schoolofhardNox

Beautiful haul. We all live for hunts like that 😄 Platinum rang higher than I would have thought. Great finds.

The Manticore odes well on most of my beaches for iron. Some beaches, not so well, but overall it's good. I think it is better than the Equinox on iron. It's the Manticore, not me 😄 I would dig every pull tab on the planet if I was in charge. This time though, I think other detectorists cleaned up most of the tabs, as well as maybe some got pulled out to sea. Thanks. It's getting harder to find quality targets at these beaches. If there is not a lot of movement from storms, then you have to either go deep or dig in areas others won't want to do. I tried it with a sand scoop and it was no fun. I should have just got one of my land shovels and tried prying rocks with them. Even my spade would not work there. Thank you. Yep the blue loco was wedged in between some rocks. Took me a bit to get it out. I'm just happy to see any silver come out these days. I'm due for a heavy iron digging day soon. I've been on a war project for 2 Wednesdays in a row. Only 1 tiny 30 caliber round ball in 2 days work 🙄. Saying things are starting out slow would be an understatement 😅

That's a pretty good haul with gold and 2 silvers. It's no fun digging that many pull tabs, but the reward was very nice. Well worth it in my opinion. 😊

That was a good effort. 😄 Some sore bones later on maybe? 🤔 Nice to know that they appreciate what you are doing there and always give you permission to hunt. As for the D2, even though I don't own one, I can see a lot of pluses over the Equinox. If I didn't already have too many machines, I would get one. It seems like a machine I would click with. Congrats on a great bunch of hunts.

Beach hunt # 6 was a Manticore hunt. I just hunted the previous day on a project with the GPX, so I wasn’t in a hurry to pull it out for a second day. Besides, beach 1 had some slight erosion and a steeper slant than usual, so the Manticore should do well there for micro jewelry. So, I started there and although targets were sparse, I did end up with a silver hoop earring, keeping the silver streak alive. I decided to go to beach 2 (the iron beach) and dig that iron, but as usual on a sunny day that area had a lot of people. Not finding much at low tide, I headed out to a rocky area that has the potential for good targets but is very hard to dig. Huge rocks litter the area, and I had my scoop, so digging was fun. 😫 I actually started using a clam shell and a screwdriver to scoop sand out between the rocks. But this area holds the better finds and not many people want to take the time to dig there. That is where the pocket watch was found (12”) and the huge chunk of lead (also around 12”). I did get one silver Roosevelt dime there as well. Not a huge amount of trash. The Manticore did well in not finding iron, as almost all iron was dug due to being bored from the lack of signals. Not a stellar beach hunt, but always fun to just be out there enjoying the beach.

Gorgeous gold coin. 😍 Congrats on that!!! Never feel pressured on telling us information on your sites. Remember anyone in the world (including your locality) can read this and visit your site. Amazing that people can even lose gold coins but it seems to happen quite a lot. I bet losing that hurt the wallet 😄

Can't wait to see your treasure haul from that camping site. I bet the trash will barely fit into the picture 😲 My ring find definitely scream "get a better light bulb" over the sink 🙄 Thanks. Some hunts are way better than others. It's kinda always been that way for me. Digging more than I should these days is a left over trait from the old days of detecting where you didn't have a choice. No one hunts the areas I do 😅 They are much smarter than that. I wonder what they think of the old guy spending all that time digging iron 🤔 Hey at least I spread out the non ferrous for ya. 🤗 My wife has been a saint about me detecting (she probably wants me out there and out of her hair...😒) Yep, sometimes we amuse them. 😄 But as long as we keep going out, then all is well. Yeah, you guys had it rough out there. Hopefully everything is settling back to normal now with minimum damage.

Sometimes the moving of dirt can help. An old trick from the early days of detecting was to pinpoint targets that were on the fringe of depth and using the pinpoint to see if it was a small target. Back then 5" on a coin was average, but with pinpoint you could take the chance and dig some deep stuff. 100 years old sounds like there are some Barbers sitting somewhere down deep.

