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Found this while detecting for coins & relics in old gold mining area that has a long gone mid 1800s-early 1900s townsite nearby. At first I thought it was part of a smoking pipe, but now thinking an old gas lamp fitting. Wider end threaded, other end not. Ornate fish design and with English lettering on end….can only make out “HOFF”. Whatever it is, pretty cool! Thoughts?

Well surf was calm this morning and I finally got back out Nice change from getting knocked over and beat up in the surf of the Atlantic. Did end up to my neck getting a pair of sunglasses out 😆. Darn things rang up like a gold ring. Hotter than @#%$ down here so nice to be in the water up to waist maybe a lil deeper at times. Actually did not want to get out or leave, but my list of things to do today was a little long. Wife met me when I stepped out of the water. She did good with coins so it helped pay the gas for the day 😊. Only bad thing was I lost the 925 opal ring I dug in the surf to her waiting hands😆 😛. First target of day was the cheap gold plated sun earring that I barely could make out in the dark, but saw the color. Translation = junker, but it got the heart pumping. Beaches long and flat but I did have an area that had a trough running along the beach and a few deeper holes. Wife did score a brand new Samsung Galaxy S23 1ft down in wet sand and we were able to get it back to a visitor from St Augustine. Meet the young guy at a local park — yep he said he just bought it. He tried handing me money, but I refused to take. Told him take his wife to dinner instead. Used D2 dive program and it worked great (smooth). Beach Sense when out of the surf and on the beach/wet. Mainly looking for fresh drops that’s why the pulse is taking a break and I need to figure this XP out. Hopefully I get some time to read other posts tonight. Just been busy.

Finally got around to loading the update (painlessly, thanks in part to Mark Dayton's -- aka 'Brass Medic' -- YouTube video). My sole goal was to compare in my soil how the update performance compared to the original software. First some background which should help in understanding the result: 1) My soil here at home in my test garden pretty well matches the conditions in nearby parks and schools I've been detecting for the past 5 years with the Equinox. The Fe3O4 mineralization meters on the Fisher F75 and Gold Bug Pro (not quite the same scale) both show 2-3 bars depending upon exact location. I interpret that as 'moderate' ferrous mineralization. Regarding my in-field results at my 100+ year old sites (at least five of them I've hunted hard), I've only found two coins at 9" depth (Jefferson nickel and Wheat cent) and none deeper. I've found a few 95% copper cents and silver dimes at 8" -- by "a few" I mean on the order of 10 or so. Silver quarters have been few and the low statistics dominate -- 7" about the deepest. Ages go back to Barbers (dimes and quarters) and 95% copper Indian Head cents. I bring all this up as evidence that my 2-3 bar dirt likely *does* cause loss of depth compared to pristine, dry white beach sand, although I can't say with 100% certainty that other factors (coins just aren't any deeper or detectorist skill level) aren't the contributing or even the primary cause. 2) My testing in this case had one goal -- to see if the update affected the depth in my test garden. I have three buried USA coins to check -- 5 inch deep 95% copper Memorial 1 cent, 6 inch deep 25% nickel, 75% copper Jefferson 5 cent, and 8.5 inch deep clad (outer layers same composition as above Jefferson nickel; inner layer pure copper) 25 cent coin. I used the Equinox 800 with 11" coil as the control. Neither it nor the Manticore has any trouble signalling strong and stable with those three targets with 'reasonable' settings (see more below). As such I do a hybrid (ground + air) enhancement to get to the detection edge. I stack wood blocks / shims of size 1/2", 1", and (multiple) 1.5" thickness to measure coil height above the ground in 1/2 inch increments and add them until I reach what I consider the largest distance which gives a diggable signal. 3) Back in mid-May I did some tests with the Equinox 800 and 11" coil (for baseline/control) and the Manticore with 11" coil, the latter in different searchmodes. So far I'm withholding reporting absolute results as I need more experience with different settings before I'm confident they are representative. However, today I repeated a subset of those tests with the Mcore's update installed. Here are my corresponding, relevant settings both in May and today: Equinox 800: Park 1, five custom tones (customized in volume, pitch, and breaks), sensitivity = 21, recovery speed = 4, Iron Bias F2=0, no notching (aka Minelab "all metal" so all VDI hits correspond to actual tones transmitted), ground balanced and noise canceled. Manticore: All-Terrain High Conductors, five customized fixed tones, sensitivity = 21, recovery speed = 4, iron mask upper 8, lower 3, no notching (aka "all metal"), ground balanced and noise canceled. Headphones were used in both cases (Sunray Pro Golds with WM08 for the Eqx and ML 105's for the Manticore). For the updated Manticore I turned off the new (iron) stability features (NOTE: there are two new settings options as seen in the new manual on page 51 -- 'Stabilizer' which is a number 0-12 where '0' indicates OFF, and 'stabilizer filter' which is a supplementary feature which only applies if the Stabilizer value is non-zero.) My screen showed Stabilizer value of 0 and the stabilizer filter OFF. Bottom line is that even with possible changed ground conditions (due to soil moisture changes between mid-May and early July), both detectors showed similar performance, (hybrid) depthwise, today as they did back in May for all three buried test targets. I didn't try doing measurements with the Stabilizer turned on. In the future I will do more tests where I actually vary a coin's depth (my setup can go down to 14" which is way deeper than either detector will be able to sense a USA 25 cent piece in my ground). I plan on varying the Manticore's sensitivity and search mode in particular as well as experimenting with the Stabilizer settings. But for now, based upon my limited testing so far, I feel the update hasn't degraded the Manticore's core (i.e. Stability OFF) depth performance. One last note about my update procedure: I did not do any factory resets, either before or after installing the new update. It's nice not to have to hand record and then redo all the many customization settings I've made. (It seems all those are preserved during the update, something that has been mentioned here in this thread as well as in Mark Dayton's videos.) I know some feel factory resets are safer in terms of getting the desired result of a smooth, properly operating detector but for now I'm going this easier route until I see/hear reliable reports that it's necessary in the case of the Manticore.

