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I guess I am a sucker for hysterical young ladies. She and her friend came up to me and asked if I could find her ring that she had lost. I said, "sure, as long as it is metal". She showed me the 50 x 50-foot area and about five minutes later it was back in her hand. From the size of the ring in her hand, I suspect that she may have snuck it out of her mother's jewelry box to impress her friends as it was a Cartier 18K Love ring. I think that might lead to hysteria too. LOL Anyway, all's well that ends well. Thanks for looking, Joe

Klunker is the best detectorist that I know. (Because he is the only detectorist that I know) Anyways, over the years I have become a much more proficient at detecting. Partly because of his misguided teaching. I'm very competitive and always want to beat him for the day on nuggets found. Recently I've been getting close to him and occasionally tie or beat him for the day. Doesn't happen often. But I think Klunker is feeling threatened by my rise in awesome detecting skills. So he has moved on to more serious tactics to keep my nugget count down. He has now trained his dog to come lay down in my dig hole. I now have to carry a bag of sliced salami to get him out. 🤣 Things are getting serious now. I'm strategizing my next counter moves.

Hey Guys, Well the good old days, if you want to call it, are long gone. They days that dealers could bundle great deals, which I loved to do, are pretty much done. I'm not saying Manufactures don't back the dealers anymore, or am I? I have been a dealer of many manufactures going back over 20 years and the culture has changed. We now live in a technology age, where it's just a simple click of a "buy now" button and your product is on your doorstep potentially the same day. Many customers, we are a small group here on the forum, just visit Amazon and it's there! I probably talk to a dozen of these type of customers throughout the year and none of them knew about their local dealer, any deals, current promo's or any training/support beyond the initial sale. They just heard from a friend, about a certain detector, jumped on Amazon and ordered. Now you ask why, have you ever been at a UPS store or even the post office and seen the amount of Amazon returns. Heck, purchase anything, use it, you don't like return for a full refund. If I did that on all items that a customer decided they wanted to use over the weekend and return, I would have a wall of returned, opened and used items I could never sell for normal price. The days of walking into storefronts to talk with your favorite dealer are far and few in-between anymore in the lower 48. I remember when I first purchased one of my first detectors, it was a place called "Arizona Al's." You would walk in, a small shop, but there was always other guys in there talking about gold and equipment beyond the people running the counter. Al ever put in a small table, but later realized he couldn't get long winded prospectors out of the shop ..... LOL At some point, business is business and you have to run the non-buyers, long winded prospectors out, the coffee machine is now broken - if you know what I mean 😉 I'm sure if you talked with Dealers like myself, Steve H., Chris G., Gerry M., and many others, you would hear the same theme. It's the days of getting great deals, free promotional items (hats, shirts, ect), yearly conferences and great support are long gone. When you start seeing companies like, for example - Bed, Bath and Beyond - selling metal detectors, you know at that point it's not about support to a dealer anymore, it's all about the dollar and who cares who sells it, as long as the manufacture is getting their money. To be honest, the small dealers are slowing being pinched out and what you will see is more direct sales from the manufactures and only a few big box retailers like Amazon. Those great prices, training and such will only be offered from a few dealers that will continue to not give up, giving their very small profits up in training, customer deals, discounts and everything that will benefit the customer beyond their own lifestyle. This is the absolute truth, many of us dealers are running on a very small profit line trying to keep the ship floating. God Bless the small dealers! Rob

What an absolutely awesome day metal detecting on one of my beaches Thursday. I didn’t find much with my metal detector but saw the best treasure ever. There was a pod of migrating gray whales that were spyhopping, spouting and breaching for about 20 minutes just offshore and down the beach from my viewpoint. I believe that there were at least 5. Spyhopping is when they go vertical and “stand on their tail”, come straight up with their head and look around at the landscape for landmarks so that they know where they are on the migration trek. I think that maybe an older whale was teaching a younger one how to spyhop as I saw this amazing feat 8-10 times. They also breached in the normal way of just coming up and spouting and slapping their fins. One almost came completely out of the water. And I am talking about 40-50 feet long whales. They were just massive! It is just a marvel of nature. And they have been doing the migration for hundreds of years if not thousands. After the whales were out of sight a pod of 20-30 dolphins came from the other direction, breaching completely out of the water playing their way south. It almost looked like they were in a feeding frensy except they were moving way to fast. Not all of the treasure I find at the beach is 14K. LOL Have a great day!!! Cuniagau

