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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/02/2022 in all areas

  1. I got a call the other day from a very dear friend of mine. We go back over 30 years. He's part owner of a 500 acre duck club here in the Delta. Mike who is the head honcho of the club was brushing a couple of the blinds as duck season is only a few weeks away. At some point he noticed his wedding ring was missing. Frantic he searched all over for it but you know how that goes. I was able to get out there yesterday...4 days after the fact. They drive me out in the side by side to one of the two spots that it could have been lost. Turn on the detector do a quick noise cancel then ground balance and start making my way around the outside of the blind. Took about 4 minutes to locate the ring a solid 14 on the Nox. The best and funniest part was when Mike yelled out "I cant believe you found it" Then my buddy gets all excited and tells him "you see I told you he knows what he's doing" lol Mike sends his wife of over 40 years the picture of the ring and boy did she sound happy. I found out afterwards that he had someone else out there with a detector right after he lost it but no luck. I can see how some of you ring finders get a kick out of this stuff...sorry for the crappy photos my friend needs a better phone lol strick
    21 points
  2. I dragged out my old coin collection today. Some of the boxes have been sealed for 35 years. The metal box contains detected one cent pieces that I simply tucked away back in the early 80s. Back in the 80s, coins from the 30s-50s were fairly new, and were no big deal. I also found lots of old silver coins that I detected back in the day. I dug up a rare 1911 George V coronation necklace from a park down by the Saskatchewan River in Edmonton in 1980. One of my better finds. The old Whites Coinmaster 5000D was a worthy machine in its day. 😁
    11 points
  3. Awesome! You are part of a very special club. You got to make a difference in another persons life metal detecting. No better feeling.
    6 points
  4. Yesterday I scooted over to a park for a mainly gold hunt. I was running the 800 and have been playing with single freq. setups. I only had an hour or so to dig so I made the best of it (kinda). Nothing annoys me more than digging junk but it's the rule if you want the gold. The first batch of targets were foil, foil and more FOIL. I hit up on some clad and a piece of baby spoon. I got another foil tone Ha Ha and figured I would enjoy digging another beverage seal. Well low and behold , looky here. The shape looked familiar but could it be, is it a ring??. Yup. Sadly the stone is missing from my find but its been a while since I found a 14k ring. This is only the 3rd 14k white gold ring I've ever found. For a quick 1 1/2 hour hunt I was more than happy.
    5 points
  5. May 28 1937 Part Two He told me that this had to be a part of the Cortez treasure from Mexico. Conquistadors or some other group must have hauled it out here and buried it for some reason. He said it was worth a fortune and wanted to see exactly what we had. I told him we had buried it but would dig it up if he thought he could arrange a sale of some of it. His name was Roger and he told us he had contacts all across the country and they had contacts all around the world. We gave him a rough idea of the amount of gold bars and jewelry and he sat there stunned. He was mumbling to himself and told us the commission he would make for the sale would set him up for the rest of his life. Once again he asked to see it all. I told him we could get it dug up quickly and we set about doing just that. We pulled the treasure out of some wooden crates we had placed it in that were buried just a few feet under the ground in camp. We showed him the treasure and the original chests that had contained it. Roger just kept repeating the same thing over and over saying this was all unbelievable. He said he would go through everything and figure out who to contact when he had a better understanding of what was there. He said once he evaluated the treasure he would head into town and make a phone call to a very special broker he knew. I looked at him and told him that he was now part of our crew for the time being and would not leave the camp or talk with anyone without John and I with him. John told him that if he crossed us he was a dead man. TO BE CONTINUED ................
    4 points
  6. That's two successful ring recoveries in a week.. If this keeps up I'll be able to retire a wealthy man.. It was another very easy recovery.. The lady who owns this ring send me a photo of the tree she was sitting under when she lost it.. Took about 2 minutes to find it.. If only all recovery jobs were this easy.. I've just send her a message to say I've found it but it's still early in the morning here (6:30) so no reply yet.. She told me this ring had a lot of sentimental value and there would be a reward if I found it.. I'll keep you posted..