I haven't used the 900 however the 800 is very close to the same for this purpose, The reason I prefer the Nox over the Gold Monster even though the GM has a slightly smaller coil is purely because of features and Multi-IQ, having the ability to change frequencies is very handy especially when it comes to EMI, I use Multi-IQ when I can, under power lines I switch to 40kHz, I find multi-IQ best for gold hunting which the GM lacks. The GM is quite slow at ground balancing, the Nox can be manually ground balanced, or tracked, not having to use tracking like on the GM I think can be an advantage. The Nox 900 has higher sensitivity settings too than the 800 so maybe slightly better if they can be used in some spots. The sensitivity levels on the Nox have a much more defined scale so you can get it just right to get the most out of it. Being able to change the recovery speed can be advantageous too, in my milder soils I can lower it a lot for low and slow detecting to pick out the little bits at depth the GM can miss. Another bonus which may appeal to you is the target ID's and the ability to notch out hot rocks, yes of course notching comes with the risk of missing some gold IF the gold comes up the same Target ID as the hot rock but in a high hot rock content area by notching out the hot rocks can be the difference between finding some gold and being put into a mental asylum. Most hot rocks come up in the iron range but a few come up at about 12 and 13, most small gold comes in well under that with tiny bits 1 and 2 and slowly going up in the numbers as they get bigger. It takes over a gram size bit to get up into the hot rock number and your GPX or GPZ should have found those bits anyway. I think of it a bit like the GPX 6000 and GPZ 7000 with the GM being the GPX and the Nox being the GPZ, one having features and settings, the other being automatic and lacking control. The GM meter is all over the place even in my milder soils, it only locks on with rather large targets, the Nox target ID's are vastly different, on small gold they'll be a 1 or 2 only bouncing into iron if the gold is extremely small or deep, I find the Target ID's much more accurate than the probability meter, especially when using Multi-IQ. As your soil seems quite nasty I'm not sure how well that will stand up but @Jeff McClendon would likely be the person to talk to on that. Multi-IQ does seem to handle bad soil better than single frequency machines and offer more stable ID's than single frequency. I can't see a single reason I'd use my GM over the Nox and other than as a pinpointer I've never used it again once I made the switch to the Nox. At the moment it's so unknown for the Manticore with no small coils, but for the price even if it is better in the end it won't be much better, certainly not the price difference better and I'd not be surprised if I just use my trusty 800 with 6" coil over my Manticore even when it has smaller coils, the Nox 800 is just that good for prospecting. I think Minelab will come out with a multi-IQ Gold Monster at some point and they may take it a bit higher on the frequencies to make it a bit better than the Nox, if they don't do that they may as well discontinue the GM as anyone with an Equinox is unlikely to want to use the GM anymore. If I was you I'd just pick up a second hand Nox 800 with 6" coil from someone "upgrading" to the 900 or Manticore, as a land gold hunter you're not going to care about the risk of leaking and the coil ears on the 6" are robust being a tiny coil so the main negatives of the older model don't really matter to you.

