Tiftaaft

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 12:57 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

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I would be interested to see this chart compared to other Multi-Freq machines such as the CTX.  My guess is the depth may be about the same, and the Target ID would be a bit better on the CTX.  But in an "under $1000" package... exciting.  Tim.

6 minutes ago, Mike Hillis said:

Now I see the issue.   That picture looks normal, Tiftaaft.    Looks to me that you are doing good.   Add a bunch more foil to the picture and it could be my pouch we're looking at.  The stable TID targets are the icing on the cake.  All iffy jumping around numbers, ie, the trash are the  "could have been's".   Could have been gold, could have been old, could have been neat....

Some of my neatest finds have come from, "could have been signals.

I'd say you are doing it right.   You could cherry pick solid high conductors but you'll miss nice things like that watch in my avatar picture.

HH
Mike

 

 

I agree Mike, this was a targeted hunt.  I knew the item in question wouldn't be an iffy signal once I got the coil over it.  My normal "trash take" has about 3x the trash and includes foil and bottle caps that I specifically and manually (with my brain) discriminated.  Just trying to show that even targeting "good" signals... you are going to dig trash.  It is the nature of the beast!!  :)  Tim.

On ‎10‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 2:17 AM, Goldpick said:

Unfortunately when people post their finds on forums, they rarely offer up the amount of junk that they retrieved in order to obtain all their good targets.  On our local forum some of the more experienced detectorists do post their junk targets, mainly to help those new to the hobby to realise that the junk to coin ratio isn't always that favourable.  If I had a dollar for the number of dodgy targets I dug that turned out to be an unexpected surprise, I'd be a rich man.

Great thread and a lot of good information... as a refresher and things to make me think on my future hunts. 

Based on Goldpick's comment above... I thought I would post my finds from a 2 hour hunt last night.  I was searching for a token that was planted at the beginning of the year by my local club... and was unsure the material of construction so I was digging most repeatable signals above foil.  I ultimately did find the token (ID'd as a pull tab at about 6 inches, and was planted with 3 pull tabs at varying depths around it), but you can see the amount of trash compared to desirable targets in this particular park, honestly, this park is much cleaner than many others I have been to - so the ratio only gets worse from here in my experience.  (My particular new 'favorites' are the condiment wrappers that for whatever reason have started sounding sweet on my explorer).

And to the other comments above, I tried to call each one... it is the only way to improve your "game".  you can never stop learning when detecting.  Tim.

An official Welcome G!  Tim.

Agree with all the comments above.  Including my excitement to get the EQX in my hands an on the ground.  This is a very interesting article, and looking forward to even more information as the release date nears.

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Hi Bryan,

I am probably more excited than most people by this detector for various reasons but have been trying to keep a lid on it. I have slowly been forced into the "Minelab camp" over the years by the lack of progress from other manufacturers. I simply seek out what works for me, and the reality more and more is that just happens to be Minelab detectors. You add that to the work I have done with Minelab on recent products and I now am in danger of becoming just another "Minelab shill". So while I could go on at great length about all the positive attributes I see in this machine I so far have remained fairly silent about it. Frankly, you are doing such a great job with some of your lengthy posts Bryan that anything I say would be redundant anyway!

To your comment Steve, I think all of us that have a "go to" machine or series of machines could be accused of being a shill for our own preference company... but I believe I speak for all on this site when I say that nobody here believes you are hawking the brand for brand's sake.  When you comment on a product, we know it is through detailed research and testing and based on your extensive experience and background in this arena.  If a product doesn't live up to the hype or even the company promises, you will say that... and that is what I respect about you.  If a product us great, you say that too... and because of your honesty, you are trusted. 

I currently own 4 brands and 7 machines, and enjoy each brand/machine for different reasons.  From what I can see (in my opinion, most likely not everyone's), Minelab appears to be taking machine innovation in a new and different direction compared to some other brands, and recognizing some new innovations already released by competitors...  and that is what has me most excited about the release of the EQX. 

Tim.

1 hour ago, MontAmmie said:

I looked at some of my maps and you're right, no trees.  Not sure where I dreamed that up from.   

I do see what I think may have been outhouses.  Small square "sheds" behind the houses without an "X", which would indicate a stable.  Even if they weren't, there would have been foot traffic between the main house and the shed.

Thanks Ammie, That is really helpful in researching some of these old neighborhoods in my area.  Tim.

Thanks Steve and DT, great comments that I will incorporate into my next research/hunt. 

Even a blind squirrel.....

