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I have been out a few times during some insane weather with the new Deus 2. Finally today we had some good weather conditions and good soil moisture levels in the local parks for perfect deep target conditions. I was using the 9" coil in stock General mode. The only adjustments I made were to use Square Wave audio and to set 5 tone bins for iron, low conductor gold/aluminum, US nickels, mid conductor aluminum/zinc penny, and the last bin was for copper pennies, dimes, quarters and any silver coins or jewelry. I only dug targets with tones and IDs in the US nickel and copper penny/silver ranges. I walked over hundreds of other trash targets that were visible or heard along with what were probably zinc pennies/small shot bottle aluminum screw caps. I had hunted this park originally with Deus 1 and later gridded part of it with the Equinox. The Equinox has tallied 8 silver dimes and 27 wheat pennies at this one park. It is the kind of place where most of the good targets are 6 to 8"+ deep and are covered with a dense surface to 6" matting of can slaw, pull tabs of all sorts, and thousands of steel crown bottle caps and aluminum screw caps. I deliberately hunted mostly the area that had been gridded with the Equinox. Due to the numerous aluminum targets that crowd into the US nickel range on the Equinox (11,12,13) it has been really hard for me to hunt nickels and gold rings that respond with those numbers since I would have to dig hundreds of targets in a small area and might only move 10 feet during a 2 hour hunt. Denver Parks and Rec. would also have something to say about hundreds of dig holes in a 10'x10' area......not happening. Limiting that US nickel bin to 60 to 64 on Deus 2 cut way down on the aluminum targets that I dug today. I easily located 6 nickels (one was a 1934 Buffalo) and all were in the 6" to 8" range. They had no doubt nickel bin tones and IDs. I only dug 4 other targets in that range. 3 were detached, deep beaver tails from ring pulls and one was a thick, nickel sized piece of can slaw. Very impressive since Deus 1 for instance would up-average US nickels from 62 to the low 90s after 3" depth. It would do the same to pull tabs/can slaw........extremely annoying considering the price and reputation of the original Deus and one reason I am very glad to have a Deus 2. Detecting targets in the copper/silver bin was super easy. I did experience a little up averaging of 6" to 8" copper pennies and clad dimes but I quickly learned what Deus 2 was telling me. Those deep high conductors in the 8 to 10 mineralization bar dirt that I was hunting in had mostly good numbers. The up-averaging happened more in the Deus 2 audio which had the correct high tones but also had some sporadic iron tones mixed in. Occasionally I would see a 00, 01 to 05 pop up along with the correct 90 to 95 depending on the target. I checked each hole that had some iron responses mixed in with high conductor responses and there were no man-made iron targets present. I managed quite a few copper Memorial pennies, one Wheat, several clad dimes and two really deep late 1960s quarters. Most of these targets were on edge or at least tilted. So, Deus 2 as opposed to Deus 1, is an outstanding modern trashy park detector for sure in even moderate to high mineralization. Very impressive. Next time I will go after some of the deeper, more iffy signals. Today this park was full or city workers who were trying to deal with all of the broken limbs and damaged trees from our weekend late May snow/wind storm. I did not want to look like I was digging too deep or for too long in one spot.

So this was my third visit to this 1750s property. I found a nice horseshoe the first day, but then it was all bullets and foil. Second time out was almost all foil no fun and the black flies, let me tell ya, they were fighting amoungst themselves for my blood. Anyhoo third times the charm right? So again I am not finding squat. I was using the Legend with the 11inch coil because I thought I needed to search as deep as possible. So I decided to switch to the 6inch figuring I was dealing with way too much iron and the 6 inch might cut through and reveal some new targets. That was it. 5 minutes later I had my first ever colonial shoe buckle part at like 4 inches deep. I recognized it immediately and was flipping out like i found gold. I must say, as a newcomer to metal detecting, I have realistic expectations and hopes. When I got this permission I was hoping I would find a shoe buckle. Seriously, it was pretty much the top of my list. So yeah, seeing that in the hole was a magic moment. This part of the buckle had nice sharp teeth and even still has the pin in it! So glad too that I didn't destroy it trying to dig it. Thank you 6" coil! From there this old place started to spill the beans and give up some secrets. I also found a lead stamp in the shape of a cool old lightbulb. At first I thought it was a religeous relic, but nope, a lightbulb. But a lightbulb with a nice art nouveau vibe. Oh and found with part of the stamp wood still with it, which makes me think it is probably not that old. But a very cool find and maybe I will stamp some lightbulbs someday! And finaly my first ever dog tag (i think). Whatever it is, it clearly says 1949 and the town where I am hunting. Love it. So my faith is restored. There's old out there... Keep digging!