Four hour beach hunt yesterday netted two pieces of gold. Thursday it was to rough to get into the water so I went back yesterday to much better conditions. Tides were a little high, about half a foot. Went out into the water and was only finding bits of aluminum and some zincons so I decided to hunt the wet. Had a good signal the was jumping from 10 to 12 right at the high tide line, 10k gold class ring. Hunted a little longer and didn’t find anything other than more bits of trash, so I decided to hunt a different beach. Second beach same as the first, lots of small aluminum and some clad. I was about to call it quits when I got a signal jumping from 2 to 4 thinking it was more aluminum I dug it anyway and got the 10k gold earring. the ring weighs 5.87 grams and the earring weighs .63. the class ring had the woman’s full name in it so I did a search and found an email address, hopefully she contacts me back and can identify the ring so I can return it to her. my settings were beach low conductor, sensitivity 23, 5 tones , recovery speed 5 , normal audio.

Just to reinsert the causes and effects we are talking about DEEP fringe targets. At the beach I hunt fringe targets of all metals will not give numbers on a routinely daily basis. My method is to investigate in another mode [like others do] I usually raise the sensitivity to look at that one target and also take a scoop off if needed. It is amazing how many of these are iron. Even in the two-tone program I hunt in, Iron wrap-around is a fact with the D2. The D2 is a good tonal machine until you have fringe targets that do not lock. I have had iron grunts with deep nonferrous and no iron grunts with deep ferrous. What really is disappointing deep nonferrous gives zero hints it might be nonferrous. ALWAYS choppy, ratty,bitey broken signals [just like deep ferrous] My only hope is that I can get the D2 to throw a number. I chase WAY more ferrous targets at the beach than with the GT Sovereign, Equinox, and although not enough time on the machine I suspect the Manticore would be added as well. [it is not even close] And of course,>>>someone hunting land my not see what I am experiencing on a black sand salt beach. Of course [2] No machine is perfect. But the D2 does make the Equinox look like an Ace 400 in the moving wave wash zone.

Lots of people are selling their older model detectors for the newer models coming out. I guess it’s like having packrat syndrome, must have the shiny and new. This opens up a good opportunity to get some good detector prices for people on a budget. As a dealer and trainer I get asked a very good question by a lot of customers on what prospecting detector would be best for them. My answer is usually what is your price range and how mineralized is the area you planning on prospecting? How much rubbish is in the area your detecting? If they are new to prospecting and not sure where to even go, I recommend them doing some research on the mining districts closest to them. My usual recommendation for their best chance of finding nuggets is to get a PI detector when in medium to heavy mineralized ground or a VLF with a very good target VDI for low mineralized ground in rubbish littered areas. Usually the PI detectors exceeds there price limit. There are options for used PI detectors at VLF pricing, but this comes with risk by not having any warranty. I recommend only keeping a detector that’s under warranty due to the high price of repairs, but do understand there are some really good prices on used detectors also, such as the GPX-5000. The following list is just a recommendation from my experience using a majority of these detectors on what will work for nugget hunting. I am not saying price always determines the best performance due to many variables in metal detecting. This is not a debate on detector performances as it is more about what price to expect to pay to get into this hobby. All the VLF’s listed here can or should pass the bic pen sensitivity test. There are many more comparable models out there, but these were probably some of the lower priced prospecting detectors I have found for the money. Just a few Detectors for light mineralization and a low price where a VLF can work well: $289,00 Minelab X-Terra Pro 3 year warranty. Has ground balance. I recommend nugget hunting in Park 2 15Khz mode for best sensitivity. Also a multi-purpose detector. Great price and also can use Equinox coils. Fisher Gold Bug newer Digital w 5 inch coil 19Khz. 5 year warranty. Fisher F19 w 6 x 10 inch coil package. 19Khz 5 year warranty. Nokta Legend Pro Pack w 6 inch coil package Multi Freq. 3 year warranty. Also a multi-purpose detector. Nokta/Makro Gold Kruzer w 4 x 7.5 and 5.5 x 10 inch coil package 61Khz. 3 year warranty. Garrett 24K w 6 x 10 inch coil 48Khz. 2 year warranty. Fisher Gold Bug 2 analog or digital w 3 x 6.5 inch coil 71Khz. 5 year warranty. This detector is probably a specialty detector with the most sensitivity for cleaning up the smallest leftover nuggets. If you need more sensitivity then the GB2 then probably recommend the Gold Falcon MD20 pin-pointer 300Khz. Minelab Equinox 800 w 6 inch coil Multi Freq. 3 year warranty. Also a multi-purpose detector. Very versatile. Many other used VLF models can come in well under $500.00, but with no warranty probably better to buy a new model for the price difference. For medium to heavy mineralization, a PI is really necessary to have the best success: Weight is usually the downside to PI detectors until the last few new releases. So weight is included on the PI list. Expensive Options! A used GP 3500 can be found for less than $1,400, ATX for less than $1,500, GPX 4500 for less than $1,700, and GPX 5000 for less than $2,000. Most likely non warranty, but these older PI’s were built pretty solid. Maybe others can describe the best options for your areas mineralization though.