So many times people ask like you what’s the best detector but what we should be asking is how good am I. I myself have been at this for years but in the past most was just turn on and go . Now days most detectors you can still turn on and go but if you want the full benefit then this is where your part of learning your detector kicks in . A detector will be no better than you make it.Most detectors now days require you spending time learning what it can do for you. Only you can make both of you better and that’s bye you reading watching videos and the main thing in the field finding out what your detector has to offer. In the field day after day of swinging it is going to give you more knowledge above all. In pass years I’ve said buy the best detector you can afford. Then get out there detecting and over time it will pay for it’s self . Now days I don’t see that anymore because people and me included got to have the latest and greatest. I wish you the best in whatever you buy. Chuck

The only advantage the 900 has over the 800 is the use of two tone VCO Depth Tone audio in Park or Field modes for an alternative to the one tone VCO Gold modes. However, depending on mineralization and if the nuggets are tiny, it may not matter if the small stuff only responds in the lowest iron target IDs. I would pick a Nox 800 or 900 over the GM 1000 100% of the time for all of the reasons mentioned along with better ergonomics and wireless audio options.

Just wanted to add that so far I’ve seen nothing to convince me that the Equinox 900, Manticore, or Deus 2 are truly any better than an Equinox 800 when it comes to nugget detecting.

The funniest part of this story is that someone is using an armored truck to haul zinc cents. Can you even imagine that someone would attempt to steal them. No one will even pick them off the ground when they are free.

Many thanks, Steve. I am sold. There are times where I don't mind digging up alot of trash (where there is trash, there is gold), but I just got back from a trip yesterday where I was pretty close to be admitted to that mental asylym that Simon was talking about....With all caveats understood, a VLF with smart IQ might be the only productive strategy in areas where 1000's of miners have worked for years. GC

I'll tell ya another one along the same lines...not having the ability to customize tone breaks/bins and disc patterns via PC or tablet, then uploading or downloading them to the machine. They had this right on the CTX and eTrac IMO. I absolutely hate scrolling and editing all that crap on the machine itself. Easier to drop and drag with a mouse cursor, etc.

Just so everyone knows & I have also mentioned this before, there continues to be gunfire from time to time on or in the area of those claims. A few yrs ago my partner was run off the claim by gunfire. This occurred when he was prospecting the area of the original Stevens gold strike of 1936 which was real. He did not know if they were warning shots or possibly just someone shooting randomly & didn't stick around to find out. I had one scary experience out there in 2019. I had set up camp just south of the original gold strike of 1936. I was up there by myself a few days before the rest of the crew arrived. At around 2:00 AM I awoke to gunfire. It was coming from the north way up on the mountain about a quarter mile or so above the old dig site. The crazy thing was that it went on for 15 or 20 minutes. There were different kinds of guns being fired because the sound of the shots were not all the same. It sounded like a war. Eventually things quieted down and I tried to get back to sleep. I will no longer stay on those claims by myself.

