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There is a long thread about issues I have been having with new members here. Long story short there are spammers who can evade automated spam checks by setting up endless new email accounts. They often join, post once, then edit the posts later to include links. This means I spend way too much time now reviewing new members who only post once or twice, going back for months. More obvious have been the spam attacks where we get hit by a bunch of new members who post dozens of crazy links in very short order. So here is my plan. I will create a New Member account. New members will not be able to include links in their posts. They will not be able to download from the Downloads area, or post in the Classifieds. They will have a limit of three PM messages a day - enough to contact somebody with an ad in the Classifieds who has not included contact info. I am looking for feedback on this. People may only want to be contacted by longtime members, and don't want to hear from some person who just joined. If you want that, well, then include contact info in the ad. But maybe you don't want to put your contact info out for people to know? Not sure, but allowing a new member to PM while limiting the number keeps them from spamming the entire forum with junk mail, so works for me. The system allows for automated promotion, so after ten posts and 30 days, the person will automatically be promoted to the full member account. So this is easy to set up and requires no ongoing work on my part. It will get rid of both the sleeper spammers, and the massive spam attacks. Very few spammers are going to spend a month and ten posts when so much easier marks exist out there. One might argue this penalizes lurkers by not allowing them to download owner manuals or use the classifieds. The simple reality is those are rewards for participating members. It's the people who post regularly and help answer questions that make this forum what it is. People who join just to sell stuff or download stuff are using the forum while not contributing anything in return. That being the case they can't be missed since in a way they really are not here anyway. I've not done this yet but the more I think about it the more I like it, and just wanted to toss it out one last time for review or suggestions before implementing it. And I will use this as an opportunity to thank all of you who do post interesting content for others to read, and most especially thank those of you who answer questions for those that have them. That is what the forum is all about, and it is you all that make it happen. Without you, there is no forum, so again, my heartfelt thanks.

Know nothing about the detectors you mention. As far as nickels go, back in my coin shooting days with my Etrac I'd hunt certain public parks, schools, etc. etc. and after several hunts I'd get an idea of the overall situation as to how hard an area has been hit and also an idea of the expertise of previous hunters and possibly the gear they used? After a few areas I'd get a feel for the location and notice things like most silver gone or maybe few coins in the surface to 6" range, etc....little clues. When silver was super sparse or "cherry picked" I'd focus on nickel targets/#'s and start popping V's and Buff's (and beaver tails). Most guys, especially in parks, scrim out nickel range targets because of trash. LOTS of nickels left out there guys along with the occasional gold ring that turns up in same range and many do. I called it "nickel knocking" and had a blast chasing the nickels and my last 2 season chasing nickels I'd average maybe 250/season with approximately 10% being buffs/V's/war nickels. Best place for nickels is curb strips because of way less beaver tails and general trash you'd find in more public areas like parks/schools etc. Another benefit hunting curb strips is the quality of the nickels is generally much better because most homeowners don't use fertilizer on that (city) curb strip. I had one city park that had lots of buffs/V nickels but whatever fertilizer they used just trashed the nickels so I quit hunting there entirely even though lots of V's and buffs turned up. Focus on the nickels and hit those curb strips.....have a bunch of fun! I guess my theory on why so many nickels is that most guys scrim them out to avoid trash...??? PS...only truly RARE coin I've ever dug was a 3-legged 1937D buff in great shape for a dug nickel because the curb strip never saw any fertilizer. Sold that 3 legger to a forum member on here..... Pic is very last coin shooting season (2017?) "keeper" nickels. Been on gold nuggs ever since...

We all wish we had a backyard like this

There is always someone on this forum that has the correct answer so here goes... I dug this ring on the beach on Monday afternoon. It is marked 750 and a has a hallmark that appears to be a wolf head facing left to the right of it. Over the wolf is SA and under it is MRM with the R about half a space lower than the M M. The attached is a facsimile that is about as good as I could come up with. The "wolf head" is to small to photograph with my smartphone but I could make it out with a 60X loupe. The 750 and wolf head are stamped on the outside of the ring too. No hallmarks on the inside of the ring at all. It has 37 tiny diamonds mounted on it. It is a pretty little thing. It weighs 2.85g and is size 6. Does anyone have any idea of a Maker or even a country of origin? Thanks, Joe