    3 points
  7. I hear what you're saying Hardtimehermit but when I refuse their offerings I also explain that I'm not in it for the money.. For some people this is a very hard thing to wrap their head around.. But when they do, they all see it for what it is: just a bloke enjoying what he's doing, who's having a go for the sheer fun of it.. Taking money out of the equation makes the whole deal more about the experience.. If the owners are still on the beach where they lost their ring, I'll bring along a few spare detectors.. I set them up and we all have a go.. I never really worry about how much people offer to recover their rings, jewellery, phones or keys.. Even when they don't offer anything at all, I'll still have a go at finding their valuables.. Sometimes it's obvious that the poor bugger can't afford much anyway but it's always the shouts of joy and relief that makes it worthwhile for me.. Plus I don't have to travel far to get to any of the popular bays, 10 minutes is the furthest.. I flat out refuse all jobs where people are too vague with their descriptions of where they lost their valuables.. "Somewhere on the island" or "I lost it 9 months ago" get a polite refusal.. Sometimes I find their things anyway and post them on my Facebook page.. If the punter sees it there then good luck to them.. Likewise I rarely keep anything I find, whoever finds something in my 'junk box' that they like can keep it.. I'd rather someone enjoys the thing than it sitting in a box..
    3 points
  8. The best thing about this week's ring recoveries was that these people knew exactly where they dropped their rings.. The lady left hers in a hat underneath a tree alongside the beach when she went for a swim.. when she came back she put her hat back on and forgot the ring was in it.. She thought it had flicked out near the tree somewhere.. The gentleman's ring was a bit more tricky.. But he knew it was 'where the 3 little buoys on the shark net line up with the surf life saving flag on the beach'.. He'd felt the ring slip off his finger and straight away lined up where he was.. He and his kids had been duck-diving for about an hour trying to find it without any luck.. I've told both the kayak-hire dude and the surf life saving people how to get a hold of me through my Facebook page in case someone loses their ring.. The lady asked the kayak dude whilst the gentleman asked the life saving girl.. This awesome business strategy seems to be working.. Not yet ready to turn this sideshow into anything huge, but it's always good to help people get their rings back.. With most of the rings I've recovered so far, the owners have offered me what they thought my effort was worth.. I've never had to charge them for anything up front.. Their offers can be anything from a case of beer to a couple of hundred dollars.. I'm constantly surprised at how much rings mean to people.. and how much people are willing to offer to get their rings back.. All of this business interaction is without any hard feelings between client or salesman.. Both parties know that if I don't get their ring back then at least I gave it a go.. I've had people offer me just as much for having a go as actually finding their ring.. Either way its always done in a spirt of goodwill or having a laugh.. Can't get better than that.. 😁
    3 points
  9. I'm not a big fan of head to head tests, They generally are biased by so called similar settings and ground conditions and overall poor detecting skills. ANYONE who buy's a machine based on one of these video's and marketing campaign's deserve to have their wallet drained. I've run head to head with many kinds of machines and have Had my ass handed to me and in the reverse. I've run my lowly Compadre against an 800 and cleaned house, so to speak. I get tired of the, this is the best and that sucks BS. This is one of the reasons that I removed myself from this forum for a while. I needed a break from all the stupid. Detecting is 99% being in the right spot. After using many machines for many years I have concluded that EACH have certain things that make them better. That's why all of us run multiple machines. For me I have landed on Tesoros and the 800. ( Not saying they are the best, But they work for me in MY conditions). I hope that both minelab and XP do very well, But in the same breathe I'm not going to tell a new guy or gal that you should spend $1600 or $2000 on a machine because it's the best, cause it's new. I think a bunch of us know or have heard of the older detectors who never laid a hand on a so called modern machine, But yet we revere their skills and amount of finds. Please for the good of this hobby STOP saying one is better than the other, because it's just NOT true. WE are here to help each other and promote the future of metal detecting, not push them away. Sometimes it's the so called shit machine that you can afford AND gets you started AND makes you want to share with other's on a forum like DP. Focus people remember when you first started????? Show your finds, Congratulate each other and SHARE useful information. WE will all be better for it in the end.
