EMField

It sounds like the NEL Sharpshooter coil is working out very well for you rled2005. That seems to be one of NEL's most popular coils, and most comments are very positive. Personally I feel that in general NEL coils seem well built, perform well, and are are a good value pricewise. I currently own two, a 6.5x3.5" Snake for my F75, and a 12x13" Tornado for my G2+. Very happy with the build quality and performance of both. I am currently considering getting a 5" round Sharp for my G2+ also. The only NEL coil with quite a few negative comments seems to be the Hunter.

Well, it took a bit of searching, but I found what Whites suggests is the result of the increased voltage to the coil. It is contained in the introduction page of the user guide. It says: "The GM24k features a 54% increase in coil voltage over the GMT. You will see this in increased sensitivity to small nuggets". That will be interesting since the current GMT is already easily capable of finding sub-grain bits. How much smaller can you go? What would be truly noteworthy, is if the 24k can find those tiny bits at demonstrably greater depths than the GMT. I'd love to see the GM24k/GMT working side by side at Rye Patch, it would be a fun time. Unfortunately, it would be over 2000 miles for me to travel one way.

Thanks for the reply Steve. Most of the changes/upgrades on the 24k are pretty clear, or understood with your hands on explanation, e.g. the different threshold system. I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around the end result, or performance enhancement caused by the increase in voltage to the coil, if any? Whites has made a point to prominently mention it as an improvement over the GMT, yet with no explanation of any benefits to be derived. Perhaps tboykin can chime in?

Informative write-up Steve. Thank you. Question. Is there a noticable difference/enhancement in performance with the extra voltage put to the coil with the 24k, compared to the lesser voltage of ther GMT?

Always nice to find one out of the oridinary GB. Congrats!

So true about the enjoyment in figuring out the why of what we find! Back in the day we used to pay a nickel for milk in school now that I think about it. I guess one of the benefits of people cherry picking silver back in the early days with the onset of the ability to discriminate certain conductors, is that they did leave a lot of old nickels for us. I enjoy finding the old Buffs and V nickels. Most of the V's I find are pretty toasted. I would love to find one in good shape!

I don't know if you've experienced this but, for me, some locations tend to give up certain types of old nickels, even though the location is of a similar age to other search sites. There are a couple of old school sites that the majority of nickels I find are Buffs, while a couple park locations are generous with an occasional V nickel. The schools are now closed and all the more modern stuff has been vacuumed up over the yrs., so I guess most of the remaining nickels are the older Buffs as they tend to be deeper?

YES, the OP's first line referenced a thread by Happa 54 "Chasing Nickels Signals I End Up With Gold". YES, I fully understand the TID range of gold, in all it's forms, and what can happen if someone ignores a signal in possible gold TID range. YES, many dig silver because it falls in an easy high conductive range, MUCH more easily identified than any type of gold. (see my first post in this thread where i referenced "cherry picking") I've been doing this a pretty long time. My first detecting was done with a Jetco BFO around 1969-70. I got back into detecting about 10 yrs ago. Honestly, I believe there is very little you could teach me. I fully understand the large conductive range gold items fall within. My 1/2 Eagle $5 gold coin fell right at 54/55 on my F75 TID, right at the aluminum pull tab mark. Most would have passed on it. I have found plenty of gold rings, bracelets, pendants etc., that fall in a huge range of TID's. I believe Steve made a VERY GOOD post above dealing with all that. This is the "metal Detecting For Coins & Relics Forum". The OP said ..."it got me wondering if previous searchers who took most of the old coins were skipping nickels. Thoughts? That is the context I took his question. As it relates to coin hunting NOT gold jewelry.

Excellent/useful reminder Steve!

He also mentioned dimes. I took that as a score one for Tesoro kind of thing cuz it found nickels behind the Minelab guys. My point is that the OP made no association between nickels and gold, other than to reference a different thread. The nickel thing in his post is of a totally different context than when you said "I just want to break this association people have with 5-cent coins and gold". He was looking at nickels from a coinshooting perspective. I'll end it here, as I think the original subject of nickels has gotten off track. CHEERS

Still no association between gold and nickels in his post either? His post was about his Tesoro finding stuff including a gold bead earring, and a bunch of nickels, behind some guys with minelabs. I assumed you were addressing the OP's post about nickels since you didn't quote him. MY mistake. None of them find it all, even Minelabs!

I think if you read the OP's original post, his thoughts were not about a detector that does well on nickels being a "gold hound". My take was that he was more curious as a coin hunter why so many nickels were left behind by coinshooters back in the day. Also how it may relate to the use of discrimination. No mention of gold was made in his original post at all. I always thought my Minelab CTX was a very solid performer on nickels. My first time out with my 19KHz G2+ in a location I had gone over quite well with my CTX, I found four nickels in a short time. I also found 2 nickels within 30ft of the back door of my house, which I had also scoured with my CTX. Interpret what you will from that. I was quite surprised! As to the association between nickels and gold which the OP doesn't necessarily make in this thread. I think it's generally at that point on the conductive scale where gold jewelry STARTS to appear in it's wide range within the conductive TID scale. Some micro jewelry, and obviously small nuggets appear in the foil range. So, if people are hunting gold jewlery, the nickel area would be a TID starting point, and a reasonable association as such IMO. I think you're reading more into the OP's original post than there was, or perhaps I missed it?

phrunt makes a good point about the warranty. The standard warranty on the G2+ is five years from date of purchase to the original owner. One of the better warranties among the different brands. Warranty does not transfer, within the five yr period if sold. When buying used, even on a machine only a couple months old, you're making a gamble that the money saved buying used will stay in your pocket, and not spent on repairs.

Hello Leighton, Only difference is cosmetic, the electronics/features are the same in all G2+ color options. Don't know if you're dealing for new or used? They're going for $449 new direct from Teknetics.

I understand where you're coming from. Auto tracking systems can have their advantages for inexperienced operators, or, as you said in"variable ground". They also had disadvantages, at least in some of the earlier systems. Around the late 1990's, well known detector designer Dave Johnson designed the Lobo Super Trac for Tesoro, or Lobo ST as it's most widely known. It had a very good ground tracking/balance system which was great for beginners. It had a shortcoming though. The tracking system could not be locked to the current ground phase when a target was found. As the user would wiggle the coil back and forth to further analyze the signal, the GB system continued tracking. At times it could actually track out (eliminate) the target signal as bad ground. It could/can be mitigated by making wider sweeps of the coil to let the tracking system read the surrounding soil matrix and adjust to that and not read the target as bad ground. Fast forward a year or two. Mr. Johnson, now working for Whites Electronics was in the process of designing two widely popular models for them, the GMT and MXT. He obviously was aware of the shortcomings of the Lobo ST tracking system. He made one huge addition to the whites models, the ability to lock the current ground phase in the tracking system when the user had a potential target. Once locked, the operator can move the coil back and forth to analyze the target with no worry of it being "tracked out" as bad ground. He also added the option to manually ground balance, and the very nice Ground Grab system which at the push of a button adjusts the ground phase of the machine to the ground matrix under the coil, as the computer constantly monitors the ground phase conditions. A great bunch of options at the time! Mr. Johnson has gotten away from auto ground tracking/adjusting systems for the most part at First Texas now. Most of their current machines employ the "Ground Grab" system, or the Ground Grab, plus a manual option most are familiar with. The newer machines of most other brands employ a variety of the GB options including tracking which is quite common now. They seem to work well. I still have a fondness for the GMT's options which are now nearly two decades old. As to the GB2. It's another one of Dave Johnson's excellent designs, and an all-time classic. I don't think I'd change a thing with that one! Sorry for the long winded post.