Leaderboard

Sure you did. 😉 😂 😆 😝 Admit it your a detector collector tragic like the rest of us. 🧐 You’re going to have to become Durga to swing them all. 😂 Durga Born fully grown and beautiful, Durga presents a fierce menacing form to her enemies. She is usually depicted riding a lion and with 8 or 10 arms, each holding the special weapon (detector) of one of the gods (Minelab, Garrett etc), who gave them to her for her battle against the buffalo demon (The cupboard).

I had been watching the thread by Dan(NM) entitled "What Would You Do In This Situation?" with more than just an observer's interest as I also found a Texas A&M University 10K gold ring on July 15. (I guess those Aggies have rings to throw away) LOL While I checked Craigslist, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and local groups such as Nextdoor, I didn't find any listing of "Lost Ring" on anything. Google provided me with 66 listings with his name. I watched the progress Dan(NM) was making (or not making) with the Texas A&M Ring site and knew that was probably not the way to go as his ring was 2019 and the one I found was 2006. That is a lot more years for changed addresses and phone numbers. I started my search looking for someone about 38 years old who might have graduated in 2006. Not coming up with any leads I expanded my search to some older individuals, as being a "later college grad myself" I knew the age may need to be expanded. It took several weeks of part time research to whittle the list down to a handful of possible owners. Facebook turned up the best leads and by drilling down into his family members FB pictures, I was able to locate one man who wore a large ring on his right hand in several pictures. And he happened to have a thesis printed by A&M for his Doctrine Degree in 2007 but submitted it in 2006. Back to Google again and I came up with an email address for a Professor at a university and sent him an email entitled "I found a Texas A&M University Ring"... for a subject title and then simply said "If this sounds familiar reply back to me and if not sorry for your time. I got a response within 10 minutes. I then sent him my phone number and we had a nice 15-minute chat about the ring. To say he was excited would be an understatement. He told me the name of the beach and the location on the beach where he thought that he had lost it. Within an hour of the first email, the ring was in the mail and on its way home. That is a big chunk of gold out of my inventory for the year but it was only a piece of gold to me, it was 16 years of memories for him.

IMPORTANT NOTE: AS OF SEPT. 20TH, THE BOOK HAS PRINTING PROBLEMS. I WILL JUMP BACK ON WHEN THEY ARE FIXED. IT'S A MATTER OF PRINTING THE COLOR PHOTOS IN COLOR, INSTEAD OF HOW THEY BEGAN PRINTING THEM IN BLACK AND WHITE. THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT. DAVID __________________________________________________ With Steve’s kind permission, I’m happy to announce that a book I have just completed has just been made available for preorder. Although there is nothing about this forum that implies a book about feature films will be pertinent, because I am an inhabitant of DP, I wanted the people who contribute to this forum to know. “Best Seat in the House, An Assistant Director Behind the Scenes of Feature Films” covers thirty-three years of working on movies starting from the early 70s and winding up in the early 2000s. The book has just been made available today (Aug. 25th), for preorder and will be released on September 19th. https://bit.ly/3wuU34e for paperback https://bit.ly/3KjeIht for hard cover Okay, back to your regularly scheduled gold discussions - and thank you.

Ok, the coil ears look improved, totally different design. Fantastic. Nothing to do with FBS2 though, they've done it with Multi-IQ and made a new Multi-IQ + Hopefully a stronger design, looks to be, they changed it for a reason! manticore, also spelled mantichora, manticora, or mantiger, a legendary animal having the head of a man (often with horns), the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion. A dig at the Legend? I think so. A legendary animal. Off to my Minelab dealer!

Lowest price.

HI, it's a 'skirt lifter' - it sounds dramatic and possibly something you might get arrested for talking about, but that's the phrase I couldn't remember. Luckily Wikipedia has a write up, but a general Google search on Victorian Skirt Lifter will bring up a variety of pictures - some simple, some more ornate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_lifter

You did what you would want someone else to do for you without expecting anything in return. You sound like you were taught right from wrong as a youngster and how to be selfless. Thanks for helping give the rest of us detectorists a good name. Well done! Also, were you a detective at one point? Your methods of tracking this guy down are inspirational and will help others sort out how to begin looking for someone should they find a class ring. Thanks for sharing.

