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I've been detecting for gold nuggets for several years without finding any Au. As many of you know, almost everything else is found: bullets, fragments of bullets, fragments of fragments of bullets, bullet casings, nails, hob-nails, foil, lead sinkers, lead shot, and the list goes on-and-on. We'll I finally found some Au! The first time out with my new Garrett Axiom after some backyard and nearby gulch practice I went to a southern Arizona location with a local detecting buddy. We have both been on a quest to find some gold. On a steep rocky hillside and after finding several lead bullets and a big jacketed rifle bullet I thought I found another when a large signal was heard. About three inches down was a flat dark dirt covered rock that was unusually heavy. My first thought was "that's a funny piece of lead." I called my buddy over to take a look at it. He hollered and identified it as a specimen piece of a gold vein! After all of our searches we were finally on the gold! After hundreds of hours of detecting my only hope was to find some small or tiny piece of a nugget....anything. What I found was about 3.6 ounces of specimen. I'm not certain how much Au is inside but I'd guess about one-half of it. I've scrubbed it with dish soap and also liquid Bar Keeper's cleaner but the gold is not clearly visible except on the edges. The piece is about 2.2" long, 2" wide and 1/2" thick, so it clearly is a piece of mineralized vein. I may consider cleaning it with Muriatic or hydrofluoric acid to remove everything except the Au and quartz, but it is such a nice example of a thin gold vein it I'd rather not damage it. I'm most impressed with the Axiom. I was using the 11" mono coil on a steep brushy and rocky hillside. The detector is well balanced and easy to use with only a little practice. My detector settings were Fine, Slow, and Manual ground balance. Unlike my past VLF detectors the Axiom virtually ignored the mineralization and hot rocks. This meant I could detect almost continuously with only an occasional manual ground balance. I'd guess compared to using a VLF machine I covered twice as much ground with far more confidence in hearing targets. For all of you still searching for your first gold detect I say stick with it. Perseverance pays off. One of the best suggestions I've heard from an experienced detectorist was to first be sure I was detecting in an area of known gold. Good luck and keep detecting. Az_Ed

I made up this crevice tool, it's for scratching the gold out of the cracks in the rocks and rock bars. The scraping part of the tool is hardened and tempered 5160 spring steel, and the basket twist handle is made from 6mm mild steel rods. I think it might just work ok, you know those little bits of gold that get jammed in the rocks that the pointy end of the pick is just a bit to wide for. The Crevice Tool cheers dave

Interesting! I'm not a coin guy but I'll take seated silver any day!!

Beach hunt # 31 was an all-day hunt with the Manticore. I need more time on the Manticore, so I took it back to the fields that surround one of the beaches I do. After about 6 ½ hours of doing the fields, I was close enough to the beach to see that there was a section that looked like it had some big waves scramble it around a bit. So, for the last 2 hours I did that section. The fields I did will definitely give you some experience hearing targets close together. I used 5 tones for this as I am not too interested in hearing every variation in the tones like all tones would give you. I’m basically hunting for silver, but any high tone will do. I did manage 3 silvers there, each one being fairly deep and having a slightly different difficulty factor in hearing it. One had a soft but solid response, while the other two were harder to hear, but repeated enough to pass the “I’m not iron” (hopefully) 😄 test. I’m definitely better at ID’ing deep iron on grass vs the beach. So, 3 silvers dimes from the grass and also the usual bunch of clad and copper cents, that the other guys ignored. After being tired of hearing all the pull tab low tones, I ventured out on the beach. I quickly noticed that the purple/black sand was all over the place. That’s usually a good sign since I usually get some rather shallow coin signals there. But as usual for me and the Manticore, it struggled with that sand. So, I figured the Goldfield mode was my best chance. I lowered the sensitivity but found that I could use up to 19 as a sensitivity setting. I ran recovery speed at I think 6 or 7. It chirped a bit but handled the sand quite well. A couple of junk targets and then a nice small silver knot ring. More clad as well. I’m just happy that I could hunt that sand and I’ll try to tweak the machine a little more the next time I’m in that situation. Nothing spectacular showed up but I’m grateful for the 4 silvers I found.

