've only found one platinum myself. Were all used to being asked if we found anything good or whats our best find etc...I was just remembering one time I was detecting in a park and some lady was walking by and yelled "you find any gold!" with a big smile on her face...I smiled back and told her not yet...about 2 minutes later I was digging up a nice hefty gold chain that ironically had my daughters name engraved in it...I whispered a thank you to her as she walked off in the distance... it's a great hobby. strick

She could also be back once the snow has melted away. But in any case, good thinking Simon. Sometimes, finding something of great sentimental value and then returning it to the unlucky person who lost it can be very rewarding. It will give you the feeling of having done something right for another person. And who knows, this might create so much positive Karma for you that the Gold Goddess might smile at you afterwards....😁

These days car keys cost more to replace than a gold ring.😬

Lets see... a girl with a metal detector. Think I'd be makin' my move ; ) And you are making assumptions she lost something. I think she is nugget hunting and doing so well she was not gonna leave until its hunted out. Nuggets so big she can hit them down through all that snow. Yeah, I think outside the box sometimes.

Mine still protests with every airliner overhead, but it’s usually only about a minute of waiting or so, which isn’t intolerable. On a related note regarding EMI, we experimented with two 6000s, today. The 11 inch coils managed alright as long as they were kept 20-30 feet apart. We did not run that experiment with the 14 inch coils. Later on, we did put on the 14 inch just to listen the threshold and test the sensitivity to some of the smallest nuggets. Even in Auto 1 Difficult EMI Cancel mode there was some mild interference chirping along with the other machine off. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to flip the headphones back on. With hindsight, I’m suspecting the speaker was the cause. Always curious to hear anyone else’s results as they come in.

I just couldn’t seem to get the BEAST coil over any gold last weekend, except a lot of costume jewelry!😡 Thanks! Aaron

When I get my Jefferson nickels back home and clean them up a bit, I start by looking at the reverse, RH side of the dome to see if there is a mintmark. Two kinds exist here with no mintmark: prior to 1965 these were from Philly with 'D' (Denver) and 'S' (San Francisco) being the others. 1965-67 there were no mintmarks on any coins, regardless of where they were minted. In 1968 they started putting 'D' and 'S' on the obverse below the date. In 1980 they added the 'P' for Philly, also below the date. So when I see no mintmark on the reverse it doesn't tell me much. When I see a 'D' I'm thinking (well, hoping) I turn it over and see a 1939 date -- my most sought after Jeffy. (If 'S' I'm wishing for 1938. No mintmark -- 1955.) There are others, especially 1950-D, that would be quite pleasing. I don't know how many times I've struck out with that ritual, but not even so much a ground-out yet. (Apologies to those who don't know baseball lingo, but you can probably figure it out from context.) Oh, the things we do to add excitment....

Mitchel very nice ring...I love it when the rocks show on the beach...one of my little beaches has some good indicators (concrete chunks) that show when the sand is down a bit...I hunt ghetto areas mostly...yesterday I knew right away that I was wasting my time but I had about an hour to spare between calls so I tried anyways. I like how you incorporate wave energy and patterns into your thinking when hunting beaches as they are constantly changing and it takes a trained eye to see what areas look like they might be worth investigating...Most casual observers would not notice these changes unless a major storm was to occur.. I'm wondering what philosophies and tactics you use on dry sand? for instance my wife and I are going to pismo in August for a few days...I notice the same guy every year (a local hunter) hits the most crowded area on the beach every morning without fail......he only hunts the dry sand towel line..He gets there right at day light hunts for about two hours and leaves...The towel line can be very productive area to hunt (I found my biggest gold ring in the towel line)...so my plan is to hunt the towel line at night with my head light so I can beat the greedy bastard at his own game....The beach seems a lot simpler when you leave out the waves 🙂 strick

You're making it seem like it's a PI. Of course with all the non-nugget hunting you've done with the 5000 I'm sure you are not surprised at this, just reminded. I like it that you are going against the grain (again) and using a detector most would argue is specifically for native gold detecting, in situations that are far from that. Too bad the beaches are loaded with gawkers right now. I'd like to read how it does in your element. Only a couple months away?

