schoolofhardNox

It's a lot easier on a beach to get jewelry then at a field. Someone probably will lose some playing there, but it will be a lot rarer to find. Even though we all want you to start digging those different signals, in your situation, with almost NO competition, you are better off hitting new areas and getting the silvers first. You can always go back and look for jewelry later. If we do that here in the states, when we go back we will see a million holes in the area we wanted to hit "later" 😓

After 2 weeks of lots of work, I was finally able to get to the beach for a hunt. I was hoping that I could try the 18” DD coil I just bought for the GPX. The area I did well at with the 14” coil, was even more sanded in and that defeated the purpose of comparing it to the 14” coil to see if it could find something else there. But I did use it for a while, and it was heavy. I put a side arm on, to offset the weight and that worked, but trying to carry a bigger shovel and holding the arm did not work well at all. It seems I will have to get a bungee harness set up for any coil larger than a 14”. So, I brought the Equinox out and hit a patch of rocks that I later found out was being pounded days before. I heard it was a good section. I did ok, considering the amount of sand and other detectorists that hit this beach regularly. Junk, clad, possibly some silver rings, 2 Mercury dimes, a nice 14K earring and some good observations. First observation was that some iron was encrusting the small stud earrings. That’s not new news, but it only happens sometimes, and you need to pay attention to those times. That leads to the second observation, which just seemed like some junk jewelry trapped in the salt/sand mixture. But at home I noticed it looked gold and did not show any signs of being plated. It may be a low karat jewelry that was not mixed with copper, or the usual green copper encrustation was already gone. The other problem on this beach are the black rocks. Not all the black rocks respond to the Equinox, but the ones that do read a solid #1. That is the exact number that a lot of fine gold rings and chains ID at. But it was nice to get out and hunt for about 6 hours. 2 silvers and possibly 2 gold for me is a good hunt and worth the long drive.

The CTX for me has been a great beach machine as long as it stays out of the water 😄 Overpriced? I think yes - compared to the E trac. The E trac for me was a better deep silver machine. The CTX a better beach machine, especially with the big coil and long tones enabled. I still have mine and want to sell it. I even had mine rebuilt so it does not leak, but still fear selling it to someone just to have it leak on them. So overpriced? If it was reliable, then maybe still a little bit overpriced, but acceptable. Leaking like they do? - Not only overpriced but the car "lemon law" should apply 😆 Steve say it best....Shareholder are what any publicly traded company has to look after. If Minelab was a private venture, then I think they could have eliminated all their competition in 5 years time. The CTX would have been $899.00 and no one else would have given us a comparable detector without upsetting their shareholders.

Me too. 😕 I'm hoping when it does come out that it does not pick up these rocks. They read #1 on the Equinox - right where the small gold and chains read. I would be willing to pay postage and send some of them to Fisher to make sure they are invisible to the Impulse AQ

It would be my first Fisher detector in 50 years of detecting if I can find one when they are released. If there is not enough supply, then I may have to get whatever Minelab's response will be. Maybe a waterproof, beefed up version of the GPX 5000 😄

I'd be happy without either of those, if I could just get the machine soon. My beach season is in full swing now. Sometimes it's more fun without a manual 😄

I'm hoping it can at least match the depth I am getting with my GPX 5000 at the beach. Real Iron discrimination?....... that would be super, If it handles EMI extremely well.......really super super 😄 And water proof ....hmmmm, OK I'll buy one. 😍

Beauty of a Seated Quarter. That coin eluded me for almost 40 years.... and then I found 2 of them lol

Well it's come full circle at the beach. I was not able to get out any sooner than yesterday, but was hoping the beach hadn't changed a lot. Well nature waits for no one 😄 All the sand that was removed (around 12-15" worth) was now neatly back in place. There would be no easy silver picking. I also wanted to try out a new DD coil for the GPX I had just recently received. I did not get that chance since I left it home, so I decided to try going over the areas that I figured I would have a shot at getting some silver. I did notice that there were NO other detectorists out that day. Unusual for this beach. I soon found out that the targets were out of range for the most part. A lot of ground covered and a lot of silence. In this situation, the targets found are different than the targets found when the beach is stripped of a decent amount of sand. You tend to dig a lot of big, deep iron, mainly because it is so deep that it sounds softer and sizes smaller that usual. You also find a lot of thin wire, and smaller nails that were washed back on shore, and were at a depth that they would sound sweet too. Absent are all the good coins I was used to digging. Although I did not realize that I was stuck at 99 silvers from this beach, I was begging for at least one silver. that way I was not skunked for the trip. One really crusty silver dime was the only silver of the hunt. When I got home I realized that was #100 silver. 🤘 I've included the trash targets I found and if you look closely you can see an American dime for scale. I did that for my tiny new coil picture too 😉 Great to get out, and hopefully I can sneak into a new beach and try that coil out. I think I'll need a bungee cord for that one though.