Not much turf hunting with the Manticore yet. Weather... But so far, I am seeing the same. Manticore loves nickels. I did get in a park hunt one morning last weekend and got six nickels and only two square pull tabs. I feel like I had gotten "pretty good" at calling nickels with the Nox 800 but with less than 20 hours park hunting with the Manticore so far I feel like it's gotten noticeably easier to call them. Except the one nickel I was sure was a nickel, turned out to be a 14K gold ring. I'll take that kind of missed call 😂. - Dave

More than fair in my opinion. As someone who was a longtime lurker prior to becoming a member, I can say that such rules would not have bothered me in the slightest. I look at this forum as an opportunity to learn more about a hobby that I very much enjoy, and (on occasion) share my thoughts when I think they might possibly prove helpful to someone.

Steve, personally, I trust you know what you need to do and emphatically agree to whatever it is. We don’t want you to burn out on the thing so take all the precautions you need to keep this full-time job of yours running smoothly! Thank you so much for your time, it’s an awesome forum! And… your ideas above are great - that sounds like a perfect plan for dealing with it. I never thought about the ins and outs about running a forum, your efforts are appreciated!

I have hunted around 50 Denver area parks regularly and thoroughly with an Equinox 800 since getting one back in mid 2018. I have hunted some of those same parks and exact same areas recently with the Legend, Deus 2 and Equinox 900 and I have been removing lots of nickels with each detector that I just couldn’t definitively pick out of the adjacent aluminum trash with the Equinox 800. There were just too many overlapping aluminum targets that shared the Equinox 600/800 12/13 target ID area. With the Legend, Deus 2 and Equinox 900, the nickel target ID area is not nearly as crowded with other overlapping trash target IDs. Nickels and gold rings with similar IDs are super easy to hear with these expanded target ID detectors.

Looks like my luck has changed from finding nothing worthwhile for weeks to finding a little silver mine.. As part of a new quest to hunt places which I normally drive past on my way to popular beaches, I decided to pull over at two trees along the beach.. This is not a touristy spot and I thought my chances were slim.. To my surprise this spot yielded ten pieces of silver (dated from 1904 to 1916) and two silver rings (one is 975, the other says 'sterling silver').. Also two bullets.. It's always great to hunt spots where no detectorist has been before.. I've found a few spots like this and I'm sure there's plenty more.. It doesn't really matter if no one goes there today, a hundred years ago (or more) it could have been a popular hangout..

I have almost no idea what he said (caught the "Naught 8, Naught 9 in full tones" thing but I really don't know what issue he was conveying). I also seriously hope they are not calling it "0.72".

Seems very fair Steve, need to adjust to changing times and the methods these skeemers use.

I had a couple of hours to detect today after another mini blizzard. I decided to stay close to home and hunt next to a curb at a local park that I have hunted with Deus 1 and the Equinox 800 in the past. The area I was hunting is absolutely loaded with aluminum trash and steel crown bottle caps with various states of rust unless they are recent drops. Very iron mineralized ground on top of the thousands of trash targets. Knowing this in advance I was thankful that I have the Deus 2 (and the Legend and Equinox 900) which do not have half of the regularly found aluminum pull tabs ID's landing right on top of the most common gold ring target IDs and the US nickel target IDs (Equinox 600/800/Vanquish models) both of which I really enjoy digging. In the past I have tried Deus 1 at places like this and quickly became super frustrated with all of the silver target ID range responses that could easily be US copper pennies, clad dimes clad quarters, silver coins and silver jewelry but instead were lowly pull tabs and bits of aluminum along with steel crown bottle caps that were showing up in the upper 80s to upper 90s target ID range due to severe up averaging if they were deeper than 3" or so in this iron rich dirt. Deus 2 using its multi modes based on the Fast program simply does not do that to all of that aluminum and steel trash unless it is right at the edge of detection in the dirt around here, so I had no hesitation picking it for detecting this super trashed area. I was using a saved program based on Sensitive, with 5 tones Square Wave audio, disc on 10, iron audio ON, reactivity 2, Silencer 1, bottle cap reject 1 and sensitivity on 95. Deus 2 was a bit jittery but consistent which is how I like it. The US nickel medium pitched tone was set up to sound on target IDs between 59 and 63. The highest tone for clad dimes and up was set 90 to 99. So, I concentrated on the gold and silver range of target IDs specifically any good sounding target with a consistent ID of 59 to 63 and any target with a consistent target ID of 90 and above and was basically cherry picking for US nickels/medium sized gold rings and US coins above zinc pennies with any silver thrown in. The 1.9 gram 10K ring had a target ID of 62/63 just like the nickels and square tabs in the photo. These targets were in the 3 to 6" depth range. There has been a lot of chatter about using single frequencies for detecting and how they are just "better" especially in reference to the new Minelab X-Terra Pro. I deliberately checked the target IDs of each of the low to mid conductor targets in the bottom half of the paper plate photo before digging them. I used default Deus 2 Mono set on 17 kHz. All of those targets which are normally 59 to 66 had target IDs above 85................. I'm very happy to use Deus 2 FMF simultaneous multi frequency tech, that's for sure since I can at least call the non-ferrous conductivity of targets before I dig them for the most part. Thanks for reading.

