schoolofhardNox

Beach hunt # 19 was back to the same beach. I was ready to go over the same area slower this time, hoping I would pick up some more silver. The first thing I noticed is that the beach roughed up this area a bit more with more rocks exposed making it a little harder to run the coil smoothly. The second thing I noticed is that I did a terrible job the first time. 😂 This time I slowed way down and concentrated on the tiny signals, not like the solid ones I dug the other day. To my surprise, there were some deeper coins than I found the first time there. Also, there were some very iffy sounds that cleaned up much better and ended up being deep coins. Another odd thing was 4 pair of sunglasses sitting on the surface (not in one spot). I didn’t think much of them, and I always take them off the beach. When I got home, 3 of them were corroded and scratched as usual. The 4th pair however was a nice pair of Ray Ban. They were slightly scratched but not corroded. And they fit perfectly. 😊 That was a nice surprise. I also extended the search area to adjacent sections, and those areas produced some coins and a bit of silver as well. They were not packed with coins as in the previous area, but still worth the effort. All in all, another good silver hunt. I’m going to keep going back until conditions change and the fun dries up. 🥺 I didn’t think this beach was going to do much, so I avoided it for a couple weeks. I’m glad I decided to hit it when I did. Another plus was that I found my AQ knob in my driveway after the snow melted. I just need a set screw for it, and it’s all set again. Life is good.

I've been obsessive detecting since I was 7 😅 It's easier to find Walking Liberty halves than those Franklins for some reason.

Thanks Joe, I was just going to post that I found it after the snow melted on my driveway. It made it almost home before it fell off. 😄. I just need to get a set screw for it and I'll be all set. I will check the other knobs to make sure they are tight.

It's not me showing off....it's the beach flexing it's silver muscle 😍 It's hard for me to imagine silver still at this beach, but it's here. I'm not sure where the gold is, but it's not going much lower. The depth ranged from 4" to 8", but I don't think a VLF would have heard them through that sand. I went back (coming soon 😮), and I redid my area plus some and it produced more at greater depths. But 12ish" is the maximum depth as I was hitting clay. So I'm not sure where the gold is. Either it's gone or my GPX just can't separate it from the sand. This is the toughest type of sand I have hunted at my beaches. Thanks. I will use that round in the gun that I don't have 🙄. It was fun digging coin after coin and not really moving too far to do it.

Hopefully he did not sign a non compete. 😅 I'd be interested in how much battery life it draws, since you are supplying it with a battery bank. How it handles EMI would be the next interesting thing.

That's sad. One of the best, if not the best and most versatile machines made. 🤔 That's probably the real reason to discontinue it 😅. Who knows why, but now I'm mad that I didn't but another GPX battery when one was available for sale on here. 😖 Hopefully the after market will still have some available, but I agree the price may go up. You wanna see panic.... discontinue the GPX 5000 and the GPZ 7000 and tell everyone they can now just buy a 6000 for all their nugget needs. 😲

Beach hunt #18 was a marathon. I decided I wanted to get back to the previous beach after getting a Shield and V nickel out of there. That beach is old, and I was sure there had to be some deep silver or gold left there. But first, the traditional bathroom stop at another beach is in order. Once there I had to get a look at that beach as well. It looked like it had some damage from the last storm and the sand repairs had already started. So, if I wanted to try this beach, it would have to be today or wait for the next storm. I agreed to do one half of the hunt here and then go to the planned beach. So, I got ready, fired up the GPX and got absolutely no sound from the machine. It didn’t even turn on. Did I finally kill my GPX from all those beach hunts? 😲 Well, I tried another cable, same results. Luckily I took a spare battery, which I sometimes do not do. Moment of truth…. Battery problem or GPX problem. Either one is going to cost me. 🙄 2nd battery worked fine, and the hunt was on. I’ve included a picture of the location I was hunting. You can’t tell the purple color as well as you can in person. Targets were far and few between and it took me about 30 minutes before I dug a coin. I tried an area that has that purple/black sand mix, which even gives the GPX issues. Once I located a terrible sounding target, I dug it and got my first green penny. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to locate another target and going through a lot of settings to see if I could clear up the signal. I finally found a way to detect this area. I knew it had the potential for good targets that may not appear to be so good (or even at all) on other people’s machines. Once I figured out how to hunt there, I even went over what I did, and targets started to appear. The further I went into that area, the more frequent targets appeared. Needless to say, I never made it to the other beach. I spent 6 hours prying rocks to expose a ton of coins. In the greatest concentration of coins, I rarely dug any iron, aluminum, or other nonferrous items. It was almost exclusively coins. But prying some big rocks took its toll on my trusty spade and it cracked the fiberglass shaft enough for me to retire it. RIP old friend. 😥 I don’t know when I will get a chance to get back there, but I will probably do that same area and see if there are other areas that are similar. One of my best coin days with a total of 119 coins. 11 of them were silver. The surprises were the Franklin half, a Barber dime and my first Seated dime from this beach. Also, one lone Buffalo nickel. No gold, but that’s fine by me. R&R today, maybe I can sneak in another hunt soon.