How old is that school? The Merc looks to be dropped fairly soon after it was made. Almost no wear on it. The cross is cool to. Nice score!

Yes it does 🙃 even if it's tiny.

I'm thinking the green stone is a green Garnet. Maybe even synthetic if they even do that. Unfortunately I didn't remove ALL the iron, just the top layer 😅 I used to think dog tags were just military, but anyone can get one made up for them, so most are probably not military unfortunately. Held hostage by Ophelia??? Young man ....swim out there with your detector and get some flood coins before someone else gets them. 😲 Thanks. I'm always looking for areas other people can't or won't hunt. No one is going to dig that iron and no machine out there is going to see coins next to them chunks of broken big pipe pieces. The only way to get what's there is to dig and expose everything in that hole. Sometimes you get just iron, but other times you score silver or gold.

Beach hunt #5 was a better hunt after I got home. I had this idea that I was going to go to beach 2 (iron beach) and dig a section of all targets, removing the iron and looking for the deep nonferrous or the nonferrous that was co-mingled with the iron. That was the plan, but when I got there I was faced with the reality of just how much iron was in a small area. The area I picked was the same area that the small silver ring came from the previous beach hunt. I figured being that high up on the beach, that silver ring was probably not lost alone. Usually when someone shakes a blanket, you lose all your rings. So, I wanted to cheat a bit and slant my odds of finding another ring so I could continue my silver streak. Besides fighting the people that just have to pick my spot to sit, I eventually could do my section in pieces after they left. I switched coils and detectors opting for the GPX with a low gain setting and the small Minelab 10x5 elliptical coil. After 3 hours I had had enough of the iron but did manage some larger brass targets as well as another tiny silver ring. Really close to where I figured it might be if it even existed at all. So, I moved on and did other areas for a short time but decided to leave and head to my favorite #1 beach. I changed coils to the 12.5” coil but then decided I wanted to try the grass areas to see if the GPX could pull some high conductors out of the tons of pull tabs and aluminum foil that were left there. It was a very silver rich area for people that did it way before I found out about it. I really should have used the 10x5 for the job, but I was too lazy to change back to it. So, I must say it was no fun trying to listen for high conductors while hearing the shallow low conductors screaming at me. But I did find some coins missed, so it has potential for future silver. I then headed to the beach and hunted for another 5 hours and got a silver chain and name pendant, 2 silver dimes, a decent amount of clad and copper cents. I headed home and briefly looked over the finds, even showing the little silver ring to my wife. The next day the story changes a bit. First off, I had 2 nickel sized coins from the iron beach that were really encrusted. When I broke off the crust I exposed a V nickel. The other one turned out to be a war nickel. Looking over the copper cents, I noticed an Indian head cent. And finally, when cleaning (in better light) the “silver” ring , it suddenly looked mighty yellow. It’s actually a 10K gold ring. What was a mediocre hunt turned out way better than I thought. Unfortunately, that means I have to go back to the iron infested area again.

It looks good on my pinky 😄 Thanks. Gold has a tendency to find me when I least expect it. I'm not really in it for the gold, otherwise I would put on the waders and head into the water. Silver is just fine. Besides, I like a nice wave free hunt 🙃

Don't hold your breathe 😄. Unless someone drops some gold right in front of me, you could be waiting a very, very, long time. 😫 Thanks. Barely kept the silver streak going. I should quit while I'm ahead. 🤔

I would love to have that GPX 5000 waterproofed 😄.

Morocco coin? Never seen one of those. Cool find. Don't you just love all the junk jewelry we are finding these days? Congrats one beatin' the zincolns!!!