The GPX6000, in my long term experience and on information provided to me from the designer, has the same outright depth as the older GPX series all things being equal, I’ve borne this out on 2 foot digs on 2 ounce pieces with the supplied GPX11 mono coil so know the 6000 has GOOD depth. However as users of the GPX17 know, an increase in size of coil comes with a proportional increase in EMI, this is due to the GPX6000 being more prone to EMI due to its very wide band width, so by the time you get up in size (the GPX17 x 13 = 30 inches divided by 2 is basically equivalent to a 15 inch round (less depth though due the elliptical shape but also less EMI too)). This means because of the way the detector is set up (user controls like Threshold Pitch, No Fixed GB, Sensitivity etc) there will be issues with EMI, especially Sferic noise in remote places, so using a bigger coil will be negating the advantage. There is plenty of commentary about operators saying the GPX17 does not have much depth yet it is comparative to older 17” elliptical coils made for the 5000 and 4500’s, so you then have to ask the question why that is so? The GPX6000 is aimed fairly and squarely at what it offers performance wise over previous tech, it is not aimed at competing against the GPZ7000, the technology will NEVER compete against ZVT its just can’t so there is no point in designing it that way. I understand the desire for a “one detector does all” and for users wanting to have more options, one could rightly assume Minelab recognise this and supplied the detector with 3 very popular coil sizes right off the bat and then very shortly thereafter opened up the tech to the aftermarket guys. I have no clear idea of where the after market coil options size range will end up and can only go by what I’m seeing which is CT and NF aiming squarely at their most popular sizes with very clear definitions between the coil makers. It makes sense they make coils that compliment what the GPX6000 is clearly VERY good at doing, namely light weight and ultra sensitive coils to compliment that aspect. I’ve not stated the 6000 doesn’t need big coils, I’ve said and meant “why would you when there is already plenty of far better options for users and has been for many years now”. Why try to make a detector do something its not primarily designed to do? This reminds me of all the small coil commentary on the GPZ7000, pondering on this I see the correlation with people fishing, the guy on the shore casts out as far as he can, the guy in the boat anchors up and casts towards the shore. 😂 I suppose it’s just human behaviour where we always think/hope the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and when you actually put that person on the “OTHER” side of the fence they are then found looking back across the fence again.🤪 For deep gold I choose to use the GPZ7000 and it’s in the full knowledge that I’m missing easy gold with the 6000, right now there is a plethora of easy gold for the 6K even on totally flogged patches so I do find myself cringing a little by sticking to my larger deeper gold guns, I truly am passing up on EASY gold. Lately I’ve been putting in a 3 or 4 hours session chasing deep gold with the 7K and then if I get “Skunked” I grab the 6K and go get a few rattly bits to lift the spirits, it really is that stupidly easy. JP

Was able to get out yesterday and hunt a couple of different rivers. I had to pay my dues today though. I dug a lot of trash for several keepers. First place I dug up a lot of lead and a silver toe ring. On the way home from the first stop, I hit a crossing and was able to come across a 14k wedding band and a pet crematory tag which is a first for me.

Tom Dankowski and Steve Herschach are excellent representatives from two worlds of detection .... Their very different types of field detection conditions ... for maximum effective detection .. require very different detector settings ... something about the correct setting of recovery speed ,, and also other detector settings .. While Tom Dankowski ... in detection on his slightly mineralized terrains / 1-3 bar Fe3O4 / .. prefers equinox 800 recovery speed 3 ... for the best depth of detection .... Because Equinox in slightly mineralized terrain will really be the deepest recovery speed 3 for coin targets .... But .... such a detector setting will not work optimally for Steve Herschbach .... which normally detects in very highly mineralized terrains .... / 5-7bar Fe3O4 / which requires a minimum recovery speed of approximately 5-7 for Equinox 800 .... according to the strength of the terrain mineralization .. to achieve a really good depth of detection and stability of signals and .... that means good results in detection ... if in such a heavily mineralized terrain on the Equinox 800 date recovery speed at 3 you lose the depth and stability of detection .... simply lower recovery speed will not work here ,,,, and many targets you will simply pass ... PS. in terms of depth and sensitivity of detectors to small targets in the depths ... ,, last weekend was held in the Czech Republic Minelab day ... which Minelab sellers made a demanding test field with deeply buried Celtic gold coins of various sizes ... at maximum depths. ..which was able to detect Equinox..../at recovery speed 3/ ... I will say that it is extremely deep ../ 1.target "1/24 gold stater" -0.3 gram gold coin at 14cm deep... 2.target ..1/8 stater-0.5gram gold at 18cm, 3 target ..1/3stater 1.5gram gold at 23cm deep, 4.target ..1 stater 5 gram gold at 30 cm, 5. target ..1 silver roman denarius at 25cm 6.target 1dukat -3.5gram gold coin at 29cm , 7.target 3. Kreuzer ..silver coin at 27 cm deep.. 8 .target 28 mm - 3.5gram silver Groshus Pragensis at 32 cm deep 9 . target 28mm -3.5gram silver coin Groshus Pragensis at 37cm.. 10. target .... 1 silver Thaller ..../size 1 Silver Dollar/ coin at 40 cm.. 11. .. WW2 militatry ID..... at 55cm deep.... ... and 2 separacion targets coin in to iron.. My colleagues.. Mike and Jack from "Top Diggin" .. made some videos ... from tests..and testing various Equinox, Deus II, Atrex, Deus I....and others detectors .... on this test field ... ,, and it will be interesting to see how effective the settings ... were effective in detecting these really ... demanding and deep targets ... When I edit these videos with pictures and mark the depth of targets I will publish them ...you will see what recovery-reactivity settings must be used for different detectors, if you have reached such deep targets ...

