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Just sharing an appealing little alluvial worn twinned crystalline nuggie i detected today. (3.6 grams NSW Australia. 7000 with the NF coil)

Wanted to give the Apex with 9" ultimate coil a good run so hit the area again that I had hunted a bit before. Found a strange coin that was super light and little larger that a half dime, had no clue but was 10 Mazuma Play money. Odd to find that in an old area. Other finds are: 1 Flat button broken back Harmonica but the reeds were rotted away 7 cents in clad Odd looking fish lure or might be a whistle not sure but it's very old. 1911 V Nickel, 1892 V Nickel, 1899 Barber dime, 1910 Barber Dime, 1943 Merc Dime, 1897 IH penny, 186? IH penny, 1895 IH penny, 9 wheaties. Musket ball Very old Silver Claddagh ring was under roots of a tree, made me almost break a sweat Couple of old cufflinks, one is white enamel and other has guilded front.

Went out to the camp site today. I stole the Equinox from the wife. I was using the 6” coil and working between the rocks. This is the better stuff from today minus nails, lead and two horseshoes. A couple percussion caps. One marked “GD”. A really cool knife with handle in tact. Finally one of the nicest buckles I have dug. All looks good considering the 170 years they have been laying around.

Coil ear breakage usually comes from overtightning the coil bolt causing them to bend creating a stress point concentrator that is worsened by addition dynamic loads related to the mass of the coil during swing motion and hydrodynamic stress caused by coil profile swing resistance in water (and occasionally by people using their detector like a crutch, hiking stave or to assist in standing up. Rarely do these forces combine to break ears that are not under stress to begin with. If you are using proper, unworn grommet spacers, there should be no reason to tighten to the point the ears bend. But frankly, unless you are water hunting, the 10x5 has such small mass, it puts very little stress on the ears vs. the stock or other larger coils even if you do overdo it. If you do still feel the need to use supports, especially 3D printed ones, make sure they are solid blocks and not just honeycomb infill otherwise they will just break along with your ears because they are providing minimal bending support. Also, unless you are epoxying the supports to the coil form itself, they are not really doing anything to transfer the load away from the ear. In other words, to have a proper coil ear support, you have to physically modify your coil by adding a permanent adhesive which the manufacturer can claim is a non-approved coil modification, voiding your warranty. Since I am not an avid water hunter repeatedly putting extra hydrodynamic stress on the coil and its supports, not a big fan of these things, personally. If you somehow can't refrain from overtightening the bolts and have to rely on these things, you either don't make them permanent which basically negates their usefulness or you potentially void your coil warranty. Ugh. (Unless you can come up with a zip tie configuration like Col Dan's, I suppose) With ML and Coiltek seemingly willing to replace coils under warranty for premature coil ear breakage regardless, hardly seems worth the trip unless you are exclusively water hunting and need to protect from the extra stress of swinging through the water (then again, the 10x5 presents a pretty low water drag profile as well). That's my take anyway. I'm all for insurance and peace of mind, but I am not for placebos that just put money in someone's pocket while giving a false sense of security, so do your own research and make sure whatever you end up doing is truly a mechanically sound solution. My comments are generalized in nature. Since I don't use them, I have not done any research that qualifies me to say anything specifically pro or con about any of the ear stiffners recommended above. Good luck and HH.

Had another good month hunting the low tide wet sand slopes at a few local beaches. Some large surf eroded out a few areas, lots of black sand and lots of targets! Spent half the time in "All-Metal" and half in "Tone Mode". For me, tone mode comes in very handy when weeding out those annoying pesky tent stakes when there is an abundance of them on the beach. I ran stock settings for tone mode and it worked out great at one of the beaches I was working that was littered with tent stakes! The find of the month was a nice 14k LeVian ring, the surprise find of the month was another gold tooth crown, which makes my 3rd for the year! Acid tested it and confirmed it's 18k. I see Compass found one recently too. You would think the cremation process would completely melt the crowns into blobs, I guess the heat doesn't reach that point? Anyway it was a fun month. I went out recently after the oil spill for a night time negative low tide hunt, beaches were pretty sanded in unfortunately. I did encounter some tar blobs on the beach, but I always wear muck boots when hunting the wet sand anyway so I had no issues with oil on my feet. I was surprised to see a surfer out in the night time waters and also someone walking their dog on the shore.. So totals for the month were: 10k - 2.1 grams 14k - 15.7 grams 18k Dental Gold - 4.1 grams 925 - 3.65 oz Thanks for looking, GL & HH out there!