I will dig for treats!

Got out to the field of dreams( detecting here for over 5 years,several hundred hours,mostly over same small area). Trying to spread out to hit the large areas on property I've never ventured. Found that can buckle in one of these areas few days ago. These nails and bits if not dug on false are in every single hole dug! It's insane and can lead to hardship atleast for myself! I'm still working out some second guessing from digging signals I shouldn't be! I love getting out here to this spot though as I know the chance of epic is always valid! The knowing old things are 100% lying around is all any of us could ask for I reckon! The thin metal piece is like a ar bolt cover,it has attachment places tiny little holes like a flapper of some sort. My finds tackle box. I know how tough it is for some to get on good ground or my experience says it is anyway! I've dug maybe 150 bullets,50+ shot or smashed added to it,around 20 cw buttons, lot of clad,10 or so silvers not really a coin chaser though, flat buttons,cannister shot , cannonball frags,box plate,cav buckle and many random items. 3/4 of all relics from this field of dreams! Ive had long stretches of many outings low numbers of sought after relics to show. Gave many of bullet to anyone interested to spread interest and because I'm just that way I reckon! Have a great day fellas,be safe. You are your own first responder!

Train the dog to dig the holes for you and you can move onto the next target. Cheers

June 2 2002 Part Two We broke for lunch around 1:00 PM and headed back to camp. Jacob had the gold all cleaned and weighed. There were 2.7 ounces. Then we told him about what had happened earlier. To say he was angry would be an understatement. He was saying that now the trouble had started and there would be hooligans all over the mountain watching us and stealing as well. He was really concerned. He had lived through things like that before and we all started to get worried. Vern never carried a sidearm and Jacob brought it up immediately saying he must start wearing one. Jim had a really nice 357 and lent it to him. Then Jacob decided we needed to move our camp up to the dig site for security. It would be less convenient but safer all the way around. So we spent the rest of the day moving camp which took us until dark. Unfortunately, the water line ran way up the mountain to the pump. Jacob recommended that we take turns on night watch to guard that area for a few days to make sure nobody messed with anything. It would also provide security for the camp in case of anyone coming down the mountain from the north. So I decided to take the first watch. I didn’t dare mention any of this to my wife who was at home and already worried about the crew’s safety. I headed up the mountain to find a good lookout area but the night guard would need to patrol up and down at times because one watchman couldn’t see everything from one spot. This was becoming dangerous. TO BE CONTINUED ................

I found this lead pendant today at the edge of a civil war camp that I have been hunting for years. It had me stumped for a while because the letters and image are reversed. I used my phone to reverse the image to make it legible and I noticed it said "Warranted Superior" I know Warranted Superior has been making hand saws since the 1840's or even earlier. I wonder if some soldier got bored at camp melted some lead and poured it into The medallion of a saw they had laying around and then decided to make a pendant out of it?

