okara gold

Now that is a great hunt! Congratulations on some wonderful finds!

Any way you look at it... It is a used machine, so perhaps he wanted to offer it at a fair "used" price to the second owner. I paid $1499 for mine so that would have been a $200 loss if it were mine.

What a nice find you have! To think it was possibly made by a Civil War soldier really makes it unique. I can just picture him wearing that around his neck and showing all the other guys that he has a medal stating that he is WARRANTED SUPERIOR!

That must have been an awesome sight, I can only imagine. I've never seen a whale but here in Florida there are plenty of dolphins that do some acrobatic feats. It's amazing to watch a pod of them chasing and corralling a group of fish for lunch or ride a wave into shore just like a surfer would. Their body almost completely out of the water, just catching a wave. Another sight I never grow tired of seeing are Manatee. Big, slow moving and curious. I've had a few occasions where one will sneak right up within a few feet of you and gently swim away. Nothing like seeing a big, wide dark object suddenly appear when you're in chest deep water. It will get your attention and your heart rate going!

I think more attention to the audio should always be in the equation. VDI is “fun” for shallow repeatable targets, but not for deep, on the edge of detection ID’s.

I've been hunting 90% of the time fully submerged and always use headphones. Last week I was doing some testing in my yard with the external speaker on only. After about 5 minutes the speaker volume cut out almost completely. Barely audible. I brought the machine in the house and tried it again after waiting about a half hour. Everything was normal again. I went outside in the sun and after 5 or 6 minutes the speaker went out again. I did hear a slight pop noise as the speaker went out. I presented this issue to Tom D and he suggested that I slide out the battery compartment bung. As I removed the 4 bolts on the bottom of the pod, a lot of water came out. Taking baby steps, I dried things off, reassembled and everything with the external speaker was fine. I never got to the removal of the bung. I then left the machine turned on in the hot Florida sun for about 20 minutes and no problems. So, perhaps there is a pressure difference causing the problem. If I recall, this same problem happened with some of the Equinox machines, and it was suggested to "burp" the battery.

I have found about 5 crowns over the years on our beaches. I have also found numerous cremation tags. They are usually somewhat charred and discolored. I always throw them back out in the water as far as I can. I remember the first one I found was hardly readable and I didn't know what it was, so I put it in my pouch. When I got home, I could see the writing and it had some numbers and the name of the crematory on it. I promptly returned it to its original resting place. So, it would make sense that ashes are scattered in the waters that a dearly departed loved, and we sometimes find some remains.

Nice! I'd be hunting that spot until absolutely nothing is left. Once that window of opportunity closes... It's gone!

Nice finds on the rings and pendant! Thanks for sharing and getting me off the couch, and to the beach this morning!

When the water approaches about halfway on the rubber jack it falses to a positive sound. Once it is submerged, it does not false anymore. I too had the AQ Limited and it was way worse than the Manti. I do run my sensitivity around 21 or 22. By lowering the sensitivity to 18 or so the falsing is much less noticeable. If you slowly bob the jack in and out of the water, it makes a repeated sound. Read the link that Strick posted above taken from Steves' description / explanation of the occurrence.

I don’t mind getting my toes wet. It’s the wave that hits me on one side of the head and the water comes out the opposite ear! 😆

I had the AQ and it was doing the same thing only it was much more noticeable. If that is the nature of the Beast then all is fine. I would rather have the extra power than not. Thanks!