It's quite funny how the Kookaburra starts laughing when the 6000 doesn't pickup the 21 gram at 300mm at the 22 minute mark 🙂 Well timed, I miss Kookaburras, such cool birds. In saying that the 6000 is using a smaller coil so it's expected it wouldn't compete for outright depth. I would struggle with the noise on the 6000, I was quite happy to get away from the noise of my older GPX 4500, I really like the smoother threshold of the GPZ, especially with the Concentric coils on it. I think the guy did a decent video, sure you can pick it apart for faults but he gives a general idea. I really like the idea of the super sensitivity of the GPX 6000 on small gold, It will be interesting to see what X-coils can come up with next for the 7000 🙂

Nice video..the only thing I would have liked to see was the 7K in Normal... threshold barely audible and sensitivity high...Bogenes settings... strick

Nice digs Dan! Glad you posted a picture of the Gang-reel mower pulled by the tractor too, as most only think of a rotary mower when you say mower. 🙂 So is that about a 45 cent piece instead a 50 center? 🤣

After collecting some small nuggets with the 11 inch coil, today, we ran some of the targets under the 14 inch coil. They sounded nicely on 1-2 grains as long as they were within an inch or so of the coil.

Thanks for the reply! You’re right about those ring ID’s. I just don’t have the time to dig all those signals at a super trashy park. At the beach I dig almost everything that beeps on my PI machine.

This guy has done one, while not perfect and it was his first video he did an OK comparison I think. There are a few flaws in his methods I guess but it gives some basic information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BGVbwBFips

I can’t tell you how many 1916 S Mercs I have found here in so cal, but it’s dozens...and not a single “D”...😫. But it sure does give you a great adrenaline rush when you see a 1916 date before turning it over to see the mintmark. Nice recovery of your teen and oldest Merc!! 👍🏼

I ski a fair few times a week over the ski season, and often in summer I go to the ski fields and detect under the lifts, it's been quite good for finds, more phones than you can imagine as they just fall out of pockets and instantly sink out of sight. The snow under lifts is usually not groomed and soft and fluffy, if someone drops something it's instantly gone. Today much to my surprise only about 10 minutes after the ski field opened I saw a girl under the lift trying to use a metal detector she'd obviously borrowed off someone to try find something she dropped. I have no idea what detector it is but it didn't sound too great. No display screen, like an old Minelab musketeer or something I have no idea. The coil might be a giveaway to someone as to what it is. She left her helmet and goggles on all day, probably to hide her face as she was embarrassed by it all. Every time I went on that particular lift she was still there, and she was digging a massive hole. I felt quite bad as whatever she dropped was likely yesterday and it wouldn't be too far down, I doubt out of the reach of a Equinox with a bigger coil, I've detected on snow quite a lot and the Equinox is amazing the depth it can get through snow, basically air test depth. It's going to take a long time to back fill that hole 🙂 What to me it appeared she did wrong was she started digging in the area she thought she'd lost whatever it was, rather than walking around on the surface using the detector, she was then trying to use the detector in the hole she was digging. Disturbing the snow probably wasn't a good idea and in my opinion she'd be better off detecting the area before digging as what if she had whatever it was in the shovel and threw it away. I was tempted to go and give her some advice and help but I didn't want to intrude and act the know it all, especially as I had no idea about the detector she was using. Unfortunately she was there all day, digging like mad, I often saw her fall over, she was on quite a slope. I'm not sure I did the right thing by not offering to help, but after I went in for lunch and next rode the lift a bunch of people were down there helping her. I was going to go talk to her towards the end of the day and see what went on and if she didn't find it I was going to offer to go there in spring once the snow melts and recover whatever it was for her, but I went back just before the ski field closed and it appeared she'd finally given up and left. A guy was trying to use the detector for her at this stage. If she's there tomorrow trying again I will offer her some help, I'll throw the Nox and CTX with big coils into the car just in case. Otherwise I'll just find whatever it is in summer and let the ski field know I found it so if she speaks to lost and found they'll be able to give it back to her. I suspect a ring, perhaps one with some family importance as I can't see a phone or some coins being enough motivation to spend a day trying to find it. What would you do in this situation? I know I'll find whatever it is she lost in late spring or summer if she doesn't find it before then, but I'll struggle to find a way to contact her and that's my fault for not going to talk to her at the time.