I thought maybe a ceramic bowl would screw in the threaded end and stem fit on other end? But likely part of something else, like old gas lamp…

Personally I think the Nox hands down beats the Gold Monster for general purpose nugget detecting. The Monster may have an edge on the smallest bits, but frankly that's about it. The ferrous discrimination, as Simon notes, is far better on the Nox, as is the ability to notch out hot rocks, something you can't do with Monster. The focus tends to be on small gold, but the larger the nuggets get, the more the Nox shines over the Monster. If I was to hunt any sort of trash laden tailings looking for discarded larger gold, the Nox with 12x15 coil would be my go to detector without hesitation. I wish I had it back in my Alaska tailing pile heyday, perfect machine for the task. There is no large coil option for the Monster. Long story short I ditched my Monster not long after I started prototype testing the Equinox, and have never regretted it. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/7468-my-tips-on-nugget-detecting-with-the-minelab-equinox/

Yeah very hard to find the Jimmy Sierra coils. In general the XLT is just as good as a DFX for most uses, maybe better for some with it’s dedicated 6.59 kHz operation. The DFX in many ways is the same machine, built on the XLT platform, display, and general menu options. It however is a early selectable dual frequency machine, with the ability to run 3 kHz or 15 kKz or both combined. The DFX is easily the better beach detector due to the dual frequency operation. It also does have far better coil support as being able to use all MXT/V3i coil variants. The Jimmy Sierra Bigfoot version for DFX was made with the DFX unique capability to shut off the rear half of the coil, and unlike other Bigfoot variants the figure 8 signal reversal front to rear is corrected with the DFX. I own a DFX specifically because there is no other detector/coil setup like it made by anyone else. Oddly enough I also like the DFX because it’s not a super high gain overdriven machine like we get these days. Its performance is mild mannered compared to the current crop of SMF detectors, but it’s not going to bang hard on every tiny bit of metal in the ground. The 3kHz only mode does very well for silver while ignoring small foil etc. The 15kHz mode is great for jewelry, and can be run with un-normalized VDI numbers which expands the low conductor range. One quirk about the DFX that can be good or bad, depending, is that it is always locked in salt cancellation mode, kind of like the CZ-3D. This means again that it’s relatively insensitive to tiny aluminum but also tiny gold. For my uses I am fine with this as I am not chasing micro jewelry. The XLT might have the edge there even though the DFX sports a higher nominal frequency. All the power goes into the XLTs single frequency. The DFX is always running in dual frequency mode in theory, and creates a single frequency mode by single shutting off half the signal. The V3i was a step up in repairing that deficiency. I’m a big fan of the XLT/DFX display, prefer it over the Minelab 2D version personally. White’s SignaGraph Display Explained All in all the DFX is the one old detector I simply can’t let go of. It’s not the sheer power of the machine, in fact, just the opposite. I like it for cherry picking shallower targets in turf, specifically jewelry, without getting bogged down with the false signals or hits on tiny bits the super hot detectors produce. In fact it’s been too long since I’ve fired the DFX up, and this list has inspired me to do just that, so thanks! White’s DFX Engineering Report… and More