Got more gold today on the local North Saskatchewan River. I ran the Geo Highbanker at about 8 degrees and it worked flawlessly! I also dug up a relic, a fossil and lots of petrified wood. https://youtu.be/wagfh2yD_ao

It's obvious that things are not going well for these guys. Having the actual entries here I know the ending. Of course with mining, sometimes you get lucky. And sometimes you go broke.

Found this chain on the high wet sand line. It wasn't very deep, maybe a couple of inches but really screamed out loud. The solid chain is 14K and the jump ring is steel / iron. The lobster claw is marked 1/10th 12K gold filled. Apparently, someone tried to fix it with the added components. There is also a small weld where one of the links must have broken at one time and was repaired. Its ID was a 14 with some mixed in negative number iron grunts because of the steel magnetic ring. I was searching in beach low conductors. The total weight is 10.7 grams.

Thank you for the comments. My buddy is using a new Equinox 900 which appears to be a very good VLF detector. I have some graduated cylinders, beakers and a precision scale on-the-way. I hope to calculate the amount of Au. I'm planning to fill one beaker completely full of water. Place the specimen in the beaker and capture the water over-flow. I'll then measure the over-flowed water in graduated cylinder. With this data I can calculated weight of quartz for that volume. The difference between calculated weight and measured weight should be the approximate weight of the Au.

I found the following in a new version of the Deus II manual. Couldn't find the section in my printed manual, so this must be an upcoming feature. Honestly, I'm not sure if I will use this when out hunting. 🤔

Fantastic is the word. Your 1st gold has finally shown itself. What is most common (and it was in your desire as well) is the fact that most folks go many trips and even some a couple years or longer before they find the gold. Heck, even myself was the 3rd year of trying and purchasing different detectors before it happened. Now that you have a nice chunky specimen, be sure to not expect all signals to scream as loud. Practice to find the tiny gold and listen for smaller targets...so you don't miss the majority of nuggets. Great to see the enthusiasm and keep the swing going. Well earned.

Yes, I purchased everything they had, so they are SOLD OUT. I'm looking for Field Testers = DetexFarts & DetexFlirts. The DetexFarts need no experience required since we don't want to be affiliated with a dealer. The DetexFlirts need no experience with a detector, but purple and pink hair is preferred. If you have your own Social Media page. April 1st was yesterday....

Gerry should carry these for his beach hunts. Can’t believe the store actually sold out of them, probably alot of disappointed people out there for it.

This video highlights a 'new' type of detector from the same group of scammers!

Theyre around now

I didn't dig any iron or have iron falsing. But I also didn't have a clue what you guys were talking about with the iron bias settings. My printed manual mentions nothing about it. It wasn't until I read these posts and downloaded the new updated manual, that I saw what you are talking about. My printed manual must be from before all that stuff was added in newer updates, because it's not in there. When I was playing with it in my yard and home test garden, M1 had the best response vs the others, so that's where I kept it. Most settings I haven't even moved from the factory presets. This was just a maiden voyage hunt. I was only hoping to find a minie ball or two since it was too windy to go fishing. A seated coin caught me off guard. The 1885 coin date is even better to me. I'm a movie buff and Back 2 the Future is one of my favorite series...and 1885 is the year Doc and Marty went back to the Old West in B2TF 3 haha.

Nice first yellah !👍 So now....When are you going back ? Live long and prospect .🖖

