Cal_Cobra

Nice digs! That's a nice gesture to give the land owner a finds display from his property. Those acts of kindness can pay off in spades with more permissions 🙂 The Navy button should be around 1850's, back probably says Scolville & Co.

It's what Tom call's the "flimsy" style, so yeah stamped thin brass not cast. They seem to be the most common. There's a recently published book on these Gold Rush era tongue and wreath style buckles. Tom's dying to get #17 but he can wait, I'm only on #2 maybe #3 is waiting for me on our trek LOL I bet you got some good stuff, I'll look for your post of your adventures!

Did you get any CW relics? I believe the buckle is a Gold Rush era buckle. #17, so you're one gold coin ahead of Tom? 🏆

Come to papa 🤠

I couldn't handle DP on the F75, mostly because it was so digital and artificial sounding, that it was very unpleasant to the hears. The few that mastered it did okay with it, but it's just not the same as Minelabs full tone analog like audio where there's no mistaking that deep silver tinkle you get on a deep silver coin. You just didn't get that on the FTP machines DP audio. At the end of the day, use what works for you, we all process audio data differently.

That's exactly what he said, Ron changed his mind when he was a White's fan. No doubt about it, he does well with the Exp2, but it's getting harder to get parts for, a few of his got "splashed" while beach hunting and met their demise, but he keeps finding replacements on craigslist and ebay. We'll see how he does with the D2.

Undoubtedly a tough nut to crack. Personally I don't really care what machine he runs, I just find the not waiting perplexing, heck he's had the Exp2 this long and loves it's full tones, so what's a few more months. Given the D2 is XP's first foray into SMF, and Minelab's been doing it for decades, it's a bit of a no brainer to wait for Manticore field tests. Perhaps it'll be a good thing, for me 🤠

We only have four primary sites of interest on our radar, hopefully one of them is the #10 👍

haha nah not scared in the least, just find it to be a waste of time. He did the same thing after poo pooing the Equinox, but then wanted to flag and check signals with his Exp2 vs my EXQ800. No need to waste valuable hunt time flagging and checking signals when you can compare notes at the end of the hunt. Invokes the old saying "you can lead a horse to water..." you know the rest 😉

DELETE

My hunt buddy is an interesting fellow. I've tried out a lot of detectors over the years, and he's seen which ones performed well and which ones did not. He's been a hard core Explorer (XS and then 2) fan since I've known him, and I can't fault him for that as he's does great with it, even in the iron infested relic sites we love hunting. He would routinely out hunt me when I was using my F75 LTD/LTD2, AT Pro, etc. a decade ago But he really raised his eyebrows when I was heavily using the Racer/Racer2/Impact/Multi Kruzer as I was finally consistently keeping up, and even besting his finds (meaning total number of period conductors per hunt). This continued and even improved when I started using the EQX800. Still for some odd reason I couldn't get him off his Exp2. The closest he came was when I orchestrated a group buy for the EQX800 (got them for $720 each when they were released!!!) he bought one, but he cashed in on the frenzy and dumped it on fleabay to make a quick buck when people were paying a premium over MSRP. He talked himself out of it because in his mind it just couldn't perform in deep turf park hunting like an Exp2. I know @stevegdispelled that, and had great success deep turf park hunting trashy parks. Tom tried it a few times (believe he borrowed a couple) and did his best to talk himself out of getting one, despite all of his friends having great success with the Equinox he just couldn't break away from his trusty Dino2K Exp2. Fast forward to now, and even though he knows the Manticore is about to be released, he jumped on the XP D2 bandwagon and has one on order. I asked him why on earth he didn't simply wait a couple of months to see how the Manticore shaked out, and he claimed one of his friends (that rarely even hunts anymore) go to the U.K. and that's the "cats meow" over there. Okay, whatever, we don't hunt in the U.K. and I simply cannot fathom how a life long Explorer fanboy couldn't wait....now he wants to do all kinds of head to head tests when he gets his D2 and I get my Manticore....I think not 😏

Nice job 👍 Like the rosette, and how can you go wrong with seated half dime!!!

Thanks El, it was a fun hunt. There's more there, hopefully we get back there one of these days.

Thanks, I like it too. There may be more gilt, but it seems that the areas the lemon juice couldn't revive eroded past the gilt. I have aluminum and naval jelly, I'll try a little aluminum jelly and see what happens. Love bring these old buttons back to life.

That's a great hunt, congratulations!

Absolutely correct.

I have detecting friends that are hard core Minelab users and they've been very successful on the FBS machines in full tones, especially when sifting through trash and locating deep turf silver other machines walked over. When I got the Equinox I was coming from three and four tone detectors, but forced myself to use full tones. It took a while, but it really helped to sniff out deep silver and relics at sites others have missed. Would those same targets be heard in the lower tone modes? Perhaps, but once your ears muscle memory reconciles what the full tones convey, I feel there's enough extra intel that make the struggle worth mastering.

There may or may not be a physical change, but they may have optimized code to realize this change.

Good hunt, can't go wrong with a silver thimble! Surprised no coins have ever come from there 🤔

Thanks! Hopefully the upcoming adventure produces more than rim-fires and square nails LOL We shall see.

Where is that? Seriously, great work from both of you, and that includes the research which allowed you to get your detectors over those historic finds in the first place. Fun to let your imagination take over with images of what life was like in those far off outposts of 'civilization'. And a few finds that you can't figure out until later (if ever) just adds to the positive experience, IMO. This post will probably look weird with the quoting I used, but I totally agree these oldest contact period sites in California are not only hard to find, and few and far between (most are now built over 😞 but it's almost an honor to touch the history these explorers left behind.

I was impressed with them. We took them off roading a bit and they did seem to do okay in muddy soft soil on inclines, but I'm sure mine would do better after I shed a few lbs 😏 I can see these being really useful for some of our detecting excursions, and fun to ride at home as well. I like the peddle assist as you can still peddle them and get a workout, but you're not going to stroke out trying to go up a hill 🤕

I like those early buttons too (this one is the Marines), and it's great to be able to date them. It fits the site perfectly, 1840's-1850's. We haven't found anything newer then the 1850's at the Buckle Village site. Tom was the one that took me down the ebike path. I started off thinking a little commuter ebike from Costco would do the trick (only had a 250W motor). It would be great if you're just riding paved roads to/from work with minimal inclines, but it became pretty clear that it wasn't likely going to live up to the job to haul my butt through off-road environments. So I started researching them. Tom was convinced that we needed fat tire ebikes, but I felt they were a bit extreme and extremely expensive so I started looking at regular mountain ebikes which typically had 500W motors,, but decided that Tom was right (shhhh 🤫 don't tell him I said that) and that the fat tire ebikes with 750W motors would effectively be electric dirt bikes for our needs, better suited for desert terrains, cow pastures, and areas that wouldn't have paved road access.

Thanks! We're in the midst of planning a potentially epic adventure that's coming up soon. I remain cautiously optimistic about the sites we have lined up, as in previous experiences we tend to find that for every ten sites we recon, seven have been strip mined or didn't actually exist (have encountered a few of these), two have only a few scant leftovers, and one will might be great. We shall see.

I think another point to keep in mind is that MInelab sold oodles (make up your own number) of Equinoxes, it may have been the single most sold detector ever made. They really didn't have to open up the coil market to aftermarket people because even with it's limited selection of coils, customers were lining up to buy the Equinox. Given the price point of the Manticore, sales will be nowhere near what they were on the EQX, so that alone may incentivize them to work with the aftermarket crowd as it could potentially be viewed by Minelab as an enticement to sell more Manticores to those with special coil needs.