Wow, you do find some odd stuff 😄 That cuff link is non traditional, to say the least. And what's with that 3 prong sort of candle snuffer? Man you got some weird stuff happening there, back in the day 😳. The silver handle is awesome. Anytime you find early American silversmith work is way better than the English counterpart. Great hunt and a wise move to bypass the beach idea.

Yeah, the cold definitely changes how or if you can hunt. For me, I can layer up and get away with it. It never got above 27 degrees, but if the sun is out, it's bearable for me. Only the toes and fingertips can get a bit chilled. That is one reason to dig fast and generate some heat 😄 This beach is older and the relics were deep, but with a lot of sand moved around, they are starting to surface.

Beach hunt #16 &17 are done. The first hunt was at my favorite beach which recently was very productive for the locals. The highest removal of sand that most people can remember was caused by a fairly high tide coinciding with a strong storm surge. A huge amount of silver coins were found, reaching back to Barber and earlier. Gold rings were very popular from what I understand. 🙄 I was unable to get there until about 4 days after the gold rush. It was cold…… 19 degrees as I was heading out of town. I started out way too late, hoping it would warm up a bit. That was a mistake, as it only resulted in a shorter hunt than usual. The GPX did well, and I did have some minor luck with 3 pieces of silver 2 Indians, 2 Buffalos and a shot up Shield nickel. Quite a few copper cents were also found, but no gold. Some odd finds included a shoehorn (look it up young people 😅), a sugar tong, skeleton key and a surface find of a wooden bracelet. I dug the normal amount of trash. Not a bad day but I was hoping for more silver and possibly a little bit of yellow. Fast forward 2 days. I had to try again, so I took the AQ and the GPX out for a second hunt. Another short one, as it was cold once again. The AQ found one unidentifiable coin a bit smaller than a quarter and probably of copper/nickel composition. I was purposely searching a place that was very productive in gold rings. 1 hour in, the battery died. My fault, as I figured it would last about 3 hours, so I didn’t charge it. Oh well, out comes the GPX for the remainder of the hunt. I concentrated on low conductors primarily since the amount of iron, particularly small, sliver pieces of wire and rounder globs of iron were present in quantity, along with a lot of nails and fence wire. The only high conductor signals I dug were those that gave a purer, more coin-like signal. I did dig some iron liberally when I first got there to test the area. Concentrating on low conductors did get me a lot of nickels including a nice Buffalo and a decent Liberty V nickel. One lone Indian head cent showed up as well. Silver count was 4, gold count was 0. Again, I noticed that the nickels that I rubbed clean right after finding them cleaned up easily with some Dawn and 4/0 (#0000) steel wool. So for the uncleaned nickels, I’m not sure if once the nickels are exposed to more oxygen or if it’s exposure to the sunlight, they are extremely hard to clean when you get home. Some good hunting, some older coins but no Super Bowl. 😶 On a sad note, the beach decided to claim one of the knobs off of my AQ. It’s going to be hard to find a replacement knob as it has a thin shaft with a section that is cut away, so that the knob fits only one way on the shaft. ay yai yai 😖

They look like rivets to me. Some are plain and some had designs on them. That size probably went through leather, if that is what they are.