No worries here. I think a lot of the time manufacturers think we are just bitchers and complainers. I have been quite critical of all the manufacturers at one time or another. On these forums at least, there is more to it than just tossing rocks. Most of us genuinely love metal detecting, and we really care what is happening in the industry. We first get frustrated, then even angry, when we see these companies making stupid moves. The U.S. companies in particular have been drowning in arrogance. I’ve watched for very many years in frustration, while Minelab, once an unknown upstart from Australia, has eaten all their lunches. They’ve seemed completely blind to what had been very obvious to me for a long time… that Minelab was literally going to put a few of them, if not all, out of business. Then along came Nokta/Makro to add extra pressure. They are lucky the Chinese were asleep forever, but Quest is just the first that will add even more pressure. Tesoro did not even try, just committed willful suicide by doing nothing. White’s tried, but woke up just a little too late, and now they are gone. First Texas is just a mess, but their volume in low end big box product has masked this. To me they are in more trouble than they seem to think. Their mind share with most of us is evaporating, if not already gone. Just like White’s, there are the faithful who stick with companies to the end, but most of us have moved on. If they think cranking out cheap units for Walmart will keep them alive forever, they will learn that never works, never has. The irony is they bought Fisher and Teknetics to try and escape the Bounty Hunter low end trap, but in the last few years they’ve let both those premium brands languish, if anything gutting them to give their best products to Bounty Hunter. It’s not that they have not been trying, but their efforts have floundered, or been misdirected. The marketing is a non-cohesive disaster, almost non-existent. The main efforts seem to go into placing pallets of product at Costco and taking care of their big box customers, not taking care of the small dealer network. The Fisher website, as has been noted, was downright embarrassing in its non-updated, neglected state. It perfectly encapsulated my view of the company… just an ad hoc, sticking fingers in leaking dams approach to the business. Sounds like I have it in for them, but just the opposite. I probably care more about the company than many people that work there. Detecting is my life long passion, and I find it almost offensive watching the U.S. manufacturers run their businesses into the ground through arrogance and neglect. Mainly arrogance. They all think they are so damn smart, and that people like us are just unfair critics or idiots. No, many of us just see what they don’t, brands we know and would love to support, but who simply don’t seem to care enough to engage with us, or listen to us.

I too have not had a problem with any of my coils, but I don't hunt in water other than an occasional creek or sides of rivers and lakes. I had one of the 3D printed protectors that I made out of polycarbonate on my 11" coil, but I don't feel like I really need it for the kind of detecting I do, so I took it off. I'm worried the least about my 10x5 because of the stouter designed coil ears or tabs which is similar to the GPX-6000 coils I noticed. Cudos to Coiltek on their design. Maybe Minelab should use that design on all of their coils.

Yeah I'm not recommending nor advocating them. Just illustrating the issue. As I wrote the 10x5 is a tough little bugger, it remains to be seen if someone will break the ears. I've had it on my Equinox for a while now in all sorts of conditions. I'm using steveg's grommets and the coil isn't too tight but tight enough to hold the angle. I have hit stuff and twisted the shaft, but a bit of tightening fixed that. No problems yet!

Thanks Joe D! Luckily all the stones are intact and present on the LeVian ring, the main stone is chocolate quartz, surrounded by white & chocolate diamonds, with 2 pink sapphires, one on each side of the ring. Yea it's been very quiet on the Fisher AQ production front...I put myself on their waiting list a few months ago for a 2nd Fisher AQ Ltd to have as back-up just in case but I haven't heard anything since..I'm not really interested in the final production model to be honest, only because I have no plans on going in the water or under it. Here in SoCal, the surf is just too crazy for this landluber to handle and ankle deep is as far as I go.

Thanks SchoolofhardNox, This last round of hunting in Sept was around 7 or 8 times If I remember correctly, which is usually what I've been averaging this year for hunts per month. All hunting this year has been in the wet sand, I just don't have the will to trudge on dry sand anymore...