I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed when this little gem popped up from the Minelab page…

Grab your popcorn, drink and get your armchair ready. Minelab is building up for their new release. Enquiring minds want to know!

Great body of work, good job finishing the book David. It'll be an interesting read. I'm sure you already know, but Back to the Future was like..."the movie" when I was growing up, generation-defining. It single handedly got me and my friends into skateboarding, playing music, got me to see my first concert (Huey Lewis), got me stoked on science and adventure, and started my love affair with lifted Toyota trucks long before I could drive. I doubt there was a single kid my age who didn't see that movie, a true piece of pop culture history.

Hey Goldseeker5000, Thought I would say hi, from the country north of you. Nice thread, just read it all now, from the start. Hard digging, but you seem to be making a go of it. That heart nugget is a beauty of a lump. After reading about your camp bear, it reminded me of my own. Montana Grizzly country, spent a few weeks down there alone, backpacking around looking for Fenn's treasure a few years back. One late afternoon, I was in a bit of a pinch, steep terrain, sun starting to dip behind the mountain...storm starting to roll in and no place to set up camp. Steep, covered in rock or broken trees, I had to keep pushing on. Anyways, I finally found a rock shelf, with rock faces on two sides to guard against the wind, just big enough for the tent and a small fire up against one of the walls. As I was setting up camp, off to the east up the mountain, in the last bit of direct sunlight, about half a mile away... a perfect cave in the side of the mountain. I had never seen a cave like this before, it was natural, but it almost looked constructed. To either side of the opening, were what looked almost like pillars and across the top was a overhanging rock that made it look like it was balanced there...made it look unreal. So, as I'm finishing up with the tent and getting a small fire going in the lee of the rock faces, my thoughts were focused on that cave and I'm thinking to myself "well, if I was a critter living up here...thats where I would be living". I had already decided that I wasn't going to cook anything, I hung my food up an old broken tree and crouched by the fire feeding it. I didn't have a gun with me, what with being a foreigner. All that I had with me for defence was my camp machete and a can of what was purported to be "Grizzly strength bear spray" it said so on the side anyway, lol 😆. Dusk in the steep country lasts awhile, as you probably well know. I don't know if it was half an hour or an hour later and I hear this low growling, over the wind...coming from above me, from the rock wall that protected my campsite from the wind. Standing no more than 10 feet away and 8 feet up, on the edge of the rock wall was a big ass Grizzly bear. His lip was curling as he growled at me and he was kicking back dirt and debris with his front feet. I stood up, keeping my eyes locked on his as I did, careful to not break his gaze. At the same time I'm thinking to myself "this is bad...this is very,very bad" he had total height advantage over me, I never felt so small in my life. With my left foot I was kicking at the fire, getting it stirred up...sparks blowing around. In my left hand I had the bear spray "Jeez, I hope the guys that came up with that label weren't from marketing..." I raised up my right arm at a 45° angle away from me, with the machete in my hand, staring at the bear the whole time. The bear never broke gaze with me either, his lip still curled, letting out a low grunting growl with each breath. We stood there staring eachother down, for what felt like an eternity. I am thinking to myself "Well, I'm going to have to try something here..." and I shit thee not, this is what I did. I started yelling in a loud voice, excencuating my words by waving the machete around as I spoke "LOOK, I KNOW I DON'T BELONG HERE!" tapping the flat of the machete blade on my chest. "I KNOW, ALL OF THIS!" waving towards the forest "BELONGS TO YOU!" pointing the machete at the bear, who just kept staring at me...at least the growling stopped. I started again, "I'M ONLY HERE FOR THE NIGHT, IN THE MORNING ALL OF THIS WILL BE GONE!" gesturing towards the tent. I paused for a bit and then started again "I'M NOT LOOKING FOR ANY TROUBLE!..." Another pause, then in the loudest yelling voice I could muster, "BUT, IF YOU WANNA GET CRAZY!..." raising both the bear spray and the machete up "THEN WEE CAANN GEETT CRAAZZY!" The bear stood there, as though pondering my words, then made a half turn to it's left...paused and gave me the most wicked side eye look, ever...and finished his turn and walked back up the mountain, towards the cave. Now, I don't think the bear actually understood what I said, I think it had alot more to do with how I said it. I doubt whether I slept an hour that night, and it didn't help that the storm really kicked up, too. Rain, wind howling, lightning and a nearby tree got blown over, I thought the bear was back when that happened. True to my word I was gone first thing in the morning... I tell this story to friends I've had, my whole life and I can see the look in their eyes, that they think I'm bullshitting them...but this is exactly how it went down. Just thought it was worth sharing.

