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Looks like a hand crafted silver ring. Master was probably carved out of wax. Doesn't look like a production piece. Nice find.

I agree with Steve and use the old iron cut nails. Modern nails have other metals in them like nickel, magnesium and chrome so they will ring in much higher. Also modern nails are less prevalent when hunting old sites. In the field old cut nails will also have a halo to spice things up. In those conditions and if I know there is a lot of iron trash I will just use a concentric. 3d masking almost become a non issue at that point as the targets mix so anything above iron is worth investigating and I can generally use my threshold discrimination and ignore all iron nail range and lower. As for buying a Nox you would certainly like it, probably do better with the 5x10 on it, I would still hold out and see what Nokta has up their sleeve.

Awesome! Is there a barber dime club?

I think it did, don't remeber anyone here with that accent :)

Figured I'd post this coin size comparison :)

Sand is brought in from outside the area. Natural bottom for that is gravel and clay. Guess people are fussy about what they sunbathe on 🙂 Signal was inbetween a copper and a silver and when I dug it I knew it wasn't silver, almost thought it was a medalion of some sorts lol. Large coins are kind of nice, good to have something heavier than my trash right?

Been a while since I posted any of my finds. Hit the beach earlier and you can see the idiots beefed up the jetties that are in the wrong direction and added some pilons that do diddly. Houses will eventually get undermined and I will gain more beach to detect on! Seems to be the work of a private contractor and not the army corp of engineers. Anyway s only found a little bit of clad and currents seem so bad even found an Australian coin! 🙂 Those coins are HUGE!

I'd leave the tree, my car was already through a hail storm 🙂

So you had 2 good stories in that adventure, 2.5 lbs of ginsing and you didn't take your truck!

Very nice. Not counting the skull ring in the list of keeper? :)

Welcome, there are so many machines out it is tough to choose. Sounds like you hunt some tough areas that have a lot of debris and trash. Sit back and see how the new machines do when after everyone clammers for them.

Welcome to the forum. Best way to learn is to use it no matter what machine. If it works then you can learn from it and develop your skills that will most likely lead you to spending gobs more money on more machines as more bells and whistles come out. This is when the hobby becomes an obsession and you will soon be abandoned by many of your closest relatives and friends as you poke around parks and dig up dirty cruddy coins and bits of junk. All kidding aside, power it up, practice keeping your swing steady and flat and close to the ground. Pay attention to the numbers on targets that you dig and you will soon learn what is good and what is bad. Pay attention to the sounds and numbers. By the looks of it the machine has auto ground balance so it should be an easy one to start out with. If the machine is sounds off for no real reason then it could be emi (electrical magnetic interference) and many causes are wifi, transformers, cell towers etc. so you may have to drop the sensitivity.

This video has some info on one of the beaches I had hit. The erosion had given me some nice silvers but much of the sand just moves down and fills in other areas with tons of wash. Told the locals why they are losing their back yards but it falls on deaf ears. In general I have done better on the eroded side of the jetties so maybe that will help others when beach combing.

My wild guess the MM 699 is the purity mark. You might be able to find the maker. The style of mark is struck so it is old or older. Modern day marks are often laser engraved and super crisp in detail. White gold is tricky, found one this summer and first thought it was silver then thought it was platinum because of the weight and the id range it rang up but an acid test proved to be 10k.

Very nice buttons. The bullet could have been made locally and not necessarily a brand. Ever check the woods at all? Look for patches of trees that are the same size will usually indicate that the area was cleared at one point. Age of the trees tell you when. Last suggestion, check around for a hockey goalie uniform or football uniform, the padding should soften the blows from those walnuts 🙂

Use the machines that bring you the most enjoyment. I see all the new ones on the horizon and still check the weather and if it looks half descent out I'll take my Tesoro over the others. It may not be the fastest nor the deepest but that simple beep and making me think whats below puts a smile on my face.

1895, getting in striking range of those seated's 🙂

Trimes are hard enough to find. Finding 1/3 of one is pretty impressive! If that was my luck I would have one of the 3rds without the date 🙂

Welcome!

I'm with Chase on this.

They seem to be pushing the diving aspect of it so are they trying to compete with the Excal? If it came down to it I would lean towards the Excal or if I was into snorkling you not going to dig deep so a hand held would make more sense. Fresh water hunting is much simpler especially if your shallow hunting as I think majority of people do. Typically look for non iron targets and displays are pretty much useless if there is silt. Weight is also a non issue when wading as the boyancy of the water takes the edge off of just about any machine including my Seahunter. With Nokta's coming out and the Nox 1000 on the horizon I would wait not that I'm in the market for a new machine.

Thinking the back support transferred the forces up and it snapped where forces converged. It should have bent before snapping so maybe when it was heat treated they heat treated it up too high. Probably should have just brought the bland only to a cherry red (until it loses magnetism) then quenched it. this would have kept the pole softer and not as brittle. You could find a carbon pole and insert it and snip the t handle and stick that on top. Measure the inside dia and see if you can get one. Similar to what Steve G sells, maybe Steve can help you out. Not for nothing but with steel prices here at 200% more they maybe looking for less expensive or thinner wall stock to compensate. I just about gave up bringing my foot digger to market because it would be too expensive to make.

Figured I would resurect this thread after giving the apex some serious hours in the field. Things I do like: Well balanced Light weight Excellent separation in iron and around trash Iron wrap on large silver is minimal and often non existant (can stack more than 10 quarters and still get a good high pitch tone to dig though numbers will max at 99 starting around 7 quarters with Ultimate 9" coil) Things that could be better: Audio takes some getting used to. Bit too short making it seem like there are more targets when larger targets are present and can be tricky to isolate. Once a target is isolated the machine will lock in fine and give good tid's. If Garrett used the AT Pro audio the machine would be tough to beat. Noticed when beach hunting there is a substantial gap between ground balanencing from dry to wet sand so jumping between MF and MS can be a pain without having a manual ground balance. In other words as you hit dry sand it may have some wet sand below making the MF noisy but MS is too much of a shift giving up too much depth. All dry sand or all wet the machine runs like a champ. Lack of manual ground balancing makes it a bit tricky hitting that in between.

Nice find. 18k is pretty soft for such a thin chain.

Big name pieces are oftend copied, think Valen is right. If you took it to a jeweler they would probably say the same.