Some of us military background older VETERAN dealers have been asking for awhile now and it seems our wishes have come true. Garrett Electronics with the help of their dealers are allowing up to a 15% military discount on certain detectors. As a VET myself, Gerry's Detectors will offer the full 15% for those who have earned it. I realize Garrett is not known for their Gold Detectors, but assure you the 24K is a very capable detector. Plus the ATX has some great features but it needs some serious redesign and who knows, it eventually could happen. Thanks Garrett Electronics (American Made) for helping support those who allow us the freedom to enjoy this prospecting, gold hunting, metal detecting hobby.Military Program Dealer.pdf Military Program Dealer.pdf

Right now I prefer the Equinox 800 as it has one of the best identification systems out there and can run in Auto GB or you can Manually GB the unit. Now that the new Deus II is out, my Field Staff and I will be comparing it (will take time at different sites/kinds of gold/soils) to see what the results are. Another VLF detector that has great features is the Garrett 24K. Fisher needs to get something going soon or get off the pot. They been pumping us a bunch of gas the last 10+ yrs. When purchasing an EQ-800 from me, you get loads of knowledge/settings & I match the internet price. As always the US Military past/present get an additional 15% off. Out of state residents don't pay tax either.

I found a 1952 wheat cent today , It was masked by the sod stake, I could not hear the penny until I removed the sod stake , then i heard it loud and clear . today we have many sod stakes that keep us from hearing God , and one of them is the theory of evolution, remove it and you will hear God clearly. if you get my pun.

Today I got the deepest piece of gold I have dug to date. Using my 6000 I was detecting an old push in the Cargos. It was a very faint signal that got a little stronger with each boot scrape. I started removing more dirt with my pick and the signal kept getting stronger. When it was finally out and in the pile the hole was deeper than the coil turned on edge. I was real slow and careful about removing the target so I did not bury it. This thing was coil on edge depth. The orientation had to have been very flat. I only wish it would have been a little more portly. This is the first PI machine I have ever used and I am pleased with it.

Please don't tell anyone (we're trying to keep it under wraps) but that spiffy new coil is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-inch-Coil-Triangulated-Bi-Axial/dp/B09SNVRXHC Apparently only at Amazon, as far as I can tell. Limit 2 per person. If anyone can purchase, on the open market, the new Fisher MF detector in 2022 I will send them one of my paychecks. Offer good for the first person who can show proof-of-purchase. I'm not sure why we keep aiming for the foot and pulling the trigger but it sure makes for sore feet and a red face.

I don’t use notches unless the trash or hot rocks are just unbearable. I do use tone bins to help learn the detector. Tone bins were 0 to 10, 11 to 59, 60 to 64, 65 to 88, 88 to 99. I set my tones to pitches I like and can remember…….but I am a classically trained musician so my tone choices are very subjective. thanks for asking

I'll second what Steve said. I've found nuggets with both the Equinox and Deus 2 and IMO the Equinox is a better gold nugget detector. The Equinox is more sensitive to small gold and has a better coil selection.

To chime in, for gold nuggets, Equinox still has an edge on the Deus 2, especially once accessory coils are considered. Coin and relic is another story, but for gold nuggets, the Nox is still a very safe bet in a discriminating VLF.

Well, that's what recovery speed is basically. Just a simplistic way of looking at it. Here are the details at the thread below. Ground figures heavily into everything to do with metal detecting. As I said, bad ground with hot rocks can mask targets. Magnetite infested ground has "see through" issues to deal with that are not unlike those found in a bed of nails situation. Which is why tests without ground are kind of useless except to establish base parameters. Again, details below, but it all kind of misses the point. A person should be comparing and adjusting for the best results on their ground and their targets, not using stuff found in posts. Find targets in your own ground, spend an hour adjusting recovery speed up and down to find what works best, go with that. Frankly, anyone who owns a detector has all they need to get real answers. Don't believe me or Tom or anyone else, simply find out what works best for your own particular needs. Think of recovery speed as a gas pedal in a car. You don't check on the internet to find out where to place the gas pedal. You learn to adjust it up and down based on conditions at the time. Too fast or too slow gets you in trouble, and one setting does not work everywhere. If the ground and targets change, so might the setting have to change. The only way to learn this is to experiment a lot in the field on actual found targets before digging them, to see what setting gives the best audio response on the widest range of targets possible. In your ground and your targets - that’s the key. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/4835-equinox-recovery-detect-speed-settings/?do=findComment&comment=50803 This chart is from the link above. It’s for the Deus, but applies 100% to the Equinox, or any other machine with a recovery/reactivity control. Notice the emphasis on ground conditions.

