schoolofhardNox

Had a chance to do a beach that was not very productive last fall. I did not want to keep hitting the same beaches, as I would have to move on sooner or later, so I tried this beach out. I wanted to see if the 800 would get anything. This beach was heavily sanded in and only the light targets were shallow. The good stuff was deep. I knew it was going to be tough finding any gold so I decided to hit the beach early and stay late. 11 hours and I was able to get a partial gold (9k?) high school ring, and probably a 14K white gold ring (says 585). The other ring is 14K FG and is not gold. Two .925 rings add to the better finds. Rest is clad and junk. The Equinox made the hunt on one charge but was down to its last bar. I don't think it would have lasted much longer. Next week's hunt will have very bad tidal coefficient (between +0.5 and +0.7) on the beaches I hunt. Not a low enough tide to get the areas I like to hunt. We shall see what the 800 does that week. I still amazed this machine has kept me in the gold streak for this long.

Nice hunt! I'm guessing the 18GP =18 the silver/Amethyst =16 and the small thin ring = 8. How did I do ?

Coming off of the CTX, 17" coil, and the GPX, 12.5", 12x15", 17x21"coils, The Equinox is a breeze  9 hour hunts and no issues so far. Haven't had any issues with it being nose heavy, but that is probably because I'm comparing it to that 17x21" snowshoe coil.

6 hours ago, steveg said:

NICE!!!

While your gold cross is BEAUTIFUL, and you have some great silver coin success, you have some U-G-L-Y clad coins in that pile!  LOL!!!

Congrats on success despite the conditions!

Steve

Thanks! Clad coins do not hold up in certain areas of the beach...maybe if I tumble them they will look better

I hunted 9 hours on the beach and had the battery level  drop 1 segment. I also had the wireless headphones which made the whole hunt. I don't think there is any way to see how drained the headphones are though, but they made the complete hunt. I recharge both batteries every time I go out. So far battery life is excellent. We'll see as it gets older.

2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Very nice finds.  Did you seriously find matched earrings?  The irony of finding the "Deus te Guie" medallion/charm with the Equinox makes me chuckle.

They are exactly the same diameter, but the wire is different on each of them, so they are from 2 different pairs.  I think Deus te Guie means God bless you, or God guide you or God be with you in Portuguese. Apparently that is how I found it  

1 hour ago, Cal_Cobra said:

Great digging!!

What kind of TID numbers are you digging?

Does the gold lock on as a solid TID?

Dug a solid TID 8 at an old site last weekend and it was a small grommet.

Most of the small gold  is in the 1 or 2 range. Bigger gold was in the 9-10 range. It locks on fairly well, but the items are not deep

48 minutes ago, Sinclair said:

Crazy.. I didn‘t manage to find a single goldring in 2 years 

But an earring.. and some silver.

Do you hunt in the water, or on the dry?

 

We have no tide here.. so no wet sand hunting possible  I imagine that would bring up some more interesting targets.. 

I hunt both dry and wet, and I  do move around quite often. I haven't hit a very low tide yet or went in the water past my knees.

Went out for the 4th time beach hunting with the 800. This time I used it all day and left the GPX home. My objective was not deep silver but fine gold.  I really was expecting to end my gold streak, but was determined to learn the machine a little bit more. I just can not understand how this machine continues to find all this gold. Amazing is an understatement  My best day ever for gold. Yes you have to dig tiny targets, and yes the numbers for cherry picking targets are not as favorable as the E Trac / CTX, but I don't care.....it works and works well. I won't post all the junk, just the gold and some of the silver and small jewelry (some of that may be silver too). I can't wait for hunt #5. Seriously Minelab.... you made me late for work that day

Gorgeous nickels!!! What a sweet spot you have there.

I try hard not to watch others because I think the same way. I have been hitting silver coins at 14" in one spot on a certain beach. Almost 100 silvers in a 20' x 120' span. I watch this older couple do an area I see as very sanded in and I have written off that area as boring and unproductive. As they grid back and forth in a frenzy, I did silver  How dumb are they? Not very dumb at all, as that area that I wrote off actually has been producing silver and gold for them for months....all shallow. Apparently the tides rip this section apart and expose these coins and then lightly sand it in so it looks like a deep sanded-in area. I had to hit it the other day since I wanted to look for chains with the Equinox and that should be a clean area, just micro jewelry and chains since the clean out all the junk for me.  I couldn't believe the Mercury dimes at 3" that I found, along with 4 gold items.........Yep they were the smart ones. Time to eat crow for a while

5 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Impressive!  Hurts my eyes to see what the salt water does to silver coins.  At least gold is inert enough to not be bothered.  Don't think I could do 10.5 hours straight.  Hope you get more chances this weekend.  Weather is finally springlike here and my pinpointers are already vibrating.

Thanks, I'll be trying again Tuesday I think. Small beach with a lot of interference, so we shall see how it goes. If I get gold the 4th straight beach hunt, I will be totally amazed at the Equinox!