Well I don't know about that but I'll try to share some info. Today I took my Legend out and did some air testing with several gold targets. I was in Beach Wet, Sensitivity at 18 due to EMI, and ran several gold targets under the coil, changing the stability setting on each one, starting at 1 and going all the way up to 5. You will see three photos: 3 - rings (2 - 10k, 1 - 14K),a 10K gold cross, and a small 10K gold earring. The Legend would hit the gold rings solid at every setting from 1 - 5. It would only hit the cross on 1 and 2. By 3 it was an iffy signal that I would most likely ignore. At 4 and 5 the detector did not see it. I did try running the sensitivity up despite the EMI and it made no difference. The small earring gave a repeatable signal up to 3, then vanished at 4 and 5. Again, increasing sensitivity did not make a difference. I have run my Legend in heavy black sand with a sensitivity of 28 with very little falsing at a stability setting of 1. Coin targets and bits of cans hit solid and deep. I wish I could tell you that gold did the same but I am in the midst of a "low conductors are always crap" streak so you know how that goes. My advice on Beach Stability is to run it at 1 and only adjust it if absolutely necessary. If you do have to increase it, I would go no higher than 3 and would try to stay at 2 if possible. But whatever you do, DO NOT run The Legend with the preset value of 5 if you want to find small gold. Lastly, if any of you were readers of Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine you may recall that I did a field test on The Legend for the October 2022 issue. Thanks to the latest update V1.11 The Legend is a radically different and more powerful detector than it was prior to the update. Back when I field tested it in August/September, it was very capable at the beach but could not compete with the multi-frequency heavy hitters. That is no longer the case in my opinion. The depth and stability in the wet sand is noticeably different and in comparing signals with buddies using the two current multi-frequency kings of the beach The Legend matched every signal. The Legend is a serious contender for beach hunting and right now it is my machine of choice. I am anxious to try the new LG30 coil which I hear is quite good. When I get my hands on one I'll share my results with you folks.

It's a hobby. People want to have fun while detecting. If the Manticore helps you to do that then that's what a hobby is about. I'm going to get one just for the extra fun factor that it will give me. Life is short folks. The only sure thing in detecting is my wife's purse, everything else requires serious digging.

That's one elegant scraper Dave. Your smithing skills are a credit to you-

May 23 2002 This morning’s cleanup showed .3 ounces in the pan. Jim stayed down at camp while Vern, Jacob, and I went up to work the mine. It was a beautiful morning for working and we went at it until around 2:00 PM when we broke for lunch. Jacob went back down to camp and Jim came up to dig. The rounded channel rocks were good to see but were playing hell with our digging speed not to mention our joints. I couldn’t imagine how Jed and Jacob and the rest of the old crew were able to do what they did. My hands and elbows ache every day. Vern, being the younger member of the crew, was fairing a bit better. Nobody ever complained and Jacob told us to just keep a steady pace and don’t push yourself past the breaking point. We were all hoping the permit would be approved before the weather got too hot. By the end of the day we had managed a hard fought for 12 yards of washed gravels. Now I understand why those old boys drank whisky at night. It killed the pain. After supper that’s what we all did, had a couple of drinks with Jacob. TO BE CONTINUED .............

Im so mad at you right now.

Hi all! Just found this place while looking for an answer to an issue with my machine. Glad I found ya'll this place is a wealth of information!!

Two years ago, I found what I thought was my first musket ball on property near the road along which the Minutemen of my town march to join the Battle of Lexington and Concord. I was absolutely ecstatic. This was my first properly old find, History with a capital H, history I could touch! I imagined the last person to have handled this ball before me: knee breeches, buckled shoes – a tricorn hat, for sure! It didn't bother me that the ball was much too small for an 18th century musket (maybe it was made for a pistol), nor that balls like this had been in use for a hundred years before and after that fateful April morning in 1775. For the last two years, this ball had pride of place in my collection. But recently I returned to the spot, now a much more seasoned detectorist with better equipment and a more critical mindset. I found three more balls right away. I returned the next day and found five more, all very shallow finds, almost at the surface. A few inches beneath the balls, I found a toy car made in 1955. This was puzzling. None of the balls had been shot from a gun, though some were clearly damaged by hitting something. Most didn't have the thick, white-brown patina that lead acquires after centuries in the ground. They were all grouped fairly close together on a steep slope, behind a subdivision built in the early sixties. The toy car was buried deeper in undisturbed ground, and therefore predated any of them. Then it dawned on me. These weren't musket balls at all. They were projectiles for a slingshot! Most likely from the sixties or seventies, a time when it was perfectly acceptable for kids to shoot their eyes out with weapons that flung toxic lead balls! I knew this because I had been a 70s kid, and ten-year old me had coveted a slingshot just like this. So here, some kid had set up a plinking range and was flinging lead balls at cans, perhaps, with many balls burying themselves in the slope behind the target. Ugh, what a disappointment at first! But in the end, I was mostly happy that I figured out the puzzle. In fact, I think it makes a better story. One that illustrates why archeology is all about context, and how objects without context are almost always meaningless – something all metal detectorists should keep in mind! Of course it helps that I've found some real musket balls in the meantime, though not at the Battle Road. They are the larger balls at the top of the picture. These unfired balls were almost certainly dropped by hunters. But who knows – perhaps some of those hunters were also Minutemen?

