Steve Herschbach

I am certain they want to get it out before Christmas. Who wouldn’t? That does not mean it will happen however.

Anybody that says they know does not know. I am sure the goal is to get them out as soon as possible but Minelab has very definitely not put out a release date.

I seem to recall early Nugget Finder coils having issues with the fiberglass housing?

The Equinox is a great detector, but if you get one I bet you don’t find many coins on Jeep door hinges with it! It is hard for me to think that many people could see or hold an Equinox in action and not want one. Your experience is going to be common.

The U.S. Lincoln penny from 1909 to 1956 features a pair of wheat stalks on the reverse. They are referred to as “wheat back” pennies or more affectionately as “wheaties”.

What kind of gear are you looking for?

Largest coil I have swung is the same 25" Nugget Finder as Reg mentioned, but on the GPX 5000 Notice the swing arm fashioned out of a broken fiberglass shovel handle. For where I hunt and the gold I get over, large coils have been something that never work out to be as magical as I hope. 14" to 18" coils are a much better fit for me in general.

Hmmm... I don't know what is causing it but it does not sound right. Perhaps contacting the person that by a previous post in this thread is indicated as doing repair work on them. He would probably offer some advice for free. William Lahr 514 West Bennett Street Compton, CA 90220-4604 Phone: (310) 635-0869 E-mail: coilrepair@gmail.com

I have been thinking more often about the knock on door thing. In Alaska it was nothing to consider because all the houses in Anchorage are new. Here in Reno however there are older properties - most not super old but 20's and 30's homes are fairly common. I live in the middle of a bunch of them. I guess I need to cultivate some fearlessness about knocking on a stranger's door and in effect asking if I can go dig holes on their property. The problem at the end of the day is I think about how much I hate it when strangers knock on my door and that deters me more than anything. One thing that can pose a problem also is it really needs to be the property owner that gives permission. There are a lot of rentals around here, and while many of the renters might not care and say go ahead, it could be sticky if the actual owner ends up having a problem with it. I really need to do it though. Too many good possibilities there to ignore. And probably like everything new no big deal once you try it. I probably just worry too much.

I am in line for one of these. The fact it is a PI pinpointer is enough for me to give it a go. Why the Fisher instead of Teknetics? I actually prefer the green as nice on the eyes, but red is just far easier to find if accidently dropped in the woods. Not something I normally do but cheap insurance! Not sure when it will get here (sometime in next couple weeks?) but when it does I will report back.

I have wondered about the Gold Monster as a micro jewelry detector and I would say you just proved it is a good fit Terry! I do think the Equinox 800 is going to prove to be an excellent machine for both in the saltwater and in the dry sand. Will it do both well enough to eliminate the need for specialty units? Only time will tell as people around the world match and compare. Looking good so far though!

Two more videos...

Links? Findmall Beach and Water / Scuba Dive Detecting Forum TreasureNet Beach and Shallow Water Forum There are more but I am not very familiar with them. We have the new Coin & Relic Forum and the Jewelry Detecting Forum (which includes beach and water detecting) but they will only get up to speed with more member participation. For now the older established forums have far more activity.

I agree.

He said he would dig anything NOT locking in at 20/21. That is usually a very safe ferrous indication, but somewhere I am sure there is a nugget in bad soil that would read just that. No form of discrimination is 100% trustworthy.

Nuggets can make almost any sound. The classic is “zip-zip” but nuggets on edge can produce double blips. Specimen gold can make all sorts of trashy signals. Naturally occurring gold comes in infinite mixtures of shape and purity, and this makes anything more than generalities dangerous. All each person can do is through trial and error determine what is true of their particular location. Whether you skip targets because of target id or audio, the fact is it is gambling of a sort, with the odds only increased by field experience. Anything other than digging it all is more art than science. I have dug a lot of nuggets over the years from other people’s holes and dig piles that they abandoned as “no good”. This 3.5 ounce specimen for instance came out of a shallow dig filled with leaves. I got a really broken trash signal. I figured it was trash and dug it mainly to get rid of it. Imagine my surprise when this popped out with a single scoop! Anyway, I like you plan. There is always something to be learned, even if it is just digging trash and hot rocks. Less than 5 and more than 90 are pretty safe to pass on however. It is the borderline areas where it gets more interesting.