The new AI coming online is really making things interesting. It used to be you could spot spammers due to poor spelling or grammar, since many are based overseas. Now it's the other way around. Perfect English, perfect grammar is how I spot some. I figure that can't be a real gold prospector - and it's not! But they will fine tune even that, toss in a misspelled work and some slang to where an AI based bot can post and you can't tell. I actually get emails almost daily from people wanting to sell me on AI posters to keep the forum active - an army of robot posters! I can see where all this is going. All the real people leave, and we end up with bots chatting with each other online!

I agree. Steve, it seems very fair to me too. I am in full support of your proposed action.

Mr. OzGold; I have found the 7000 to be unequivalebly the most horriblest, obnoxioustest detector I have ever used for pin pointing. Add to that the fact that it can act goofy around clay and you are working under water where it is probably difficult to see what you are doing I believe the best solution to your problem is to accept your fate and continue forth with good humor.

Normally, I’m more of a coin and jewelry type guy, but when given the opportunity to hunt a CW Union camp, I’ll take it! The place has been in use continually since the Civil War as residential/farmland. So I am sure there is a mix of ages to the stuff which can be found. The live round is stamped FA 43 which should be Frankford Arsenal in Pennsylvania. This looks like a pistol round to me, and from what I have found, the 43 should be the date (1943). Any ideas on the caliber or type? The badge/tag has a little green patina. The pins are the only magnetic part. If I stare until I go cross eyed I think there used to be lettering on the top, bottom and middle. But I can’t make anything out. I would think if it is modern mass-produced, the two ends would be roughly symmetrical. But they’re not. With no details I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty impossible to ID. But does this look like anything anybody has found from the Civil War? The big ring and the jewelry ring may be brass because they are both weathering black. Alas, there was no stone in the ring. Just six prongs. There is a hole underneath the prongs for light refraction, so I figured it must’ve had a real stone. The bigger brass ring (hoop) was made from a flat piece of metal bent around to form a tube and then bent to form a ring. Looks like there is a punch point through one end and the rest of the hoop beyond the punch point has broken off. I figure it’s probably garbage, but thought I would post it here first, as artifacts are not my bag. The smaller shark tooth shaped thing is lead. I see no connection point for a line. It is painted black. If I scribble on it with a number two pencil, and then wipe off the graphite, I leave a small groove. So it may be older, unhardened, lead. But the lack of a lot of powdery whitish surface oxidation makes me think it might be newer. Any ideas? Also found a bent fork, a possible hinged medicine container, part of a harmonica, and a couple 1950’s wheats along with a couple modern coins. Found one square nail in a hole with another target. Judging by the racket, I could dig a couple 5 gallon buckets of square nails at this site if I wanted to. Thanks F350Platinum and Rattlehead! I used Relic Reaper when the nails weren’t to dense and Silver Slayer otherwise. This is a new permission and I just scouted it last weekend. There is a lot left to cover (and learn) and I will keep you posted! Thanks for looking!