    3 points
  10. I’d like to report that the wait is worth it, as continued field use, and the feedback it generates, is resulting in improvements to the Axiom platform. It’s not like people are sitting around doing nothing with the time. Rushing Garrett in any way will not help anyone get a better product. Patience with a capital P is the name of the game at this point.
    3 points
  11. Due to a late snow melt in the mountains and above average rain in Edmonton, my favorite spots on a local river are still under 3-4 feet of water. I went to another another nearby river not affected with mountainous spring runoff, did some sampling, only to find 3-4 specs of gold per pan. Somewhat disappointed, I grabbed some grass and pulled it out with the roots. A quick check showed about 30-40 specs per pan. Who knew? So, I spent the rest of the afternoon washing roots. I made a quick video showing my process.
    2 points
  12. Well maybe they can just slide you a couple of ducks, Get up at 8:00 am, Pour yourself a big fat mug of coffee and prep them for the feast. Might I suggest wrapped in BACON, Slow cooked with a Maple, Chipotle and Bourbon sauce. Now that is some good eats.
    2 points
  13. Jacob & crew. It's a fine line between being miners & becoming gangsters. Expect the un-expected.
    2 points
  14. May 28 1937 Part One After breakfast we all gathered around John for the first weigh in a long time. There was four ounces and we were happy to see gold in the pan once again. Today was the day to meet up with the jewelry broker. Since we were meeting him in town this morning the crew took the day off while John and I went into town. We sat outside the jewelry store and around 10:00 AM he showed up. He was driving a dark blue Cadillac coupe and dressed in a slick city suit. John and I introduced ourselves to him. He said he had some business with the owner of the jewelry store but would be back out to talk with us in about fifteen minutes. So John and I waited on him and he came out to see what we had to tell him. I told him we had some really unique jewelry to sell along with some gold. He asked us how much we had and I told him a fair amount. I told him we didn’t want to bring anything into town because there were thieves everywhere and the law around this area was next to worthless. Then I showed him one piece of the jewelry I had on me and his eyes got real big. He asked if there was more and I said yes, lots more. I told him we had it at our camp and asked him to follow us out there. So he drove out there with us and parked just up the trail to camp a ways and we walked him up to the temporary camp where all the treasure was buried. I had some of it out for him to look at. He said he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He asked us if we knew what we had. He said this was treasure. One of the initialed coins was in the stash he was looking at and he had seen the HC on one of them. I proceeded to tell him the story. TO BE CONTINUED ..................
    2 points
  15. With the exception of educational tips and tricks type videos to better learn the settings and the new graph and whatnot, I've decided not to watch any further Manticore versus the D2 (or anything else for that matter) "test" videos as the proof will be in the pudding, and out here Minelab SMF machines have an excellent proven track record going back to the Explorers, and the D1 ended up being popular with some relic hunters as well. I have my Manticore order in, and when it comes out I'll test it myself, at my sites in my dirt. Like dogodog said most of us have multiple machines, and for good reason. I've always been of the opinion that all machines do things different, even coils, and as such they will all find things other machines may not. My hunt partner see things differently, he's of the opinion that a single machine can do it all. He's been using his Explorer2 since it was new and is so dialed into it that he just sticks with it at 99% of the sites we hunt, although he finally broke down and bought a Deus1 (sadly not too long before the D2 came out, doh!). He does fine with his Exp2, but I like to try different machines, especially when you start to see diminishing returns from an existing detector. At a particular western frontier site I've enjoyed over the years that I started hunting with the F75 LTD which did okay in the beginning but it petered out. Then I started taking the Makro Racer/Racer2/Multi Kruzer there and it really opened up, but after a few years started to die out again to the point that my hunt partner wouldn't even go with me anymore. The Equinox completely opened the site up for me landing a very rare $1 US gold coin, a seated dime & half dime cache (19 coins total), several semi-key date seated dimes that weren't part of the seated dime cache, Phoenix buttons, early military and civilian buttons, trade silver, and other period relics. We'll see what the Manticore brings to the table at a "hunted out" site. I look forward to it's increased depth as I've located several silver coins that were at the fringe depth of what the machines were capable of (and missed by Tom's Explorer2 πŸ™‚ So no doubt there are a few stragglers that my current detectors simply cannot locate, and there's no shortage of iron of all sorts and other stuff. Nice thing about this particular site is that the ground is pretty tame as far as mineralization goes, no EMI, so it could be the perfect recipe for the Manticores extra depth capabilities.