It's also possible that you call up 10 dealers and take the lowest price. Volume is the name of the game for some dealers. You may not get the best service but if the manufacturer backs it then what the heck. You have to buy and register the real deal. If you are like me then you buy from someone who will provide training and a few pointy fingers. That will make up the difference. What would you rather have ... the lowest price for a detector or a fair priced detector which includes training and maybe some gold but certainly nuggets of information.

Steve - Thanks for the well balanced review of the GPX6000 and the Axiom. I have been looking at the 6000 for quite a while but have never pulled the trigger because of a number of things. One is the cost, another was related to coil choices (which has since been mitigated by Coiltek and others), and finally the quality control problems experienced by users. All of this kind of left me sitting on the sidelines, mulling things over. Tonight I just found out about the Axiom and it appears to be a reasonable alternative to the 6000. The cost is a little easier to justify and the performance may turn out to be acceptably comparable to the 6000. Time will tell but i will be researching the Axiom more. I'm like you in that i am getting near the end of my detecting days but i have always wanted a really good dedicated gold detector. Thanks to all at detector prospector forum!

It’s why establishing a long term relationship with trusted dealer(s) is important if you intend to hop on the detector merry go round and indulge your sickness, I mean, hobby/business impulses.

Hello, I just found this forum and it has a lot of interesting activity. I like to detect in remote places for nuggets and anything else. Lately I've been locating near some old abandoned mines in the Old Hat Mining District of Arizona south of Oracle. If anyone is interested in 4-wheel driving and hiking into some remote old mining areas to do some detecting please message me. I'm a member of the GPAA and the Desert Gold Diggers of Tucson. Ed.

The first country to present after the official first presentation at Dedectival on September 11-12 will be Greece at an event held by our country representative on September 17 near where I live, I will be able to see it up close for the first impressions 🙂

May 10 1937 Yesterday we pulled out our third chest. It was nearly identical and contained another 160 small bars of gold. They weighed half a pound and seemed to be all the same. No markings at all and no idea where they came from. We are thinking there could be more buried gold. The only way to know for sure is to dig up the entire area around the rocks down to 20 feet or so. It is looking like we will be camped here for some time. Ben has now joined us at our treasure camp as we call it. I feel it is better to have as much security here as possible. We haven’t seen any sign of the five men from the other day and perhaps it was just a coincidence. Sarge and Ben think otherwise and so does John. I’m just not sure. The gold is hidden in three separate locations. We had a good breakfast of bacon and beans and I made Jed’s favorite hot water corn bread. Jed would have been jumping for joy with this discovery as would Whiskey Jack. It’s a real shame they aren’t here to see this. We got a late start to the digging but were hard at it by 10:00 AM. The plan was to dig a circle as close to the rocks as possible and widen out as we went. We would go down to 20 feet. The distance from the rocks would be 50 feet. Everything we had found so far was close to the rocks. We broke for lunch after about four hours of hard labor. Sarge told us he thought he had seen someone up on the ridge above us earlier but wasn’t sure. Ben decided to hike up there with his Thompson and have a look around. He was up there a good half hour and when he came down he was holding several cigarette butts in his hand. They looked to be fresh. Sarge said we are being watched. I did not want to hear this. John said it's just a matter of time before we have trouble. We dug until dusk and broke work for the night. We found nothing but rocks. We’ll get a good night’s rest and be back at it in the morning. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

They do seem to be fixated on Nokta/Makro according to my interpretation: M(inelab's) anti- CoRe (early Nokta coin & relic detector).