I have been on the forum for a year now more or less and thought that I would share a few finds from a couple of sites.One is a recently discovery where I dug the little bank and toy pistol and the other earlier items came from a site that I have been poking around for awhile now. The Bank Will Hold Five Dollars Of Dimes And Unfortunately It Was Empty. The Pistol Has Patent Date But I Cannot Quite Make It Out? Site Two Eagle I With A Push. # 28 Phoenix Never Get Tired Of Those! Roseette And What Maybe Is Tack Related Item? Wreath. Cryer Mission Era? The Experts Out There Will Know. I Call These Perforators. A Fairly Common Trade Item Are The Iron Bits For The So Called Spanish Pump Drill Used By The Native Peoples For Drilling Shell Beads Etcetera. The Pocket Watch Or Compact Lid Was Pounded Flat A Then Perforated To Be Worn As A Gorget IMO. And A Couple Of Iron Relics And Some Of The Usual Stuff That Always Turns UP.

I have no problem with people buying a detector like the X-Terra Pro for less intense beach or turf hunting where audio response is sufficient to dig. If target IDs are important........that's another story entirely. I am not going to sugar coat this just because the X-Terra Pro says Minelab on it. Owning the Equinox models since they were released, I am well aquainted with their single frequency operation in moderate to high mineralization. Up averaging of deeper targets using single frequency was severe, just like it was with the older X-Terra series, the selectable frequency Deus 1, ORX, Deus 2 Mono, Legend and any other detector that was only using a single frequency. I posted about it and made a long chart with a comparison of target ID accuracy for single frequency and SMF using the same detector. At least out here in higher iron mineralization, there was a huge difference in target ID accuracy. 15 kHz was by far the closest to ID quarters correctly here. Lower conductor and smaller high conductor coins....nope. The 6" nickel IDs are pretty good for all of the detectors charted using their SMF tech. The 6" clad dime IDs are slightly up averaged from surface clad dime IDs on all of the detectors using SMF tech in that test. So, anyone expecting accurate target IDs using 5, 10 or 15 kHz on the X-Terra Pro on medium to deep targets just because it looks like an Equinox Lite, better have super mild soil or beach conditions. Otherwise, there is not enough secret sauce in the Equinox single frequency operation (which includes the X-Terra Pro) to make miracles suddenly happen.

Never ever believe anything S.S. tells you. He is a gold miner and we all know the truth and gold mining don't mix. The truth of his story is he knows that if he skunks me I will feed his dog sardines for lunch and he will have to smell fishy dog farts all the way home --- which smell even worse than me. Mr. Dorado Please refer to a post from late June of last year titled "A True Story".

Well ok then. Suit yourself. Strange you sought and then decided to basically brush off the input of a coin dealer as well as multiple experienced forum members who took the time to respond regarding the potential nature of your find. But that is certainly your prerogative. It is your find, after all. If you feel so inclined, look up Occam's Razor. The simple version of that is summed up in the saying: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Who knows, maybe there is a small possibility we're all wrong and you have something unusual there. But if you are basing it on the few hundred clad quarters you've personally seen in various corroded states since you took up detecting a few months ago, then that is a pretty weak position to consider conclusive considering all the variables and the probable millions of clad quarters that are out there exposed to the elements. If you've seen the pics of Beach Find clad here, there are no "usual suspects" regarding corrosion states and appearances regarding green copper and copper leaching. It's all over the map. If you just want affirmation of an "out there" hypothesis, versus usable input, that's fine, I guess. But forum members like to share honest advice from their experiences not just tell you what you want to hear. It's also reassuring to get confirmation your feedback is given serious consideration. I can't speak for the others who chimed in here, but from my perspective, at least, it was just a tad frustrating reading the same counter argument multiple times. 🤔 Something to think about if you plan to use the forum to get input on your next inquiry. Oh, BTW, nice pocket watch you have there that made several guest appearances throughout thread. Cheers...and happy hunting.

Our gold areas are full of briar rose from the Chinese miners wanting their rose hip tea, they're nasty and can easily poke into a coil cable, and they damn well hurt! They attack me every time I go detecting. It's rare I don't come home with holes in my clothes from them, the thorns are very tough. They're an invasive pest plant, and they entirely cover areas, gradually taking over the land, JW often cuts them down and has benefited greatly doing so by finding gold in places no one can get to.

