kac

Not sure if any of you knew of this site:

https://www.historicaerials.com/

They have a view that shows old photos back to 1938 and topos going way back. The viewer is slow but has nice reference as you can click through the dates and see changes. It is a little hard to see but you can see some old trails, lost foundations and even early farm fields that have either been built over or trees have grown in. I use it to find some spots and I plug the gps coordinates into my phone's gps.

On 1/21/2019 at 7:55 AM, Mike Hillis said:

Xterra 705 a money pit?  Yes it is is.  Go buy coils.  Go buy the low frequency coil sizes and types you want, then go buy the high frequency coils sizes and types you want , then go buy the medium frequency coils sizes and types you want.  Adds up real fast.   But, then again, if you can make do with just one or two total coils then I'd guess you'd be ok.    Some aftermarket mfgs are building dual frequency coils you can switch with a nine volt battery so that cuts down coil prices a little bit.  

The ATPro works fine and does exactly what I need it to do.  Speaking of coils I do need to get a larger coil for it.   Can't decide what to get just yet.   

HH

Mike

 

I bagged the Nel Big for my AT Pro. It runs very smooth, goes really deep +3' for a beer can in dry sand on the beach. On average it does 50% deeper than stock coil as they say. Pin pointing you need to shorten your sweep and go a bit slower for the AT to catch up and lock in. Downside is this coil is heavy! I got a sling and that didn't help so I shorted up the shaft and run the coil as close to my feet without tripping over it. Think it weighs in around 3lbs? Like swinging a Chiwawa at the end of a broom stick.

In trashy areas it can be difficult to ground balance so I usually do the auto balancing then tweak it just above some grunting on swings. Seems to get me in the right range.

Got some old grounds that others beat the hell out of I will hit with it.

Has there been any updates on Tesoros status? Are the employees just on an undetermined leave of absence and everything is hunky dory there?

The park is close by to the landing point of the city I am in, considered the oldest part of the city 1636. I doubt it is that old but there are a few old churches around and it might be from one of them. OR it could be a piece of junk someone lost after picking it up from a flea market hehe.

It is silver, maybe not 925 but since it was sand cast there might have been some contamination that got on the surface in some areas. Iron jump ring doesn't seem to be plated. No marks doesn't always mean anything, it could have been made from a small maker. Still a cool find since it was right next to a metal fence, probably why others had missed it.

The park I was at has a path that follows the original path that passed through an old farm field. Sometime in the 1940's they turned it into a baseball diamond. Other BB diamonds in the same park vary in age, couple I had picked up an 1877 sitting liberty 2" in the sand and a few 1906 indian heads. Buffalos I pulled from there are in rough shape and very hard to read.

What detector did you use to find that VW? ?

I have found a bit of small earings with my Tejon while out coin shooting. It does pick up better on small bb sized stuff than my AT Pro. Probably the coil has a lot to do with it. Need a nice day and get it outdoors to do an air test because inside I am picking up pipes, cabinets etc and it gets chattery.

Indoor test I had a small earing that picked up at 9 1/2"

Really thin gold plate ring almost like a wire rang in 10 1/2 on the side and 9 or so on edge.

I have a beefy 14k gold ring and a 925 ring about the same size.

Gold ring 12" on side, 11" on edge

Silver ring 13 1/2" on side, 10 1/2" on edge

I set the sensitivity on the regular max and not the overload which will add an inch or so on depth. Most cases the absolute max sensitivity gets unstable around here as some the parks out here have under ground wires and irrigation pipes. I also had the machine in vco (all metal) mode.

I think a concentric coil with a small center and large diameter overall will get you good depth/discrimination combination. Maybe that is why the some the Whites and Tesoros do well with small targets? I have become more of a fan of the concentrics over dd. Would be nice if other manufacturers adapted these coil designs to their machines. I would snag one for my AT in a heart beat and hit some the swim holes around here.

Found this next to a fence in a local ball field about 8-10" down. It rang in as silver and has no tarnish so I am guessing it is pretty pure. Back has no maker marks and shows a small pebble finish so it was originally sand cast or delft clay. The symmetry isn't perfect so it was hand made or at least the original pattern was. Anyone have any info they may know on this such as approx. age etc?

The jump ring is iron, wild guess is it may had had a leather cord.

Looks like it might have got caught into a piece of machinery, maybe some gears from farm equipment? A bullet might bend it but wouldn't take a piece out because lead is too soft. Depleted uranium rounds might do that but doubt anyone is shooting a 22 with that hehe.

I had a bounty hunter going back to the early/mid 90's. Not a bad machine but lacked features back then. I would suggest a machine you can use for general purpose such as the Garrett AT Pro. It wiil do great on relics, fresh water wading, excellent for coin shooting in parks and can handle salt but will take some practice with ground balancing.

The AT Pro is really well built. I had purchased an aftermarket LiPo battery pack around $80 or so that gives me well over 40 hours run time with no fade in performance. I also picked up the Nel Big coil for it which is a really nice coil that goes incredibly deep it tends to be way too heavy to swing all day. I use the Nel big on the dunes and can hear beer cans 3'+ down in dry sand, hear typical pocket change at more than a foot. The big coil actually does really good in the wet sand, less chattery than the dry but drags way too much to be in the surf with. 

TY!

I found this over the summer with my Tejon. Rang in at the nickels / gold range really loud. Weighs 4g. Unusually heavy for it's size. A magnet won't stick to it but there looks to be some iron in it, guessing too little to detect.

Is it too small for testing?

A couple years ago I got back into detecting. I retired my 1990's Bounty Hunter and snagged an AT Pro and last year picked up a Tesoro Tejon which quickly became my favorite machine. I stumbled on this site when I heard rumors of Tesoro possible shutdown as I was looking for a Sand Shark. 

Nice forum, has some nice info here and people seem pleasant.

Thanks

Ken