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Hey guys. Been waiting to get out for a while. Some health issues but finally out! Did a drive to a place I love from years ago. Awesome day weather wise. Loved it. I down graded due to my health but any day swinging a detector to me is bliss, especially where I went. See nobody, hear nobody and all alone. In my element. Used the Garrett 24k with the 6" and it cruised on half Sat, 7 sens Audio Boost 2. Dug heaps of targets, several surprised me up to about 8" deep for their size. Damn lead. 😆 Ended up with 2 Specimens, 1 id guess from experience has close to 1/2 a g, the other lucky to be .1 and a tiny .1 bit free gold. No record breaking but was a great day. Was really surprised though how the 6" handled the area. Expected to be running it around 5 to below. Tried above 7 and other settings but just a little too chattery and picking up too many real little hot rock chips. Its amazing with this just what 1 step down sens does. 80% vanished and it ran so much better than on 8! Anyway, didn't get rich 😆 but was a ton of fun. Drive in. Big drop off to the right. Nearly there. Arrived and the spot. Good fun and happy I can still swing something. 👍

This find was on one of my favorite beaches. The conditions weren't optimal but sometimes you just have to learn about your beach to be ready for the good times and the good tides. This is silver and weighs 13.4g. We'll see what an image search comes up with.

It’s right there….. Detect Modes: (Customisable) All-Terrain (5), Beach (4), Goldfield (1) But this detector is clearly not targeting the gold prospecting market. If anything, the effort is aimed at improving the silver turf hunting and water hunting aspects more than anything else. Other than the improvements for trash handling, mostly in the area of the target display and ferrous id, then I would not expect upgrading from an Equinox to a Manticore to make any real difference when it comes to gold prospecting. That’s the number one reason you are not seeing me jumping up and down going “oh wow.” There is a lot here for me to like, mostly the expanded target id range, for better jewelry detecting. I’ll no doubt probably end up with a Manticore sooner or later. But it simply is not a pressing thing, if gold prospecting is the main idea. And that’s what it’s mostly all about for me. Tons of places in the U.S. with mild soils and gold. Almost any gold in slate, shale, graywacke, sediment based bedrock locales is low mineral, including vast swaths of my old stomping grounds in Alaska. I would not want to bet yet that PI detectors have ever found more gold even in California than VLFs. You guys late to the game have no idea just how much gold the first guys hitting the ground with VLFs got. Ounce a day was just a norm, as VLFs scarfed up the easy gold and the biggest gold, while ignoring lots of junk. It’s only now in later days that’s this mythology of PI superiority has gotten so entrenched, because of the extra power needed to get what’s left. But back in the 90s VLF was just killing it, with finds that put us to shame these days. It’s not about the detector so much as being first on the ground, and they were there first. There are still people doing very well with VLFs, but they tend to lay low.

Hey, You'll have all the dealers pissed off at me again. I assure you all 100%, Minelab USA has not sent me a Manticore. Heck they don't even know when they are shipping me and or how many. Even if Minelab USA gets some next week. Then they ship to the distributors and the distributors ship to dealers. I'm not expecting Minelab USA in Chicago to have detectors in my hands until around mid December. Even then, how many will I get? About time for me to relax in a warm climate area for a few days and then get ready for the storm. Besides, sometimes I have to keep the boss happy and she is certainly work keeping.