Gorgeous design. I can't imagine all that effort for a plated ring. I'm thinking gold as well. Also maybe it is dad's or grandpa's ring, resized and re-inscribed. If that stone is real.......😍

Thanks Simon. So that's around $425.00 US. Plus the shipping costs, so well over $500.00 😳 That's just a couple hundred dollars less than a budget Deus II. I always wonder when they say it hits big targets deep (I'm assuming nuggets), how that compares to a coin size object. What is the equivalent of a big nugget to a coin? I'm just wondering since I won't get one 😊, but it would be nice to know where a coin falls in the comparison. Hopefully there will be some videos of it in action.

Wonder what it costs? 😬

After they get all the good tourist stuff, I think they actually toss a bunch of iron for me to find next time I'm there.😄 As long as I get some silver I'm good. A plus was, I had a chance to talk with the state guys that run the place. Always good to see what they think of us detectorists. I always show them the good stuff - fishing hooks, pointy iron , etc 🧐......😁

Beach hunt #15 is done. It seems like a long time since I have been able to get out to a beach, but the tides were low, so I ventured out to the closest beach to me. It’s a good Mercury, Buffalo, Wheat cent beach, but it has been drying up lately. It must be the way the storms are coming at this beach, as the sand is being pushed in instead of pulling it out to sea. I wanted to try the AQ out at low tide, and I did with minimal results. The heavy storm surge and high winds did not allow for as low a tide as it should have been. I found some pull tabs at 12”, so the gold (if it was even there) would be beyond reach. So, I hunted with the GPX on sand and in some dirt for most of the day with not much, just clad. Then I hit a small section that must have surged enough to break down some banks. I was rewarded with 4 Mercury dimes and a silver Washington Quarter. Some of the dimes are so clean, you can tell they were from the banks with minimal saltwater contact. I tried to take the AQ up to that section, but the train EMI was too much for the AQ. I tried all the frequencies, but none were able to completely calm it down, Sensitivity at 1 and the best channel I could find was all I could do. Nothing really came of it. After those 5 silvers, the next section did not hold anything of value. Lots of iron to remove as usual, but it did yield me some silver, so all is well. The weather was windy but comfortable. Also, a couple of pictures from the 1812 Fort hunt. Total round ball for the day was 6 or 7. The GPX is doing a good job of finding lead shot, and even the smallest caliber shot is hitting fairly well.

Beautiful cob, silver thimble, green glass button.....what more can a man ask for? 😊. Nice early buckle too.

I'd be interested to see how the Manticore does. My guess is it will struggle with it.

Maybe some had the original Deus and liked that platform better than Minelabs. But from the couple of times I had worked along side people with the Deus II, it has performed better in the soils, sands and EMI that we were exposed to. Even though Garrett usually tries to hit the middle ground, my guess would be that they are going to directly challenge the big boys. I would welcome another company shooting for the top tier.

My guess is something to challenge the Deus II. I watch a lot of videos from England and Scotland and a lot of them have moved on from Equinoxes and have done well with the Deus II. If I were Garrett that would be my target.

Beautiful. Conditions on the coast seem to be working in your favor. 🙂

I like the feel of the AQ but I didn't have it operational long enough to use it very often. Got it fixed and sold it. I hear that it is finding gold rings now 😊 I had a chance to get another one and I'll be trying it out fairly soon. It won't replace my GPX 5000 for my dry sand hunts, but it probably will be the wet sand detector of choice. It will take some time to get used to and probably best to be used for very faint targets. It's still going to pick up aluminum and other low conductors, so trashy beaches will still be a problem. The audio response from the machine is what I like most.

Awesome and rare find. Mourning rings were quite expensive, so the relative lost must have meant a lot. They are usually crudely made compared to modern rings, so you know just by looking at it that it must be old!!! Congrats. Great job.

That soil is definitely kind to copper. Beautifully preserved. 🥰 Great first hunt.

We proceed by hoping Hard Prospector shares his impressions of his new machines. And how they stack up to his old machines. 🙂