That ring sure looks good. You sure that stone is not real???

I think we are all eager to see this machine come out. My hope is someone buys it and hates it and will sell it to me for a discount price 😄

Thanks. I do save all my junk targets from each beach in separate boxes until the season is over, just to see how much I dig. Then I recycle them. Here are some of the usual targets I dig from that beach. I will dig around 4x what is in that picture per 1 visit. Some people may say that you can tell the size of an object and just pass on it. It's true, I can tell the general size, but with a PI you can never be 100% sure if it's a deep big target at 20", or a large coin (our silver half dollars) at around 8". A big coin at 8" comes in very loud and wide. The added benefit of digging iron is that I remove some very nasty pointy objects. I have also found coins near or with that iron many times. If I get out soon, I will save the junk targets for a picture.

Well had to see if the area I did last time out would continue producing silver. I was planning on slowing down a bit and going past where I left off. The depth of the first couple of copper pennies let me know that time is running out. The beach is sanding in again and more areas are beyond my machine's capabilities. I know it's all still down there, since I was hitting it before.. Now the signals were far and few between. Also the deep and big iron now sounds coin sized. I still managed to squeak out some good targets, but not many. One of the nickels was a 1901 Liberty Head V nickel. 6 Silver dimes and a tiny silver ring rounds up the silver tally. Copper penny to zinc ratio was excellent again. That one zinc was along side, just under a huge rock. Took me a while to remove it and when I did BAM a zinc penny😆.....😡 The GPX, like probably any other PI, can keep you digging quality targets, although you will be digging a lot of iron. I watch a couple of other detectorists come and go quickly due to lack of targets. They are always shocked to see the quantity of coins I get. Then I showed them my iron and everything was better 🙂 Hopefully I can sneak out thus week for another hunt.

That one does look like it. Thanks. Those may be real ones on Amazon too. There are so many of those coins found that a bit of electrolysis and they probably look like the ones in the picture. I'm just surprised I got one at the beach.

Here's a couple of better picture.

I'm thinking it is a small Roman coin lost by a service man that was stationed over sees. If you look at the size of the head next to the dime, it is proportional to the size of the coin. If it were even a farthing size copper, the head would not shrink with the corrosion. It has to be minted close to that size disc. It may have even been from a planted hunt or some kid that brought it from home to show it off.

I've never been one to give up ....don't know if that is smart or stupid😄 I guess in this instance it was smart. Yep, them Roman coins are not natural here, unless we want to re-write history a bit. I didn't try the ring on just in case there is some voodoo attached to it. My luck, it will never come off😧

So there was a decent storm with high winds that ripped the coast a bit. I was expecting a washed out beach, so I headed down as early as I could. This is the silver beach that has been so good to me. When I got there I found that the beach was actually sanded in where I was hunting last time. But some areas remained the same, so I hunted those areas. 6 1/2 hours later I had less than a dollar in clad. What a waste of a day. But I continued, as I usually stay for around 8 hours. The last 1 1/2 hours what a blur 😄 It all started with a small copper disk I found about 2 inches deep. I thought it was a washer, but it turns out it may be a Roman coin. This beach, as almost all beaches, was hopping after WW2, so I think a soldier brought this back with him. Then the copper pennies started to show up, then an early 18th century bronze ship spike (my 3rd) surfaced, with a sliver of wood still attached. Then the silver starts to pop up. Finally a gold ring completely surprises me. It may have some German script in it partially says weit lo**. Marked 969 14K. You can't tell from the picture but the band is gold and the middle is some kind of white (white gold, Platinum, nickel???) I'm assuming the 969 designation refers to that metal. That day was 80% hard work and then 20% pure bliss🤪 I'm hoping I can get out there next week but I might have an short archaeology project starting soon taking away my beach day!!!!