So i stopped at a park that should have been old enough for some wheats or silver, but most of the park has been upgraded with ball fields and soccer fields.  I spent most of my time walking the outer edge.of the park, hoping to stay away from the over fill..  I did manage about $5.00 in clad and one crusty wheat.  I decided to take the explorer loaded with the ultimate coil across the soccer field for mid tones (not the best choice, but it is what I had with me).  Very clean field, which is why a nice mid tone jumped out at me.  It hit just below a zinc and above a pull tab on the explorer id screen (I use the cursor, not the id numbers).  About 3 inches down... 6 grams of 10K.  I think it was an accident as much as anything... but since I just posted the questions about gold turf hunting earlier today, I thought I would share.  (Apologies for muddying the coin shooting blog with a ring). Tim

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 1:09 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Great post! I got my start detecting silver way, way back in the day. Then I transitioned to gold detecting and coin detecting sort of fell by the wayside. Even when not nugget detecting my time in town tends to get spent looking more for jewelry than coins.

Steve,  I have been thinking about this comment a lot since you posted it.  While I have taken it as a challenge to squeak out a silver coin from this older school... as I mentioned, I have been really considering how to find the "renewable" treasures in town (I am limited in my area for nugget detecting, though that is a whole other area of research I am just starting to embark upon).  You noted that you spend your "in town" hunting time focused on jewelry.. so I guess I have a couple of questions on how you approach that, or some assumptions that you will most likely dispel.  (This thread should probably be in the jewelry section... so feel free to move it over if you see fit).

I am assuming that you focus on areas that are heavily populated and have a lot of activity.  Parks with soccer fields and ball fields for example.  I am talking about turf hunting in this case, I also look to swimming holes and the ocean beach as well, but that is a whole other thread.  As far as equipment.. I would also assume that you are using a machine that will run at a higher frequency to bang on the lower conductive targets, and depending on the area... a larger coil to cover more ground.  What are your thoughts on tot lots?  Of course a smaller coil would be better suited here, but I haven't found more than modern coins at mine... and a lot of foil... just curious if this is a good target location?  It goes without saying that you have to dig a lot of targets... which I don't mind.  Also, in all the talk about "going deep" with detectors... I am also assuming that jewelry detecting places less importance on the deep targets... and I guess this is the ultimate question I have.  Do you (or DT or Ammie, or anyone else) focus on the top 4-5" when turf hunting, or should I be looking for low conductive deep targets as well?  My assumption (I am really making a lot of assumptions here... and you know what they say...) is that I would be looking for recent drops (since the sports fields in question are not usually on old ground in my area... or at least not ground that was more than wide open farm and forest land before becoming a sports field in the last 20 years) so the targets wouldn't have sunk deeper.

A friend of mine is the Ring Finder in this area, and he uses a Makro Gold Racer.  I have been looking at the killer deals on the F19 right now.  Anxious as many of us are on the Equinox E800... Thinking about finding a good used Xterra for the 18.75Khz coil option.  Just wanting to be sure I have all my facts in line with my assumptions. 

Thanks for any thoughts you may have (or links to previous threads where you already answered these questions).  Tim.

17 hours ago, MontAmmie said:

See if you can find a Sanborn map with the school on it.  Check and see if your local college or university has them in their library, some even have them online for free.  If you find one with the school, it should show, 1) where the outhouse was, and 2) where the biggest tree in the school yard was.  Those 2 locations would be tops on my list.

Thanks Ammie,  I did find some Sanborn Maps at the local library online, so great suggestion!!  Now I just need to figure out how to read them. 

19 hours ago, Deft Tones said:

Um, Sputnik 1 launched Oct. 4 1957.

I've said that before too. 

Pretty sure those images were photographed by aliens and fell into human hands back in 1947 at Roswell 

 

I stand corrected DT... not a "Sat Image" but a flyover image.  I am sure if the images were taken by aliens... the quality would have been better. ';)

Thanks Mike, I will check that out.  I also use HistoricalAerials.com which is where I was able to pull a sat image from the early 50's, and how I discovered the location of the old school.  Hopefully the Google Earth Pro images are better than HA, but both are good tools for research.  Tim

GBA... "A million to one"... haha.  love that quote.

Nice Month Lagerphone!  What part of the world are you, some interesting coins in there! TIm.

I have to give props to the Bounty Hunter... the Discovery 2200 was purchased for my son as a gift, and it got me hooked on detecting.  We found some nice targets with that "beginners' detector.  :)

48 minutes ago, johnedoe said:

My thoughts on this.............