From White’s Facebook page: ”Starting next week we'll ship out the first orders of MX7's! This is a lightweight metal detector for serious treasure hunters who are looking for an affordable option to many of the higher-priced models on the market. The body, coils, PCB, and rods are all made here in the USA. Just in time for Christmas and shipping with a free Digmaster and Utility pouch for under six hundred bucks!”

Yeah, kind of vague. Also the vague reference of the really “new” stuff coming within a couple years. Within meaning a few weeks or 1 year 11 months. Anyway, from their Facebook posts I had assumed all the info on the F75+ would be released last week. Either that’s not true, or we have already heard it. Unless some remarkable information is being withheld this is not “the next generation” First Texas model we have been waiting on so long.

I love it when people chime in with answers - thanks gents! I will answer the third question first. In one of your posts you dismiss using the Gold Racer in highly mineralized ground. I will have to deal with a lot of this next summer. Would you discuss the issues you had with highly mineralized ground? That is nothing to do with the Gold Racer per se. I tend to dismiss all VLF type detectors in highly mineralized ground in favor of the PI models or GPZ. The ultra hot detectors like the Gold Racer are even more problematic in severe ground. They can be made to work, but there is a point where a PI makes more sense. Other than that, I agree with the previous responses that you may be trying to hard to avoid digging. Normal operation while nugget detecting is “dig all targets”. If I get into ferrous trash I will skip what I call “hard ferrous hits” which on my Gold Racer are target id numbers in the 20-22 range. From there it is mostly about how much digging you can stand. As particular undesired items are found if certain numbers keep coming up trash or hot rocks you might ignore them also. Always remember however that every target skipped increases your odds of skipping a gold target. In highly mineralized ground almost all targets read ferrous past a certain depth, including sizable gold nuggets. Hang in there. I have been shedding detectors lately and I took my Gold Racer, Gold Bug 2, and Gold Monster for testing in some VERY severe ground. Serpentine bedrock and soil running close to 50% magnetite content. The Gold Monster at 45 kHz and Gold Racer at 56 kHz easily detected test targets in the soil that the 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 could not touch. The Gold Bug 2 has an edge for the tiny bits, but its depth on larger gold in severe soil is actually quite poor. I have known this since the Gold Bug 2 came out but it is eye opening to see it again so plainly. Part of that is the ultra high frequency, part of it the concentric coils. The Gold Racer can do better on deeper gold, but also is more complicated and harder to tame in bad ground. Long story short I am ditching lots of detectors but the Gold Racer stays.

First Texas is more interested in telling us about the new pinpointer than that F75+. I check every day and so far it appears to be a standard F75 with Boost Mode added. There is talk of transferable warranty and warranty extensions but it is a bit unclear. May have to do with upgrades? Hints of more but nothing firm. So far this looks like a intermediate machine between the regular F75 and F75 Ltd.

The beach performance of the Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 is going to be identical. Again, the Equinox 800 Gold Mode might offer an advantage to those hunting micro jewelry in the bone dry sand. That mode would be useless however on wet salt sand. Micro jewelry detecting is not for the faint of heart because in reality it turns into aluminum foil detecting. For what nearly all people consider to be beach hunting the two detectors are identical. Since water hunters often hunt strictly by ear the extra audio customization options are the main thing the Equinox 800 offers to beach hunters versus the Equinox 600.

I think it does perform better than “what is out there” as regards VLF detectors where I am but I am not prepared to vouch for Oz performance. I have found it wise to leave that for Australians who are on-site

The Equinox detectors handle mineralized ground extremely well for a non-PI detector. It cannot be compared to detectors like the GPX 5000 and SDC 2300 when it comes to handling the worst mineralized ground - they are markedly superior in that regard. If those are the rulers you measure with, VLF detectors will always come up short.

Hello Luis - welcome to the forum! I used Google Translate for this translation below. Your English is probably better than my Spanish! "Hello everyone, excuse me if it's not the right place, but I'm looking and I do not see the new members section. My name is Luis and I am from Spain. I have been following this forum for a long time and would like to continue learning from all of you as a registered user. Thanks and regards. Forgive my English, I am using a translator."