Havent been out for 3 days....family gets in the way of fun... Still, I got out for 4 hours this afternoon and got another 8 little bits for 1.15gm. Now just 30.5gm to go... just under the ounce mark.

Oh boy, another person selling a fictitious mining journal.

Another 1.1gm today, so 8.3gm all told for 8 days ownership. All within 5 minutes of home. 31.7 grams to go.....

Yesterday JW suggested we take our GPX 6000's out and compare them to ensure mine is now working properly as I've had no confidence in it after my woes. Unfortunately we were unable to compare our 11" coils like for like as his coil is still away for warranty replacement, it must be 3 weeks now and no sign of a replacement, they just have no stock to swap it for which is pretty poor, but with the number of faulty ones I've seen on Facebook I'm not at all surprised they have no stock as it's not a coil they'd make a lot of as extras seeing everyone gets one with the detector. JW suggested we go to an area he's used his 6000 a lot with the 11" before it died so he would know how mine should behave to see if anything is out of the ordinary. I just wanted to use his detector for a bit to see if EMI was as troubling with it as it was with mine, so I took it for a spin with the Minelab 17" coil on it, I found it was no different with it's EMI behaviour to mine, in fact I thought it was worse but I guess that's to be expected, a bigger coil. We were quite close to a standard normal power line, not the high voltage transmission ones like at the other area that I wanted to wrap the GPX around a tree and say goodbye to it for good. JW had a fair while on mine checking it out and doing factory resets and just experimenting with it, he thought it ran similar to his with it's EMI behaviour so I guess it is how it is, he had my threshold running reasonable, much better than it was at the other location that's for sure. The other spot with the transmission lines is my favourite area but it just suits the GPZ better as it doesn't care at all about the transmission lines, even right near them its as if they barely exist and you can run it with the normal coil you'd use and your normal settings. The GPX requires the DD and adjusted settings so it makes no sense to use the GPX there, the same reason I didn't like using my 4500 there. Once JW had approved my GPX I felt a little more confident in it, knowing that more ratty threshold is normal, I'm just not good on ratty detectors and feel I'll always miss the faint targets with them by comparison to more stable detectors where as JW doesn't mind a more ratty detector, experience level differences I would guess. I had another confidence booster, the Avantree Torus speakers, I've never been much of a headphone person and the ML-100's that come with the GPX have a high pitched hiss all the time once connected to the 6000 which would give me a headache listening to that all day but the Torus speakers are perfect sound, no hiss and very clear audio and easy to hear even in a noisy environment, where we were has a rushing river nearby with quite noisy water sound in the background but the Torus was fine, perfect in fact. Quick and easy to pair with good sound quality and volume level, I was able to turn the GPX volume right down to minimum to stabilize the machine even more and run the Torus on the volume level that suited me. One thing I will point out is with the Torus on you'll like finding 22 shells, sure the noise is booming but the Torus gives you a shoulder massage every time you sweep over one so you'll find yourself swinging over them multiple times enjoying the vibrating massage 🙂 I like the Torus so much I'm going to use my Bluetooth transmitter on the GPZ and use them on it too, so I can finally retire my harness that was only there as a way to hold my SP01 and speakers. The neck gap on them is huge, designed for someone with a neck like Shrek I think and my Pelican neck is a bit skinny for them but they held on perfectly fine and I had no concerns of them coming off. I'd highly recommend anyone considering these things to give them a try, I doubt you'll be disappointed. They even talk to you 🙂 It started to rain a bit while using them and they're not water resistant but I just put my jumper over top of them and the sound came through it perfectly fine (not sure what Americans call it) and Kiwi's never even know what I mean when I say jumper as it's a Queensland/Australia term as far as I can tell. Once we'd done tinkering comparing detectors we started detecting, I wandered off 20 or so meters away from JW so I didn't interfere with his detector and started detecting some bedrock. I was running my GPX in Auto as if I tried manual 10 or Auto+ it became a bit too unstable for my liking I guess due to the nearby power lines. It wasn't long and I had a good target noise, super faint but very repeatable and after scraping away all the soil off the bedrock I was pretty sure it wasn't a pellet, I started breaking away the schist to try get down to it, I was attacking for for about 20 minutes and I guess JW noticed as he came over, I told him what's going on and showed him my target response at that time, it had improved to a point it was very obvious after smashing some bedrock away. He said lets check my 17" coil over it and see how it responds, so he waived the coil over it, nothing at all, he pushed the edges right into the cracks in the bedrock and nothing, he spent a bit of time trying to get a response from the target and he couldn't get one. We fired up my GPX again and waived it over it and straight away a reasonably good response. After seeing that I'm glad I didn't buy the 17" coil seeing we mostly hunt smaller gold it's not near got the sensitivity of the 11" on this stuff. to be completely blind to this piece when the 11" was getting it pretty easily. JW had also lost a couple of targets he was recovering