Well yay. It's great to post here! Hit the beach again this morning, went where I knew there wouldn't be much but wanted to get it out of the way. Got some coins, one of each at least again. Running in Beach 1 near the water, Park 1 works until the sand gets too dry at the high tide line, then I switch back to Beach 1. Ground balance was at or near zero. This place is easy, but every now and again I hit some mineralized sand and get lots of iron tones at 2". That's when I switch to Beach. There is no EMI here until the cell phones start coming. Some excitement, this guy caught a 4' shark... I got all these again at chest height to high tide one way and knee height coming back. All modern. Trash was minimal again, all the bottle caps were on the surface, I just picked 'em up. This is all I got, didn't dig anything big or heavy except for one buried wine bottle. Ran into another detectorist, he had a White's MXT. He was just hacking around the place he was staying, high on the beach. He complained that all he got was bottle caps and pull tabs, and everything was deep. Yep. All my coins were 10-12" down, nothing in the first or second scoop. Maybe they renewed this beach recently. I told him where he might find better stuff. I had gone up the beach to talk to him, and headed back to the line I was walking, didn't want to tread on his turf. I'm going to hunt the upper beach tomorrow anyway. Got a loud 17/18 at about 4" walking back, I was gonna skip it but it wasn't too deep. Scooped and got this little sparkler: Says IBB CN 925, means Chinese sterling. It has 13 stones, 2 are missing but my wife doesn't care. 😀 I imagine they are CZ's or Moisannite. My loupe needs new batteries to turn on the UV, so I'm going with that. Also found this nice Mattel car I gave to a kid. Good morning!

To be clear i wasn't being critical of the YouTube test video, i think he did a good job. I am just curious as to why his comparison test results significantly differed from my field experience of the GPX6000 ( have had the 6000 for 3 months and have found gold in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria). Maybe the 0.5gram nugget i found at 250mm was flatter and positioned better in the soil. Maybe the the patch i was on was less mineralised than the test video patch. Maybe the nugget in the test is surrounded by air then soil and not just soil which disrupts both detectors from performing at their optimum - lots of people comment that air testing is not reliable. Both the 6000 and 7000 would have been designed to find nuggets surrounded by earth /minerals. ( like to hear what people with more tech knowledge than me think of this theory) I would like to see field tests where a 7000 finds a target and can the 6000 see it as well and vice versa. That would be interesting. My mate and i both had the 6000 at Tibooburra - we only detected for 3 days before we had to get back to South Australia because of a snap Covid lock down - we were planning longer but in the 3 days we chatted to 2 other guys who were detecting , they had a SDC2300 and a 7000 - every day we came back with 2 to 3 times more to what they were finding - now that doesn't prove anything , its just an observation. Tibooburra is renown for small gold so may favour the 6000 - one day i found 14 nuggets for 0.52 grams in total (one at 0.01 gram) - constant pinging on gold targets really aided me in getting to know the new 6000. Getting back to the topic - i am on the list to get the 17 inch mono which i am told there is still no information on when it will be available - its going to be interesting to see how this new coil performs and I'm hoping i can detect all day with it without a bungy cord - its suppose to be lighter than the 14 inch DD so should be ok.

