Cal_Cobra

That's about how I see it too, although I try to set my goals a little higher than an IHP ?

It looks like the same thing as Ezest. It's not inexpensive, but it does a pretty good job when you get crudded up silver. Always wanted to try an ultrasonic cleaner, but figured they probably wouldn't do a very good job on crusty coins?

I'm pretty much in the same boat Gerry, I don't need to sell them, and enjoy looking at them along with the memories associated with them, so why sell? My buddy uses his spoils to finance his hobby and to justify our road trips to his wifey.....so if she thinks he's making money at it, he gets more wifey passes to detect - lol (someone remind me why we get married?). If we ever see a run up in silver to the $30's or $40's again, I will unload a bunch of common silver, and tons of other silver I've been hoarding away. Those opportunities are rare though, they seem to occur what, about every 30-40 years?

I bought one of these for my wife, it's lightweight, runs forever without swapping batteries, great coil selection, easy to use, adjustable iron audio, runs great with the 11" Bi-axial DD coil, a really underrated detector IMHO.

Gerry good topic and nice story as well! It's interesting as I don't sell any of my detecting finds, yet my main hunting partner will sell anything of value (he'd probably sell his grandmother!) except for his gold coins (he's found 15 gold coins since he started detecting). When we're detecting and one of us digs a barber or seated coin, he cannot wait to look it up on PCGS. Oddly he always grades his coins higher then mine - lol My perspective is just different, he sells to justify his hobby, whereas I just love the history and putting together finds from these Western frontier sites tells a story about a unique time in our history. Touching history is exciting (to me). As a side business/hobby I collect and sell antique blown art glass (think Tiffany, Steuben, Galle, Daum, Loetz, etc). It's another form of treasure hunting for me whereas knowledge is empowering, sometimes buying for pennies on the dollar and turning a massive profit (not typical of course, but you sure remember the ones that do!). So I do understand the need/want to sell "finds" I just don't have a desire to do so for detecting finds. HH, Cal

I've hunted with Rob before when Ray lived in the east bay. Ray moved down near Santa Barbara a few years ago. Yeah he's always been a top tier detectorist. We meet up in Tonopah a couple of times a year, you should join us, it's always a good time.

aquachiggers river crossing cache was an epic find. Glad he got this gig, he was running out of steam on his more recent Youtube videos IMO.

I don't think I gave away any location details? (I wasn't on state or federal protected lands) Lowboy posted a video of him hunting the Donner pass wagon trail, complete with a shot of signs saying such (I viewed his video), and due to a tiff he had with a kinzli forum member, it didn't work out so well for Lawrenzo.

Nice find, beautiful piece of California gold rush history!

I'm good friends with Nightray. He doesn't post on the forums any more, just lurks.

I agree with you, and believe me nothing gets me more excited then being at a 1700's or 1800's site and getting a nice pure 25+ on my EQ800! I'm just pointing out that's not always going to be the case, and if you only dig those text book perfect signals, you'll miss a lot. BUT YES start with them, commit the audio to your muscle memory and then experiment with the less obvious signals. It really boils down to doing it, nothing anybody can type in words will describe the nuances of audio better then your own experiences.

While I agree with all the comments about getting a "pure" signal, don't count on it. I've dug several seated coins that were crappy signals, but had enough going for it that I pursued it. Also a lot of it comes down to the context of the site. If you're at a site with a history of porking out old coins, but it's been hammered, then all the easy 5 star, 4-way hit, pure signals were likely cherry picked long ago, so sometimes you have to dig those targets that aren't text book perfect, and sure you'll get some trash, that's part of the deal, but you'll also unearth some treasures that many others have walked right over with their $2500 detectors

Everyone's posted some great tips, it reminds me of the days when they made audio CD's of the Minelab Sovereign tones. I'm mostly hunting relic sites these days, and what stops me in my tracks is when I get a mid to high tone. Sometimes it could start off as just a squeek, but doing the Minelab wiggle, walking around the target can often allow the Equinox to zero in on the target and bring up a repeatable signal. I just love to get a high tone blip and try to bring up the signal. Once your muscle memory's recorded this, you will not forget it. Also don't forget to invoke the horseshoe to help analyze a target. Great when you get an iffy (crappy) signal and want to tell if you're getting an iron false. I've been on hunts where I never even looked at the meter and only hunted by tone. I did a lot of that in the beginning so I could force myself to focus on learning the audio without having the TID talk me out of digging.