with the 17" coil so we went over to them with the 11" and tried to find them, the 11" found one of the two lost targets straight away. JW then hung around to help recover the target, he's a lot better at getting gold out of bedrock than I am, I'm not aggressive and hack away at it slowly as I'm so scared I'll lose the nugget, it's happened before 🙂 He just smashes the hell out of it and gets it out quickly. It didn't take him too long and he had it out, as per usual with the GPX once the target is near the coil it ROARS on it, a few inches away and it's a quiet response so once out we had it in no time. The dug out bit of bedrock is below the coil in the photo above. The nugget circled. That's where it was, I was so surprised the 17" coil had no response on this nugget when in there, it was probably on its side in a layer of the schist but still, the 11" performed so much better. This is the nugget. I'm confident the GPZ with my favourite little 8" would have hit this far easier than the GPX did, it wasn't what I'd call deep but it was faint on the GPX and missed entirely by the 17" even with some of the bedrock broken away. Next up I kept detecting around this same bedrock and it falls off a bit of a cliff down to the river below, it's pretty wild on the way down but I went off the edge a bit as I could see an area I could start to get down and detected one of the many ledges on the way down, I found a few pellets down there but also a nugget. It was very shallow and a louder signal than a pellet. It was really only a couple of pick scrapes to remove the grass and I had it, it's lucky I wasn't being lazy ignoring the first pick scrapes assuming they're pellets. The reason I didn't ignore it and I ignore many pellets is the pellets the GPX finds harder to detect, sure it booms on them when you first go over them as they're close to the coil, you do a couple of pick scrapes and move the pellet into a pile of soil and the target signal drops off dramatically to a point they can entirely disappear or be very hard to locate compared to the screaming signal when they're near the coil so you find yourself flattening out the pile. It's a bit of a giveaway with lead pellets I think as gold tends to remain a decent signal as it's not as difficult of a target as a small sphere like a lead pellet. Here is a video of the spot the nugget was, not usual for me to go off edges like this I usually leave the mountain goat stuff for JW 🙂 My threshold was pretty savage in this video, I did a factory reset not long after this as it was starting to go wild. Good ol' Geosense. It's amazing doing a factory reset fixes it up when no amount of noise cancels will. I hope its a bug they can fix and a firmware update comes out some day. I decided I'd go back up to where I found the first one and give it another go, a couple of meters along the same run of bedrock I found another faint target signal that lived beyond clearing the dirt off the schist bedrock. Because I'd just only done the same thing I knew this was going to be gold so I did some filming. I didn't film the entire process as I'm very slow getting gold out of bedrock 🙂 This is the better video of the two to watch as it gives a better idea of the recovery I switch to manual 10 in the video from Auto and you'll see the target response improve, I just preferred hunting in Auto while I'm still getting used to the more ratty threshold of the GPX over the GPZ even though I know I'm taking a performance hit doing so. And the happy snaps. This one was a bit deeper than the last one, took me a long time to smash it out. A bit more of a ball nugget, again the GPZ would have hit it easily. It was now starting to rain a little bit and likely snowing on the mountains above us so our day we nearing the end, we only started around Lunch time so I was pretty happy with my results. JW at this stage had given up on the 17", I guess seeing it entirely miss the first target I got wasn't really encouraging. He'd put on the 14" DD now, I'm sure he wished his 11" wasn't away on warranty at this stage as he'd not found anything yet. I went back towards where we stored our bags and started detecting around there and found my last nugget of the day, another very simple target, it was in someone elses dig hole spoils, they'd dug up the nugget and rejected it, I guess they thought because it was in soil and not on or in the bedrock it wasn't gold, so I recovered it and it was my biggest of the day 🙂 It was right near where the cliff drops off to the river below. I checked with JW, it wasn't his dig hole so someone else had been there, he did point out when we arrived it looked like someone else had been there recently as there was dig holes that were not his so someone donated me a nugget. So overall my GPX was working much better at this spot, it still had its Geosense quirks and is nowhere near as stable as the GPZ, and the GPZ I know is just as sensitive if not more so than the GPX when its using small coils on the GPZ, it'll be interesting to see the improvements with the smaller coils on the GPX. Where the GPX appears to be more sensitive is small pellets near the coil with the way it really roars on them, but any depth on those little pellets and reality sets in, it's just hyper sensitive to targets close to the coil, it'd be good for bedrock hunting with that behaviour. My total for the afternoon. We bailed out because it started raining and only started at lunch time so a good result for me. JW found one little guy at .19 of a gram and that was once he changed over to the 14" DD, he was certainly digging away all day though, I could hear a lot of smashing on the bedrock! Damn pellets! My junk level was really low, I was rejecting known pellets by the strong pellet signal dropping off to next to nothing in the dig out pile quirk the GPX has. Those 22 shells give a nice massage with the Torus 🙂