He says basically what I've been saying all along which makes me glad it's not just me thinking this. The Manticore is really a tough machine to use mentally. It's more work. It's more fatiguing. The 800 is more pleasurable to use in my opinion, but I have not used the 800 since I got the Manticore. The Manticore chirps on a lot of stuff, and one way falses quite a bit. On the right iron object it can 2-way false. That being said I really think it's doing some things other detectors maybe can't. The last 6 silvers I've found came from previously hunted spots. 4 today from a school yard playground I and a couple of more people have worn out many times with the 800, Etrac, and even the DII has been there some. It's mild sandy ground and the coins a deep. Some very deep. If I had just found one silver today I might have said yeah we just missed that one, but not 4. The same thing a couple of weeks ago. A yard I and a buddy hit really hard a couple of times. We got several silvers a piece on the initial hunts. We decided to hit it again. It's an empty rental. We got mostly fresh drops but in the area we got most of the silver 2 years ago I pulled 2 more silver dimes from the side we really scrutinized. It wasn't that large an area either. We don't normally leave much because we go back over each others side of the yard. There is no way to say the Manticore hit them while others couldn't, but that hunt and again today was very surprising. Anyway AT-HC Recovery 3-4 is my go to. I've lowered the ferrous limits to what Tom D. equated to F2-0 on the 800. I did this right off the bat so I'm used to it. I think it's 8 upper and 3 lower. If I was in shotgun iron I would be using AT-LC with the same ferrous limits settings.

Just a few concluding/clarifying comments: 1. I agree that Pitch is not the best option as a tonal discriminator. Multiple tones is much preferred. 2. My sole objective in referencing this video was not the tonal aspect but rather how it interestingly demonstrates the difference in beach sens vs dive’s TID ability. Frequency weighting being the difference as I see it. 3. As always, Chase and Jeff make excellent points throughout. 👍🏻

Great finds Doc, always good to see interesting stuff. 👍 Your toy pistol looks a lot like this one, someone wants a good chunk of change on eBay for it:

This square nail was under the dime. But the 800 gave a very good high tone.

It's been a while, I also need to do a wrap up of relic season, but I went to Myrtle Beach for a week. I was hoping to score some high end stuff, but I was in the Southern campground district instead of the hotel strip. Spring break had just ended two days before we got there. The campground is enormous, more than 800 campsites and about 2,000 lease/rental houses. It also has about a mile of beach, and there are two more large campgrounds heading north as well as a couple large condo buildings. Each morning and most afternoons I got to hunt the beach at low tide, the tide is about 5 feet so it goes way out. There were 4 sections, High dry, trough as seen above, mid dry, and wet. The top 3 were all random finds, in the wet you could zigzag for a short time to the surf, and soon you would find a line of good finds. The best stuff was probably in the surf trough but I didn't go in the water, especially after seeing a kid running down the beach with a 3 foot shark in his hands to show his parents. 😀 Tried to get a good shot but all I got was this: I know, what shark? 🤔 You can see the hotel district in the background, never made it there, it was about 4 miles up the beach. Overall it was kinda disappointing, but still fun and I lost over 5 pounds over the week. I met other detectorists who were complaining instead of lying about the dearth of finds, I kinda had to laugh. I was using the Deus 2 with the 13" coil and a modified Beach Sensitive program done sort of like my Relic Reaper program. No disc, no notch, ears for discrimination. I knew from reading others' posts that there would be all kinds of crazy IDs and sometimes no ID, but I dug everything that sounded good. Thing was everything was deep for the most part. I got so I'd scoop at least 5 times not only to beat fill-in, but to get to the find which was usually in the 4th or 5th scoop, anywhere from 8-12" deep. Because using square full tones and turning on a find identifies almost all iron, I had no problem skipping it but dug some randomly either because it was close to the surface and dangerous, or just to check. I did find that low tones with IDs of 5 to 15 were usually bling jewelry. I also blessed the 'no beach tents' signs which kept stakes to a minimum. It was the only thing you couldn't legally do on the beach 🤣 Here's my Day 1 trash getting used to the place: Glad I got rid of that surface trap iron! This is my last days' trash showing that I got better but still watched for surface iron: Ok. Now for the finds: Crap finds Bling finds A small handful of junk jewelry including a tungsten ring, a stainless spinner, 3 earrings, a tiny ankle bracelet chain, and some earring parts. The best one is below, .925 with a big CZ. Big finds: A huge monster truck Hummer that was 2 feet down, a small toy car, sunglasses. An iPhone 13 and case that was about 6" under the surf and vertical, it would have been 6 feet under water at high tide so it is dead. A huge bling buckle found close to the surf about a foot down, I think it took 8 scoops to get it. It has rhinestones or CZs and is some kind of plated zinc. https://www.buckle.com/blazin-roxx-glitz-belt-buckle/prd-5491537906 Coins: 99 coins, oldest was probably 70s. The place was huge and so nice that we booked it again next year before leaving, my wife loves the local shopping and restaurants. Shame I couldn't get her a gold or silver ring. A few more gratuitous photos of the place: Cool spider crab

You didn't learn much from Jed and Sarge lol.