Fighting in courts is an expensive, long process against lobby, special interest, and government. Not to say you can't win. But if miners really want change, they'd be much better off playing the same game as everyone else that wants to tilt laws in their favor. Spend the money on lobby and politicians. It's utterly ridiculous, but it's the way this country works sadly. Our government is, and has been pay to play for a long time. Everything else is just treading water. Years back I had the ear of a very powerful politician and the opportunity to present some mining issues to them for consideration and potential changes in Congress. I posted about it here, as a hypothetical, but it was real. I asked what the issues - sans generic complaints/whining/political ranting - would be that we could all agree on needing to be changed, if such an opportunity presented itself. A few succint, easy to present ideas with legal backing that I could distill into a short presentation. I got very little useful input. And that there is both the problem, and why miners can never get anything done. No one agrees on anything and people just like complaining more than uniting together under a few basic, easy to understand goals, and following through on them. It's always mavericks and single manning into legal battles that waste money and end up half the time leaving precedent in courts that doesn't help, if not directly harms the rest of us. No organization, no strategy, no tactics, no plans, just a lot of shooting from the hip and then complaining when the bullet goes astray. Sorry if this sounds negative, but it should be said even if it makes people dislike me for it. I really, truly wanted to try to help change things, and I found that pretty much impossible because everyone else needs to also want to change things and all agree on the same course of action and follow through, and the reality is that just too many people have too many differing opinions in the mining community to really do what it takes. And the ultimate course of action that it would take at this point is everyone united under one idea - which is to spend money on lobby and get actual new laws/protections in place as well as politicians on our side actively speaking in support of small scale mining in the US. Not wasting money and time on frivolous lawsuits that we already know just leave us treading water at best.

Gerry don't forget you are Santa for some of us... and watching Santa play with the toys before he hands them out to the kids is not a good look...just sayin lol strick

With me it was always the adventure not the value of the treasure. This treasure chest my X wife had made for me when I first got into detecting. It has been full more than one time. I know I sold silver out of it on two different occasions . What you see here is just some of the coins I’ve found.

There is already law in California regarding placer mining with surface water. No placer mining operator shall mine by the placer process on any stream or on the watershed of any stream tributary directly or indirectly to the Sacramento River or the San Joaquin River without taking both of the following precautions to prevent pollution of the stream by the effluent from his or her operations: (a) Constructing a settling pond or ponds of sufficient size to permit the clarification of water used in the mining processes before the water is discharged into the stream. (b) Mixing with the effluent from mining operations aluminum sulphate and lime, or an equivalent clarifying substance which will cause the solid material in the effluent to coagulate and thus avoid rendering the water in the stream unfit for domestic water supply purposes. There is quite a bit more on the well described procedure for placer mining, including how to give proper notice. https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2021/code-prc/division-3-5/chapter-3/ To my mind it would be best to follow the law before approaching any agency for their opinion. Sometimes it's better to have all your ducks in a row before arguing what a duck is.

I struggle to read that forum, invert the colours and it could easily pass for a BBS from the late 1980's.

You can get it here https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ASX_CDA_FY22-Full-Year-Investor-Presentation.pdf The photo even says its their "gold toolbox" with the selection of detectors. Unfortunately if they want to classify them as tools they may have to make them a little bit more robust, I've never bought a tool where I go to hammer a few nails for example even from a $2 shop and the hammer head snaps off 🙂

I agree with the last few posts, and that seems like a good place to stop. I was very involved in the political aspects of things in Alaska, and a got a lot done by aligning with larger mining interests through the Alaska Miners Association. People down south avoid the big organizations, and that is a mistake. We formed a small mining committee in the AMA made up of members like myself, and by being part of the larger organization, we had the ear of the people that mattered. These efforts to go it alone will come to naught, as small miners alone suffer from all the problems already noted. You either align with power where it is, or are shut out. It's that simple.

I agree with Jason as I former member of PLP (public lands for the people) back in the early 90's I too observed division within the ranks. Jerry Hobbs and Pat Keene truly had a desire to organize us all and make some changes. Ultimately the division, lack of focus and lack of resources to fund our small lobby group in Sac to make some changes derailed to make any real change. Government and huge mining interests have the power and access to politicians. After moving from southern California to the Sierras closer to the big gold 🤫 our small community of prospectors here in the southern Sierras formed another club and ultimately it fell apart after 5 years do to a few club members doing the bulk of the work, and board member bickering about mining laws and approach to reach out to other clubs to organized some unified approach to fight for our right to mine. We are just to small, underfunded and disorganized to form a large enough coalition with good leadership, perhaps things will change one day but for now I am solo with my Minelab. Truth is, money talks and its still a pay to play government.