Seeing nobody has answered and you're chasing gold nuggets at the moment I would say the Equinox 900 purely as it has the 6" coil and Coiltek 10x5" coil available for it, ask me again "if" the smaller coil comes out for the Manticore and "if" Coiltek make coils for the Manticore and my opinion may change. Seeing the stock small coil for the Manticore is going to be bigger at 8x5.5" over the Nox 6" coil I would not hedge my bets on the Manticore being more sensitive than the Nox 900, although it's entirely possible it will be, they have recently improved small gold sensitivity on the Manticore and in my testing 11" coil on the Nox 800 vs the 11" coil on the Manticore they're very close now, prior to the update the Nox won. In saying that my testing wasn't done in a remote area where I could wind up the Manticore sensitivity, it has higher sensitivity settings than the Nox 900 and in remote gold locations running these higher sesntivity settings may well be possible, at least here I can run in maximum sensitivity on my Manticore with the 11" coil and it be perfectly stable. So in summary, too soon to know, if you're desperate to buy now the Nox 900 is the safe bet, if you're willing to wait and see I wouldn't be surprised if the Manticore wins. When it comes to coins/jewellery and so on they're all so close, including the Nox 800, yes the Manticore has advantages and also disadvantages (poor target ID compared to the Equinox 800, the 900 is similar to the Manticore with more unstable ID's) Realistically you could buy a Nox 800, 900 or Manticore and end up happy. I think the Manticore is very over-priced given it's benefits or lack thereof over the others.

Although jumpy and prone to EMI. I do have to say...the V3i is a dang impressive machine. It's a shame it didn't get a book like the DFX, Explorers, and such did to help explain the settings and how/when to incorporate them. If it did, that machine would have been super popular. Mr. Howard's video on YouTube is pretty good for it and Carl's mini book helped a lot too. I need to get this machine on the bullet site and see how it does there but otherwise, it is probably one of the deepest all metal AND disc mode machines I have had in my hands. The problem is the EMI. I agree with what has been said...if Garrett were to take that technology and make a modern version of it...holy toledo.

I found an old series on the Whites YouTube page regarding the XLT. A lot of it I already knew but they did a decent job explaining some of the other settings I wasn't as familiar with. It's hard to believe that machine came out in the 1990s and will still absolutely hold its own against the modern machines of today. Very fun machine to tinker with and SUPER smooth all metal mode.

it still could be a pipe because some was made with a screw in bowl. Just do a search for a screw in bowl for pipes and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Chuck

BTW - Both Steve and I get an auto notification if a post needs approval so there is no need to tag or message us in addition to that notification. If we are online we will see it and act on it ASAP.

I would replace 'funniest' with "most ridiculous'. I wonder when you include all expenses (salaries, fuel cost, vehicle depriciation, overhead paperwork, etc.) how much it costs to transport a USA cent in this case. And, yes, they can be picked up easily on sidewalks, etc. all over the country, yet the health cost (likelihood of injury or even disease transmission) lowers that opportunity value, too. There are certainly far bigger issues that require the attention of legislators than perpetuating the minting and distribution of USA 1-cent pieces, but it does seem to be just one more example of humans failing to use the brains they were born with.

I do mostly fresh water for gold rings and my go to is General, Pitch Tones, Reactivity 2, Audio Response 5, with a notch from the point of discrimination to 28. I listen for those smooth, full target responses. Every beach is a little different so I adjust accordingly. I've found lots of small gold rings using that notch but if you want the micro gold you may want to skip the notch. Good luck!

If that happened here in the U.K, the clean-up would be easier, as the majority of our 1c-equivalent coins ( 1 pence ) are steel, plated with a lustrous layer of the finest copper. So a magnet would do a good job of 'sweeping up'. Hopefully it would be completed before they turn into brown bubble-surfaced garbage.

Local detectives will be monitoring all coinstar machines .........👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️

Here is the full video, the action of the find starts about the 6 and a half minute mark. You will see he puts on a Coiltek coil to use as a pinpointer as 32" is way too big to narrow down the target, and the Coiltek coil doesn't hear the target until down into the hole. It's very deep! It's really worth watching the video, pretty incredible. He blurs the find a bit occasionally as they're often cautious about revealing too much about the finds and covers up the hole in a way nobody would know he even dug there. The depth of the hole is amazing really, it took him all day and into the night to dig it. I can't believe how deep old relics can be found. The 15x12" coil would not find it and larger coils like the 25" Nugget Finder DDX have missed it in the past, it's a spot they've been getting bayonets out of with the previous coils. @jasong I think you'll like the video, just the hard work the guy had to do to dig the hole exhausted me watching it 🙂

