Compass

My wife and I went to Bryce Canyon for the Ring-of-Fire eclipse last year and it was an amazing place to see it! For the total eclipse we are taking a cruise to view the event at sea. Hopefully, the weather cooperates!

Lots of great advice in the previous posts. Hard to advise someone if they should get into metal detecting or not. After advising many people over the years, some develop an almost fanatical passion for the hobby and some lose interest quickly. Most on this forum are more likely to be the true die-hard treasure hunters. There are different types of beach hunting - dry sand, wet sand, working in the surf, detecting on an ocean facing beach, wading in a back-bay location, snorkel detecting in shallow water and probably more. My comments are mostly geared toward wet sand and surf hunting where most of my finds are made. Something that I did not see mentioned was the dynamic nature of beach hunting. Yes, there are more and more detectorists out there and it is more competitive than ever. True, the beach gets replenished all the time but Mother Nature has a tendency to "swallow" up those targets and allows them to be found when she so desires. Most of the time they are covered by several feet of sand and out of reach of any metal detector. However, when the right conditions occur - usually a combination of tides, wave energy and wind, tons of sand can be moved putting targets within reach of metal detectors. Most of the public and probably many forum members here would not believe what is still possible to find at the beach in these current times. Last year I had several hunts with those ideal conditions and found dozens of pieces of gold jewelry and many old silver coins. During this past storm that raked the California coast I know one beach hunter who found 9 pieces of gold jewelry (I saw them right after he found them) one day and 14 the following day! Even he was shocked. I don't mean to imply that anyone can jump right into the hobby and expect these kinds of results but someone who has the right equipment, experience, stamina, patience, knowledge and determination can still achieve amazing things despite the competition. On the other hand it is possible for someone with a cheap detector to go to the beach and find a $20K diamond ring during their first hunt. You just never know!

My understanding is that my TDI Beach Hunter is essentially a TDI SL in a "waterproof" case. You might find more information if you seek out info on the Beach Hunter. I love my Beach Hunters and they have been my "go to" beach machines for the past 3 years during which time I have found around 100 pieces of gold jewelry with them. I don't know if you meant natural gold or gold jewelry but I don't know about nugget hunting with the SL. The SL/BH is pretty sensitive and I have found BB sized targets but it won't compete with designated gold machines. IMO it is one of the better detectors for use on black sand beaches where other detectors may struggle. It gets decent depth although I think other pulse detectors may have an edge in that area. The best thing that I like about the BH is the "ground balance" feature that can be used to separate high and low conductors. There are times at the beach in the wet sand when the heavy surf has washed away much of the lightweight trash leaving behind heavier targets in dense concentrations. In these conditions I will often set up the BH and only focus on digging the low conductor targets (high tones). It is a risky and debatable technique since you could miss silver, bigger gold targets (>10 grams) and higher karat gold but you won't wear yourself out digging clad when you are after gold. Besides, after you have found a few gold rings you could always start digging everything again. Some might say that you could do the same with a non-pulse detector with TID but heavy black sand usually makes TID wildly unreliable.

Finding the rest of that belt buckle is awesome - what a difference it makes when added to the original piece. Well done... again!

I think gold but regardless, that is an eye-catching ring. The settings look decent so maybe the stones are real??? Well done!

What a beauty - well done! Nice one to capture on video too.

It's always a bonus to get home and find out that your finds are better than you first thought. In this case, much better! Congrats!!!

"The early bird catches the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese" Nice cheese M!

Thanks Jerry, Good to see you as well. I went back to that spot where you first saw me and it was a waste of time so I returned and found the gold - lesson learned. I hope we get more target-rich hunts like that this winter. We were joking about all the dimes we were finding - I wound up with 97.

Simple, but my friend who was hunting in the same area found a silver Tiffany heart pendant that I think was on the keyring because I saw this listed on their website(see picture). It would have been sweet to find the whole thing but we both went home happy!

Thanks VL, Yes, I've been blessed to find some nice things recently and hoping that the winter storms continue to move some sand on our beaches. Thanks 350, I agree that it's great to "recycle" our finds when possible. My wife, daughter, sisters, aunt, nieces(7) and sisters-in-law(4) all have rings that I have found metal detecting. Personally, I wear a gold neck chain that I found in 2016 but have been trying to find an upgrade ever since. 😅

Thanks for posting your observations midalake. I've never used the D2 but I did have the 800 for a while. I never warmed up to the 800 on the beach but some of that may have been due to its audio coupled with my hearing impairment. I love the audio options on the Manticore and after limited use in the black sand I much prefer it over the 800. I was considering the D2 but posts like yours make me think that it wouldn't be the right detector for me.