    2 points
  16. I'd buy a couple of these LiFePo batteries. They're 8 amp/hour. I use them on my mineral jig, and other equipment. Very lightweight, too. Good for thousands of charge/discharge cycles. Cost me about $100 each when I bought them. Just looked them up, and now only $67 on Amazon LiFePo batteries
    2 points
  17. I pulled the trigger on the Coiltek 10x5. Should be here by the end of the week. If I'm lucky, I'll have 3 weeks of detecting before the snow hits. I'm looking forward to next years adventures.
    2 points
  18. I live quite remote from any services. But when I do go to town, I like to get a breakfast there. Twice I have left home, got halfway there and realized my teeth were still at home. Nothing left but to turn back and get them. I live an hour from town, so it adds another hour to my trip. It's hard to think of anything good about getting old other than you are still breathing.
    2 points
  19. I put white Gorilla construction adhesive on it to seal the coil bottom. Looks great. It works 10 times better now. By adding some closed cell foam in three points to equalize the cover pressure the problem went away. No bump problems now!
    2 points
  20. I share the same lament about a lack of history where I hunt. Usually my oldest find is an RC Cola bottle cap. Great job on the recoveries.
    2 points
  21. She told me she bought the ring for herself when she beat cancer 6 years ago.. I've just heard back from her and I'm sending it by post to her house on the mainland.. I told her not to worry about a reward as I'm happy she got her ring back.. She said that was ridiculous and will send me a reward anyway.. Happy days!
    2 points
  22. You are right Alain..., the first silver hammereds struck in the given territory,, really has its own charm,,, and such a find is really pleasing.. probably because they are small and delicate works of art.,, but it is also with nice Roman and Celtic coins.. ...I wish you good luck with Deus II in the next detection....πŸ‘
    2 points
  23. May 27 1937 I did not sleep well last night. The Indian Shaman came to me in a dream but it seemed very real. He told me once again that our crew is big medicine. We are brave warriors and held in the highest regard by the ancient people. But he told me that we have been marked to return home and are at this time walking dead men. I was shaking when I got up and stoked the morning fire. Part of it was nerves and part was cold. The crew gathered around for breakfast and I did not mention what I had dreamt. I poured a good amount of whiskey into my coffee and started to think about the day ahead of me. Ben was anxious to work on the mine. I told him to take it easy and steady the first few days until his body got used to the hard work. We headed up to the dig site and cut back into our drift. This entire channel running east and west had good gold and had tested out well. I believed there were thousands of ounces of gold up here and aimed to get some of it. Ben was a good worker and he liked to talk while he dug. He told me how thankful he was to be with our crew and helping out in any way he could. He was real excited about finding the treasure and his part of it. I told him that hopefully we could make a deal to sell some or all of it. I wanted to keep some of it as well but every man would need to make his own decision on that. We worked until dusk and didn’t set any records for buckets but were able to send John 160 of them. It would be interesting to see what we got out of them because my test pans were showing a lot of coarse gold. At supper we all talked about the next day. We would be going into town to talk with the broker. John and I had come up with a plan to get him out to the mine and show him some examples of what we had and then go from there. We didn’t intend to let him leave knowing we had treasure. He would have to become a temporary partner. Once he was out here he was not going back to town. TO BE CONTINUED ......................