Good on you!🏆 Another great return, and some decent finds! Can't ask for a much better day, other than gold and diamonds, and a bit cooler temps! 🍀👍👍

Great ring find! That one doesn't look all that fresh, but if it says 925 and not sterling it is post 50s anyway. 👍 And yet another return, you two are on a roll. Congrats on the ring, 63 coins is great, kinda like the arrowhead pendant - surprised it's not silver too. 🤔

I really liked my tarsacci , but had to pay my car inshurance, I miss the detector and want another , but am so broke , I may get the new simplex, just so i can get in the water , but I miss the way it could ignor and see thru small foils , I hope they can find a way to get the price down , I would love to have another

Hot — heck those temps feel like winter! 😆 Congrats! finally got some time to read some posts. You need JoeD’s Bigfoot coil.

Shoot they will all corrode in a few days — 😆

I apologize guys. I’ve been experimenting with a new add on for the forum which is supposed to block new members from posting links. To stop the spammers. But it’s glitched and although the vendor has been responsive, still glitched it seems. I’m going to try one more thing before giving up and disabling it. Bummer though. New member links are spam 98% of the time and this would stop it dead.

June 21 2002 Part Two I was hoping for a quiet night. We hadn’t had any further issues with hooligans as Jacob refers to them. The night air had dropped to around 60 degrees as 11:00 PM approached. It was quiet and I sat in a good hideout watching the pump. I was getting bored when suddenly I saw flashlights in the woods above the trail. I counted three of them. I had my 9 mm with its 15 round magazine. The holster I used also held an additional and fully loaded 15 round magazine. I pulled the semi auto out and was ready for anything. I also had a walkie talkie. Sure enough, three men seemed to be sneaking down the mountain towards the pump. My mind began to race. Would I actually shoot someone if I had to. I figured these guys were also armed because they knew we were. Slowly but surely they moved closer to the trail. They were trying to be quiet but every now and then someone would kick a rock and it would roll down the hill or they’d step on a stick and make a little noise. I extended my arms out and braced them on the flat section of rock I was hiding behind. I had it trained on the lead person. By then they were just twenty feet from the trail and another twenty from our pump. All I could think was not tonight you creeps - not on my watch. I was done tolerating this stuff from them. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Usually I’m out playing with the Gold Monster up here near my cabin, but decided to do something different on a beautiful day. A particular decomposed granite bedrock area amongst some old timer handstackings had been productive with the Monster, so I decided to take some buckets of material down to the nearby creek to sluice. Probably 8 or 9 partial buckets with some pretty nice results! Enjoyed the scenery, the sounds, and the solitude…will have to try this more often!

June 21 2002 Part One Hot and dry weather again. Over 100 degrees and the ground is parched. Jacob says this will likely be the case until sometime in September. Jim is healing up nicely and able to pull guard duty while Vern and I shovel gravels into the tom. Jacob never seems to mind the heat much and keeps a bandana tied around his head along with a brimmed hat to block out the sun. He cleaned up the gold by early afternoon and showed us the jar containing 4.1 ounces. This seems to be extremely rich ground we have stumbled upon. It’s almost as if Jacob can somehow smell the gold in the gravels. Jacob came over to the tom after the weigh and helped us shovel until dusk. We processed 38 yards by dark. At supper we all had hash and beans and washed it down with cold beer. It never tasted better after such a long, hot, and dusty day. After the sun set the temperature was quickly down into the 60’s and we got relief. After several rounds of beer the crew retired for the night and I took the first watch. TO BE CONTINUED .................