This could have been a April Fool's post but it is real.

Agree totally with Bill and Steve’s comments regarding updates. For me it’ll be years before I’m satisfied that I’ve unlocked the full potential of the D2 with the present 0.71 If they ever introduce a small elliptical coil I’ll definitely buy one ( I have the 9” and the 11”).

March is over, so the harvest is ready to start. .......Start of April Harvest......

That was a very informative and highly interesting video from the days gone by. Most people who purchase their spaghetti at the local markets don't know where it comes from. I will be sending this video to school with my neighbors kid to share with the teachers where he attends. This video just shows what has happened to the kids today by dumbing them down with all the social media stuff today. They should be learning reading, writing, math, science and where their food comes from.

Story time: I took the Legend to a little spot in my home town where I had dug a few dropped Civil War bullets last month. I was hoping to get some more. I figured it would be a decent spot to take the Legend to, to see how it would run. The minies I had dug, hadn't been that deep. There was some trash there...can slaw, deeper iron, etc. I hunted in park mode M1. Ground balanced and let er rip. GB was around 48. I actually didn't find much there...but that was to be expected. Legend was running very smoothly. I dug a deep brass piece to a door and a deep piece of melted lead. Then I get this really good 46-48 signal all the way around. I dug a 3-4 inch plug and still had a signal in the hole. At around 5-6 inches I had it out and it was the dime. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 3rd signal I dug! I dug several more coins but nothing old. And didn't dig a single bent nail or a nail at all. I'll definitely be going back there now.

You could look at it that way for just the Kruzer but the Multi Kruzer was more like the Impact. I had the Impact too, and loved it, but the MMK had all the modes I used on the Impact in a waterproof, lightweight, ergonomic S-rod format with a few easter eggs the Impact doesn't have.

I love the 12 x 7 Exceed, it punches deep, however it is equivalent to a 9" round. I would caution anyone from omitting the 11" stock coil from their hunting majority of the time. Though the 12x7 punches deep, I definitely feel it cannot match the 11" on depth on some nuggets. You can't compare apples to oranges and you realistically can't compare a 12x7 (9" round) to an 11" round. I pulled a deep 1.55 gram nugget around 14"-15" deep with the 11" stock coil. The day before the 12x7 couldn't hear it. It was barely audible with the 11 " round. I am certain the 11" will go deeper on some nuggets. But on the other hand I think the 12x7 will punch deeper on smaller gold.

Just what the doctor ordered! All of your missed gold put into a nice chunk of a specimen. There are some formulas for weighing the rock in and out of water. When you do that you can determine the amount of AU! Congratulations. You stuck with it and got a reward. Was your buddy using an Axiom also?

😄 Yep, it looks like GPX material. Almost all of the iron and all the aluminum foil was found on the beach. Only a couple of pieces of iron were from the field hunt. Almost all of the aluminum cans were from the fields though. The short beach hunt had targets very close together. You didn't have to swing far to get the next target and most were within 4".

That's awesome, and an incredible first ever gold find! Where there is one there is more! Good luck.

I pretty much dig everything unless it's a definite iron target. I'm getting pretty confident with the bottle cap response. All my 20 something ID's have been aluminum, but I can guarantee one of those 20's will eventually be gold.

Steve H What!! Dang it man! My hopes and dreams are crushed. I thought the next update would be a life altering event and was hoping when I downloaded the new software version flames would shoot out of the thing like a fighter jet afterburner 😂 I hope I just made everyone 😊. Laughter is a blessing. I am still on the floor laughing on the Impulse AQ comment glad I didn’t get one of those. My biggest happy point with the D2 is the weight. Back loves it especially with 9 inch coil. The more I use the bone conduction headphones the happier I get too. Nice having open ears.