When I enter the salt water and the earphone plug / jack just enters the water I get a positive audio response. This is the standard 1/8-inch stereo jack that is directly connected to the pod. If there is a little wave action touching the jack on and off, it responds accordingly. It has stopped me in my tracks thinking it is a target. Once it is fully submerged, it is fine. I tried 2 different headphones T. Eisenhower and the ML Underwater phones. So, no problem with the phones. Never happened using these on the Nox. The higher I am running my sensitivity the more noticeable it is. I presented this to Tom and this was his answer... Once the plug 'wicks'........ the plug will have a film of saltwater on it. Then..................... the next time the plug gets hit with saltwater........ even only the rubber/insulation part of the plug....... it is still "saltwater electrically connected" to the metal part of the 1/8" stereojack........ and you may incur audio squawking. I seem to recall having this with a MXT. I'll look into this on the Manticore. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this? Thanks Bob K

I pretty much dig everything unless it's a definite iron target. I'm getting pretty confident with the bottle cap response. All my 20 something ID's have been aluminum, but I can guarantee one of those 20's will eventually be gold.

For sure!! I was not finding much at all and decided to hunt along the high trashy tide line. I can't even imagine how many chains are lost out there. Finding a gold chain in the water is the most difficult for me. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've found one in the water. And I always see people wearing them and little kids are being carried by their parents or grandparents in the shallow water. They have to get pulled off, but because of balancing out the salt water, and running a lower sensitivity, it pretty much cancels out the small thin chains.

Found this chain on the high wet sand line. It wasn't very deep, maybe a couple of inches but really screamed out loud. The solid chain is 14K and the jump ring is steel / iron. The lobster claw is marked 1/10th 12K gold filled. Apparently, someone tried to fix it with the added components. There is also a small weld where one of the links must have broken at one time and was repaired. Its ID was a 14 with some mixed in negative number iron grunts because of the steel magnetic ring. I was searching in beach low conductors. The total weight is 10.7 grams.

It sure looks like quality control isn't a top priority. And by the looks of the external pod seam on the Manticore, the "glue" is a messy job too. And like the old cliche... An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Are these all manufactured in Malasia? If so, who knows what the instructions are to the final assemblers / inspectors. Put a dab of glue on anything that moves or wiggles?

I'm more than happy with mine and I have used the Nox 800 since its original release and have no regrets. On my beaches it can outperform the Nox in all aspects.

I was there probably 20 years ago and spent the night in my truck on the campground. I came across 2 guys who were digging deep holes for them and after some friendly conversation they showed me what type of material they were looking for in the dig hole and it was a blackish color layer. They found some small diamonds while i was there and showed me how to tell the difference from quartz. I don't know if the park still allows digging by hand.

Congrats on your first gold! 👏

Sinclair Asked... How's the coil doing in the surf/ with wet sand? It feels like a little more drag in the water. But maybe it's a blessing in disguise as the slower your swing speed is, your ID is supposed to be better as well as less falsing. The Manti coil cover comes off easier than the Nox, and I haven't taken any measurements, but it appears to be slightly thinner than the Nox, therefore not holding as much sand.

There are only 2 beaches that I hunt where the water doesn't move much. One is in a large harbor and the other in a bay. The coins I find there are usually deep and have not moved around much by wave action. They build up a heavy crusty surface around the entire coin that can be broken off. Any silver coins (that are rare for me here) or silver jewelry has a black patina but are not heavily encrusted. I can usually tell right away if it is silver jewelry. Here is a picture of some black silver. I did electrolysis on one ring to see what it looked like.

The more I use the machine the more I am impressed. I ran the Nox 800 for about 4 years and I will honestly say the Manticore is deeper at least on my salt beaches. Where I was hunting yesterday and the day before, there were no fresh drops and other people hunt the place so I knew I had to explore anything with a "reasonable" audio sound. All the coins are deep. I went back again hoping for another gold but just deep coins that have been there for a while. Most are encrusted and black. The fishhook and bottle caps all had iron grunts so no surprise when I dug them.

Did a water hunt yesterday and found this tiny 1 gram 14K ring. It was on the limits of being detected with ID's jumping around, barely audible, and some negative numbers mixed in. Just what I have been reading about how very deep targets can give confusing signals. But there was just "something" in the audio response that said dig me. I was very careful pinpointing where the target was before digging, and it was 3 scoops deep, dug in a very tight hole. Really pleased with the depth.