That’s a beauty! Would make a nice pendant.😊👍

Got a little carried away posting my dinks lately. This season has been busy trying to add #'s to get some weight with the little stuff. All season until now has been smoke, fires, closures, helicopters, bugs and hot weather so when all that finally came to an end I got a little carried away tooting my own horn and posting as everything last couple of weeks has been absolutely perfect here. Sorry I got a little carried away. Today I found my biggest piece so far this season. Piece has some quarts in it and weighed in at 7.000g and total was 7.683g today. I'll hold off on the pics until end of season unless I snag any nicer pieces.... Thanks everyone for the likes and comments and good luck out there....!!!!!!

I just don't understand all this talk about coil ear breakage...I have one of the first Equinox's made in-fact I have two of them...I have every coil available...hunt in water... brush...rocks...use it as a crutch to help me up off the ground and still have yet to break a coil ear and I've used the machine like a 1000 hours or more..so wtf? Those Detect eds washers are not what they are not all that good...I've bought them and they are loose...I recommend original minelab washers and original minelab lower shaft...and stop over tightening your coils like a rough handed buffoon...lol 🙂 now watch I'll break a coil next time I'm out... strick

Talk about a great hunt. You found a bit of everything. I have yet to find a Barber of any sort. The apex gets it done.

Nokta did with the Simplex what First Texas could have done with the T2 or F75... completely modernize it, waterproof it and sell a bunch of them. That's now a very commonly owned detector and so similar in performance to a T2 it could easily be mistaken for a modern T2. If they did do that then it's not a paint job, it's gone beyond that, it's a full rehash. How many T2's do you think they've sold in the past few years? How many Simplex do you think Nokta have sold? That money could have been in the First Texas bank account. Something similar needed done with the Gold Bug 2, a full rehash to become a modern detector, sure the motor stays the same but there is nothing wrong with the motor, it just needed modern features, and especially something like a ground grab or ground tracking like all the other modern prospecting detectors. I don't think doing this is beyond them but they just took the lazy way out once again and just released a paint job of it so nobody is inspired to buy it, it just continues the model if parts were no longer available being such an antique detector. The core of a few of their detectors are perfectly fine and have a place in the market, it's just they're now so dated. Many just needed discontinued. Wireless audio has rapidly become a standard and it really makes sense, cords are annoying. They don't even need to think tor themselves, the competition has done all the thinking of the ideas they could put into their detectors to make them modern, they can just use their ideas and then put them into reality. My T2 is a deep detector, as deep as any however it's target ID's are dismal and with the other detectors all performing better and being more feature rich I can't really think of a reason to use it other than to warm up it's engine to keep it from seizing up. They should be able to improve that surely. My newer T2 green is great in EMI compared to my older T2 so they've fixed that up in newer ones, a positive sign someone there still knows how to modify the source code for the detector. Just adding every little software update they can and improve the performance as much as possible. I'm hoping when they eventually find the password to edit their website they make an entire new modern site with a banner across the top saying "under new management" and things start to change. They have potential, they just need the people working there to make it a reality, I don't want them to collapse but if they sit around doing nothing they're just going to be a big box store brand for the entry level customers and maybe that's where they feel comfortable now but that won't last forever... It's only a matter of time until one of the big brands chase that down market with aggression and Nokta might be it or the Chinese just come into it with force and pricing that can't be beat selling their own detectors. We went through this with Tesoro and Whites, everyone could see it happening and First Texas was the other obvious one. I have five of their detectors, a bunch of their OEM coils and the F-Pulse so I've done my bit to keep them alive but I can't see myself buying another of their detectors unless something dramatic changes. I would certainly buy a rehashed modern Gold Bug 3, and I would likely buy a modern F75/T2 if the price was right..... Simplex sort of pricing where it belongs.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234056909641 https://www.ebay.com/itm/234014419516

Thanks Joe. The ring's engraving says '63 and most of the copper pennies were Memorials, So I'm guessing it was lost in the late 60's early 70's. I was just happy to see gold that wasn't plated!! This spot seems to be riding the silver / clad line, which makes digging deep a lot harder when you only get a clad dime 🙄. The 1902 V nickel shows me there is still another layer down there beyond my reach.

this is how we drive our test trommel doug

I would have to agree with what has already been said regarding the hot rocks....the SDC handles them better. The 6 gets the tiny nugs much deeper than the SDC though and, I would guess, the bigger ones deeper as well, though, I haven't got it over any sizeable nugs yet. I totally agree with Steve on ergonomics and coil selection...the 6 all the way! I did pull a small flat nug from a patch that had been totally flogged by the SDC with the 6 that was standing vertical in a crack and the 6 just sang out over this nug. It was the only signal left on this small patch. I'm guessing that it was missed by the SDC and every other machine because it was so thin and vertical.