Don't get me wrong, my first gold with the Manticore is pretty special - 4.5 grams of 14K with a unique design and a date from 65 years ago. The ring is in great condition so I suspect that it was lost a while back. The silver Tiffany chain bracelet is also a worthy candidate for find of the hunt. It came out of the wet sand so clean that, other than rinsing off the sand, I have not cleaned or polished it. One of the gals in my family will love this find. On my previous hunt, 3 days prior to this one, I posted in the "Minelab Manticore" sub-forum about finding a silver Tiffany key ring. The small silver threaded ball "keep" was missing from the key ring which made it pretty useless. I thought that the silver ball was likely on the ring when it was lost and could still be in the vicinity but I didn't know if finding it was a realistic goal. So during this most recent hunt I am in the same area and digging quite a few targets after some beach erosion had taken place. Down low on the slope I got a solid non-ferrous audio tone and scooped the target into a mound next to the hole. I expected it to be another dime since I found so many on this day but when I reached down and felt the target I immediately knew what it was before I even looked at it - a small silver ball about 3/8" in diameter.

Thanks B, As encouraged as I am about my first beach hunt with the Manticore I have no doubt that it will struggle in heavier black sand concentrations. Last year I hunted in large patches of "solid" black sand that I'm sure that the Manticore would be pretty useless in. Even with my PI detectors I had to de-tune them considerably to work effectively. However, I'm seeing things that the Manticore can do that my pulse can't do besides the obvious TID feature. Unfortunately, no one detector can do it all - one reason why so many serious hunters have multiple machines.

Tony, as you know I have been asking around about certain deep seeking detectors and learned about the GP3500 from you. I am surprised but impressed that you mentioned the Manticore giving the GP3500 a run for its money on depth. Looking forward to hearing the results of your testing.

I seem to recall reading some comments from you about the Manticore's capabilities in black sand(?) that were pretty encouraging. Since this was only my first real "beach" hunt with the detector, chances are that I still have a lot to learn before I get the optimum performance. Even though I've yet to find my first Manticore gold I felt that I was really close on this hunt and that it won't be long before I can make that claim.

Thanks fishersari, Most with the Manticore even though I used it less than my PI. I don't think I found anything with the Manticore that my TDIBH couldn't find but I didn't dig as much trash and the Manticore was so much easier to swing. The target ID's kind of made the hunt more exciting too! Thanks Tony, I usually like to run my sensitivity a bit hot so it is more chatty. I'm sure that my Beach Hunter is deeper than my Manticore but the Manticore is deeper than I was expecting and deep enough for most situations I'll be using it in.

Thanks Brad, Being a long-time PI user I'm used to a lot of digging! 🙂

I've been a PI guy for most of the past 10 years when detecting on the beach. Yesterday, I went down to the beach not expecting much but wanted to test some new headphones anyway. I started off with my beloved TDI Beach Hunter but late in the day came across a section of wet sand with lots of targets. However, a vast majority of them were trash so I decided to break out my new Manticore. Prior to this I had only used the Manticore in a couple of parks and some back bay areas. I wasn't sure how well the Manticore could handle the black sand on several of my local beaches. The wet sand at this particular beach was moderately mineralized so I was a little skeptical as to how the Manticore would do. The mode I was using was Beach Low Conductors and I believe that the Sensitivity was around 25. At first, the detector was chattering quite a bit and I could hear quite a few ferris targets as I swept the coil. But then, a clearly repeatable "high" tone turned out to be a coin followed by another and another. The black sand was having an effect on the detector, for sure, but I was still scooping out good targets at surprising depth and getting pretty accurate target ID's as well. Besides coins I was finding silver, including a Tiffany key chain, and several lead fishing weights. I did find trash as well but nothing like I was before with my pulse machine. I might have found gold if it wasn't for the incoming tide but I did get a small gold pendant earlier in the day with the TDIBH. I wound up with 24 quarters, 28 nickels and 49 dimes. The 28 nickels was as surprising to me as the number of dimes and I don't know how much credit to give the Manticore. Maybe being in Beach Low Conductor mode was a factor? Most of the nickels were reading about 26 on the TID scale. This was one of the most memorable and fun hunts I have had. It's a minuscule sample size but very encouraging for the future. I never warmed up to the Nox 800 on the wet sand but I think the Manticore does the things that I wanted the Nox to do.

Wow, you are on a roll J! That is a nice one for sure. Hopefully, Thursday's swell keeps your 18K streak going!

Awesome find J! Sounds and looks like a quality ring. Congrats on getting 2024 started the right way!

Looks like you found the spot that we were all looking for okie - well done!

There was a little gold found by myself and others so I wouldn't call it a dead horse. A few beaches were producing targets and at a couple, quite a few targets. I believe I found between 400-500 coins this past week. However, I found quite a few zinc pennies and other lightweight targets and very little lead - usually not a great sign that gold and silver are around.

I don't imagine a find like that is too common. Amazing piece of history with information to tie it directly to a specific person. I'm glad the person who found it understands its historical value! Congrats!!! That will be a tough act to follow but have fun trying.

Success! Thank you all for your responses!