Australia’s Gold Rush Ended In The 19th Century. So Why Are People Still Finding So Much Gold? | IFLScience

I have an 1898 topo and a period diagram of the area. But better than that, the owner had a high quality layout and legend of the camp itself. That combined with the topo (which matches nicely), and I have a very good idea of where all the buildings were located and their use. My scouting confirmed two buildings. I about froze my tail off, and didn’t pin the others down yet. It has been hunted in the past, but not for years per the owner. The guy that came through in the past found a CW belt buckle on a nearby property and some bullets and a crushed canteen - also on nearby properties. The bullets were all at the same depth. Apparently, sentries had no safe/easy way of unloading the guns after guard duty, and would discharge them into the ground. So the bullet depths were not a function of burial over time so much as the power of the rifle and round. The canteen had been apparently intentionally crushed by a wagon wheel. Apparently, parts of the camp could get marshy to the point that the tent stakes would not hold, and they would stake the tents through the crushed canteen - sort of a stake footer.

Nice finds! High trash areas use smallest coil you have and work slow. Overlap your swings and keep it in GB to prevent any falsing. Can't blast your way through with a big coil and high gain or you will most likely get overwhelmed with the noise and miss targets.

May 24 2002 Part Two Jacob Unwinds A Tale When we got back to camp Jacob was working on a good supper for the crew. He told us he was quite proud of the way we were working and our determined attitudes. He said that is exactly what it takes to be a gold miner. He served up hash with hot water cornbread and his own baked beans from a special recipe. I’m telling you that this was one heck of a good supper for a tired and hungry crew. After we ate he broke out some beer and a bottle of Bushmills. It seemed like he was in a pretty good mood and felt like talking. He wasn’t always like that. Sometimes he was very quiet and introspective. We knew when to leave him alone and always let him decide when he wanted to have a good talk with us. Tonight, as we stoked up the campfire and sipped some good Irish whisky, he asked us if we wanted to hear a true story. A story that only the crew from 1937 had been told. I said yes, of course we do. So he began to tell us what he said was a true tale that he had experienced right here where we were sitting. TO BE CNTINUED .................

You'll get used to digging a lot after a while 😄 The fields have more non ferrous targets and better chance for silver. The beach gets hit a lot and only small areas open up every once in a while, like the one I did at the end of the day. You guys have tame sand but that means everyone has good depth from their machines, so you have to get deep to get the gold. Yeah, I wish Minelab would just release a lot of machines rather than trickle them out. Many other people have way more time than I do to hunt, so they could learn the Manticore a lot better and faster than me. Most of the fields have nice, dark dirt, except as you get closer to the beach. The banks don't protect the fields during Nor'easter storms, so there is always some mix of dirt and salt/sand. There you will get the usual effects of tarnishing the silver. Yeah, the beach produced a lot of iron that reads funny with the black sand. There were times the discriminator was not convincing that I was digging a non ferrous target. So I dug almost everything. Some non ferrous did read iron. It's going to take me a while to get what I want from it on a beach. I'm fairly sure it's doable, I just have to figure out how. On land it's a lot easier to get comfortable with it. I always dig more in tricky situations. The black sand smeared the discriminator sometimes making some iron sound good and some non iron sound bad. I should go by tone more and leave the 2D screen alone during those situations. On normal sand, the 2D discrimination works really well when combined with pinpoint, 90 degree turn, double beep, and quality and tone of the target. I think I would have passed on more targets had it not been for that 925 knot ring. They always get you to dig more when they throw you a bone 😄 I do dig a lot to double check that I am not blindly assuming the discrimination works evenly, everywhere I go. In tough ground, I dig more. I rarely ever leave a target in the ground once I start digging. On large, unmovable targets, I have to leave them only to dig them up again and again on different hunts 😄 Good luck when your Manticore comes in. I think you will like it a lot. It hits hard on solid targets like coins and rings. But it hits little crap too.🙄

Often the soft copper oxidation will hold the detail while the metal below it has been destroyed. It might be worth it to not clean the coin to save the detail but this can be messy when you have a lot of coppers. I clean all my coppers. I think they look better cleaned and my hands don't get dirty when handling them.

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?

Sounds like a good plan Steve.----Thank you for your efforts & this great forum---we appreciate you.----------Del

I would change that to "never again will I give that dealer any of my business!" Was the dealer holding your money, just a deposit or the full amount?