Here is the story about it selling https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-63798352 He'd only been detecting for 3 months so a very hard find to top for the rest of his detecting time!

Lighter and more ergonomic, yes. Discrimination, no. Less expensive

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/11/29/minerals-never-seen-earth-somalia-meteorite/10797611002/

Was fortunate to get into some gold on my last trip to California. Started the trip sniping on the NF of the Yuba, one day on Slate Creek and ended with several days detecting in the northern Mojave desert. Thanks for looking

My dealer sent me this email this morning: Manticores starting shipping to US warehouses yesterday.... You are number 1 on the list..You still wanting to purchase ? Okay take my money, I ain't mad about it.... 🤠

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/11/29/minerals-never-seen-earth-somalia-meteorite/10797611002/

Very nice, I'd say you did quite well. And I really appreciate the picture of the trash digs. It not only shows you really earned the gold, but tells the newbies that yes, you have to work at it, and dig lots of holes that don't have gold in them. Good stuff, thanks!

My recent trip to a gold patch showed me that the Equinox 800/11 can ignore hot rocks. This surprised me as when I first got my Equinox I went to this patch and found 2 nuggets. I remember it also seeing a lot of hot rocks. Since that time, I have put thousands of hours on the Equinox and learned how to use it better. This session I used the F2 and it was great. I had a smooth threshold in 'all metal' multi. I located trash and it told me what is what. If the Manticore is going to enhance that experience it may turn out to find some gold for me in addition to better beach performance.

Well, Axiom is shipping, but it still sells for too much to make my under 4 lb, under $2K ground balancing PI a reality. With word from Carl that Fisher is still in the game with a possible Impulse Gold, it's now up to Fisher, or more likely, Nokta/Makro, to finally get it done. Been over 5 years since I made the challenge, and if anything with the TDI gone, it seems we are going backwards. I'll fudge the 4 lbs as being "close enough" with the Axiom at 4.2 lbs, but the price is still twice as much as I'd like to see. You have a 4 lb robust proven mechanical design just waiting to have a GBPI circuit stuffed in it. Why reinvent the wheel? Just saying. So come on Nokta/Makro, it's your game to win!

Federal mining laws are there to protect miners rights. We are told we have no rights. I am debating with myself on testing this by setting a pump in the water and processing gravels closer than 100 yds to the waterway. Hand digging and a settling area for run off. I have told the FS of this. They told me they will have a meeting with the water board tomorrow.

So, so glad to be sitting out the Minelab waiting list hoopla insanity this time around...I know its both a blessing and a curse to you dealers. Will get around to checking this out sometime next year after I have full year on my current flagship detector. I presume they'll still be manufacturing these MontyCore's six months from now, dontcha think? Or I may hop on board one dumped to ebay by delusional pseudo detectorists who figure out it's not Harry Potter's magic wand (no detector is) and who still don't realize that hard work, learning and clicking with your machine (whatever it may be), research, location, location, location, and a little bit o' Luck are the true ingredients for successful and enjoyable detecting. After all, just because you own a set of Tiger Wood's golf clubs or LeBron James' shoes doesn't mean you can play like them. 🤣🤣🤪

Garrett put a little animated GIF on Facebook of a bit of an axiom teardown and it looks to me like the main PCB is housed inside a thin alloy housing, rather than just the EMI paint that Minelab used for the GPX 6000, I guess it would add a tiny amount of weight but you would assume it works better than the paint at protecting the electronics from outside EMI.

Totally agree with you there, Steve, and I understand where you’re coming from; I’m sure some may think I'm just trying to hype new detectors to help Gerry's sales, but in reality I really enjoy taking a new machine to its limits to see what it's capable of, especially so in this instance where it is expected to be a serious contender to the top-dog PI manufacturer, MInelab. The more quality and performance centered competition there is, the more it helps bring prices down, as well as advancing detector innovation.