There's much more to the CTX coil electronics, it's the most complex of ML's range. As well as the usual pre-amplifier and 'security microprocessor' , there's also an accelerometer on the circuit board. This will let the control-box know which way the coil is sweeping, and how quickly. The sweep direction is used in one of the 'display modes' where it shows multiple targets during a sweep, correctly positioned in sequence. As for sweep speed, it's a guessing game: detectors use band-pass filters to enhance the up-down nature of a target signal. This is normally fixed ( about 8 Hz I think ), and the user learns what the optimum sweep speed is to match the filter. If the machine can measure the sweep speed, it could in theory adapt its filtering to match the user. Other potential uses could be reduction of false signals at the end of each sweep. Whether these techniques are used or not is unknown. ( the accelerometer is probably a digital output device, and the micro's main purpose is to read it's output and sent it to the control-box. Security/anti-piracy features are a secondary function )

The Minelab E-TRAC, Safari, Explorer SE Pro, Explorer SE, Explorer II, Quattro MP, Explorer XS, and Explorer S can all employ the same coils.

Nice finds. I am not an expert, but I looked up your Chinese coin. I believe it is: Kangxi Emperor (also known as Shengzu - 1662-1722) Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi emperor, personal name Xuanye, was the third Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The Kangxi emperor's reign of 61 years makes him the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history and one of the longest-reigning rulers in the world.Wikipedia

No need to apologize for posting finds,,,ever ! WTG !

our summer turned ok so so took 3 weeks of digging ice so we could get in up to 15 feet thick the cut we stripped last fall was good pay for about 100 ft then nothing we reclaimed it then started a new cut that was pretty hot for a while about 2oz per hundred yards we are on a bench the gravel keeps going into the bank but there is 14ft of frozen muck over it ooh well next year you can see the frozen muck in the photos then it started to rain aug 7th it rained for 30 days then turned cold sept 7 nite time 15 day time 35 starter went out on the big excavator while stripping for next year sept 24th snow 6 inches so we left and came home went back up to put the starter in sept 25th 20 degrees 20 mph winds the creeks were freezing up had to bust overflow to get in with the wheeler put every thing away home safely . take care Doug

Found it: Spur, Model 1859, Federal officer, scroll adornment. Spur was authorized under the Regulation 1859, and was issued to the officer cavalryman, large numbers were used in the 1864 cavalry campaigns. Spur is sturdy construction, exterior bar is rounded, interior bar is flat without strengthening groove, scroll adornment is cast in around the neck, neck is curved, rowel was often removed or damaged from use. Ref: Historic American Spurs, US12. M0901 Spur, Model 1859, Federal officer, scroll adornment. Recovered: Virginia campaign.

It’s been a year of not doing what I want to do when I wanted to do it due to delays on work and home projects, i.e. little time for prospecting. So when I had an unexpected free day yesterday that coincided with a weather window I jumped at the chance to get in one more day in before things freeze up solid for the year. I went back to a spot in a canyon where I had detected a picker a month ago, and started swinging. I got a loud signal right away and started chopping into the frozen ground with a rock hammer. Thinking it was another chunk of rusted iron I wasn’t working too enthusiastically, but to my shock there appeared flat 1 gram nugget buried in the tiniest crack in the bedrock. I’ve never found anything bigger than .25 of a gram in this area so I let out a choice expletive did a happy dance. Not far from where I found the nugget, I got another good sounding signal in the slate bedrock on top of quartz seam and started hacking away. I was having a hard time pinpointing where the signal was and kept digging deeper and wider into the bedrock, fortunately it was decomposing, but it being frozen made it harder. After spending a half an hour working on this new slate quarry of mine I was surprised when our popped another 1 gram nugget. Omg, best day ever. It was getting below freezing so I was considering packing up but checked the hole before moving on and was surprised with another clear signal. I expanded the hole and after another 15-20 minutes of chipping away bedrock I had finally moved it. I couldn’t pinpoint it by waving handfuls of broken up rock over the coil so I kept dumping the rock into the pan till I got the signal in the pan. Of course I’d forgotten my rubber gloves so I panned it out in the icy water with my bare hands. When I panned back to hr concentrates there was another 1 gram nugget. What?! I was starting to lose daylight so I had to pack it up as hiking out of the canyon on ice and snow in the dark isn’t high on my fun list. Now I have to wait 7-8 months to see else is there!