Agreed, the pending D2 update won't be life-changing. It will likey just fix a few bugs, maybe make the interface a bit more freindly, and enhance performance to a limited degree. But if they only fix the annoying iron falsing, it will be dramatic enough for me. 😀

I was going to post something similar Bill but you beat me to it. There are companies that release product in a near beta state, but it is extremely rare. The MX Sport and Fisher Impulse AQ come to mind. White's paid the price for that mistake, and Fisher is doing the same. I don't think XP is remotely in the same situation with the Deus II. XP does not owe an update to anyone. People assume updates can do magic, but there are hardware limitations that software can't fix, or the software itself has limitations based on the underlying methodology. Long story short thought the Deus 2 has been out for a couple years, is an excellent detector, but it can't and won't do everything perfectly. No detector does. As far as I am concerned personally the Deus 2 simply is what it is. If anyone thinks performance is lacking - get a different detector that has the performance you seek. I have a Deus 2 and by this fall I will either keep it or sell it. I don't care if they update it. It's the detector they were selling and that I bought, and I'll judge it based on that. I honestly don't think an update will change anything dramatically, and that it is basically wishful thinking to expect that it will.

I've debated throwing in on this topic because sometimes these types of discussions can become toxic. So I will state right off the bat that this is only my opinion. With that being said...it was only a few years ago when detectors could not be updated. We bought the detectors, figured out their warts, shortcomings AND advantages and learned how to use them. That's just how it was. Now we have detectors that can be updated and that is for the most part a good thing. But keep this in mind: manufacturers are under no obligation to update their products. They could easily lock these new detectors and move on to the next one. Instead they choose not to and suddenly there is this backlash where some folks feel that they are entitled to updates immediately and continually. To call a new detector a "beta" is grossly unfair. Unless a manufacturer releases a beta update to solicit user feedback, it is absolutely absurd to think that any company would knowingly release a flawed detector. I can tell you first hand that these detectors are tested and tested and retested, both in the lab and in the field. That doesn't mean that they are perfect and in fact they may have bugs that were missed. It only means that in the company's view the detector is ready for release. Further, while it is easy to say "oh, Detector X needs this feature because it has a problem in this environment," making that statement assumes that updating software on a metal detector is as easy as changing out a car battery. Please. For example, to add an iron filter may sound easy, but to do it in a way that works and that doesn't compromise other aspects of the software and detector performance is no easy task. My advice: use what you have and learn it's pros and cons. Submit feedback to the manufacturers if you wish and post those results if you want to. But leave companies like XP alone when it comes to the updates. If and when one shows up use it. But until then, use your Deus II and learn it. I can tell you that my buddies who have them are killing it in multiple environments and are continually learning how to tweak their detectors to get better results. I wish I had the dough to buy one. From what I have seen it is an amazing detector as is. Bill

Well way back a FNQ salesman sold me that dream, a Bounty Hunter RB7, many said I`m crazy then, "you cant find gold with a box of wire and knobs" I am still living that dream and I`ll lay a bet Gerry you have many customers who also live that dream and don`t look back except in appreciation. MN for me your response was spot on, that young fella had a dream, we dont know how far he will go with that dream even if the first step seems flawed to us, it is for him to sort out.

Hello all! Sorry I did not check in here lately. For those who are having a speaker issue - we have recently instructed the service centers to hold off on the repairs until we receive the new speakers in stock in about 2 weeks. We want to make sure that all repairs are done with the new speaker so no customer has any inconvenience for the second time. Thank you!

After the struggling with the decision of which detector to buy between the Manticore or the Nox 900, Ive decided to go with the 900. I was on a waiting list for several weeks for the Manticore. My reasons was the Nox 800 is a proven machine and with the expanded VDI range I thought this will help out a bunch. Secondly, I love the 10x6 eliptical coiltek which is a killer for my detecting style (heavy iron). Third, is the faster chip set. Four, is the build quality. Although I had no problems with coil ears, wobbly shaft, and broken arm cuff, I always thought that the 800 was a serious hunter. The light and vibrating handle was no factor in my decision making. I thought the 2D screen may be way too distracting on the Manticore due to the concentrations of iron I have to contend with, but I do like the audio themes. An finally, I REALLY didn't like the way Minelab had decided to short-sheet the smaller dealers who has served me and others so well in the past and favored Bass Pro and Cabelas. Nothing against those two stores they are great, but the smaller dealers know their stuff. So I woke up this morning and decided to get off the stupid waiting list and go forward with the 900. High Plains Prospectors was very understanding and was very happy with my decision. I also told them that when/if the time comes I will deal when them on the Manticore. I will wait a year to see what develops on the Manticore. I do believe the Manticore is/will be a knock-out machine and the day will come when I may have one, but it will not be soon. The 800 and Deus I and II have found me alot of great things. Knowing that the 900 will be here on Monday gives assurance that my Deus II and Nox 900 will continue to be a one-two punch. Call this a celebration vent