 

JD, it is funny you say that... as I was plotting the old school against the current map, that area stood out to me as well.  I think you are exactly correct about that being the old entrance and should have had a lot of traffic over the years!.  

I am excited to get back out there! 

Tim.

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Excellent post, Tim.  This sounds very much like a site I've been hunting this summer (and maybe again this weekend) -- new school built in the early 90's to replace a much older one (don't know how old...).  I've found a few Wheats and one Merc.

Here are my impressions of your site:

1) Finding Wheats is a great marker, IMO.  I can't imagine many detectorists who refuse to dig copper coins but then have the ability to instead select silver dimes.  The ID's are so close (on my detectors anyway) that trying to distinguish would seem to be hopeless.  Thus I think you should find silver dimes where you're finding wheats.  There just aren't as many of them.  This summer at various sites I've found about 40 Wheats and five silver dimes -- that's an 8::1 ratio in this small sample.  So just continuing to go over that area which has produced wheats could produce more goodies.

2) Again, from my experience at the site mentioned above, the street sides of the location of the old school are where I've found most of my oldies.  In my case there was less excavation/backfill done there.  Any old indicators (old trees, old sidewalks, etc.) are good places to search.  Another 'trick' is to look for uneven ground (especially sloped) where water has caused some erosion.  This can expose deeper old ground and even turn some buried coins into surface coins.  I can't tell from the photo how flat the area you are searching is.

3) I like Cabin Fever's recommendation of searching near those houses.  That is far away from both the new school and the old school, possibly meaning there wasn't much excavation done there when they tore down the old school and built the new one.  I agree with you that sometimes backfill brings in old stuff, but more often than not it adds too much baren overburden to good ground making the old stuff way too deep for detection.

Good fortune in your next hunt(s) there.  Don't discount the wheaties (there may be some scarce dates+mintmarks among them!) and hope you find some silver.

 

Good stuff GBA!  Some great stuff to keep in mind the next time (s) I am there.  

1)  well, I have found 7 wheats, so one more and I will expect the silver coin to be next bases on your 8:1 ratio ;).

2)  interestingly enough, the area running diagonally, in line with the wheat and token I found last night in front of the two big trees, is all sloped down to the asphalt playground... so your comment about erosion unvovering deeper targets makes sense!

I did test that lower right corner by the houses a bit last night and on a previous hunt, but will give it a harder look next time out.  Similar comment to the curbside..I tested one curb area, but will focus a full hunt on the perimeter soon.   

Thanks to all for taking the time to thoughtfully resoond!!

Tim

8 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Great post! I got my start detecting silver way, way back in the day. Then I transitioned to gold detecting and coin detecting sort of fell by the wayside. Even when not nugget detecting my time in town tends to get spent looking more for jewelry than coins. A big reason for that is I prefer not to plug (dig deep holes) in parks and other public places. Popping shallow targets with a screwdriver looking for a ring is easier and less damaging politically - and one ring makes up for a lot of coins!

However, I have been doing a great deal of metal detector testing the last couple years in Reno, and the easiest way in general to do that is to just go hit the parks detecting for deep coins. I like trying to find borderline “iffy” targets still in the ground to compare detectors on. It is very difficult to see any real edge on one detector versus another on 98% of the targets I find. Long story short it is a great learning experience but it has also eased me back into coin detecting. I have always enjoyed finding silver dimes in particular, especially Mercury dimes. It has been a very long time - like a couple decades - since I have dug silver in earnest. I am getting back into it now though and so I hope to have more finds to post here in the future.

The problem of course is trying to find places where there is any silver left after decades of heavy detecting. Unfortunately so far I have been too chicken to do the knock on doors and ask permission thing, so just eking out a missed coin here and there out of the standard public areas will have to serve for now. The key there is just like a lot of detecting - patience and lots of hours.

Anyway, best of luck to you in your search for silver!

Thanks Steve, great comments as always.  I do have other sites I go to, and while I'm not exactly raking in the silver, I have found a few "leftovers" here and there... I'm with you... something about those mercury dimes!!  Of course, if I am ever lucky enough to uncover a seated... I might change my tune a little  ;).  This site though, has thrown down the gauntlet and I am refusing to let it be my Waterloo. lol. 

When I am not coming to blows with this schoolyard...  I am working to hone my research and hunting skills to do exactly what you outlined above.  I am trying to focus my future detecting on "renewable" targets.  As you mentioned, one piece of gold is worth the best day of silver coin hunting in $$.  I also agree with your comments about digging deep plugs and try to be judicious in my deep hole digs.  I am also hoping to get past my fear of door knocking... good to know it isn't only me :).  Tim.