Strick I have two flash lights for night hunting. Over the years I have gotten up early to beat the tide hunters and very rarely do dry sand. My wife chastises me for this single-mindedness. For the last few months with a new baby I haven't gotten out but that is starting to change some now. I went to Pismo for my honeymoon a few years back. We took our metal detectors and hunted the pier there. My wife met a guy who had really great finds on his phone. I eventually came over and looked and I was impressed. I always wanted to go back but haven't yet but it is like most other beaches. The more you hunt it the more you know and the more you find. Blanket lines can be very productive because you can see what 'happened' the night before. Back in the 80s before I took a 20 year break from detecting I found a nice watch I wore for 20 years. This had been a 'sleep over/love session' and when they got cold they left. If you go after sunset you can see the losts from the day before but there still may be some other activity you want to avoid with drinking parties and stuff like that. Another reason to get up early and hunt the blanket line is to get there before the rakers on the beach. I suspect that is why the guy you see is out there along with the replenishment. Pismo is a tourist beach even for Californians. Stuff gets lost at all beaches. Good luck. Mitchel

The video maker did some decent testing in very highly mineralized ground on steeply angled targets. Neither detector could hit the targets he used easily, deeper than 12” with default settings especially the 6000 in what he called Auto 1 which is segment 11 on the sensitivity scale and is just called Auto by Minelab. It’s default Auto setting has no threshold tone. Manually turning on the threshold definitely helps the Auto mode for me anyway. It is definitely not for deeper targets in difficult ground in my opinion after 8 hours with the 6000. On normal ground (haven’t used the 6000 on any yet) default Auto mode might do very well on a variety of targets and depths even with the threshold tone off. The 6000’s sensitivity settings are similar to those on the Goldmonster 1000. I always found the 1000’s Auto 1 setting to be pretty anemic where I often detect and have found the 6000’s Auto/difficult to be similar…..great for newbie turn on and go but it has its limitations especially with the threshold off. I haven’t used the 14” DD yet. I will definitely watch for the new promised video from Jenko comparing the 6000 14” DD to the GPZ 7000. At my age and the terrain and mineralization I often detect in, the 6000 and it’s ergonomics in any of the manual/difficult sensitivity settings is doing very well along with frequent use of the quick track feature and occasional noise cancelling. I will save the Auto and Auto+ settings for less mineralized ground for now.

I'm curious about the brass beads and what they look like....I was going to buy some on line (not authentic) for a necklace I was going to make some day 🙂 strick

Thanks Phrunt for posting that one. Its only 3 days old and I haven’t had a chance to look at Youtube recently. All info is good info, people can pick it apart all they want and we all should so as to ask more questions and perform new/revised experiments. He tried to do what he could do and showed his experiment, methods and results. Now you using your own brain can decide whether to accept the results as valid or not. The more info we get the better decisions you can make.

It's kinda like an old fella told me once a long time ago when I was mentioning a dry spell of a different sort. "Some do and some don't . Some will and some won't . Ask 'em all , no hard feelins" If ya get me drift.............😎Skuh kuh kuh kuh kuh Maybe a bigger "coil" would have helped me then but a smaller one seems like a good call for yer situation yup yup .

Sunglasses needed!! Very Nice!

1.5 gram women's 10k gold ring the other day was a solid 7 in park one. strick

You might be on to something there. I can see how nails would all give the same, or similar ID. 'Ya know I do not even look at what the ID is doing when it sounds iron. I just scan the ground 'till I get a VCO/high tone that alerts me to a non-ferros target, then I glance at the ID. Right or wrong I pay no attention to the junk. Yes there was a building there, 5 story high and burnt down to the ground line. Now I definitely feel the need to dig the junk to see exactly what it is. Will report.

that coils too clean. we can fix that Saturday. regarding the 14" dd coil test, i don't know a lot about dd. sounded off on left side of coil, loudest at the 6 to 9 o'clock position