It looks like a carbon fiber shaft and it looks like they've addressed the coil ears problem too. I hope Coiltek is working on a 10x5 or 12x6 coil for this now. 😉

A Manticore has the head of a man, body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion. My bet is they chose this name because the detector blends3 technologies. Multi IQ, FBS, and another tech. Maybe BBS.

Yea, what we know is it has 99 Target Id's, not sure it has the FE - CO of the CTX, it looks to me like the 20 on this photo is the sensitivity setting. It certainly has more detailed discrimination patterns. Multi-IQ+ and not FBS2 or FBS3 so maybe Multi-IQ is the future and FBS is done for, or they just haven't done a 3030 replacement yet.

I know you are already in beast mode and already on the pre-order list!🤣

The circus never ends... this is so fun...self control...who has it and who will cave in..lol strick

May 9 1937 When we pulled the chest out of its resting place we saw that it was slightly larger than the first and seemed to be a bit heavier. It appeared to be made of the same kind of wood and the lock was the same as what secured the first chest. It was slightly rotted and we cradled it as we took it to the surface. John pried off the wood at the bottom and we flipped it onto its side. He let out a curse and the rest of us just stood there dumbstruck. It was full of small gold bars. They were identical to each other and I carefully set them on a blanket as I counted them out. There were 160 of them. They had been placed on an old cloth inside the box. There was nothing else in the chest. We were hoping for a note or drawing or some clue as to who the original depositors were. John assumed Spanish Conquistadors. He said the treasure probably came from South America or Mexico hundreds of years ago. We were all amazed. Now we were wondering if there could be even more. I said we should go deeper in the two holes where we had found the treasure. Perhaps they had buried more in the same place but at a greater depth. We covered the gold bars with the blanket and Sarge kept a sharp eye out while we went back to digging. I was working the first treasure hole with Hudson carrying out buckets of dirt. By late afternoon I was down another eight feet in depth and hit something once again that had a dull thud sound to it as opposed to the ringing echo of shovels hitting rocks. I scraped back the top material and used my hands to pull away the last of it. I hollered out to the crew to come take a look. It was the top of yet another chest. And laying beside it was the skeleton of the man who had buried it. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

Cliff is likely reading the posts. He’s had the Deus for awhile now. Summer seems to be a big silver time with all the teens. Hopefully it will turn to gold. Seems like a lot are chasing give backs…. Maybe for a recovery fee. as far as how the chains sound…. Any target you can hear sounds good in AM. Depth is always a guess in the water. The bad chain was definitely deeper and thinking back had a higher reading like 17. In the dime range…. But some targets do upscale. I’ve not found gold to be one of them.

Strick, I need to sell you my DEEP GOLD RING Settings. I'm sure not going to give it away. I was just visiting Lake T in CA 2 days ago and was able to add 2 more Au rings to my collection. They were deep too.🤫

Love my Devil's Tongue probe too. Great tool. Great review by 350. Thanks kac!

@kac Mine just arrived in the mail, can’t wait to try it out. It’s a very nice handmade tool. Thanks!

You had the thrill of finding it as well as the enjoyment of making someone extremely happy. I am sure MIDAS will reward you soon.

Mine has zero wobble and i can no longer turn it. Fingers crossed maybe that was it!

I am not getting any younger for sure. I also blew out my peroneal tendon (second biggest next to the achilles tendon) in my right ankle two days ago. I had chronic, nagging issues with the same tendon in my left foot all during Covid......At least the one in my right foot decided to skip the chronic/nagging stage and just popped. Sounded like a single gunshot (with ear protection on) and felt like I got hit with a sledge hammer on the outside of my right ankle...... just walking along a nice mountain trail, didn't make a misstep, turn my ankle, lose my footing, it just popped out of nowhere! So, I decided to compromise a bit since I seem to keep getting some mobility injuries. It might be a good idea to keep at least one really lightweight detector in case my shoulders start acting up like my ankles seem to go haywire. Since XP improved the WS6 module features a lot and even added a way to make the ID numbers as big as the screen (like on the remote) and I don't really need the big remote for underwater work.....I am just going to keep a Deus 2 Lite setup and sell the Deus 2 remote, case, charging cables and underwater packet. That should make someone happy out there that might want an underwater remote and a surface remote in the future. I'm not in a hurry since I am not even supposed to drive right now...........forget that BTW. If you need an extra Deus 2 remote and remote accessories, one will be listed at a very good price soon or just let me know

I’m not going anywhere. I am however going to try and get off the new detector merry go round. I spend far too much time testing prototypes, which tends to take away from both my available time for, and enjoyment of, just detecting for detecting sake. I don’t have endless years left to do this, and want to focus purely on my detecting, not trying to figure out why some detector needs this or that fixed before release, and arguing with companies about what features to included or not include. If anyone wants to make one from the ground up 100% to my specifications, and pay me for doing it, they can call me. Otherwise, I’m going detecting!

