schoolofhardNox

Congrats on the rare 1885 V. Not many found and yours is still identifiable. Great find. I think the one on the left is an 1890. I think I can see a zero as the last digit and the 9 barely before it. Could also be an 1886 which is a nice date too.

I had a similar incident on the beach. I was hunting when a group of people entered and spread out around me. I don't know what brands they were using, but I kept an eye on them. They barely ever dug a signal. I noticed they were watching me too. I was digging a target almost every swing. Deep coins, mostly quarters. One of them came by my area after I left and detected for a bit. I went back to his area after he left to see if there were any targets there. There were. All probably just a bit deeper than they could hear. Technology always wins once you learn it. Some people are better off not using the latest machines. They are more comfortable with their old machine. I started in 1971 with a RadioShack., the Bounty Hunter, then White's for many years and finally Minelab. No one has come up with anything that will make me switch again.

Yep, it's hard to get targets at low tide sometimes, but I think that they are there. It all depends on how the sand is distributed. Recently the beaches are very sanded in, no matter what the tide is. I use the charts all the time, but this season it has only been sporadic little pockets that develop and then disappear again. When the sands shift it is amazing how many coins are within reach.

Maybe Reales is plural. The singular term is the one I always question. I usually spell it Reale, but I see it everywhere as Real mostly. I think I've seen it written both ways in one article I have to go to Mel Fishers site. What ever he says goes in my book. Update; Now I'm really confused. Mel Fisher's site has some replicas listed as 1 Reale, 2 Reale (no s). Maybe because it's not more than one coin???

Great finds. I may get that 6" inch coil soon. That real is sweet!

I primarily hunt in beach 1. All those finds were found using that mode. I was trying to figure out how to use gold 2, but it falsed and chattered like you described. But if there is a way to get it to work, it hits a lot harder than beach 1 on those small gold targets. At home I keep some sand from different beaches and the gold 2 mode made targets much easier to hear (and deeper) than beach 1. But when I got to the beach, it was a completely different story.....unusable. Now that is a future update I would definitely be interested in

What a hunt! Some great pieces there. Check the axe carefully for some round circular makers marks. Very early ones look pretty much the same as more modern ones. I'd call that a very successful hunt!

What an interesting thread. Great work and attention to detail. If you ever get to the point of selling them, let me know. But for now I have inadvertently solved the problem of a wobbly shaft and the adjustment problem as well. You see if you do not clean your stock shaft after each beach use, it seizes up and you will never get it to come apart....ask me I know …...

I don't know if you tried just the 40K frequency, but that is my go to when I am near interference. I'm not sure if that would work on multiple Equinox users.

I would like a detector that actually analyzes the metal. In other words it actually knows it's gold because it has analyzed it's composition. (like and XRF unit) does. Then add pulse depth, waterproof and the ability to discriminate out metals I don't want to respond. Simple right?

Yep it's salt. I detect mostly on the wet part of the beach, that also has fine layers of black sand mixed in. I'll figure something out or I'll just stick with the 2 beach modes. Thanks for the reply.

It's been a very busy summer/fall, so I was dying to get out to the beaches to see if the Equinox would still be kind to me. These pictures are from 5 of the 6 beach hunts. It's early in the season and the beaches are not shedding sand yet, so the finds are slimmer than last season. I did include a picture of one clad hunt that yielded over $17.00 in change in a 5 hour period. Most other clad amounts were much lower. Total clad after 6 hunts is $31.54 (average of $5.25 per hunt). It's going to be a long season and I hope to get out more often than once a week, but time will tell. So far I'm thrilled with 4 pieces of gold and the decent amount of silver I've found. I have been experimenting with Gold 2 mode, but so far with only a one tone option, all signals (including falsing from wet and mineralized sand) make a audible response. Can't figure out how to stop that. Wish it had 2 tones. I even ran a tight disc pattern, but the falsing was still reading in the low gold range. Anyone having success with the Gold 2 on wet sand??

I'm thinking it is a child's cuff button. I've seen some child's shoe buckles and they were tiny too lol

The Nox did well for a short hunt. Hope you get better faster than they think. But the down time can be used to find new sites on the computer.

I always regret selling a machine. Just hate to let go of those great memories. Sometimes I buy them back and then realize those days are gone. Sadly, those old machines can't compete with new technology. I remember them as being better than they were. The only machine I will really have a hard time selling is the GPX 5000. The combination of the Equinox 800 for small gold and coins and the GPX for deep silver can't be beat on beaches in my area. But one day that too shall pass.

No offence meant by this, but some people might look over a forum just to see what is going on, but do not have a lot of time to post. I am one of then. I recently have been doing battlefield archaeology metal detecting, roughly 3 days a week. I just browse and figure I can catch up on replies later. It's only been 10 hours, so give it some time. I can't speak for anyone else, but my detecting time is also limited due to my regular work, so I have not even tried many of the programs. Quite honestly, I have stopped sharing my programs recently. A lot of people on other forums I browse, are almost rude in demanding people's settings. They do not want to buy the books, learn the machine, practice different settings, etc.. They just want someone else to do it for them. I've had people friend me on Facebook, and once I shared some beach settings, I never hear from them again . There are some good videos on YouTube that may help you. There are also a lot of boring or bad Equinox videos too. I've tried some of the settings people shared on YouTube and they were not very effective in my area. So someone's settings may not help everyone. But hopefully someone who is willing to share their settings will do so for you.