    2 points
  24. I am going to call that electromagnetic interference. Unless you live in a house or cabin with no electricity and that house or cabin is far from a city…..you will have EMI especially on extremely high gain simultaneous multi frequency detectors like the Legend. Even at sensitivity 18 and several frequency scans, EMI is still noticeable if I try to use it in my house or in my backyard/neighborhood. Switch it to 20 or 40 kHz single frequency and see it it quiets down at 20 sensitivity.
    1 point
  25. GotAU: some confusion here. The image upthread is of Jim STEWART (late of Laanecoorie Victoria) and his 36" Bismarck bundle wound monoloop. He was a close friend and pioneering electronic prospector. I have not heard of Jim Straight. The 26" CC X Coil is mainly designed for deep gold. It is in effect a turbocharged 15" spiral monoloop so quite sensitive on smaller bits as well.
    1 point
  26. Nice recovery and return πŸ‘
    1 point
  27. Awesome story and recovery Strick. Not a fan of duck meat but people sit out there freezing to shoot them. I would think there are shotgun shells everywhere to hamper your recovery of the ring.
    1 point
  28. What a great story and one that you will always remember. All treasure hunters should be so lucky. What's that saying?..."Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."
    1 point
  29. Nice job Strick, Hope he gave you a week in the duck blind. I love duck and of course it tastes better than a gold ring. Best of luck next time out my friend!!!
    1 point
  30. Great find, Dogo, specially for a short hunt. Well done!
    1 point
  31. Glad to see another save and glad to see the owner reunited with their ring. Only if gold was that easy to find, we would all be millionaires by now.
    1 point
  32. Trojan lead/acid deep cycle batteries are the best of the best. Plus they are built better than most batts and last way longer, thicker plates. Yrs. longer. I learned this while RV camping with a 17 ft Casita travel trailer, I went thru several "deep cycle" dept store batts in a few yrs before finding out a true deep cycle batt is much better and last way longer. I think I paid 235.00 for my last Trojan Deep Cycle batt. I could go for days on a single charge while camping with it. Remarkably better than dept store deep cycle batts.
    1 point
  33. It works perfectly, it doesn't matter if it's salt water or fresh water. Any type of coax cable is fine for this purpose. There is no need to worry about this. I only snorkel with it, but I don't think it would work any differently for deeper dives.
    1 point
  34. I do that ALL the time....lol It's to the point now where IDGAF and just go. I've also walked into the bathroom and just mindlessly look around wondering why I came in here? I wear dentures so don't brush teeth, wasn't going to bathe, so what else would I be doing in the bathroom????? lets see...hmmm, maybe to pee...lol
    1 point
  35. This. The eurozone economy is collapsing based on all reports. For me gas just hit over $6.50 again, up $1.25 in the past week. I love testing and using new tech and am almost always an early adopter but not this time just because of the economy. I can't imagine though what winter is going to be like in places like Germany and France. It's not going to be XP vs. Minelab but rather food vs. heat.
    1 point
  36. Looks like someone took a 5k diamond out and tossed the ring back πŸ˜› Nice find!
    1 point
  37. If you have a farm supply store near you like Rural King, I would go there for a marine battery or a golf cart battery. They are about $150 but they are worth the money as they are more durable in the long run.
    1 point
  38. I've had mine completely submerged in fresh and knee deep in the salt surf and have had zero issues. Just make sure you thoroughly rinse everything after each use and you should be fine. Also, Michael Oliver has a youtube jewelry recovery site and he has shown many vids of him with the D2 in salt fully submerged. I don't think he's reported any problems.