Here’s a odd ball . I don’t think I dug this because I have another similar to it. I’m talking about the backside of the coin .

Metal detectorist discovers medieval wedding ring worth an estimated $47,000 "Every metal detectorist dreams of unearthing something valuable. For one man the English countryside yielded an incredible find when he stumbled upon a medieval diamond wedding ring in "almost perfect condition" near Thorncombe, in the South West of the country. Now the item is expected to fetch between £30,000 and £40,000 ($35,500 and $47,300) when it goes on auction later this month." Story Here Auction Site Inscription in Medieval French reading: ‘ieo vos * tien * foi * tenes * le moy’ translating ‘As I hold your faith, hold mine’ Photo credit: Noonans

Hello, I'm Cristiano, a Portuguese living in Brazil that loves metal detecting and making his own detectors. Thanks.

They made their November target (or so they say) so, I hope they are shipping enough by air to fill the initial already-paid orders. If dealers get 1 or 2 and the rest by slow-boat there are going to be some very unhappy customers. Remember this ad they ran?

As we know they're in a cost cutting phase at the moment to keep profits as high as possible. Until the second much larger batch arrives with sea freight the first batch will be coming by plane. They've secured a great price with a small shipping company to get the first batch of Manticores across to the US by plane, unfortunately freight capacity is very limited on the plane so only 3 detectors will arrive in the US by mid December, the second batch will be much larger coming by sea but unfortunately they can't give an ETA on this batch yet. We've been waiting for months already, what's another few months.

Gerry is going to Mexico with the first Manticore he gets. I hope he is leaving someone in the office to ship out YOUR Manticore to you, strick!

Steve, Here's the full toolkit. Four pages altogether. MLA-Gold-Product-Comparison-Brochure_2021-EN_WEB (1).pdf

This all concerns a person who has a lease from us on one of our creek claims. He put in a plan to do bulk sampling using a mini excavator & highbanker. After an eight month weight he was denight an approval because the water board refuses to issue a license. They are using the 2016 dredging law to violate his rights. His plan has nothing to do with dredging. I have had several plans approved there along the creek in the past but was informed that beginning in 2020 the Forest Service will go along with the state of California & water boards on their rulings. Previously, they ignored them and issued approvals. I think we know why they changed in 2020. Our advisor tells me when you sign a Plan oof Operation with the regulators you are bound by a contract. He tells me that if any plan falls under the level of surface disturbance that would trigger SMARA we should simply start working without a POO. At that point, if we are challenged we would show the appropriate laws currently in place that protect us and also show the laws in place that the authorities are violating or twisting to fit their agenda. All something to mull over and research further. Rights are rights and should not be trampled upon.

Same here it looks like the styling is broken - below link is a little better http://dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,185174,page=6

I just came across this short film that should be shared. Painfully ridiculous, but worth a chuckle.

Nice work there Chuck...I'm liking those steel cents the most...my mother has a bunch of old coins that I need to get out of the house before my sister moves in with her lol. I've seen some steel cents in the box... strick

