Tom_in_CA

Joe D, I got news for you : It's not just those locations, or those parks, or those entities, that "ban digging" in their parks. It's EVERY SINGLE PARK (and beach, and forest, and desert, etc...) in the entire USA. There is not a SINGLE speck of public land anywhere, where you can not find such prohibitions. If it doesn't use the exact word "dig" or "digging", it will indeed have some variation of : "Alter", "Deface", "Destroy", "molest", etc.... All of which can be construed to arrive at the same thing. Yet as you can see : MD'ing goes on everywhere. Even in-spite of such verbiage. How can that be ? Are we all just lawless miscreants ? No. Because if you leave no trace of your presence (ie: you cover, stomp, and fluff up), then presto: You have not alterED, nor defacED, nor destroyED anything. Now have you ? 🤨 And I would do the same with dIg vs dUg. The only difference is a spelling exercise. We do not spell the past tense of the word "dig" as "diggED". But the concept is identical. Will every last busy-body agree with those semantics ? OF COURSE NOT ! 🙄 So you go at lower traffic times and avoid such kill-joys. Presto, problem solved. If you try to "fight it" or "get it clarified", then you REALLY WILL get something codified, to address your "pressing issue". So, like nose-picking : Sometimes it's better just to opt for more discreet timing. 🤔 Rather than running around seeking everyone's permission and blessings.

And my answer to you, is the same as to Chase. So to expand, what would you say, to the counter-assertion, by this "certain individual", that the "calling the other guy over ..." *IS* going "both ways" ? That each of you two *IS* "finding obscure signals, on your-each own, to show each other ? With an equal #'s of flags ? Is he full of sh#t ? 🧐 And as for the days of whipped vs non-whipped, he asserts that, sure, some days one of you will spank the other . No doubt. But he asserts that there are days when the spanking goes the other direction . And over-time, when all the averages are said and done, that you guys are about equal, in total tallies. Thus : Is he full of sh#t with that statistic ? As far as your own personal game-changer statistic, that you have indisputable better tallies JUST COMPARED TO YOUR OWN IN-HOUSE before & after : We have discussed this before. And as you recall, I wondered if this was because you were an SE user. NOT the II. NOT the etrac. And IMHO (and many others who came up through the ranks of the Explorer evolution/incarnations), the SE was not the deeper of the bunch. It suffered criticism, that it afforded less depth than the others in the line-up. Yes you totally mastered it (your SE tallies were the stuff of legend). But just saying, to compare an SE to the 800 is, IMHO, not te same as a II or Etrac vs the 800.

Chase-goldman : If the flagging were only-going-one-direction, then yes: Everything you're saying would be true. Ie.: If it were the Nox guy asking the etrac guy "do you hear this", then sure: That's not a fair test. Because, sure, then the Etrac guy is going to be subconsciously biased to wave over the KNOWN SPOT (duh), and say "yes I hear it". And "yes I would have known that's potential deep silver". When, in fact, he is merely going by subconscious bias, to merely inflate any squeek he hears MERELY because it's been pointed out to him. I get it. But that's not what I was talking about. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about where/how BOTH machines are showing each other signals, that *each* of them can admit were the classic difficult deepies , for cherry-pick-turf-strategy. In the case I give, with the 2 individuals, the "flagging" is going both ways . Not the "one-way" that you seem to envision.

Dan, your junky turf urban park cherry-pick skills is the stuff of legend. So, Re.: the current the Nox vs your old-school arsenal : What would you say, to the assertion by "certain persons", who say that: When push comes to shove, @ the time of comparing flagged signals, that their Etrac can/could equally "call" the targets ? And/or that : At the end of the day (when averages are done over-time, tallying multiple hunts) that : There's no appreciable difference between your Nox tallies vs their Etrac tallies ? Are they full of sh*t, or.... what ? 🧐

I got barbers and mercs and a few IH's off the Prescott Courthouse lawn. But that was probably 25 or 30 yrs. ago 🙂

PHrunt, thanx for the link !