Yes, in the video there was a quick 60 and notice how I go back for another look, but it doesn't come up again. Thats why I want to try a small coil. Less targets under the coil to give the disc circuit less to think about. I did not bother digging it. Nickels give a solid repeatable 58 and old pull tabs are 62 and can vary, sometimes conveniently a 58. And I do not actually know what all that junk is in the ground, never dug any to find out, just assumed nails. I do see burnt wood/charcoal in the ground. Been thinking about digging some poor targets to see, just havnt yet. Possibly bog iron? Was it KAC that said he has seen worse? OK you win the Trashy Ground Award.LOL

The 6000 is extremely wide band width, but I’m surprised a light plane at 1000 foot could set if off that bad. Fences can also be problematic (not as bad as a 5000) but fences will cause some irregular jitter when you get too close. The key is to keep the coil as flat as possible during periods of instability.

Ok, yesterday whilst detecting I had an irregular event for my remote area, a light plane went over at probably 1000ft, sight seeing I suspect. My 6K went totally unstable, so leaving it on no adjustments, coil on ground I had a spell and observed once the plane had moved on the 6K quietened down and I carried on for rest of detect. Unusual I've not experienced a detector react to such in such a way before, but it gives me an appreciation more of a detecting environment a lot are in everyday.

Cut coins like that are probably from the reel style mower and not modern rotary is my guess. That is a good run.

For whatever it's worth, the Z/NF-Zsearch has punched deeper in HY/Normal-Gain 15 than the 6000/11 in Auto+/Normal. I have done this test a couple of times with 2 test nuggets (about 0.3 g with different consistency) at about 10 in depth in mineralized soil. The 6000/11 was nearly quiet (to an extend that I probably would not have dug the target) whereas the Z picked it up with a clearly noticeable but faint threshold warble. Now, as a disclaimer, I am not here to say the Z will punch deeper in general. These were isolated experiments and by no means representative. I also want to stress that I personally don't give much about these comparisons. Also, so much depends on circumstances that I don't think one can make general conclusions (i.e. different coil size/configuration, etc..) That being said, I want to learn more about the impact on depth at low gain, as I have posted earlier. The 6000 is a fantastic machine for many reasons and it absolutely is my to go detector. However, the Z will remain in my fleet, so much I know.

It'll be the intrigue of the whole thing that'll keep you going.. anyway, you're committed now! maybe the girl just lost her car keys? whatever it turns out to be, keep us posted.. otherwise we'll always be wondering what she dropped.. 😁

Minelab can do whatever they want with their inventions. It’s called capitalism not communism. At least that’s how it’s done in this country. If they don’t think they’re getting enough money out of their consumers they’ll change their marketing and how their products are made. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.

....I met my colleague Pasadete on Sunday..after returning from Pireney .. We spent this day testing the detectors but also the practical detection .. the temperature during the detection was also around lunch 35-36 degrees Celsius .... ,, but it was possible to endure ...

JP I am assuming it was the plane, no fence was within cooee or anything else that I was aware could set off the 6K, stability returned once plane was well past, experience I`ve not noted before thus plane could have had some unusual electronic gear on board. I know helicopters much closer have no effect as my backyard have them going over daily during winter delivering tourists to the resort properties and chasing poachers, they come in pretty close to identify non-poachers. Keeping the coil flat and close to ground did not help as that is normal for this old codger, especially yesterday as I was having a productive day, mobile phone on as per norm. w/. Oziexplorer for tracking/waypoint saving and not in aeroplane mode. Please note I am assuming it was the plane, be only if more times this occurs can such an assumption be verified, I too was surprised.

I'm surprised at how many of the coins were cut by mowers. Not only must their blades have been sharp (my mower damaged coins tend to just be bent or dinged) but the sheer numbers are unexpected, IMO. Do you think a change in dTID (from the missing material) caused previous detectorists to ignore these? Also, do the two clipped dime pieces mate or is that just a coincidental illusion? Oh, and nice sunbaker!