    1 point
  39. Right this D2 WS6 Master + 9" coil is a killer πŸ™‚ ; ultra light , excellent "cristalline" SQUARE audio , deeper than the D1 , great separation in the iron trash ... Yes it is magical πŸ™‚ ... We have older coins like Roman coins over here . But for some reason the Carolingian coins are my preferred ones , perhaps because they are the very first coins of the medieval ages .. They definitely have something special , and they are rare ...
    1 point
  40. Todd at CentervilleElectronicsWest tells me that he has a new source for replacement TDI battery packs.
    1 point
  41. Greetings from northern Alberta, Canada. This is my first post on this site. I used to detect back in the early 1980s with a Whites Coinmaster 5000. I decided, at the age of 64, to get back into the hobby, so I purchased an Equinox 600. I practiced using the detector on my old farm, and found a few coins from the 50's and 60's. The local area was only settled in the 1920s. In the last few weeks I've ventured out onto some local old properties (with the owners' permissions) and had some success. The most interesting coin I found so far is an 1899 English penny in an old school yard that was active from the 1930s to the late 50's. It's an odd coin to find in a small northern Canadian community, but it goes to show you never know what you're going to find! Interesting coins include: 1899 British penny, 1918 10 cent, 1915 US cent, 1922 5 cent, 1938 10 cent, 1946 25 cent, 1951 25 cent, 1943 tombac wartime 5 cent (x2), 1938 1 cent.
    1 point
  42. Well, I got the cover off. The repair guy said it could be the bridge. The black piece in one of the pictures is a foam rubber that keeps pressure on the bottom cover. I added some closed-cell foam under the bridge (foam rubber piece) and two other places to equalize the pressure. and the problem seems to have gone away. Apparently, they fill the coil a little. I originally bought the 24K as an open box from Whites. Looks like someone worked on it before.
    1 point
  43. Jason, Recommend you call Mark Keene, they sell commercial Diamond and Gemstone dredges for overseas ops and have probably studied the subject thoroughly. I'm sure they have looked at dry projects also. He likes to share his extensive, expert knowledge!πŸ˜€ Bill
    1 point
  44. Chuck, it ran okay for me. No release date for the elliptical coil yet. Nokta will release a mockup and name for their new pinpointer which pairs with the Legend at Detectival this weekend. Pinpointer is not finished. Threshold tone improvements for Bluetooth headphones update is ready. So is the new update tool for Mac users. Some people have made multiple videos about various problems with 1.09 along with some people reporting chatter. Nokta 100% stand behind the 1.09 update as by far the best software version to run. Like Steve has said several times and it is true from my experience, if a person isn't having success with the Equinox, Deus 2 and Legend, they really need to develop (or re-develop) their detecting skills.....
    1 point
  45. Only a half oz in small bits, no deep big gold this time. I'll try again in autumn when Victoria finally surfaces from the floodwaters! 😁
    1 point
  46. Yep I'm jumping in line to pre-order one! The Equinox was a total game changer (for me) and I have no doubts that this will take it to the next level, can't wait to take one out! Hopefully we don't have to wait as long as we did when they announced the Equinox (did they learn that lesson???).
    1 point
  47. My last two hunts netted me gold and yellow. The chain on the scale is 24”, 14k marked and tested, weight as shown. Finally found a pair of gold earrings in the water … but of course they were plated. Few deep quarters and 2 more junk chains. The next week …. It was this stuff that really looks good in the scoop. I knew right away that ring was bad news….. but the chain and earring was looking good as I quickly tucked them in my pouch. But nope …. More junk. The necklace was open so I detected around and about 3’ away got a 1X1” dangle with a C…. That looked really good but tested really bad.
    1 point
  48. I have found that when I go to a local creek to use my sluice or pan, that I have found just as much from the grass and weeds that grow in the sides of the creek. Glad that I am not the only one that this happens to, just something that my grandfather taught me several years ago. Nice video and glad you made it for others.
    1 point
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