Looks like Badgers' coins come up a bit less toasted than mine, well mostly. Definitely found a lot more of them too. 😀 If you find coins closer to a farmhouse they will usually be in better shape than the coins plucked from the farm, one of the first chemicals they use is lime. While not an extremely corrosive material, 300 years of farming using it must have some effect. Case in point was a large cent and half cent found near a house on land presumably not farmed, both had readable dates, where coins found in the farmed areas were almost obliterated. Chemicals and soil motion from farming most certainly contribute to that. I have now taken to spraying all my copper and brass finds with water rather than brushing them off. It definitely will save detail. There is no detail on the button below but often this type of Tombac might have had light engraving.

True story....my Father rode through Wedderburn during the 'Main street Goldrush' around when this video was taken. It was at dusk and he told me he saw a rough sign at the North end of town warning about 'holes' and took no notice....until he rode his motorbike into one of them! He was stuck in Wedderburn for a few days awaiting repairs on his front wheel. He saw some gold at the local pub, dunno how much. Newspaper reports suggest that over 500oz was won by only 10 claimholders alone!

No surprise here....The M-Core is a nickel vacuum. They bangs loud and clear usually around 27 as noted above. It hits em shallow and deep equally. Much better then the Nox 800 ever was and the CTX as well. The M-Core seems to be tuned very well for US coins. strick

Yes .45 ACP, Frankfort Arsenal 1943. Ladies makeup compact, possibly "Ashes" brand. I also see you got an old Schrieder valve stem nut. Good assortment hunt.

That's a tough call at the moment, I'm really hoping we will see some more coils very soon, so best bet might be to use the coils you have for now. I'd love a 14" x 9" mono for patch hunting, but right now it's either the 13" mono or 16" mono. In theory the 16" mono covers the ground, but I kind of hate going that large as it screws up the balance. It would be ok in flat terrain, but I'd not want to use it in the hills for a long day without harness support. I guess if it was me right now given the options it would be the 13DD or 13 mono since I have both. In your case though I just feel like buying a 13" mono is not the answer - I'd hold out at least a bit longer in hopes of more options. It would help if I put all my coils on a postal scale for a weigh in. Most are prototypes so I was putting it off, but I can't see the weight being any different on the production coils. I'll get on it and report back by end of today.

That's an amazing number of 150+ year old copper coins! I see a lot of USA Large Cents but other stuff I don't recognize. Did you post this just to make the West Coast detectorists envious??

Bonanzas gold finds in Victoria from the 1850s. The following is from ProspectingAustraliaForum ...........Link........

I will have to check my collection one day.🤑 ....Link....

Hi fellow dirt diggers I have been digging gold over here in OZ with a GPZ 7000 & 14 inch standard coil in creeks and have had a couple of signals from targets move from where i first started hearing at the surface Here is how it happened- I found a weak signal in the middle of some creek wash and started digging. i dug straight down approximately 100mm and checked the hole with detector, The noise was notably louder & I was on target with the signal in the middle of the hole. I dug another 100mm down, re checked the hole with the detector and noticed the signal had moved from the center of the hole by approximately 100mm, so i dug down another 100mm towards the signal and checked with the detector. the signal was heaps louder and i was defiantly getting closer. The signal had moved another 100mm approximately further from the initial hole starting point. I finished up digging to the clay layer down 550-600mm down and about 350mm off center from the initial signal to uncover a 3 ounce specie. I wasn't going to worry about posting the weird dig and thought it was just me not centralizing the target initially until it happened again in another creek about 1 km away. This wasn't so bad it had only moved about 100mm off center and 400mm down to uncover a 10 grammer. The ground was pretty much just creek wash and then the layer of clay on the bottom. Was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience or is it just me 🤥 Cheers Ozgold

May 24 2002 Part Three Jacob said it was back in late May in the 1937 mining season when it all happened. The crew had decided to go into town to blow off steam but Jacob decided to stay at camp. He remembered it being a cold night and he had stoked up a fairly big campfire and was sipping whisky and thinking about the previous season. Before he went any further he looked at the three of us sitting around the fire with him and asked if we had ever heard any strange sounds around camp since we had arrived. We shook our heads no. He nodded and went on with the story. According to him he had heard voices coming down the mountain along the side of the creek near camp. Jacob said the sounds got his attention and he grabbed his Thompson and got out of the campfire light and hid in a dark spot outside of camp. He kept real still as two figures started to come into view. They were jabbering away about gold and mining and both of them were drinking from whisky bottles and laughing as they came into camp. Jacob went on to say that something about them didn’t look right and he could see right through them at times. He stood up to get a better look and realized it was Jed and Whisky Jack as sure as could be. When Jacob hollered out to them he said they looked him dead in the face with cold stares and it made his skin crawl. He said he was so shocked he could hardly get any words to come out of his mouth. Then he said the two of them kind of floated off the ground a few feet and drifted slowly up the mountain until they were out of sight. Then Jacob looked at us and said this was not a lie but as true as true could ever be so help him. He told us that he expected to see them again out here one night. He didn’t exactly know why but just had one of his feelings. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

Sounds pretty fair to me.

