Skate

I don't have an acid test kit. It's pretty thin. When I dug it the breath just kind of ran out of me, I was on one knee digging and I had to take a seat. I was all giddy and then after looking at it further I just couldn't see it being real. I figured some high school romeo got it out of a bubble gum machine and tried to pass it off to this girlfriend as the real deal and she chucked it. 

I was going to hit Ventura on Wednesday but decided to stay at home and play in the dirt. I probably left all the gold rings for the beginner I saw at the beach last week. 

The trolls are getting out of hand. F-Mall is just about unreadable. The nox forum there has two types of threads, 

1. Here's my thread of why i'm not buying an equinox. 

2. Here's my thread explaining why i'm mad at minelab and their testers are fakes. 

I teach at a junior high and i can tell you i hear better arguments from 12 year olds about stuff than I do from some of these adults on these other forums. 

34 minutes ago, Judy said:

I would look at Garrett or Deus . As I say Minelab has run through my veins and truly NEVER review any other brands . I have 4 grandkids who I can let use it after I buy the Nox anyway . And thankfully now three of them love to come detecting . And whatever Grandma likes so do they . No not brainwashed . ?? 

I would say judy you already scored the best treasure you could find, 3 grandkids who have come to love detecting because of you. That's worth more than all the gold the equinox could ever find you. 

The only detector companies losing sleep are the ones not named Minelab. According to all forum sites there are currently way more people who have pre-ordered (and paid for) an Equinox then they expect to have available production wise meaning they couldn't sell/deliver more nox's even if they wanted to. 

Not getting my nox by the end of January is not going to cause me to cancel my order or demand my money back. Sure I will be frustrated but Minelab will not lose me as a customer. I know that deep down Minelab doesn't care a lick about me and I'm okay with that. I don't want a relationship with Minelab, just a detector that makes detecting more fun than it already is. 

My hobbies have paid for this hobby. My wife and I have an agreement. If I can figure out how to pay for something without having to dip into the budget or savings I can get it without having to get approval. I used to surf. The older I got (52 now) I'd be on my board thinking about metal detecting so I sold my surf boards and bought more detectors. I used to kayak surf and when i wanted an Excal I sold the kayaks. Same thing happened to my paddle boards, I wanted to try the CTX so I sold my boards. 99% of my hobbies prior to going all in with detecting were black financial holes. New paddles, wetsuits, boards etc. All cost money that could never be returned.

It didn't hurt that great whites have been showing up all over the coast in terms of influencing my decisions. Bottom line is we find the money we need when we really want something bad enough. I know a guy who smokes a pack a day that thinks Minelab's detectors are too expensive. $6 a day times 365 days is $2190 to smoke menthols. $2190 will buy a CTX and maybe a used extra coil. It's all about perspective. 

Hey Steve,

I was wondering (and you may have already mentioned it) if ML had provided you with either the 6" coil or the 15" coil to test along with the 11"? I realize you may not be able to comment on this either but I thought I'd ask. I'm looking to buy one additional coil once my Nox gets here and don't know which direction to go with. 

Thanks for the ideas Chase. In a completely unrelated move I had begun looking up Detect to Track and all I got was stuff on spyware on my iphone. All I read was how I was probably hacked and being tracked by hackers. After reading all of it I felt like I had to sleep with my light on. 

The OnX sounds like a winner and you would think all of the detector companies would have some sort of App for their higher end units for GPS and finds with a pic as a way to marry you the consumer to their product. Nearly everyone has a smart phone nowadays and it can't be all that expensive to make a go of it. 

Steve being critical of the Nox could blow up the interwebs. There's a bunch of yahoo's on some of the other forums who see Steve as a shill for ML and this might rip the fabric of the space time continuum. Tread lightly here. 

I was at an old site on the side of a hill this week where some of the first oil wells in Ventura county were (some still are running). This has been an awesome site to hunt over the years as its rewarded me with silver and some awesome relics. I dug this during the hunt and at first was going to just leave it as the trash at this site is immense but for whatever reason I stuck it in my bag and continued on. Last night i was bored and i remembered I hadn't taken it out and cleaned it so I did and to my surprise what I thought was junk evidently has some value. As for what it is I googled it and it's part of the brake assembly on an Indian bicycle circa 1903-1904. It attaches to the hub of the wheel as part of brake assembly. I'm not a big relic hunter but I guess I should start paying a little closer attention. 

Skate

Great find! That's the kind of inspiration we all need. 