June 2 2002 Part Three I sat in a good hiding spot up near where the pump was placed. There was a clear view of the little trail we used heading southeast down the mountain towards the dig site. It was around 11:00 PM when I heard some voices kind of muttering. They sounded like they were coming from higher up the mountain. Sure enough, three men slowly came into view. They were carrying flashlights and looking around the area. One of them was laughing and I heard him say something like wait until they come up here tomorrow and see what happened to their pump and water line. That was all I needed to hear. I was hidden behind a big pine tree just 30 feet or so from the pump they were looking at. I jumped out of my hiding place and confronted them. They jumped back with surprise and it was obvious that they weren’t expecting to encounter a night watchman out here in the remote area of the mountain. I hollered out and demanded to know what they were up to. Without one word the cowards turned tail and ran up the mountain. I had a walkie talkie with me and immediately radioed camp to let them know what had just happened. Vern said he was going to hide just outside of camp and watch it just in case they came down that way. Then I found myself a new spot to sit and wait to see if they were stupid enough to come back. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

Just My 2 Bits.... I myself just acquired an MXT-E and recently posted about it... I don't know that An older flagship detector could compare fairly... It's like a race between a Dual Engine Tractor Pull Tractor... and a Porsche... They just aren't in the same class.... I haven't toed in on a newer unit yet.... I like the Nokta Simplex best at the moment... But the technology is still evolving way too fast... In My Opinion.... They're gonna hit a technology wall... and it's gonna burn out... Garrett and 1st Texas may just be hanging tight for the minute... And waiting to see how it's gonna spin... I'm not in a hurry by a long shot.... There's plenty of old and new Aluminum targets to be found... I have plenty of Old Flag Ship detectors I'm Happy with.... And I quite honestly don't like all this GPS stuff the Non US companies are incorporating... Every time you do an update.... the thing is trying to share your GPS data with it's makers... It's nobody's business where I found A silver quarter... Unless I choose to share the adventure... But that's been more than 2 bits.... The xtra 3 1/2 were on the house.... ☺️

Wow, a Phoenix button ! And a very rare one at that. Here's a rarity chart I wrote. Yours is a Type 1 Style 2 And although you don't have anything in your picture for size, yet it appears to be a large. Right ? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rX9XFCFw-SKRiUFZfdtzFg7GIjUwzoJJ/view?ts=6182e46f As you can see, yours is amongst the rarest. An easy $300 to $500 to the right buyer (although there's not a lot of collector / buyers out there these days, last I looked). Are you at liberty to say what type of site this came out of ? And : How many total P.B.'s in your career so far ?

It even came with a key! Unfortunately even if I can get it to turn on I don’t think I would be able to fit in it... 🤣

An MXT E Series, excellent machine and a bit of a Jack of all trades. Pretty sure Captain Kidd left a bit of treasure in New Jersey? An interesting part of the world with a rich history. All the best.

50 bucks for the effort, at least🤭

Great work on returning the ring, hopefully good luck will shine on you during your next hunt.

You dug the hole a perfect fit. Pup had no choice but to try it out.

Tejon is my first choice in old iron infested properties with the concentric coil also. I like how the breaks are soft and don't completely eliminate the target so I can use that as if it was a tone. Key break points I use is iron line, nickel, tab and line above tab depending on the trash I may run into. As an all metal machine it doesn't have the speed of modern machines but the all metal is invaluable when further checking targets and pin pointingl

I think we are basically in agreement but it takes a super-trained ear (explained below) to be able to discern anything more from the pitch audio alone coupled with the sketchy TID was that you had a probable symmetric, non-ferrous target as there is no obvious tone ID component in PITCH to let you know if it was a low mid or high conductive target like you have in Mukti tones or full tones. That was my point in response to Dave’s assertion that the video demonstrated D2 had poor tonal ID charisticstics. Agree that if you were digging all non-ferrous it was a dig me audio signal but without reliable visual TID, you would have difficulty differentiating a zincoln from a tab from a heavy gold ring in PITCH, though with experience, you can discern more dense/massive targets such as solid gold, silver or copper/clad or an aluminum can bottom as they will tend to give a slightly fuller, more rich sounding audio in pitch.