I took a trip out to Rye Patch last Wed. Packed the whole family, CEO and herd of Doodle Dogs, towing the 5th wheel toyhauler with RZR aboard. Weather was awesome on day 2, almost needed a hoody at sunup, but that changed quickly. Day 2 I did some quick recon with the 2 big Doodles riding shotgun. Clearly, Rye Patch had seen some significant rain in early June. The roads were rutted and the gullies showed a lot of erosion, with bedrock showing here and there. I detected some places that had produced gold in the past for no joy. The next morning my big Doodle dog was really feeling out of sorts from a recent vet procedure. We made an appointment for Fri morning, so that shut down my detecting. Fri, we hauled her to Fallon and got some medication, then opted to take the Boss and Doodle Dogs home to Fernley. I drove back out to Rye Patch Fri evening, leaving the Doodles and Boss at home. Turns out to be a good decision since the weather turned hot quickly. Sat morning I got out early and detected a long line of exposed bedrock. Since mine were the only boot tracks, I decided to cover a lot of ground looking for the sitting ducks from the recent erosion. Surprisingly, the freshly exposed bedrock was barren, but I managed to get the bigger nugget in a newly exposed cut in the gully side wall. It got hot by noon so I surrendered and sat out the heat in the trailer with generator going and air con on max. Afternoon cooled down some and I went back out to another gully with exposed bedrock. Again, nothing in the exposed bedrock, but I pulled 2 out of the freshly cut sidewall. Sun morning I was out early. No breeze and a promise early hot weather. I put in nearly 3 hrs of detecting exposed bedrock and fresh sidewalls with not much but trash. I did a complete loop, ending up back where I had found the nuggets yesterday. 10 ft from one of my dig holes I got a faint whisper of target tone. I should mention the atmospherics were jumpy and the 6k with 14x9 Coiltek was sparky, I lowered the Sens down to 5 and that seemed to help. The nugget was flat and way down in the bedrock. I'm glad I kept my Dave' Gold Australian pick which makes quick work of the soft bedrock. I was sweating buckets by the time I got the nugget out and decided to call it a trip. Rye Patch is a tough place to score nuggets these days. All the washes I was working have been detected 1000's of times. The freshly exposed bedrock was never all that deep so my only advantage was I was first to detect the newly exposed sidewalls. If you are planning a trip mind the weather, and as always it's a tire killer out there. I saw 2 trucks on the road fixing flats.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/07/06/armored-truck-flips-over-on-michigan-freeway-spilling-money-everywhere/70389533007/#:~:text=An armored truck dropped bags of money along,before losing control and overturning into a ditch.

A couple of years ago X-coils discontinued older legacy model GPX coils, however demand has been large in their part of the world by relic hunters and big deep gold hunters for a large coil, so they come up with the goods with a 32" Spiral wound GPX 4500/5000 coil. It's an absolute monster of a coil, I can't imagine this being sold into the international market due to shipping a coil this size, hopefully the people in Europe can find some good deep relics and gold with this thing. It's good seeing some life brought into older models with all the excitement and talk these days of the newer models.

Yea, could be something like that.

Hey Simon, I am thinking to upgrade my VLF capabilities, and your comments are timely. What do you think, is the Nox 900/6 inch significantly better than the GM/5 inch when gold is the sole focus? Or should it be the Manticore with a little wait for better coils? Would both punch deeper with better meter read in mineralized soil compared to the GM? I like the GM but its capabilities when using the iron meter are severely limited. I would only upgrade if the newer VLFs really beat the GM in every aspect on gold. I do not care too much about the other useful features that clearly favor the much more modern and versatile Nox or Manticore. Just which one would make my pill box heavier in the VLF world? I thought I'd ask the expert; I see you have posted a lot of great stuff about the ML VLFs (and many other topics...). I am good with PI/ZVT, but when it comes to VLFs I am a bit "on ice".... Thanks! 🙂 GC

Dear Chase, I saw this a post a while back, not sure the timing of the Coiltek Manticore coils release yet. Ron

Yes. My fault by posting about my new bike. I promise to get the journal going again tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Trail 90 for me, that compound low gear makes 4th top out at 20mph. It can handle very steep slopes and being a step-through makes it easy to bail out when needed! 😆 I recently got a trail capable ebike that I’ve been riding everyday to work, and hope to use for prospecting sometime, so the Trail 90 sits a lot now.