Spectacular "flipped over eagle" buckle ,they don't turn up in that condition very often. Among the nicest specimens I've seen.

In one of the books I have written by Charles Garrett & Rot Lagal, they recommend low sensitivity, small coil and just enough Discrimination to eliminate SMALL nails. Remember that money caches were often placed in tobacco tins or similar containers. You would also need very good coil control to be thorough & to be able to trace out pipes or wiring. Searching old structures used to be more common in the past. Most are gone now.

That's what buddies like Chase are for. CW relics are always both surprising and pleasing for me when I occasionally stumble onto one. That's a very nice one in my un-expert eye.

Wow …..$55 for 99 cents worth of plastic ……your other cheaper option would to look at Detect Ed’s heavy duty coil savers ……..Looks the same as the stock ones https://www.ebay.com/itm/Detect-ED-Coil-Saver-Coil-Shaft-WASHER-kit-for-Minelab-EQUINOX-600-800-/294266704359?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

Interesting... Wow , that's a big hunk a plastic! Must be mil spec...skuh kuh kuh kuh As these things become more popular , maybe the mfg's will start responding with design changes ?

Is this just for peace of mind insurance or have some of the Coilteks been breaking too ?🤞

I agree with Peg as it will be one of a kind on a necklace. Great hunting and good luck on finding a couple more for ear rings.

good on you

Ctx seems to be another chipped detector, I can see it in the coil cable which explains it being ignored. I've never seen a company before that people love their product yet are so discontent with it at the same time. Would it really kill them to let us have access to coils? Just release a firmware for all the detectors disabling the security checks and make your customers happy. It's got to the point we are either buying other brand detectors or older models with no chips to get around the problem to use coils like this Detech that supporters of other brands can just use. Even entry level Ace detectors can just throw one on. It's just crazy.

Great work Slim, Very much the opposite of your forum name!! And that ring is one of the most beautiful i have seen come off the beach!!💍🤯 Were all the stones intact?? I wish Fisher would get their s$$t together for the AQ production model, but in the meantime, you, JoeOBN, and a few others are at a nice advantage! But I'm not jealous;💩😂 You guys are out there doing all the hard work!! Keep at it, as long as you can!!🍀👍👍

It makes it worthwhile when the little ones lead you to big daddy. A lot of character in it.

Forgot to add this old brass spur I dug, it was pretty deep. Anyone know any dating on these?

No way man!!!😁, love to hear your stories/finds!! Something else i thought of too, was alot of people used to burn their trash! So could be a combination of several things on a single site! Not uncommon after many decades of habitation!👍👍

If it was a fire, it either burned by accident! Or was probably a Tennant house, torn down with all the junk inside, and burned in a pile!! Saw several in Georgia go like that, over the years, after sitting vacant, and more field needed! Especially since the rolling irrigation systems took over there!! At least some interesting finds! And alot🥵 of work!!👍👍

That's a Great run on targets and Gold! love that cross too! That is part of the secret here, being close to the beach so you can decide that morning if to go or not, based on the conditions. Which are easy to access with all of the internet tools now.

Thanks Strick, Perseverance, word of mouth, tide tables, surf reports and beach cams.