Head for the beach. We had some high winds last week and I got to thinking that I should do something different. The boss said it was ok to take off work early on Friday so instead of a pick I loaded the beach scoop into the back of the truck...when I got to the spot it looked like there had been 6 feet of sand removed from the area. Nice steep slope...targets everywhere and I had it all to myself. It was a good hunt. 4 silver rings, one junk tungsten, and the find of the day was the 18 k engagement A JAFFE ring...Its a real beauty in person...but mother grundy has a way of playing cruel tricks on us sometimes...the center stone does not test positive.. Who in the bleep buys a beautiful 18k engagement ring covered in real diamonds and then puts a fake in the middle? I even brought it to the jeweler today just to make sure...his reply "No Luck" lol. So that the way it goes... but I'll take it anyways...it's way too big to fit the wife but she has already laid claim to the silver ring with the red colored stone. Equinox 800/ field 2/coiltek 10x5 Happy hunting... strick

Great finds, Dirtshark! Like F350 said, nothing cuts through the noise like a small coil, well done!

According to * Mike,... the terrain was slightly / moderately mineralized ...this would agree as well as the deepest setting of Equinox 800 for recovery speed 3 / for moderately-moderately demanding ... terrain /.. I'll ask Mike what the mineralization meter showed for Deus I and Deus II.... and I know ..👍

Nice little bits, but “family gets in the way of fun...”?? You’ve got it bad. In fact, I think so do I! 🙄

Now thats what a good day looks like. Take a loop to that big rock and see if there are any refractions or not. Should be easy enough to tell if it's a diamond not not. Big stone like that might even be etched if it's real. Heart a ruby?

That is what happened today for me too. I got mostly strong hits on 6 to 8” coins on edge. A few were like you described and were clad coins with slightly different quality hits on each side. On edge copper pennies did not respond like that. I can also hear weird audio when locating coin spills or multiple coins stuck together. I can’t describe that sound yet but it is very distinctive.

I have not seen Deus 2 do something that the Equinox or Legend can’t do yet. I knew there were still targets in the area I hunted since I had only gridded it in one direction. I only got my coil over four shallow targets out of the 60 that I dug today. Those 4 were recent drops according to their 2021/2022 dates. The rest of the 56 coin and trash targets I dug today were in the 4 to 8” range and could have easily been masked/poorly oriented hunting in one direction. There are so many steel crown bottle caps and pull tabs on or near the surface that accidentally moving them an inch when people are using the park, when the grass gets cut or when we have bad weather can easily unmask a deeper coin.

Well, as for clues, I haven't found any old coins thats for sure, which makes me suspect that it has been dug before but the jury is out on that. I did find a small peice of brass that looked like it may have at one time resembled a small sheild, but didn't have any definition or markings on it. Unidentifiable, but it did seem old. I need to go back over ground I covered with the 11 inch coil with the 6 inch coil to see if there were targets I missed. However, I am hopeful. The home owner was encouraging me to search the front of the home so that may produce some coins or relics. I am so glad I switched to the 6 inch coil. It is awesome. This place has weird soil, it gets very dense after 3 or 4 inches. Very mineralized. But the 6 inch coil likes it.

One thing I've noticed with the D2 is every time I'm out I find quite a few on edge coins to the point where you're hearing beeps on each side of it. I've been digging a lot of older deep plaid mixed in with a few Mercury dimes and Rosie's etc lots of nickels and they're coming in crystal clear almost like how could any other machine have missed this.

Haha, busted by the authority! Just glad you didn't start your post with "Surely you can't be serious". Never imagined I'd be called out for calling a "V" nickel a Barber, just as we don't call Indian head cents "Longacres", while it does have an old-timey ring . 🤣 Thanks for validating my ignorant lack of ambiguity. 😀 I was merely offering the good Cap'n some humorous solace, apparently he has not come across some of the older coins. It's kinda a tangential reference to "there's no place like home"... My first old coin ever was an 1809 Classic Bust half cent, not counting the modern coins and cut pistareens I dug near and around my house. As usual it was in crap shape. 😵 I've dug a bunch of IHPs and lots of wheats, all coins floating around the time of the Barbers. My first V nickel came from the river about a year ago, when I looked it up I saw that Charles Barber designed it, so while everybody was posting Barber dimes and quarters I was able to convince myself I found a Barber too. 🙄 I haven't yet dug a V nickel in all that great shape, and was impressed by the Cap'n finding one that was nearly clean. If you Google "Barber nickel", the site acts like it's what the Liberty Head Nickel is called. 😁 I don't know my posterior from my elbow about coins for the most part, but I'm very interested in knowing, I got the red book on your recommendation, and it is a good read as well as a reference. Haven't made it to 1883 yet... 🤣