44 minutes ago, Cabin Fever said:

I had a near by school I used to hunt because it was good for when I didn't have time to venture out further.. It was very frustrating.. I found over 30 wheats, before I finally scored a rosy out front near the street.. I later found a real deep merc dime several hunts ( and wheat cents) later.. All I can figure is that it was cherry picked for silver many years ago... As for those Washington tax tokens! I live in Washington and I have learned to hate those things.  Most times they will ring up as a quarter on my E-Trac.. I was hunting a very old park earlier this year and hit that beatiful, perfect, deeeep tone 8-10"down.. I very carefully dig down to unearth my Standing Liberty/Barber Quarter and out pops a Washington Tax token!!  20 minutes later I do the exact same thing! Mental Torture...    Your entire school yard is worth detecting but I would probably hit those trees between the old school location and the very bottom left corner near the houses.  Especially if those are old houses.  Out front along the street too..  Good luck.. there's a silver coin out there somewhere..

Bryan

Ugh! yes those tax tokens sound sooooo goooood at depth!!!  Thanks for the suggestions and well wishes Bryan!  Tim.

It should be an easy goal really.  I made it a personal challenge within the first 10 minutes of swinging my coil at an elementary school in an old neighborhood of my hometown, built in the 1930's.  With my kids playing in the bark chips, I powered up my Etrac, and dug my first wheatie within the first 10 feet of starting.  I said to myself... "self, you will find a silver coin here".  That was in May.  Since then, I have stopped by this location at least a half dozen times, usually when time was too short to fight traffic and drive into Portland OR to hunt the old parks and schools there.  My hunts at this school have been under two hours each time... but still plenty of time to use a methodically test several areas of the plot.  I have used my Etrac, Explorer SE Pro, CTX and briefly, my ATX.  

My first visit, I found 4 wheats and a couple dollars in clad quarters along with an equal amount in other clad.  Most of my recoveries were less than 6".  Clad showing up in the 2-4" range, and the wheats in the 4-6" range.  All the earmarks of a site that hasn't been overly pounded in recent years, and still giving up old coins.  There is a fair amount of trash and iron in the ground, I found myself digging plenty of can slaw and pop tops, pencil erasers and rusty nails, bits of chain link fence and other undesirables... but I was able to isolate enough high tones to keep my interest.

So, I started my research.  I found that the existing school structure was built in the mid-90's and is positioned on the opposite side of the plot from where the original school structure was built and stood in the 30's.  Sadly, much of the prime playground was now covered by the new building, parking lots, asphalt playgrounds and basketball courts, as is the case for many old school grounds.  In the illustration below, you can see where the old school buildings stood (blue blocks in the lower right of the picture).  Armed with this new knowledge, it made sense that I pulled several wheats from the area just off the edge of the playground on the left side... that ground existed from the time the original school was built.  I have placed yellow dots to indicate the general area I found my original 4 wheats and a few additional wheats during subsequent trips.  During my second trip, I also found an aluminum tax token from Washington State (shown in red), and I was convinced I was digging a silver coin... high tone, 6+ inches... silver in the hole... Aluminum.  Not unhappy about that find... more proof that this site is dated and this target was a solid 2 way tone in 4 directions... so it gave me comfort that those that came before me, left a few goodies behind for me.  In one of my follow up trips, the clad finds diminished, but I did find a silver ring in the area used as a youth soccer field.

But in these several hunts, maybe 5 or 6 hours swing time... no silver coins.

Last night, I spent about 1.5 hours coming in from the opposite side of the field (where the old school previously stood), and my Etrac was nulling all over the place.  It was expected... I'm sure that was a lot of fill dirt and loaded with bits of iron from the demo.  But surprisingly, I recovered a 1930 wheat and another tax token just below the basketball court, in an area that should have been previously covered by the old building... so my guess is that it was dirt moved into that area during the demo and it happened to contain a few old targets.  But again, no silver coins.

I post this, for two reasons... to share my misery (and hopefully ultimate celebration) of my thus far futile attempts to find just one silver coin in this old ground.  I won't be able to give up on it until I do... which could be a long long road ;).  And second, to see if anybody has any tips looking at the pic and positioning of the buildings (old and new) as to where you would focus your hunts..  Obviously, a lot of my time has been spent gridding the small area where the majority of the yellow dots are... not to say I won't be re-gridding that area (which I plan to do with the ATX after reading the other forum thread which also included the Tom D. Behind the Mask article link.) in hopes to clean out anything that may be masking a nice target.  It has become my obsession.  LOL.