Had a quick run of 3.5 hours this afternoon with the new Xceed 12x7. Right away it was obvious just how much quieter this coil makes the 6000. Y axis noise was still there, but mainly when the coil is tilted at more than 40 degrees. Below that, it was far more pleasant than the stock 11" mono. Sensitivity was still great and I couldn't detect any loss or difference from the stock coil. I found that with the overall increase in stability, I used it the whole time in Auto 1 and swapped between normal and difficult when the ground dictated. I found that the coil windings appear to be dual layer flat-wound as I could get a signal 5cm in from the edge of the coil. There also wasn't the sharpness of signal that indicates a bundle-wound coil. The color is a light pale grey and not exactly white. Looks nice! Only minor downside that I could find was that coz its a narrow coil, the detector falls over a lot easier now Pinpointing was easy and the 'NF' label acts as a good guide. I got 6 little bits on a flogged spot for .5gm which was a decent result. This was all mainly due to the detector being 50% quieter and the softer signals becoming audible. End of the story: this coil will stay on my 6000 for 90% of its time on the dirt. I will probably only change when I need a DD coil for around powerlines. Its now my 'GO-TO' coil for sure. I will be cross testing this coil with a friend soon with the stock 11" and a Coiltek Goldhawk 10x5. So, more to come.....

Channel 7 in Adelaide did a similar April Fools joke many years ago, no doubt inspired by this BBC effort.

Went out for a two hour beach hunt today. There was nothing in the wet sand or the slope so I decided to hunt the washes. I found the silver ring in one wash and the 375 (9k) gold ring in another. It’s my first 9k ring and now I need a 24k. Thanks for looking and HH.

Musket balls are so common in New England that there would be no way of knowing if it was from a battle. Hunters used muskets for over two centuries. Saying that the things we find are historical can be bad for the hobby as it adds to our bad reputation among archeologists and the general public.

There is a lot of good salesmen out there and with detectors with a solid history they can ignore the current detectors on the market and talk about the past. Fishers website has had a VERY RARE update with some wording changes to their models no longer lying about being the best detectors on the market but they've also discontinued a number of detectors, the F19 series is one of them, this will be because they were ripping people off I guess selling the F19 for an expensive price when it's also a Bounty Hunter. http://fisherlab.com/hobby/deetectors-f-series.htm#f75Ltd The only F19 models on their site say they're new, but also say they're no longer available. As for the model series itself, it's one of my favourites of the older detectors I own, it has really stable Target ID and quite accurate too, it is capable of pretty small targets, not quite suitable for me to use for prospecting as it's just not sensitive enough but decent none the less for general use being able to find small stuff. Being a detector designed for gold it's obviously going to be pretty good on gold jewellery. I repurposed mine by buying the Detech Arrow coil for it, by having an 18x4" coil on it it's absolutely perfect for going to areas after events scanning the ground for recent drops, it's very EMI resistant which makes it perfect for this as events are largely in high EMI areas. Combine that with it's accurate ID's and ability to turn the sensitivity right down and and cut the depth down it really does a good job at this. It's iron disc works well and easy to adjust, it's light and easy to swing. It pairs very well with the Detech Ultimate coil, it provides it very accurate ID's to depth and it can hold that ID until near the edge of detection of targets, it doesn't just detect with a good ID on shallow targets then go wild with deeper ones like the Simplex does. Their business model of having one model detector and disabling minor features on it to create other models no longer washes in today's market so having 4 or 5 models of the same detector with slight feature variations and different looks just doesn't work, they need to only keep their most highest spec models to stay in the game even at the lower end of the market.