Didn't do the magnet on it, but the rust tells it all. It was found with two other wheats, so I'm assuming that it is a steel cent. If found alone, I would just think it's junk. It's in the picture with the clad coins in the copper cent row, at the end. That rusty glob is it 🙄 Too rusted to get any details on it. You may find one by accident if it is in a pocket spill of other coins. I have found a couple that way in the parks.

I was able to try a TDI SL for a couple of land hunts, and it is a good machine. Never tried the Beach Hunter version. The problem with a new to me machine is that it would take a while to get the best settings to equal or surpass the depth I am getting on the GPX. I can regularly (consistently) hit coins at 15" with a nice solid (but faint) sweet sound. I can vaguely hit coins to 20" on occasion. The more EMI in the area, the shallower those numbers become. The beaches took a good hit from those storms, but if you are finding that zinc at a foot, you are in an area that is filling back up with sand. That is the problem I am running into the last two hunts, hence why my silver count dropped and my zinc count rose. Tell me more old wise one.😯 Where can I get some of those? Eventually I will have the unit so watertight that it will weigh 10 lbs 😄

Today's beach hunt was at a different beach. This beach is small and has incredible EMI from the (dual track) electrified train rails. I can only hunt when they un-energize the tracks, usually for about 20 minutes. Then they re-energize the tracks and I have to wait , sometimes 30 minutes. But there are deep silvers to be had, so today it was all GPX territory. Only 3 silvers, but one was a worn 1903 Barber quarter. The usual clad, some copper pennies and possibly a steel cent in the mix too. Anytime I get silver is a good hunt. But now back to work until next week's hunt.

Oops sorry. I forgot that not everyone beach hunts. Most times the silver coins come out a gray color. But every once in a while they are brown like clad coins come out. Usually my pictures will keep the lesser value coins together. This includes clad coins, copper and zinc pennies and any older non silver coins like Buffalo, Indian, etc.. I then post all my silver coins and silver jewelry/relics in one shot. Gold is rare and always in it's own picture. Total silver count for that beach in 3 visits was 57 coins and the chain, medal and spoon. I do not clean them yet, but will eventually after doing some more reading on how to do it. That gray corrosion hides a lot of blemishes in the surface. Sometimes it's better to leave it than to see what's behind that mask

I returned to that same beach again for what was going to be a decent low tide. I must admit I was kind of tired that morning and it showed in my not so smart strategy. Basically I used the wrong detector, with the wrong coil, during the wrong part of the tide recession. That's it in a nut shell😆 The beach was starting to sand in and my use of a 14" coil for the GPX on a very wet, black sand area, littered with iron was a bad choice. I should have let the sand dry a bit and used the 5x10" coil. Also used the Equinox with the sand too saturated (11" coil), and it performed marginally. For my area, it is better to let the surface of the sand dry a bit and let the saturated part be below and not surface, for the coil to see. All of the silver was found in the dry sand with the GPX early on. Also by shifting to a lower area, you can see the ratio of zinc to copper pennies was way different than the other two hunts. So even after 50 years of detecting, I am still able to make some rookie mistakes 🙄 But I did get a great silver spoon at 20". It was a ghost signal that I chased and it ended up being that spoon. I think it reads-1HAS.W.Kennard&Co 925. I'm heading out to another beach tomorrow to see what it holds. I need to give that beach a rest for a bit. The fun continues.........

I wish I lived close to that area. I would be in those hills wandering and detecting. Eventually I would stumble onto something😄 Great pictures!

Thanks Steve. I can almost understand why there are not many people posting a GPX on the beach. Mostly due to the damage that the salt and water can do to an expensive machine. I have already had to spray the potentiometers to un-seize them and my on/off switch is acting like it got some sand in there. It will need replacing soon. They way I hunt, I'm surprised it lasted this long.😄 I'm sure the PC boards are taking a hit as well. Or........ maybe no one wants to let people know how well it works on the beach🤐 After seeing Phrunt's coin hunting adventure, I think I am going to borrow his way of posting subsequent hunts on one post for my beach hunts. So here it is - the return to that beach. A decent amount of silver, not much clad (that's good) and the copper penny to zinc penny ratio is still high at 54:3. Also the usual boatload of iron which is my punishment for digging all those silvers. After all the world loves to be balanced.😉