2 minutes ago, steveg said:

Steve --

I have a five-dollar gold piece, and so I will report on the EQ ID for it as soon as I get my Equinox...

I have a couple of $1 (type 2 and type 3, I think), a couple of $2.50, and MAYBE a $10, I can't recall for sure...I'll test everything I have, and report...

Steve

Thanks! I don't own any gold coins so I don't have any reference to pin what a gold coin would show up as. I'm currently in the process of trying to convince my wife that I need to buy several gold coins for "testing" purposes. So far the boss is not on board with my thought process. 

My goal this year is to find a gold coin as well so the $64,000 question is what is a gold coin going to ring up on the Equinox? 

Steve says"  I actually held onto my detector collection until the last possible moment so as to not tip the hand too early, but the fact is I cleared them out as soon as I could once the time came because in my opinion the existing market prices for used detectors has nowhere to go but down. I held onto a few as an insurance policy for oddball applications but the fact is that in 2018 I doubt I will use anything but my GPZ 7000 and Equinox 800. "

This says it all. 

I could not believe how many people took umbrage and were offended because ML said the EQ was going to obsolete all other VLF detectors. What did they expect ML to say? We're producing a detector that might be pretty good when compared to the AT Max? People are very brand loyal in this industry and i understand that but the only things I'm loyal to is my finds rate and how much enjoyment I get out of detecting. I figure both of these are going to go up here very soon.

Along with releasing the EQ I need God to release the rains in SoCal. The ground is that of cement in some parts. 

I think your idea that 2018 is going to be the year of the Equinox is spot on. It's going to change the detecting landscape for sure in many different ways and really dictate what the other companies are going to do going forward. I suspect that the reason we haven't seen the Deus V4.1 finalized is because the folks at XP are waiting to see the release of the Equinox and then see if what they're planning for as an update will work against what the Equinox does. 

As for obsoleting other VLF machines I think we're already seeing that just in the number of machines being sold to purchase the Equinox. ML is going to win with Equinox on many different levels. Think of just how many youtube videos showing it in action are going to flood the internet in 3-4 weeks. Is ML a privately held company? Time to invest in Codan I think. 

I have full faith the Nox is going to be a great detector and for the avid, DEDICATED detectorist it's going to be great, in the wet sand, the water, the dry sand and the dirt. The problem is going to come with all the other folks who will buy it expecting it to do the work. The Nox won't do research, won't swing itself etc. People who have done well on the beach will tell you they have many days of lead weights and bobbie pins and $.13 in a nickel and 8 zincs. I can only imagine how many people are going to buy the EQ, hit the beach and get nothing but aluminum balls and declare the Equinox a loser. 

I have a friend who I detect with often who claims his detector sucks for finding rings whereas mine must be a great ring finding machine because I find rings. The difference is not the detector but us. He won't dig pulltab/nickel signals because 99% of the time they're trash. I dig mostly everything and he's right, 99% of the time it's trash. It's that 1% that makes all the difference. 

I have mine on order with David at RT6. I've bought from him before and he's been a good dealer to work with. Another I have bought several detectors through is Richard at Backwoods Detectors. The great thing about the MD hobby is that there are really a bunch of great people to buy from. I'd call as many as I had time to and ask for their best $. 

Good luck and HH.

Skate

I forgot probably the most important reason.

Steve likes it and if he's getting one I'm going to get one too.

First off the #1 reason I want an Equinox is because I love to detect. If a $900 machine can help me enjoy this hobby/lifestyle even more than it's pennies on the dollar as far as I'm concerned. It won't replace any of my detectors as I don't intend to sell any of my 3 to get the Equinox as mine is already paid for. If it is half as good as promised I think we'll have a winner. 

That's cool to know. Attitude in life is everything. Thanks for sharing. 

Hey Steve,

I was just curious what happens to the Equinox you got to test? Is Minelab going to update it for you and let you keep it? I would think they would update it for you as you've gone along as this release date nears. I think the job of metal detector tester has got to be the equivalent of video game tester in terms of bucket list jobs (if I was a teenager). 

Thanks Mitchel! Your tips are not complicated at all but very thorough. I've got plenty of time to research these two sites as school got canceled due to the Thomas fire and to show that God has a sense of humor I have come down with a bad cold so I can't even go out and metal detect. Nothing worse than time off and you can't detect.

Best forum for metal detecting on the web. Lot's of teachers here, no internet cowboys that I can see.