The Fisher / Teknetics / Bounty Hunter 19 kHz models were among my very favorite detectors. There was some evolution, culminating in the F19 variants, but they were all good. Simple, powerful, great all around models. They are certainly still very viable options but I have moved on personally. I’d never pay the $499 they are asking for them now. Lots of fond memories though. Fisher F19 Information Difference Between Gold Bug, F19, and G2+ Fisher Gold Bug Dp Vs Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro & F19 Guide To Gold Bug Versions

I see things a little differently. XP chose to put the cart before the horse, unveiling this product, along with another as yet unrealized product, the Go-Terrain App, back in 2016. I think it’s reasonable to begin to question after 7 years, is this product still under development. It’s also been nearly a year since the Deus II had any of its issues addressed, and no shortage of people are worried it is headed in the same direction, but I digress. A track record is developing. Of course from time to time people are going to begin wondering and inquiring. 7 years is a long time between product unveiling and wherever it is now. I think XP owe an explanation or update that should not even have to be solicited for, but I am grateful they did respond. Many inquiries are complaints in disguise. XP would be wiser than companies like Whites, Tesoro, and even First Texas Products to recognize, heed and internalize that. Each of those companies started to go off the rails when they became flippant about consumer wants and needs. When they became bigger than all that. Communication is one tool the consumer has before deciding to look elsewhere. If XP is getting so much email that it’s distracting from their ordinary course of business, they might consider whether they could issue an update, even if it is perfunctory.

How sad. I’ve observed over my career in selling gold mining and metal detecting equipment that it’s very easy to steal from people in this industry. The gold mining and treasure hunting industry is rife with scams, many very large and in plain sight. And apparently somehow legal - consumer protection laws are a joke and boil down to “buyer beware.” A combination of greed and gullibility is deadly, and makes people easy prey for those who have no scruples. I’ve tried to talk countless people off ledges who were ready to jump - throw away money on equipment they did not need or which are complete scams. I saved many, but at times there is a remarkable level of delusion at work that borders on madness. They get locked into unassailable circular thinking on the subject. The main problem for this guy now is he spent $5500 on something literally not worth $10. This requires him to basically admit he was a fool. That’s psychologically impossible for a lot of people therefore the device must work. Also, if one was to admit it does not work, how do you sell it in good conscience? I would not be able to. They have to keep believing the lie for various reasons. At the end of the day these are belief systems not unlike a cult of sorts, and once people are in it can be hard, if not impossible, to extricate them from these deep wells of self-deception. In fact, trying to dissuade them can actually help reinforce their false beliefs as they will work very hard to defend those beliefs. If you try too hard, they will often get angry, so you do have to be cautious. There is a point where just walking away is the best solution. You did what you could Mitchel. Hopefully the seeds you planted will sprout in his mind as doubt and reality might set in some day. Tips For Helping People Trapped In Cult Like Thinking

Welcome to the forum! Efforts to try and prove that any one of these three is vastly superior is nothing more than an endless rabbit hole of other people's opinions. The detectors you listed will all get the job done perfectly well. It's like you are looking at three cars, and they all will go as fast as you need, and get you where you need to go. So you look at the features and decide which one seems to suit you best. It's actually that simple. But as far as information, there are dozens of threads with hundreds of pages of information already here on the forum covering the questions you are asking. Read it all, but I think I can promise in the end it will still boil down to you picking the one that seems to best suit you for your reasons. Often it's budget, and for many it's ergonomics. I can use any one of these detectors and will do just fine. What will matter is the locations I choose and the hours I go detecting, not which one of these models I use. The thing you have to understand is this is mature technology now. You might be very surprised how little difference there is between a Vanquish and these higher priced detectors, and in most cases a Vanquish will find the same targets they will. It's only at the extremes where differences show up, extremes often only apparent to hard core detectorists who obsess over a tenth inch difference in capability. So again, I will reiterate that all the top end detectors have rabid fans because they all actually do work and allow people to make very good finds. It is your skills at learning and knowing whatever machine you choose and how you apply those skills that matter. A Vanquish used properly 100 days a year will outperform any of these detectors used 10 days a year.