Ask JP. Jonathan Porter. Queensland is his back yard. He may see this & chime in, but don't hold your breath as I have noticed he hasn't been on here in ages. You could try message him directly. He is a Minelab tester, dealer/agent. You would most likely be better off with a pulse induction detector as has already been mentioned due to hot ground that the cheaper vlf's dont like. Because they are cheaper doesn't necessarily mean they are no good. Just given a hard time by mineralised ground. My vote for a "cheap" but usually very good vlf in mild type ground would be the gold monster & the Nox 800. If you are also keen on jewellery & relic hunting then the nox 800. For a PI that might be within your budget a 2nd hand GPX 4500 or 5000. Good luck. D4G

This absolutely the wrong video to use to draw conclusions as to whether the Deus 2 is a good tone ID machine because the machine is set up in PITCH tones (as evidenced by the the text overlays of machine settings and the actual audio). Other than readily distinguishing between ferrous/non-ferrous targets based on the disc setting and use of iron volume, PITCH provides basically NO target tone ID information other than audible target signal strength (and overload) and some nuanced tonal information (based on perceived tonal harmonic distortion) regarding the symmetry of the target shape (useful for differentiating face-on round targets such as coins, undamaged tabs, freshness seals, and rings vs. canslaw, aluminum tent stakes, and (unfortunately) chains. PITCH audio excels primarily as an effective way to “alert” the detectorist to the presence of a non-ferrous target (or conversely ferrous target if that is the objective) while swinging away because it is very reactive to tiny or deep non-ferrous targets vs. multi tones which are less dynamic in that regard. However, it requires the detectorist to heavily rely on visual target ID or switching to a multi-tone or full tone mode for target interrogation for more precise target identification. Bottom line is that pitch audio makes it slightly less likely you will walk over a target without hearing it but it is also slightly less effective at facilitating efficient/timely target recovery because of the reliance on visual TID/target interrogation to make a dig decision. PITCH is tailor made for those digging all non-ferrous regardless of ID and especially if combined with utilizing the visual ferrous/non-ferrous target indication on the horseshoe display. To really draw a conclusion regarding Deus 2 as a tone machine, one needs to see a demonstration of the Deus 2 in multi-tones or Full tones to determine whether you get a “good” high or mid tone at depth with either the absence of a target ID or down-averaged ID due to co-located ferrous. That’s not featured in this video nor was it the objective of the video as the focus was on mode settings impacts to visual target ID. In my experience, D2 is a great tone machine if you have the audio set up for other than pitch tone (though I consider full tones to be weak on the D2 vs. the D1). The other thing I’ve noticed about visual TID on D2 is that it is pretty rock solid and you rarely are in a situation where you are hearing just a tone without a target ID or indication on the horseshoe display to facilitate the dig decision. Although this video demonstrates how wet salt sand with perhaps the influence black sand can impact target ID accuracy based on mode. Proper setup of disc with Iron volume and utilizing the horseshoe display and Mineralization meter can also help provide clues as to whether the target IDs for a non-ferrous target are being down-averaged as a result of co-located ferrous or soil effects. FWIW

Loren provides a very interesting assessment of the Manticore after 100 hours of use:

All that and not 1 picture ? Same experience not long ago at Aliso. Beautiful sight.

Hi guys, I’m new here, any one can get me an advice on a gold detector ? nothing expensive, I’m a starter im in Queensland, only go prospecting weekends nothing fancy for now. appreciate the help thank you 😊

That must have been an awesome sight, I can only imagine. I've never seen a whale but here in Florida there are plenty of dolphins that do some acrobatic feats. It's amazing to watch a pod of them chasing and corralling a group of fish for lunch or ride a wave into shore just like a surfer would. Their body almost completely out of the water, just catching a wave. Another sight I never grow tired of seeing are Manatee. Big, slow moving and curious. I've had a few occasions where one will sneak right up within a few feet of you and gently swim away. Nothing like seeing a big, wide dark object suddenly appear when you're in chest deep water. It will get your attention and your heart rate going!

thanks for sharing that video. There’s no coil error, and it doesn’t happen with my CT coil. It could also be a loose battery. I’m going to start a new thread in the GPX 6000 forum for this- I am getting Sourdough’s NF thread here off track! Sorry Scott!