June 21 1937 Another great morning at the weigh. Those buckets were all rich and we saw nine ounces in the pan. The pay streak is very steady in the location being worked. I know this can change at any time but for now we will just dig until something changes. A few more weeks of this will set us up nicely. Before Hudson and I went up to the dig site, deputy Dan made an appearance at camp. He said the sheriff was satisfied with the report he had filed concerning the death of Sarge and it would go down as an attempted robbery at our camp. The investigation would continue but seeing as the entire story was fabricated there would be no conclusion. The sheriff knew nothing of Dan’s trip to Mexico and knew nothing of what had transpired. Dan figured the investigation would probably fizzle out after a month or so. Dan told us that the news of Sarge’s death had spread like wildfire through town. Some of the town folk were calling for an end to our mining operation as it was bringing lots of drifters and rif raff with bad intentions into the area. He told us that we might have to put the sheriff in our back pocket to tamp down any further investigations as to activities out here. He told us that the sheriff was corrupt and could be easily bought. Dan said that with the sheriff on the payroll we would essentially have complete control of the town and the entire county as well. I told him I needed to think about all this and said I may ask to have a meeting set up with the sheriff on this matter. With that Dan left our camp but not before I placed a gold coin in his greedy hand. The weather for the day was like an oven and Hudson and I worked our tails off hauling buckets out of the dig site. By day’s end we had dug out 180 of them and were ready for some cold beer down at camp. After supper we all sat around the fire as the night air cooled and replaced the heat of the day. It felt good and we all pulled cold Lucky’s out of the creek until nearly midnight while talking about what Dan had told us. I thought to myself that we just might be running the entire county soon. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

Of course it does. It adds to the Equinox feature base, not takes things away. It ain’t rocket science kids. If you liked Equinox, you’ll love Manticore.

Welcome from Uptah Camp Mike !🖖 🍀They say It's a better life when your digging buddy is your wife ! I don't know if it's true though..... My digging buddy is my sand scoop .😏

I'm currently doing comparison testing between the production model Axiom and the GPX 6000; it's not scientific by any means, just observations for my own information, but I will report my methods and observations on the Metal Detector Advice and Comparisons forum when I'm finished. And there will be gold pics. 🙂

I hit the hills with the Axiom again early this morning. After a 1 hour hike I arrived several ridges higher above my main patch from last trip. There are faint old-timer workings here and the plan was to make the spot "pay" up. Well, no luck again, skunked for the 5th time. But, I had my aces in the hole, a mini patch and medium patch on the way back to rework to hopefully end the day with some gold. Things turned out ok and I did manage 3 nuggets, the first 2 with the 11x7 mono and last with the 13x11DD. The first was a .33g I missed 10ft. from where my ML SDC 2300 got a 1.62g nugget at the mini patch and later a .14g nugget 3in. down at the medium patch. I swapped in the 13x11DD and got the final nugget a .13g that came out after the first scrape with the pick. The takeaways are gold sources aren't necessarily higher up from patches, the Axiom is very sturdy and nugget #1 was found smashing short bushes where the SDC had been. And the 13x11DD hot spot in the center of the coil found the smallest nugget of the day. I definitely agree with Steve H.'s warning to not try to overdo the sensitivity on the Axiom. I did a factory reset today and repaired my headphones, but ended up using my Sunray Pro Golds. I had the same issues as my first trip with the connection. I kept sensitivity at factory 4 with headphones. Higher is a bit loud on the ears and you start to get ground noises if the ground is highly-mineralized. I ran a bit noiser than I usually do, but all in the name of science. Related to the sensitivity control, I noticed I had to "juggle" settings for threshold, sensitivity and volume to get things sounding smooth and not over-driven. My settings for speaker use and headphone use differ greatly. I used way lower settings for headphones so watch out for that. One nice surprise that I might be imagining is the overload response to targets is shorter than for other PI machines I've used. Nice to get the blaring over with quicker. Maybe the Axiom has a faster recovery speed doing that. Spot #1 today had a part of it burn in a wildfire. I run across spots of carbon from burnt stumps or roots there and they've sounded off using my ML GP3000 and SDC. I did get some noise today too, so the Axiom responds to charcoal like the other PI. However, I ran all day in automatic ground tracking and it smoothed things out a lot so most burn spots weren't an issue. I tried a manual balance for a brief time and those charcoal spots got really noisy, so back to auto ground tracking for me. At times spots of ground get a bit noisy. A few pumps with the ground balance button pressed and back to quiet operation. Very quick and easy to do and works great. The Axiom likes certain hot rocks, but I get the same response to them on my ML GPX 6000 here. I get some occasional extremely heavy, dark magnetite of good size in the area. The larger ones deeper got me excited with faint signals and I dug several. It seems the golf-ball sized ones fooled me. At least those are easy to spot once out of the hole. I know you can tune out hot rocks with the Axiom, but since I only ran across half a dozen there was no need. I'll possibly add more as thoughts occur to me and try to answer any questions people have. I didn't do any empirical testing today, just beep and dig.