National guard? https://www.ebay.com/itm/234492442369

Congrats on a very nice hunt. At least your hurricane hunt got silver & gold ! (unlike mine 😭). So when the ocean starts pushing back some of that sand back onto the beach from the swim area, is that the time to hit the swim area again. Maybe it deposited all the gold there when it ripped the upper beach clean. Only the heaviest targets remained up top (lead). I'd keep an eye on that swim area and as soon as targets start to show up again, maybe a chance for some gold. Or am I way off? 😅

Beach hunt #4 was a “during the hurricane” hunt. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of sand movement since the previous high tide waves were hammering that beach. I used the Manticore all day long. I know that the iron at beach 2 screams of GPX, but I assure you the GPX sat in the trunk. Beach 2 is a beach that is extremely iron laden. That big brass valve gave a terrible signal, and I thought it may be a copper cent mixed with iron. I never expected it to be a huge brass valve, given the signal I received. Almost all the iron dug there was intentional, usually digging a very iffy signal and then pinpointing multiple nails in the same hole. The Manticore did well discriminating the iron, but I was worried that I would miss coins mixed in all that iron, so I dug a lot of unnecessary signals. Not pictured are 2 huge spikes and a 14” long round fence post which I left in their trash cans. Beach 1 produced the only silver of the day – a .925 dainty ring. Beach 2 may have produced some gold in the bookmark, but probably only nicely plated. Also odd was a 10x20 section that was littered with pennies. I know the kids throw these down for us, and after digging a lot of zincs, I started to skip them. But I did not skip the copper cents. You can’t tell by the picture, as the cents toned from sitting, but they were all bright and shiny when found. I know the beach does this sometimes, but I have never found this many that looked like they just came from the mint. I know the kids didn’t throw those down. All in all a decent hunt, but not what I expected from a hurricane hunt.

I want a M6 😍 But it will never happen. Can't see why there is even an M9.

Most of the time I'm not finding any rings 😄 let alone Tungsten. Luckily the silver rings are starting to show up instead. Gold is scarce for me lately. Funny, sometimes I'm not impressed with the Manticore, but other times it works really well. On wet slopes I love it. With a coating of black sand I hate it 😄But nothing beats it for covering a lot of ground. I will always use it when a storm passes through and there is some sand movement. Those times I just want to take what is in it's solid depth range. I don't want to crawl and look for really deep targets, just the newly exposed targets. I did get out as the storm passed by my 2 beaches. Spoiler alert ----- Boring post coming up soon 😅 Thanks. I'll take silver any day. Much easier for me to find, than gold .

Beach hunt #3 was a 9-5 hunt. I worked my favorite beach with both the Manticore and the GPX. I wasn’t going to hunt that beach, as I just wanted to use their bathrooms. But I always check the beach just in case it looks good. This time it had a big upper-beach channel of water running parallel to the shore. Parts of the beach looked a bit odd, so I decided to start there. But I still wanted to hit the older beach as well. I found 2 nice silver rings and 3 fake gold rings. China sucks!!! Stop shipping good looking junk rings to America. 😡 I also ended up with 3 silver dimes - A Roosevelt, Mercury and a really worn out Seated. The seated along with an equally tumbled Indian Head cent came from the older beach, as well as a 1925 Wheat. The Roosevelt and Mercury dimes came from the part of the beach I head to when I beg for some silver. Still a lot of people at the beach, so I was unable to hunt the area where the Seated came from very well. I may end up there soon since I think all the beaches around there will have some good wave action from the remnants of passing Hurricane. Not a bad day at the beach. Maybe a post hurricane hunt tomorrow???

One of the nicest looking coins ever.

So what's your point? I don't think anyone here needs any advice on how to dig a hole. This is not a forum that needs angry people anyways. Besides, they usually don't last here too long. The topic was about using a protective cap on your pinpointer.

I use anything that fits on my pinpointer as a tip protector. 😄 My old electrolyte tablets came in a long tube that fit perfectly on the carrot. Digging a lot of beaches, you will rub right through the normal protectors and eventually through the shell of the pinpointer. I ruined a couple of them until I found that my electrolyte case worked excellent. I also found that the caps used on water bottles are a more rigid plastic than the original protectors provided. I just duct tape the cap to the pinpointer now.