We finally got a couple of days of decent rain here in Central Texas. It's been dry as a bone for the last few weeks and the ground was getting pretty hard to dig in. The wife gave me her blessings to go hunt all day long, so I headed to one of the parks that has been producing very well. When I arrived I could tell that this place had received a fair share of rain. With hopes riding high I began my hunt. This was my first hunt in some damp soil, I was in for a rude awakening! This dirt is the stickiest gooiest mess I think I've ever dug in. After almost 2 hours all I had to show for my efforts was three or four pieces of clad. My spirits were sinking faster than the Titanic. My plan was the grid off areas until I got into something good. After about an hour and a half of that and only four Wheaties to show for it, I decided to do some freelance and just wander around aimlessly and head to my car and call it a day. I got into an area that I haven't spent much time in and the first signal I got was a big old aluminum token from a chamber of commerce. About 30 ft from there I get another signal hitting in the mid 30s dropping down to 30 but jumping back up to 33-34 on the Equinox. Usually that means sprinkler head or a large piece of aluminum. Cut a plug, took out about six inches of dirt, stuck my pinpointer in the hole expecting to hit the target. I started scanning the dirt that I had dug out and almost fell over backwards when I saw some big shiny in the dirt ball :-) This was the very last thing that I expected to find today. Good thing nobody was around cuz all I could do is just sit there and laugh like a madman as I was taking pictures of it. I spent about another hour wandering around the park and decided to call it a day.

Just not sure why this guy is using this gear at the beach? Looking for gold jewelry in frozen sand?

The WA side is a lot older and different to the east coast. There are hills here and basically all are associated with harder iron sections in the greenstone belts. Greenstone belts are mostly highly metamorphosed basalt. The weathering profile here in the deserts are a result of a very long time with no real water flow. The majority of weathering here is from chemical weathering and wind, but it has been happening for so long that areas have weathered down several hundred meters. When it weathers like this you end up with the majority of gold patches on the surface, flat ground directly above the source. A bit simplified but typing interferes with my afternoon beer. 🍻 refering to central goldfields, Pilbara is slightly different again.

Nice gold Purple, I hope to be as successful.

Great going purple. That’s some prime stuff, and I’d take a bucket full of nuggets like those over much larger nuggets when it comes to being able to easily sell them for a decent price. I can say that I’ve found well over $6000 worth of gold now with my GPX 6000, so anything additional I find has me into gravy land. Not all that difficult with $1700 gold as long as a guy has the areas and time to work with.

First off, a big thank you to all of you who have provided your in the field experiences as well as tips and tricks and troubleshooting info on this forum and elsewhere. Rigging up the new detector coil, I knew to screw and push the coil cable in 3 times and then continue to tighten it down fully, to use the factory reset if needed and that lower sensitivity still provided plenty of power. 🎇🏆 Everything else was pretty easy. This detector swings great and is simple to use! The availability of the extra batteries and 17in mono coil in the USA finally are what made me jump in and get all of the accessories at once, even though I generally don't care to be an early adopter for electronics. I knew I couldn't go wrong with all of the good reports from all of you here on DP and everywhere on the internet. So, I took out my new GPX6000 today to an area I've had success in the past. I had one fully charged battery and the spare was 1/4 charged. I used the 17x13 the entire time, even though the 11in was in my pack if needed. I was able to run normal timing at around a sensitivity level of 5. Higher and things got a little noisy, so I just went with this set up for the first trip. I was pleasantly surprised I didn't have to run in difficult timing. It was very simple to use and coming from a background of running a GPX5000 the past 3 years, it really was a breeze to get right to detecting and not worry at all about controls. The machine ran great! I had zero hiccups, no loss of audio using the wireless headphones, etc. It didn't fall over all day even placed on slopes or atop rocks, unlike some of my other no-so-ergonomic gold detectors. Apart from becoming noisy and performing noise cancels as needed, I restarted the unit to factory settings around midday when it got a little squirrely and after that it behaved the rest of the day. I got in 9 hours of searching and the extra battery was enough to get me through until quitting time. I ended up with 5 nuggets walking along some steep creeks. None were huge, but all decent sized. This spot generally seems to lack tiny gold, as the slope I assume lets the lighter gold blast right through the area during high water. I'm not too surprised no sub .1g pieces popped up. None found were too deep, maybe 5-6 inches on the largest one, but signals were unmistakable, even if faint. I look forward to more outings soon, especially as its now the fall season and cooler days are just around the corner!

I for one am looking forward to the tons of dredging stuff you will post, Steve!

Hi Doug, Thank you so much for posting this. I visit Alaska every year... except the last. The darn pandemic. Anyway, it is nice to see some posts from home. Thank you and very happy to have you here. I promise to start posting more here as I have tons of dredging stuff yet to publish.