Love my FJ, it's saved my bacon in the middle of the desert more than once!

I dug a Morgan silver dollar a few years ago when I dug an old coin spill and used the mouth washer, let me tell you a Morgan silver dollar is a BIG coin in your mouth.....geesh that just sounds wrong. ?

The next time I have the PCGS graded 1906S Barber dime out I'll post a photo of it. It's a darn shame none of my semi/key date coins have come out like that one, but it is what it is. I figure it was a 1906 San Francisco earthquake loss.

I think you're exactly right. I found a low mintage U.S. gold coin, PCGS reports less than 100 known to exist, but how many of those were either melted down or are 8" deep in the dirt. Living on the left coast, I've definitely noticed that we're lucky to find a predominate amount of S minted seated and barber coins, which often have a higher value then their counterparts from other mints. Although I've dug several 1916S Mercury dimes, I did (finally) bag a 1916D Mercury dime in San Francisco ? I think CC issues are still not common anywhere. I've dug a CC seated quarter and several seated dimes, but so far, they've all been common dates ? My buddy dug an 1849D U.S. $5 gold coin at an old trading post site we detected.

I grew up in Northern California (real northern California, SF is not norcal ? I spent a lot of time on the Eel River, fishing, camping and rafting. Great place, but haven't spent any time there in years. Also did an awesome canoe trip down the Russian River all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Once you go north of SF, California is a totally different world.

I've found several key date silver coins over the years, and a rare gold coin, but I don't really ever plan to sell my coins I've found.. If they already have environmental damage, I try to make them "presentable". Depending on their condition, I may do anything from a simple light baking soda rub, to Ezest. True once you clean them you cannot go back, but on the other hand, if you never plan to sell them, and want to enjoy them, do as you please in my opinion. The best preserved silver coin I've ever found was a 1906-S Barber dime at a park demo in San Francisco several years ago. As soon as I popped it out of the ground, I couldn't believe how pristine it was, it looked like it was dropped the day it was minted. I did nothing but rinse it off with water to clean it. I had some free PCGS gradings and decided to send it in with some other coins for grading. Not only did it not get a cleaned or environmental damage label, it came back graded as a MS60, common date, but at that condition it's a $300 coin. Bummer none of the key date silvers I've dug were that clean, but it is what it is. At the end of the day, if you really think about it, the odds are so stacked against us to even find a key date coin to begin with it's staggering, add to that the likelihood of environmental damage and when you finally do find a nice one, it's like winning the lottery!

Nice job!

I have it on good authority that the central coast and norcal coastal beach hunting was just not great as the sand wasn't being pulled off the beaches. Socal got some productive cuts, but up here just a few small pockets. We need the surf to pull the sand off the beaches up here to uncover the old deposits.

Even though I carry newbie juice in my finds pouch, I still have a habit of using the old fashioned oral cleaning method ? Ironically I don't think about cow pee when putting the coins in my mouth Thanks for watching Gerry, I need to test out the Equinox 800's prospecting mode, I like your find a lot better then mine!

Same here, or depending on the site, I just dig all "conductive" signals, and if their big pieces of iron, I guess it's better moving it out to potentially unmask conductive targets. Flat iron of all kinds is a nuance, especially that rusty flat tin kind of trash in every ghost town we hunt, the engineer that figures out how to silence that will get a nice bonus ?

Chase as I read through Minelabs manual and their definitions for all the search modes, the thing that caught my eye was that even if you don't GB or use GB tracking, it's already doing it. That said, I wonder what it does differently if you use GB tracking as it implies that it's already doing it?

A bit of iron to contend with eh? Actually I don't mind the small iron so much, that's easy to get through once you figure it out, but that large iron is an issue with the Equinox. I've found that something like that large spike will come in as a nickle signal for some off reason. It doesn't sound as nice as a coin or gold ring would, but then again at these kinds of sites there are many signals that don't sound great due to the amount of junk in the ground.