Been searching for info on my new machine, Nokta legend and a pulse dive pointer. Came across this forum and I liked what I was reading and how the members interacted.I also read Steve's post about the forum and why it was started.Looks to be my kind of place. The wife and I are getting more into detecting and she has been wanting to go as much as we can on the weekends. We joined a local club, Yankee Territory Coinshooters. We've been able to do a couple club hunts which has been fun. She uses an AT pro and I have my new Legend(bought without her knowing and asked for forgiveness after the box arrived and I was questioned about it). We are enjoying the exercise and the fun of the hunt. I know I will learn from the site and hopefully get good enough to add to the site Thanks Mike

Yes, I tried it at TB of 1 & I wasn't seeing an improvement in separation from my normal TB of 7. I do know there is a noticeable difference in separation AND unmasking when the TB moves from +/- 10 Factory default. Your observation is correct on moving the Tone Break. I don't think you have to go all the way to 0. 6 or 7 work best for me. Now, play with the Recovery speed. You will be surprised at how much a slower speed improves the audio on co located targets. I have not found a need to go above 5, even in machinegun nails. The only exception I have found so far is in heavy mineralized dirt, 6 or 7 is required. High mineralization soil has been the most challenging for me. The settings have to be just right to get some decent depth & tone. I'm still experimenting with it. Otherwise The Legend is a very forgiving machine.

Nice gold and nice photos! And good to see gold nuggets found with a VLF for a change.

Nokta are the one that will most likely be able to make a detector at a good price in the worldwide market, if anyone can do the under $2000 PI it will be Nokta, and it will be a lot of bang for the buck too. If they can crack into the African market with it at a good price I'm sure they'll be very glad they made it.

In my time span of 50 years detecting the biggest gap filler>game changer>versatility was>>>>The Minelab Sovereign! The ability of this detector to master land and ocean was outstanding.

if its the same as the ctx the target trace will show the target but the audio will be nulled out...this will allow you to hunt without having to interrogate every single beep as you do with the Nox... Bottle caps read 14-17 in my neck of the woods with the nox.... notch those numbers out and you will miss gold rings...Now for someone that mostly hunts coins silver coins esp its not that big of a deal as you are looking for the higher conductors except the nickels of course. strick

I used to put my clad in a jar so the grandkids could go to the candy store, well really so i didnt have to clean it!

Some other things about the Axiom I've remembered: It handles EMI very very well. I had no issues with EMI even when I noticed planes passed overhead. I've often gotten loud "zings" of audio from planes on my other detectors and my GPX 5000 would go nuts when they passed. Scanning the side walls of the creek, I also got no EMI noise. Very nice! Tone pitch selection ability is nice to have. Day 1 I quickly moved the Tone pitch control up and down and settled on 70 out of 100. 50 is the default. That made the tone higher and I just went with it. Day 2 I did a factory reset to try to repair my headphones and tone was back at 50. It sounded a bit better than I remembered, so I spent more time selecting tones. I settled on 45 for the day. A target I swung over sounded better to my ear at a lower setting. This is probably an underappreciated feature by some, but I'm glad its there as it gave me the ability to fine tune the audio to MY ear. My dad will also use this machine and he has hearing loss in the higher frequency range and likely will want a different setting. Nice feature to have, even if relatively minor!

Welcome to the greatest forum on the internet with almost anything you could ever ask for in detecting. The people here are happy to share their knowledge with those that want to learn more about their machines and will help you in any way they can. You and your wife have a great hunt and stay safe out there.