This site has to have silver, and I am going to find it. :)

Happy Hunting to all.  Tim.

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A simplistic way to look at it is imagine the sensitivity control as making your coil larger or smaller. Going to smaller coils can help in dense trash as it reduces the number of items under the coil at once. Making the coil “smaller” by reducing the gain or sensitivity can have similar benefits. Some detectors also overload easier than others. Nokta/Makro detectors are very high gain and overload easily in close proximity to surface trash so reducing sensitivity to very low levels is critical when using those detectors in dense trash.

This and GB's and AU's comments should really be part of Detector 101 training.  So many hunters go into their settings and crank everything up as high as they will go in an attempt to "go deep" - then wondering why their machine is falsing all over and they are digging so much trash.  I am guilty of leaning that direction on occasion... but these comments remind me and hopefully others, that detecting at the "next level" requires a finesse and patience... not a sledgehammer approach on a sprint through a field. 

I am embarrassed to say that I was hunting last week and pocketed several beautiful sounding bent rusty nails from an old park... then I realized I had bumped my gain up to 10 on the SE Pro at the end of a previous hunt and forgot to reset it to 7 where I feel the sweet spot is for my ground.... I didn't dig another bent nail the rest of the day. 

Great comments guys... #tip of the hat#  Tim.

32 minutes ago, steveg said:

Tim,

I have had this happen, also (two coins, screwy ID) but usually, there is an angle -- or sector of angles -- that as you rotate around the target, you get some indication in the audio that there might be two items present...like the machine (at that angle or sector) can't decide what it wants to report audibly so it kind of "reports both," and it has some semblance of a HIGHLOW or LOWHIGH blurb of tone.  That's not always true -- especially if the coins are touching, or right on top of one another (then, it's often just a cleaner, single tone representing the "conglomerate" of the two coins).  But often, I get this really weird tone -- hard to describe -- that I have come to recognize as co-located targets.  Did you get any of that, or was the tone "clean," and indicative of a solid 12-30 ID?

Steve

 

 

I admit, I didn't spend as much time as I should have walking around the target, so I didn't notice anything but the 12-30, which was pretty solid and a single tone... though thinking back, it was a higher tone than I would expect for a "30"... whivh is probably as much the reason I dug it quick as any.  I was also swinging the stock coil, which is pretty great at target separation, but a sniper coil may have separated the two targets better.  In hindsight, this would have been a really good "in the wild" test target...  I will try to keep that in mind the next time I run across one similar.  

Tim

51 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

B) Another related case of target confusion seems to occur when two objects are close enough in space that they don't seem to give separate signals, but give a combined signal whose ID doesn't match either one.  Also, when swinging off-center, you can get a positve signal from an iron target that shows up in its true 'bin' when you get centered over it.

All of your post was spot on GBA, and I will most likely read it again and quote it in future posts... but this portion highlighted a situation I had while hunting on Saturday.  I was in an old school yard that I have covered many times (at least 4 to match your comments).  I have pulled some wheats out of the area, but I keep going back because I am convinced there are at least a couple of silvers lurking (I plan to give this location the research and review treatment a la Deft Tones' "scouting a new patch" post in the jewelry forum.. shout out to DT!). 

But on this trip, I was thinking about the target masking discussion and started out with my ATX until the rechargables died in the first 20 minutes... I did manage to clean out several nails and pencil erasers, along with a 6" 1964 Jefferson nick before it went dead.  So I grabbed the Etrac out of the car and took another pass..  I came across a target that was pretty solid, at 12-30 in all directions.  Higher than normal pull tabs, but lower than zinc pennies.  I recovered a clad dime first... about 3 inches down, which confused me a bit.  I put my pinpointer in the whole and got a deeper target indication... I dug down another few inches and found a nickel.  The combination of the two targets gave me the 12-30 reading.  I have had this happen before, but didn't think twice about it... but I will be paying closer attention to those odd ID's... as they could be combined goodies. 

Tim.

I am eating this up!  Great post Deft... thank you.  This inspires me to be better about documenting my research and finds.  Looking forward to your next post.  Tim

2 hours ago, khouse said:

This video I made might help if you take the etrac back out to your nail bed?  I use this as my last resort - last pass to squeak out a tiny bit more targets.  But in your case this set up just might hit the ring?

 

Thanks for reminding me about this video Khouse... I remember watching it from another forum link and I was amazed by the results then.