In my opinion the Deus II is specifically tuned to do better in areas where the Deus I and ORX are weakest. Specifically silver coins in parks laden with modern trash. I do not think it was meant to challenge those detectors on small low conductors. My Equinox versus Deus II field comparisons on tiny low conductors in bad ground will not have me putting my Equinox aside as a small gold nugget detector. However, I saw great promise for high conductors in bad ground. So much so I’m switching from the 9” coil for my D2 to an 11” coil instead, as my intended uses for the detector have changed. In a nutshell I’m going to give it a go for hunting silver in parks with fairly bad ground. What I saw was not absolute depths exceeding the Equinox, as both it and the D2 hit the same coins at the same depth in magnetite laden ground. However, the Equinox started up averaging the results sooner than the Deus II at depth, with the Deus 2 holding a more accurate target id to greater depths than the Equinox. On the deepest targets the Equinox up averaged enough to “wrap around” and read ferrous on the deepest high conductors, which is normal for detectors on targets in the worst ground. The Deus II edged the Equinox out, still calling those coins accurately, when I might have passed them as deep ferrous with the Nox. This is all the more impressive as it was the ability of the Nox to hold accurate target id at depth in bad ground that first really wowed me with the Equinox, versus other detectors in my ground. Long story short the Deus 2 is no slouch on small low conductors, but in my opinion can’t match machines like the 24K, or Deus 1 and ORX if they are running the HF coils. I also think the Equinox barely has the edge on tiny low conductors with the 11” coils. Put a 6” coil on the Nox though and it’s no contest. I want to reiterate though the D2 is very good on low conductors, and will find nickels as well or better than most detectors. I’d be able to hunt gold nuggets with it just fine, but it just won’t match the few that define best of the best in that arena. What I’m liking is what I see for high conductors in the worst magnetite soils, and as long as EMI in town does not mess me up, I’m hoping it can pull some silver out of ground where I did well with the Equinox. If the Deus 2 can impress me at the park, it may hang around. We’ll see. I’ve had one sitting around for over a week now, and been too busy to even get out once with it, but maybe next week.

Due to inflation a picture is worth only 500 words.

Bugger, only for the F75 and not the T2, that's a start at least. Thanks for pointing out the coil now actually exists. They're sure trying to hide it, it's not even on the Fisher website although I'd long believed they've lost the password to be able to update that then they surprised me updating it with the Gold Bug 2.1 photos 🙂

I saw those a couple of weeks ago and was going to order one but then I got to thinking about it. What would happen if I tripped and fell on my detector? Something’s got to give and either that mounting device will break or the plastic on the back of my remote will. So I decided to just go with the factory tether. What made me think of this was about 20 years ago I bought a BMW R1150GS motorcycle. This was an adventure type motorcycle with the two horizontally opposed cylinders that stick out from the sides of the bike. This is commonly known as a “boxer” engine. Being an adventure bike I rode it on gravel roads and other places where you wouldn’t take a strictly street oriented bike. When you do that with a big, heavy bike you’ll eventually drop it. When you do drop it the first thing that makes contact with the ground is the cylinder head. Now BMW is aware of this and provides stock plastic cylinder head guards. They look and feel pretty flimsy. It wasn’t long after that bike came on the market that there were aftermarket suppliers of better, more robust cylinder guards. One such company made very stout aluminum guards that just bolted to the engine in the same bolt holes that the stock guards used. I thought they looked very strong and rugged so I bought a pair and installed them. Not too long after that I dropped the bike at a walking pace coming off the edge of a sidewalk. Guess what happened? That strong aluminum cylinder guard was so stiff that the weight of the bike made it crack the bolt hole where it attached to the engine! If I would have had the stock plastic guard it would have flexed and just gotten scratched and I could have replaced it and the bike would have looked like new. Instead I had to take those guards off and left them off. I ended up selling the bike about a year later with full disclosure of the damage. If I would have kept the bike I would have had to find someone to weld that hole with aluminum then drill and re-tap it. Sorry for the long story but just a heads up of what could happen. Edit: I’m not trying to discredit detecting doodads product, it’s probably great for water hunters and such where the detector probably won’t get dropped or fallen upon. But if you’re hiking through the woods and you trip and fall on the remote in such a way that there’s a lot of force put on it, something’s going to give. I would probably bet XP designed the remote attachment so that it does pop off before something breaks.

At least they got a good pin pointer to market before the heartbeat stopped. I'm quite happy with my F-pulse for a beach environment.

