abenson

You might also want to consider the Vanquish 540. I've owned all 3. The Vanquish 540, Apex and Simplex and of those 3 the Apex would be my last choice. That's my opinion and I'm sure there will be some disagreements.

Been there done that twice. I personally will take the Manticore.

That's were I'm at when it comes to the Axiom. I've owned a GP 3500, GPX 4000, 4500 and 5000 and after getting the 6000 I'm not going back to the being tied to a battery and headphones. I've swung Steve's Axiom and I don't care if it's not quite as good at some things the GPX 4500 might be good at. It's just not worth going back to any of the GPX models except the 6000 which I have no intention of getting rid of at this time. The Axiom is well balanced and can be swung all day long, fun to use too. At some point I will get one, but for now I'm happy with the 6000.

Seems I'm just the opposite of most. I prefer the D2 beach hunting wet sand, not in the water, and the Equinox in the fields. Just this last week I went to San Diego, CA on a beach with lots of black sand. D2 wearing the 9" coil was inches deeper than the Equinox and it's 11" coil. Compared quite a few deep targets with my Sister-In-Law who was using the Equinox and on targets I was getting a deep consistent signal the Equinox could not hear at all. I am looking forward to seeing what the Manticore will do relic hunting, but I still think I would just prefer to skip the incremental depth gains it's going to give and just go straight to a PI in most cases.

Wow really nice ring. Love the ones that have the dates engraved in them. Congratulations!

Steve sounds like you had a great time in Australia! Very informative write up for anyone wanting to go there and a reality check to go along with it. I already decided long ago that if I ever went to Australia it would be first and foremost for the sight seeing and experience and gold found would just be icing on the cake. Looking forward to seeing what improvements Garrett will make to the Axiom as far a sensitivity goes and what that will do for depth.

Beautiful Ring!

Great Hunt Rich! Good to see you getting out and enjoying the Fall weather.

Good the rain stopped and you got some decent gold. Sounds like you're having a good time.

Wow nice one and in great shape!

Wow cool old coin!

Thanks Joel! She picked up on the Equinox pretty quick, so a Vanquish should be the ticket.

Thanks I know a lot of guys hang out on different forums like Montes, Tom's, and friendly. But I really only post finds here any more and make very few comments anywhere else. Too much to keep up with and places like friendly, just aren't friendly anymore.

Thanks! She hand no problem swinging the Equinox once the shaft was shortened up. No mint mark unfortunately. Seems I never find older coins with mint marks. The hole is fairly common at these older sites I hunt. I would say a good 25% are holed, especially the small coins like the trime, half dime and $1 golds.

Yea we actually thought about getting her a Vanquish 340 if she really is interested in staying with it. We'll follow up with the grandparents and see if she still shows interest.

Not worried about that, they are too busy farming the place to have time to metal detect. If they really wanted to do it themselves and keep others out they would have done it a few years back when a friend of mine first started hunting it. He gave them a lot of good relics off the place, I think they figure it's easier for them to just let us find them and give them a few, which honestly I don't mind. I mean really how many buttons and bullets does one need. If I can fill a display case with one of each type of item found, I'm good with giving the property owner everything else.

Thanks, I think that's my 5th or 6th trime. But it never gets old finding them LOL.

Yes the owners know the camp was on there property but not exactly where. I'm sure there have been people metal detecting there in the past. A lot of camps were discovered in the 1960's thru 1980's back then there was no internet only treasure magazines and most guys just plain never told anyone. A good example is a camp I know of that some guys thought they were the first to discovered in the 1990's only to be told by an old timmer he'd been hunting it since the 60's. You can also usually tell by what's left. Back when there was no notch disc. People would turn up their disc to knock out everything but the higher conductors. So all the bullets, larger buttons and coins are for the most part gone. No the dime doesn't have a mint mark, if that's what you mean by stamped.

Got out for the weekend in search of more Military Camp sites off the main site we located a while back. Meet with the property owners and presented them with a display case that included the $1 gold coin I found. They were very surprised and happy to have it to display in their home located on the property. They had a 10 year old grand daughter visiting and wanted to know if it was all right if she tagged along for a few hours while we metal detected and of course we agreed. They got out a Ricomax metal detector for her to use and after finding some batteries for it we headed out. It didn't take long for us and her to realize that the Ricomax wasn't going to cut it. So she followed us around and took turns swinging one of our metal detectors from time to time and found a few relics of her own. Needless to say she was hooked and after she went back to the house for quick sandwich, begged grandma to come back out and metal detect some more. She was a joy to have around and it was good to see a young girl so interested in the hobby. After a hard day of hunting the property owners surprised us with a BBQ dinner and we sat and talked about life and politics for the remainder of the night. We arrived back the next day and of course the little girl was ready to go back out with us until she had to leave for a cousin's birthday party. Needless to say the weekend was a success. Below are my finds, you can times that by 3 and see we had a great hunt. Some of the highlights of the hunt were Eagle A, Eagle I and Eagle R buttons, j hooks, multiple cal bullets including .52 Sharps, .69, .58 and .54 minie balls, a 1857 dime and 1851 3 cent piece. We won't be getting back to that location until next Spring. In the mean time we'll be doing more research in hopes of locating more camp sites.

If there are only half a million people metal actively detecting worldwide, it hardly seems worth the effort for metal detecting companies to keep doing the R&D. I have no idea how many active metal detector users there are worldwide. But if I look at the clubs in my area and the number of people who have memberships and triple that number (to account for people who don't belong to clubs) vs total population, it's less than 1% in my area. take the total population of the US and you have roughly 3 million users in the US. That may be way off, who knows.

Good video Jeff and good info. There's always something people point out after you post a video that maybe the video maker overlooked. I find myself in that position all the time. Making videos is not easy and often times goes unappreciated by those watching. I think XP watches the videos people make and if they are smart will make the changes people want. I'd like to think that's why they added disc notch to the gold and relic program after all the fuss I made about needing it gold hunting. But who knows. But yea the Deus 2 is far from my first choice gold nugget hunting. It's too weak on small gold. Can it find gold? Yes as I've found a few nuggets with it. But the gold has to be in the .30 gram and above size to be detected on any kind of consistent basis. There's been a few people who want to say this and that about the Deus 2 and how great it is at everything. But I'll tell you straight up, it doesn't do well on small low conductors and higher the mineralization the worse it gets.

Thanks for the comments guys! Sorry couldn't comment much today as I was busy with family. Couple people asked about metal detectors I use and I did comment Equinox 800 as that is what I found the coins with this time. But I also use the Deus 2 and GPX at the site also. Each detector has it's place, I'll usually start out using the Equinox 11" coil to find a concentration of finds and then switch to the Deus 2 in heavy iron if needed or the GPX if the stuff is deep. I like the Equinox because it's good at providing a fairly accurate ID. I'm hoping the new Manticore will provide even more information at these types of sites. Shotgun and .22 brass is very common and for the most part I can tell the difference between them and a good relic by both audio and visual ID on the Equinox. The Manticore may make it even easier with its 2D feature. Going to head back out next weekend for a 3 day hunt. Hopefully I can share some nice finds and pickup some silver coins.

Minelab Equinox 800

I may have showed you a picture of the $2 1/2 when we meet up but I don't recall Yea 1849 was the first year and a year I hadn't found yet. I have found 1849-1854 now I believe. Might be missing 1850 but I'd have to look. Only mint mark I have found on those is O would really like a D. They are still out there. You have to do the research and then dig everything

Yea I'm surprised the grader didn't damage it. No silver yet, which is very odd.