5 hours ago, mn90403 said:

What a haul!  Let me see ... when was the last time I found a silver coin at the beach ... I can't remember but not with the Nox.

Did you do any 'dual' checking of your targets or was it just GPX or Nox?

Mitchel

I don't cross check any settings since I have no way to keep both machines on the beach at the same time. It's just not practical. Plus being tied to the GPX would make it very awkward to use a second machine. People think I'm nuts enough as it is, swinging the back-pack GPX

7 hours ago, Mark Gillespie said:

Awesome finds, silver and gold, you must have a very good site.

 

Any old beach will do. The coins are deep, that's for sure.

8 hours ago, Richard Williams said:

Amazing. What settings were you using?

I used the stock beach program for most of the hunt, but I did play around a bit with the sensitivity, iron  bias, and recovery speed. But ended up back at the preset settings.

19 hours ago, SittingElf said:

Awesome!  I'm excited to work some of the beaches near me that may hold those kind of treasures!

I see you have the Equinox 600. It will do the same as the 800. Just use the stock beach setting and dig every signal (including bottle caps) until you get a feel for what is what. When your 800 arrives you can tweak the settings a bit, but most likely you won't have too. Good luck with it.

19 minutes ago, bado1 said:

Death by gold! I like it!! 

Dean

The only way to go.   I bet those Minelab engineers are grinning from ear to ear on how well this machine is doing all around the world!

4 hours ago, kiwijw said:

Wow....That was an awesome hunt. Congrats & well done. What coil did you have on the GPX & did you dig all signals & was there much rubbish? The EQ 800 would have helped you no end with its discrimination & VDI reading abilities. You must be fizzing with your results. Life is good......

Best of luck out there

JW   

Thanks. It was my 3rd good beach hunt with the 800. Gold every time out so far. On the GPX I used the Detech 12.5" DD coil. If you listen carefully you can hit the clay layer and find coins on average at 14"  There is always a lot of rubbish on our beaches. I will dig a lot of junk while I am learning the Equinox. With the GPX you have to dig it all because it's all deep in the area I was hunting. Here's the junk targets from this hunt.

On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 4:58 PM, Norm S said:

I am now the proud owner of both the Equinox 800 and 600 and I no longer have any use for my E-Trac, My E-Trac is 2 yrs old and has no extra accessories. I do have a cheap harness I bought for it but found it to be more trouble than it was worth. Does anyone know what a used E-Trac is worth. 

You can test the waters by putting a high price on it or just start the auction at the lowest price you are willing to sell it for and see where it goes. I never thought I would sell my E Trac, but I did. Now that I have the Equinox, I'll be selling my CTX. Some say it's crazy but nothing beats being stuck with an aging detector and watching it lose value. That's what happened to my Vista Gold. There it sits, with a broken boost switch, 3 great coils and it just collects dust.  Just my way of looking at it but I would sell it and just keep the money aside or buy some other things like a great scoop, or something else you may have wanted but never bought.

35 minutes ago, Norm S said:

Our beaches aren't the best but most people that detect on them are tourists and usually have inexpensive detectors. I have seen them waist deep in a hole next to a steel storm sewer line. The won't listen when you tell them it's the sewer line they are getting a signal from. 

I am pretty sure I am the only guy with an 800 within 100 miles from me and I also have a 600 for back up

I am used to digging tabs, cans and bottle caps on the beach

Dig all signals that are number 1 - you may be pleasantly surprised. And leave them tourists alone... if they want to dig that pipe and lose their rings at the same time....let them   

4 hours ago, BeachHunter said:

Congratulations on the gold! 

Thanks. I usually don't hit gold this often  I'll see next week if the trend continues.

4 hours ago, Norm S said:

What did the gold ring up at? Just curious I am going to try next weekend

Most of my tiny gold has been ringing up as 1. Sometimes bouncing a little to 2 or 3, but generally steady at 1. Aluminum foil is all over the place in the low digits.

5 hours ago, Sinclair said:

Jealous of your beaches - ours didn‘t have many visitors the last season, because of the weather. When there‘s nothing to find you aint gonna find something.. if that makes any sense 

I would check your state web sites to see if they give any history, and most important  -  attendance figures  - for all of their beaches. But my reality is that our beaches here have never been hunted for micro gold effectively. Since I dig a lot of holes, my odds increase of finding something that may be masked too. So maybe the small stuff is still there in all the beaches you hunt??? Think about being the first person with a machine that finds tiny gold. It only takes one small earring stud with a HUGE diamond in it, to make your day

I hit a beach with the Equinox 800 to see if last week's hunt was a fluke. This is a beach that has produced a lot of silver with the GPX but no gold. So it was up to the Equinox to help me get some gold. I used the GPX for half the day and ended up with 7 silver coins and 2 silver rings and a lot of copper pennies. The Equinox produced a silver dime and quarter, but also gave me not one, but three pieces of gold! I really must admit, this machine finds that tiny gold. Unbelievable MINELAB!!!   Thank You!!!