If you get kicked out of heaven, you are welcomed to join me where it is a bit warmer and metal detecting is allowed ? When I am done detecting, then I will be officially old. Life would be boring without at least the occasional hunt.

In the spring of 1971 I was celebrating my first full year of metal detecting at the ripe old age of 9 Thank God for my older cousin (technically my second cousin) who was 10 years older than me. Started me detecting in the spring of 1970. How time flies Thanks for posting them.

I'm still trying to figure out when the Coinmaster V Supreme first came out. GEB was top dog then . But it cut right through mineralized ground and had some pretty good depth, if you like digging those whisper targets. Nails could be figured out somewhat if you did a 90 degree turn. They would double bleep if they were close enough. Not 100 percent effective though. We dug a LOT of holes back then. I had the 5DB also (or was there a 5000D model?)..... the worst machine ever. Total loss of depth. I heard the later model Di's were good but I left whites for a while, and only returned when The Eagle and Eagle Spectrum came out. That Spectrum was another great machine from them. The older units weighed a ton and changing them 14 AA batteries hurt the wallet! The word ergonomics wasn't even invented then

Great topic. Besides a $19.99 radio shack detector, my first real detector was a Bounty Hunter Rebel (BFO), soon after, a Bounty Hunter Outlaw (w/ Good/ Bad meter). The first White's machine was the Coinmaster V Supreme. What a machine.... NO more digging hot rocks that sound like a coin.

Yep I run mine with everything accepted, but I run iron volume at 0. I don't want any nulling of targets, but I prefer not to hear the iron. I just watch the display as the negative numbers flash on the screen. For me I have learned to hunt this way for gold on the beach.

I run multi all the time....except when I was hunting an area that had a major highway on one side (rt 95 in CT) and the electric powered high speed Acela train on the other side of me. Probably about 200 ft. from me on each side. Multi would not work with both of those producing different EMI. I had to go to single frequency and the only frequency that worked well was the 40 KHz. Without it, I could not hunt there. That's an extreme case, as most times multi works just fine where I hunt.

Thanks Mark. To say I wasn't surprised myself would be an understatement. I struggled the first time I went beach hunting about 2 years ago. I would never have thought anything was left to find. I was naïve and under-educated on how a beach works. Not that I have learned how it does work, even today . My answer to lack of knowledge is to dig a lot of holes We shall see if I can repeat some of it this fall. I did see the same results with some New Hampshire guys on You Tube. They were killing the silver and gold like never before. Their beaches were stripped way down!

Deep iron can still fool you sometimes. Getting used to the pinpoint on the EQ is tricky sometimes too. You may have just been off a bit. If the signal was weak then maybe it was a bit deeper. If the signals was very strong you may have been slightly off center and missed it. If you do those beaches, I use beach 1, sensitivity as high as I can get it and a slower recovery speed. But just the stock program works well too. Good luck if you do them. Thanks, The beaches up here are hammered pretty well. We have a lot of detectorists now, more than ever. The difference is nature is eroding our banks and producing stronger storm surges. This strips away more sand, just allowing some of the older targets to be in range for certain machines to find them. Exposing the coins also exposes more black sand and more rocks, so the average detector isn't gaining much because of the conditions. Now, the PI units and the experienced detectorists can hit some of these targets easier than before. Yes our silver is oxidized due to (I think) Sulphur and/or Chlorine reaction which is not good for silver. Tumbling in the sand doesn't help either! Yep for me, winter is great for beach hunting and summer is cellar holes and battle field projects I do. If you are ever up this way in the colder months, PM me and we can hit a beach. CT and RI beaches. Thanks strick, Beach #1 and beach #2 traded targets. One was great for gold and decent on silver, the other was great for silver, but decent on gold. Just did my 3rd battlefield hunt (today). They are boring compared to the beach, as I only found 5 round ball (musket balls). But believe it or not, that was a great couple of days work. In 1637 round ball was the weapon of choice for the English. The Natives on the other hand had brass arrow points. For those hunts the EQ is first to go over an area, but it is no match for the GPX. When that thing enters the field, no lead is left behind lol. Thanks Randy, I'm really grateful for my success this year. I will see this fall if any of it is repeatable. I'm feeling a bit better today and I was almost presentable at todays hunt. I kept to myself most of the day though. No one wants to hang out with the old sick guy LOL. Thanks Steve, With the right equipment, reading forums like this one, You Tube (after weeding out the junk videos) and Clive's book, All I had to do was add the time and muscle. In essence I am a well equipped ditch digger :) I di want to thank you for having this forum and for keeping the rules realistic, but firm. It really shows.

Thanks Happa54. A lot of people on different forums have bashed the Equinox as not being much different from Minelab's previous machines, but nothing could be farther from the truth. My CTX never found that much gold and neither did the GPX. This machine hits well enough on shallower small gold and chains, and hits very hard on smaller gold rings, even if the band is cracked. That difference alone is responsible for me finding more gold than ever before. And the GPX, properly tweaked, can hit those deep silvers even with the clay and black sand. I watch others walk all over the area I was finding most of those silvers, and they never stopped to even dig one hole. Without those 2 machines I would be in the middle of the pack percentage wise.... maybe