Joe! Have you forgotten me? I bought a second one just because Im used to protos and the bugs that are part of owning them. Eric made me a proto CS6 pi that I've had to fiddle with over the years--the AQ is no more problematic than that. My wish for this machine would be more reliable pots (the Vishays can be dodgey) and a better big 22k response. Even after a few service go rounds I'm very happy with the tech of this machine and dissagree that there's anything wrong with the iron ID. The target info is actually excelllent with some basic skills added. For an experienced PI user --it doesn't get any better. Fisher service is also excellent. cjc

nothing special but these guys today put me over 1000 bits so far this season. A new personal record I was happy to reach. Last season I got close at 992. Piece count good...weight this season not too good so far, fun factor...great. I went to a spot I haven't worked for 2 years where I've pulled 300-400(?) bits a couple seasons back. Decided to get into the fringes and slow way down, beat the brush, detect the steep stuff, and basically try and slip that coil where most would avoid and got a few. Think I'll hit it again tomorrow and see if I can turn up a few more stragglers.....???

David was kind enough to let me read a pre-release copy of his new book. The thing I loved is he is not using his position to dish dirt on people. Just the opposite. His anecdotes on famous people reveal them often as kind, funny, but mostly just real humans. At worst maybe a bit difficult for being genius. Dave has lived quite a life, and I’m glad he is sharing some of it with us in this way. Great read, highly recommended.

Hi guys, I would like to ask for a little advice. The legend after the 1.09 update I admit has improved a lot, however, I would like to submit a question. In my areas, on soils of the Italian peninsula, often the good targets are very deep, and therefore sound iron, until I go to open the hole for a few cm. Obviously given this peculiarity I keep the iron tone very high, even at 10. What I wanted to understand well is this: the IF, should it then be set close to 1? From what I am beginning to understand, using the instrument, is that a low Iron Filter sounds better even iron objects, and as I get closer to 8 I lose this characteristic, which I need so much though. At this point, do you also have any advice on how best to set St? Just to hear some opinions from more experts than me. In the meantime I'll leave you with a nice picture of the last outing here in the central Apennines.

What we have here, is an Equinox 1000 Certainly not a graphics screen like the CTX. Target ID's like the Equinox not the CTX. It's not looking anything to do with a CTX to me, just a new Equinox to put some wood in the fire now the Legend and Deus 2 have taken all the glory that the Equinox once had. In saying that, I want one, and I hope they've fixed all the weak points of the Equinox build quality with it. It may have 99 target Id's this time, that first digit looks like a 5 to me. Straight shaft again but with a proper clip much like the Detect Ed aftermarket Equinox shaft to stop twisting. They maybe are capable of learning from mistakes. Looks like it's telescopic too with the clip right at the handle like that. I like what I see.

I think Stu hit it. Here's a sterling silver variation on Ebay: Sterling Silver Skirt Lifter

It’s going to replace the 6000 and be called the 6500 . Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Chuck

Here we go again. Off one merry go round on to the next. LOL But yea looks like a replacement for either the eTrac or CTX. My guess is the eTrac since the CTX is still in production.

Very nice reading the article, always nice to know that there are good people left in this world. I just wonder if that may have been one that I lost, but I know that I didn't go to that school, but it is a ring. Good luck on your next outing.

