schoolofhardNox

Almost looks like an antenna from something. Weird stuff we find 😄

Yep it's weird. It's the same size as a regular quarter. It's tarnished to look just like most silvers we find on a beach. I agree it's for "can I do it" purposes and not monetary reasons. Very well made. Whatever the composition, lead will likely be one of the components. Someone tried to get the weight similar enough to not make it noticeably different from a regular silver. It may just have a tiny amount of silver, some lead and who knows what other combination of metals. I'm just wondering if it was struck or cast? I had a friend who struck his own copies of colonial coins (replicas) in his back yard. He traced and engraved the dies, touched them up a bit and used a screw press to make his coins. So there are people out there that just want to test their talent out a bit. I'll take that coin over all the silvers for the day!

Beach hunt # 30 had some surprises in store for me. After last week’s disastrous hunt, I figured the super low tide would deliver some goods. The car seems to be starting fine, so I decided to take the chance and go back to the last beach. I was originally going to hop 2 beaches, but the first beach didn’t want that. So, since low tide would not be for about 5 hours, I figured I’d use the GPX and hunt the upper areas hoping for a silver, but would be happy just digging a lot of deeper clad. Well it didn’t take that long before I found a silver dime, and then another, and more after that. I guess it was going to be a good day after all. Lots of copper cents showed up and then a silver quarter. Funny I thought it read low conductor but was happy to see that grayish silver look. I glanced at the date, and it looked like 1974. I scratched the side, but no sign of copper, just a very shiny silver reeded edge. Perplexed I thought it must be a 1944 and I just misread it. Continuing on until low tide, I decided to swap to the Manticore. I expected to see a more torn up lower beach, but instead it looked very sanded in. Bummed out, I saw a small section of rocks exposed in the usual area. Another detectorist joined me and we covered that patch back and forth for about 2 hours. I did get a silver dime out of it, but not much more. That area is constantly hit when the rocks show up, so I’m lucky to find any silver there. Driving home, all I could think about was that ’74 quarter. Could it be a mistake silver planchet dropped in when minting???? Finally I made it home, unpacked and looked over the quarter under a magnifier.. That edge looks silver, not clad. The color is definitely the gray color of silver. Out comes the E Trac and the scale. Scale weighs the quarter at 6.9 grams. That’s way more than a normal silver which is 6.25 grams, and a clad which is 5.67 grams. What does the E Trac say ??? (it never lies) regular silver quarter reads 11-46, this quarter reads 12-16. It’s counterfeit. I can’t believe someone would counterfeit a silver quarter. It must have just enough lead in it to make it worthwhile, but not too much so that it makes a thud when dropped on a table. It still has somewhat of a nice ring to it. No gold, but still a great beach day and a lot of fun.

Nothing you could do. Eventually, after finding nothing for an extended period of time, he may realize everyone was right. God help us if he inadvertently stumbles on to a gold ring or chain in one of his holes 😄

Awesome hunt. So that is what gold looks like? 🤔.......😄

Beach hunt # 29. This happened over a week ago, but I was too busy (lazy?) to post it. 🙄 Not much to say about this one. Very late start – car issues (x2) Got to the beach late and left early hoping the car would start. So, a very uneventful hunt. I was going to hop beaches, but I stayed put. I didn’t want to get stranded 2 hours from home. Not much of a low tide, so I hunted the top for a while. Better luck next time! 😄

Nice cut silver. Now you know what the cross is for 😄 That large cent is toast. If it a braided hair, your soil must be super toxic to copper. They usually hold up the best from all the different types of large cents in my area. The silver is worth all the hunting you did that day.

Beauties ........😍😍

That's different than I imagined it to be. They use them to find deep buried pipes, so I imagined (even scaled down) they would still beat a PI for smaller targets. they must lose their punch rather quickly for smaller targets.

So does that mean nickel and cobalt will respond to a magnetometer, as well as iron? Also, we could just use it as a ferrous check (with the press of a button) and not run it continuous if that makes things easier. I would love to have it as a second option after detecting a target with the PI or even any IB machine.

Being one of those people who still swings that 5.2 pound detector 😄 I can say that the extension of the shaft has a lot to do with how it affects my muscles. But a light detector with a heavy coil also affects it the same way. The end result is PAIN 🤬 Whether your wrist hurts from holding that heavy machine (even with a tiny coil) or your elbow hurts from from swinging that top heavy light weight machine, the end result is less fun the next day.

Since we are at it.... why not just have a PI side by side with a Magnetometer??? Have the magnetometer be the stronger signal. If the magnetometer reacts to the target it is absolutely ferrous, since I think it only reacts to iron. I'm sure to be corrected if that is incorrect. So by default the PI signal must be non ferrous. I would love to see that in a pin pointer if the scenario is valid.

Thanks. I'm sure by now everyone else thinks I'm nuts 😄 It will be interesting to see if that happens again when you go back. Hope you heal well. I won't be back at this beach anytime soon, but there are some sections of other beaches that give it limited depth trouble as well. Maybe I'll try and see if single frequency has any effect.

If not too late, my vote would go to the Minelab Vanquish 540. From what others have said, it hits hard on coins and could always be used as a backup.

First this is how I see the machine for me - not necessarily how anyone else may view it. The disturbed ground I was referring to was the bulldozed beach and possibly plowed fields (although that has yet to be determined). I remember my Equinox not doing well in the plowed fields and I suspect the Manticore is not that different technology wise form the Equinox. We'll see. As far as parks and pull tabs are concerned, some machines do a better job of assigning gold targets and pull tabs. An example is the CTX 3030. No pull tabs read 6 or 9, but a lot of small gold rings and thin women's rings read just those 2 numbers. That was nice when you were doing a stripped beach at low tide and got a solid 6 or 9 reading. That alone proves it can be narrowed down better. Pull tabs read anywhere from the 20's through the 40's and I think even into the 50's on the Manticore. Also the smallest targets can read 12 or 15 or more. It seems we are going backwards in target ID. Foil used to read in the single digits and rarely went into the teens. Now it seems to read much higher and would be harder to discriminate or you may lose a good target. Tiny aluminum rivets like the ones on a pull tab, can have a fairly high target ID. Not knocking the machine, it is a good machine but I feel there are drawbacks to the way they determine target values. I can't get a good read on the dates of the Buffalo nickels, but I do remember they were Philadelphia mint. One might have been from the teens but not real sure.