A lot of awesome finds.

Thanks Colonel, No need to salute or call me sir, I used to work for a living 🤣 There was a lot more to tell, even a "ring finder" with an Excalibur waving his coil 6" to a foot above the wet sand. Met some really nice folks tho. One detectorist complained to me that he wasn't finding anything, asked me if the beach was hunted out. I told him very nicely that holding his coil as high as he did and swinging up at the ends of each swing was the reason, he graciously thanked me for my advice, and went right back to swinging wrong. 😵 Wanted to try some new stuff (programs) but RV issues and constant weather changes kept me busy. 🙂

Didn't see no watch, no shark, no hotels, no water. Wish he would have taken a better picture of her, because I have seen some women who look really great from that angle, but when they turn around they would break a camera. So many great finds on this trip as usual, and glad to see you pull in so many of those pull tabs just to keep others from finding them. Good luck on your next hunt and please take better pictures of the women.

Nice finds and I bet it took a lot of time on those hunts. Good luck on your next outing and stay safe.

I am pretty sure I have sorted some of this out. when in all metal the detector provides a red line to indicate iron, that red line seems to last for "a while" the exact time I didn't figure out. the VID number lasts until you cross a target with a different VDI the tone has no delay and changes as soon as you cross a new target ID (keeping in mind that tone ID and VID seem to operate on different thresholds of signal strength for them to register) the two D screen has a fading display I have not had the time to confirm that all of these are independent of each other, but they might be. If what I have said above is somewhat correct it explains how a red line lingers while getting a high tone several times that turns out to be a dime, presuming that anywhere during the swing a ferrous object is detected creating the red line that lingers. (my average swing could go beyond the edges of a plug) To take this a little farther its clear the Manticore was basically designed to run in discrimination mode more than in all metal all the time. This situation does not really occur in discrimination mode. I still have to spend more time, but while figuring this much out I did dig a rosi and wheat in a newer park the has only given up a couple wheats in the last few years. For the way I hunt it would be nice to reduce the red line lingering time to about a half second or less, it becomes confusing seeing the red line so much of the time in a trashy park while running in all metal. I may not have enough time in to reach any conclusions so if anyone's experience is different feel free to clarify. thanks

New and exciting coils to come in the future! YAY! Thanks for explaining it Trevor! There was some confusion as to terms used and bunch was confused with bundle 🙂 I'm very happy with my 10x5".

Sorry, yes it's confusing, spiral is another way of saying flat wound where the windings (wires) are laid out flat with each wire next to the other, and semi spiral they layer one layer of windings on top of another laid out flat but taking up less of the coils surface area being doubled up, a few reasons for this and I guess having it fully laid out flat could make the coils hyper sensitive and saturate on ground too badly for the GPX 6000 being such a sensitive detector, they worked very well on the 4500/5000 though. The GPX 6000 coils such as the Coiltek 10x5" are traditional mono's with just one winding transmitting and receiving and laid out flat with multiple layers, a compromise between fully flat wound and bundle wound. Bundle wound the wires are all bundled together like a rope, a little less sensitive but bundle wound coils tend to have hotter edges with the field of detection concentrated at the edge of the coil. Concentric has an outer transmit winding and an inner receive winding in loops, some cases two inner receive windings depending on the detector. Concentric coils can be (Spiral) flat wound or bundle wound too. I'm sure someone could explain it better than me and hopefully will, I hope this helps clear it up a bit though. Each coil type has its advantages and disadvantages.

I was in Galveston over the weekend. Hunted a beach behind the house I was staying at. I used my CTX 3030 and the Nox 600.

I understand. I am trying. Still putting in time and learning more but not there yet. It's becoming one with the machine. I can achieve this state when I'm running an excavator. Haven't reached it with a detector yet. Something to aspire to.

Just sticking to the original question I’ll be simplistic about it. If I needed the detector to be fully submersible I’d get the AT Max. If not, I’d get the Vanquish 540, which is basically a stripped down Equinox in a dry land package. With either model take care of the battery issue by using AA rechargeable batteries.