Againstmywill, No, on being a detective. But it is called deductive reasoning. It may not give you the exact answer, but it sure eliminates a lot of the fluff and gets you into the ballpark. Once I started down a rabbit hole, I could eliminate that person. So, it is more about whittling down the list to the point that there are only a few left and at that point you can pick the most likely and see what happens. Joe

May 8 1937 We decided on a place to hide the treasure. Once that was taken care of Sarge and the crew headed up to the location to do some digging. We all carried rifles and Sarge had his BAR and would be our security while we worked. Ben would guard the main camp. When we got up to the treasure spot we realized that someone had been digging last night. We should have guarded the area. Our temporary camp had been ransacked as well but there wasn’t much up there. We would now need to stay here at night and guard the sight as well as our main camp below. We were getting stretched thin. Whoever had been up here last night was digging holes on the east and west side of the rocks. They’d only gotten down about three feet or so. Maybe something had scared them off or they were waiting for us to do the hard work and then rob us. It was stone quiet and we went to work with the shovels. We were professional diggers by now and could outwork most men. We continued to dig the holes that the unknown people had started. We dug down about eight feet with nothing to show but rocks. After a quick lunch we went back at it. The hole on the west side facing the mountain was getting pretty deep. I was working it along with Will. I’d say we were down about twelve feet or so. We had cut a walking slope onto the end of the trench to haul out buckets of gravel. Then I hit something that sounded different than rock. I scraped away the loose material and saw what looked like the top of a wooden box. I let out a whoop and Hudson came over from his side to have a look see. We had found another chest. I told Sarge to keep an eye peeled because it was looking like we were about to pull out more treasure. TO BE CONTINUED .................

I always used the GPS in the 7000, almost never did not use it. It was one of the most important tools the detector provided me, as I employ long term scientific prospecting methods. No separate GPS is even remotely near as handy or efficient, and having to use a separate GPS now is a step backwards. What is needed in my opinion is better GPS integration and software, of a feature that adds almost no cost or weight to the detector.

As a beach hunter, I dig EVERYTHING nonferrous, without exception. I have learned over many years that salt, and black sand can make targets appear differently than other landscapes. If you're going for gold, there is no option to dig everything between 1 and 21.

May 7 1937 Part Three I looked up towards the side of the mountain and suddenly got an uneasy feeling. There was a ridge up there about 200 feet above us. I could see five men with rifles and they appeared to be looking down on us. Then they disappeared from view. We needed to get the chest back to camp where we had more protection. I flipped the treasure chest on its top and used it for the base. Then we secureded everything that had come out and placed the items back inside the chest. I told the crew we needed to get this back to camp where we would have more security. We took turns carrying the treasure chest back down the mountain and into the security of our camp. Will drove the truck up to the dig site and brought Ben down to camp while John got Sarge. We told them about the five men we had seen on the mountain. Sarge didn’t like it. Then we sat the chest down on a blanket and I began removing its contents for all to see. Each item was placed on the blanket one at a time. There were four small idols made in gold and decorated with jewels. There was gold and silver jewelry decorated with jade and turquoise. Then I brought out the gold bars. There were 25 solid gold bars measuring about 5 inches by 2 inches. John set one on the scale and it weighed nearly 2 pounds. I continued to unload the box. There were 5 larger gold bars measuring nearly 10 inches by 3 inches and weighing nearly 4 pounds. We all just sat there speechless. This was plundered treasure sitting in front of us. Hudson said there might be more of it still buried up there. Sarge told us that he thought the crew was under surveillance by an outside group. He said there were too many people who knew we had a successful operation and would always be in danger. He said that if the group of men had seen us carrying something down the mountain we may all be at risk. They also had seen where we were digging and may go there to dig themselves or lay in wait to jump us or attack our camp. We needed to guard the treasure sight in case there was more buried treasure up there. We need to make a plan and fast. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

He did not reply, but I will tell the numbers I prefer to dig when using the Equinox. #'s 6 - 18 cover the majority of gold/platinum rings that I have recovered. Only 16 of the 200 rings register a reading outside of those numbers. If you want to play the odds, the 5 best #'s are 10, 13, 14, 15, & 16. Those 5 #'s account for over 50% of the 200 rings. The 2 best #'s are #13 & 14 as they register 50 of the 200 rings = 25%. We all know nothing is foolproof and all of these numbers can be slightly off if targets are at depth and or on edge or under/over another different target. But if you enjoy playing the odds and saving time, I have yet to find anyone with a more extensive test. Good luck everyone.