He couldn't supply the product in a reasonable amount of time, so you were not unreasonable to cancel your order. I would fight it, and I would win, not sure on your counties laws though but he'd have no hope of doing that here and getting away with it. He's the one that chose to take money for a product he couldn't provide. It could be why dealers here have lists, but they don't take money until they have the product to give you.

I like it. 👍

Yes, I think many of us D2 owners are hoping for a 9"x5" SMF coil and patiently waiting. 😏

Welcome aboard Rick ! This forum is full of tips and clues .Many are collected here by our fearless leader . Ask any questions you have . There are some of the best in the world here to help your progress in the hobby. Good luck with your 800.. A very capable machine. Use the factory presets programmed into it . They are all you need to get going. . There are almost infinite adjustments that can be made but which ones and how much will become more clear as you get more experience and more questions answered. Start there and as you learn about how it works . Become one with it's beeps and boops. Common belief is 100 hours on a detector will get you there or at least close. Dig it all at first , .

That's a great video!

They should bring out the white coils later, don't they think?

Nice hunt G-hound! 🙂 Running high sensitivity will cause those fairly consistent mid to high tones at the end of a swing. Of course with high sensitivity catching another target on the edge of the coil is also a possibility. With my program if it's not that loud it's probably sensitivity. If it is loud you should look 🤔 Bumping the coil against anything will also do it. I'd say your bullet is .45 caliber, it was hit with a firing pin and discarded. Sad but I've found many brass plates with no engraving or stamp. All in all that's a nice relic hunt, shame you didn't turn up any Civil War stuff but it's probably been detected many times. It's more what I would expect from a Victorian era to present hunt. Cool ring too, look for markings inside the band (I'm sure you know that), but it doesn't look high end, might have been plated. 👍 Have you looked at Historic Aerials topos to see if any houses were in the farm? They would appear as square dots on the older ones. Might zero you in on better stuff.

School bus stop in country towns was good for me when I chased coins.

The shotgun shell is a western super X number 12 paper case circa 1927 to 1964. I won’t swear to it, but I think the fork says TOBY. If so, that would be FW & WE Oates circa 1877 as per the Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware catalog at sha.org. I don’t have calipers but the casing looks like 11 mm. When I am in the thick of the nails, I keep getting a random unclipped good tone - generally at the end of a swing. Try as I might, I can’t find it again. I figure it’s probably just a matter of too many targets averaging out wrong, which is why I try to keep my swings short in the machine gun iron. But this seems to happen frequently - well, at least frequently for the few times I’ve been out with the D2. I assume this is normal for the D2? If I don’t find any good targets in a couple spots, I may get industrious and clean out a couple test patches of nails. Given the history and maps, there has to be something good there, and anybody who might have come through with an older detector had to of missed something with that many nails.

You're correct on the cartage head stamp for manufacturer and date, for the caliber you need to measure the diameter to be certain...but it looks like around 9mm or also referred too as .380 ACP or it also could be a .32 ACP

One cannot praise the D2 enough in my opinion.That being said there is still a whole lot to like about the Deus 1 with the white coils and their higher frequencies.Not just for the prospector but for relic hunters as well.The round 9 at 54 KHz and the elliptical running between 70 and 80 KHz is still my go to weapon of choice on many hunts.It seems like most Deus users have kind of forgotten about the benefits of those single higher frequencies.

Rich, up to about 10" of snow here at the house today and still coming down and supposed to keep coming down for another day. I think this is the 106th day of January, here in Utah? - Dave

Not generally known for big nuggets like the previous quote. The 'Bealiba' nugget was found by a guy repairing a bicycle chain on the side of the road between Bealiba and Gypsy Flat. Just sitting there.... he dug it out of the dirt with his bare hands. A mad rush ensued but little else was found on the spot.