GOD BLESS AMERICA----and thank you for your service to this great country Gerry.-----My wife & I are both vets---we may contact you regarding the purchase of detectors at some point.-----Del & Patsy

So I bought the orange clip a while ago and could not get it to fit the machine properly...I only messed with it a few minutes so I gotta try it again... strick

That’s the key way to know for sure. https://www.gemsociety.org/article/select-gems-ordered-mohs-hardness/

Good luck with that...Got Magic Marker?

Last weekend I had an opportunity to go on a club outing to an old mining ghost town site on private land. We had a hunt last spring at a different ghost town, which was my first, and this would be my second. I took the Deus II to test out and the Equinox, which performed well at my first ghost town hunt, as a backup. I had high hopes of doing a little better in the iron and nail infested ground since the Deus detectors are supposed to excel in iron. I used the Relic program mainly and did some checking with the Park and General programs and ran with Notch at 00-00, IAR at 2, Reactivity at 1-2, Iron Volume at 3, and Sensitivity at 96. I was prepared for the audio onslaught of the rapid fire iron and falsing tones, but was amazed at the stability of the Deus. The ground was bone dry from the long drought and iron tones were plentiful but managable and non ferrous tones rang out loud and clear. At about an hour into the hunt, I was learning to recognize the iron falses and nail tones from good tones. And then I hit a very recognizable penny tone and VID at 86. There were a lot of iron sounds mixed in as well but the 86 kept popping through. I imagined it was a large nail or big iron false but since I was investigating all targets, I had to dig it. When I opended the hole, I found a handful of nails, a piece of thin iron strapping and laying among the clutter was an unmistakable penny shape. My first thought was how did a Zincoln get down that deep? When I pulled it out, I was looking at a 1911 Wheat penny! I couldn't believe it. That was the oldest coin I have found in my 2 years of detecting in Colorado so I was pretty excited. The next day we were out at the site for a few more hours. I had been all over the place the day before like a dog looking for a bone, but decided to go back and work the area where I found the wheat penny and then it happened. I was almost hypnotized by the constant low hum of iron when an unfamiliar but solid 50 popped through. I thought it might be another button or piece of jewelry or something and then I saw something amazing in the hole! Another first for me! I know these things may seem trivial to you more experienced detectorists, but but this is like the Holy Grail to me. I never expected to be able to find something like this and now I feel like I actually can. More than that, I feel a little more like I'm one of you. I must say I am even more happy with the D2 as I learn it more and I believe it's good reputation in iron is well deserved.

Jeff, I have two friends who have been using their Deus II's at several inland parks and their results mirror yours. These parks have been hit hard by every machine through the Equinox and were considered by most of us to be hunted out. The Deus II has changed the game. My buddies have been astonished how many double digit nickel days they have had over the last couple of weeks. What makes this even more interesting is that many of the nickels, including a number of Buffaloes, have been shallow targets i.e. 6" or less. They have also been shocked at how much old clad they are digging. Thank you for posting your results and I look forward to more from you. By the way, they are both using the 11" coil. Bill

Unfortunately not near any beaches Mitchel, but have experienced the more positive side of La Nina to the US has been getting. Our summer here in Northeast Vic has been the wettest I can remember. Green right through Feb/March which are usually very hot and dry. I don't think we had a single day over 40 degrees celcius which is unusual, and very few days over 35. All in all it has been a very pleasant summer and almost no risk of bushfires. I know for gold detecting around here it has certainly made it a little harder with the constantly wet ground sparking extra mineral reaction when detecting. 'Normal' mode on a GPX6000 or GPZ7000 has been next to impossible to use. The Australian Bureau Of Meteorology has some good ENSO updates and info. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

Awesome freaking day! There are times at the beach I have to tough my coil on my scoop just to get a tone. You are on fire!

This was a 1 on the Equinox, I'll get a Deus reading in a bit. Tested 18k. It is a 32 in both unmodified and modified General.

I'm a wee bit that way myself.

God I love short stories.

I'd say you're safely in the 1700's club with that buckle. Nice finds! 👍 Can't find one like it (it's very simple) in the buckle book, but it's definitely cast, not stamped. Pretty early 18th century. Well I found it 😀 1720-1790. 👍 You may also find the "how to" interesting as well: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/living-history/buckle/

Confidence in your detector is paramount. When you have it, gold is the result. I love my 6000 and can't believe the depth that the small 11" coil gives me. Fly poop detector??? Haaa!

I just received mine today. I like that you don’t have to disassemble the Deus to fit. Just pack and go. It does seem well constructed and very well done aesthetically too. I feel like $60 was a deal on this, and something every XP user should have. If I didn’t already have such a nice pouch I’d have bought that too. Very happy with the 240 though.

My nephew spent two seasons trying to find that treasure. He saw some beautiful places he otherwise never would have seen, and it got him motivated to do something outside of what he normally would have done. Regardless of what happens to the find/if the find was real, etc., it generated a ton of interest and a sense of adventure for many people. As for those that died, that's truly sad, as it is when anyone dies in the pursuit of anything they take a keen interest in. All the best, Lanny