Thanks VL, thought ya might be happy to see the Equinox out there. I still love it but only with the 10x5. 😀 I posted merely because I haven't seen a heckuva lot of entertainment here lately 🤔 😀

Wow, nice haul, F350, well done! There's no way I would have lasted that long in that heat, way to go!

I have been using the 12" NF coil on my 7000 for over two years. I have found ridiculously small gold with it and at depth as well. The weight shift alone makes it worthy, but it's performance makes it a must (in my opinion). I am sure X-coils are good too but the expense and the wiring changes make uninteresting to me. Also, I can't help but smile at all the discussion of tenths or hundredths of a gram flakes of gold. Not sure it really matters much whether the scale measures one or two decimal's, but again, just an opinion. I do know that the gents I learned detecting and dredging from wouldn't even bother to mention finding flakes that small much less make it the subject of endless discussions. Not being dismissive, just pointing out that times have changed.

The audio from this detector is incredible!!. One of the most hateful things are false signals. And more if you are diving. All the detectors I have had (including the Nox 800) distort more or less, but those weak signals simply disappear. With the X Terra Pro that problem is over. If it sounds, there is something under the coil, yes or yes. That ancient coin was deep, very, very deep. There was no target ID but it sounded weak down there. With the chains, or pieces of them, the same. Weak sound but there they are. I think we're going to have a good summer this year. And likes Gold!...

I just ordered a .001 scale so I can be more accurate.

I can beat that (as posted before). 2 inch down, was a clear signal and noticeable, but machine run full bore and very slow coil swing. 😉

Did you really mean to say .01 or .1? I use nearly the Bogenes at sensitivity of 18 on my 7000/15CC X-coil and I'm working a patch of small nuggets and I've found many nuggets under .1 g and down to .03 weighed on a scale that is not very sensitive. A fellow detectorist uses the 6000/NF and found his smallest nugget to be .023 g.

As always, we all have our preferences. As I said several times before, for me the NF12 has been a game changer, and it is a significant upgrade for the 7000. The coil is more stable, more sensitive, lighter, better built and has practically no depth loss compared to the 14 stock. Most grounds I hunt are highly mineralized, so the coil configuration is a perfect match for me. I can highly recommend it. I use Bogene's setting from time to time and find it beneficial in some but not all circumstances. As reported before, general/ difficult works well for me in volcanic hot rock infested grounds that I often face in the desert. In fact, it is the only setting that produces gold that is in close proximity to hot rocks. I wonder how the 15CC would perform in these difficult grounds. I also use the SP01 religiously, and I find it a great combo for both the SDC and the 7000. So, is $1300 a wise investment? Absolutely in my view, and I like this coil ever since I mounted it, just as much as I like the NF12x7. Again, guys, we all have our viewpoints and the only thing that matters is the rattle in the pillbox at the end of the day, however you get it. 🙂 GC

The CZ3D is a dead end design and financially uncompetitive. It is all-analog, 2 full-sized stacked boards with thru-hole parts, and has 21 trim pots; basically a production nightmare. Yes, we could surface-mount it but even then it's a really big circuit that still needs a big enclosure. Yes, we could digitize it, get rid of the trim pots, and shrink it substantially but that's called "an all-new design." The CZ design is best thought of as a single-frequency (5kHz) detector with the ability to cancel salt. The 15kHz component is weak and not all that useful for detecting targets. I once proposed a variable frequency design that works the same way but the user can vary the primary frequency from a low of 2-3kHz up to the gold range, maybe 50kHz. At lower frequencies the user could turn on salt cancel. The idea got no interest.