GB : Great play-by-play. Thanx for bringing us along. A buddy of mine makes periodic trips to colonial states, just like that, for md'ing. And I love hearing the wrap-up details !

Good day, good pix, and good story. Thanx for bringing us along !

Well the good news on the "kissed" IH is: At least you didn't "kiss" a gold coin, eh ? 🤪

Although it's not typically relicky super early stuff (LCs, reales, early seateds, etc...), yet I never get tired of the strategy of turf hunting. It's a sport-unto-itself !

You guys are cruel. Just too cruel 🤨 🤣

Good post. I always tell them : "You're welcome to anything that's found" . And I've never had anyone actually truly scoop up everything. I'll usually have a token, or a key-date-seated, or rare button that I'll push off to the side of the pile. And will say "... Here's one I don't have in my collection. Is it alright if this one is for me ?". And I've never had anyone say "no". Besides : 99% of our hobby is just show & tell anyhow (eg.: bragging rights, fun, etc....). So you can always take pix of the stuff, and always have pix to showcase for your collection. Good enough. And as far as "contracts" : The LAST thing you want to do, is to show up on someone's doorstep with contracts for them to sign, and talking about "splits" and so forth. That just conjurs up images of legal hassles. And is the FASTEST way to get a "no". A smile & a handshake is all it needs.

I've found virgin stage stops and virgin country picnic sites, even up to and within the last decade. But it depends on how "Thick" you expect the pickens-to-be. Also another frontier of "virgin" is old town demolition tearouts. If you're right there when old town sidewalks are ripped out, or an oldtown park is scraped for renovations, then that's virgin territory. But gone are the days of the late 1970s to early 1980s, where it was possible to walk into ANY old city park, and effortlessly pull silver coins at will. I pity the poor newbie now, who waltzes out to the same parks that used to be easy-pickens for us "back in the day". Now they are a wash of zinc pennies and cr#p, that I wouldn't touch with a 10 ft. pole now .

Bite me 🤣

Hey there Tom Slick : For a mere $100, I can be persuaded to tell you Brian's seated-coin & button bonanza backpocket site here. But don't worry: I've got the extortion racket going both ways: Because Brian must pay me $200 in order for me to keep Quiet. Good racket I got going, eh ? 😘 Oh, and If Brian tries to come on here saying that I pronounced the site "worked out" long ago, don't listen to him. He's having another psychotic delusion. We try to keep him on his med's but ..... sometimes he slips 👍

Good job once again Brian. I love the setting of the stage for the viewer. Then the audio & live dig on the half dime. Then the reveal and the passion. Fun video !

Oh so sorry. We do not allow our key-date S mints to cross over the Mississippi. 😘 Love the fresh-reveal pix posing on the machine !

Is this all still the same site ? Or are you on to other G.R. sites now ? You are doing Great !

Ha ! Yes, the reason you haven't pulled a gold coin on the organized safaris, is that you don't have Tom_in_CA there. Who is (ahem ahem) over due for gold coin #17 Over the decades since the 1960s, You've made SO MANY friends via your experiences, tallies, know-how, and generosity. So many that you had to organize these outings. JUST to fit in all the friends that have pressured you to get a piece of your mind, eh ? There's no price that anyone can put on friendship & friendliness. No amount of seated and gold coins kept-for-oneself, can ever substitute for friendships and good times. You are the legend ! I know that some successful md'rs opt to associate only with a couple of close friend hunters. That's fine. To each his own. But you have never said "no" to anyone's request for advice, friendship, etc.... And to have been @ both virgin sites (with the nostalgic tales of "easy pickens") up to the present (worked out sites where you need creative arsenals and hard work), is the type evolution that newbies will rarely ever experience. Some day I should do the same thing as you are doing. Although you have 10 yrs. on me (I didn't start till 1976 -ish, and was only 14-ish at the time), yet ..... that would be a lot of fun to do what you've done. You've inspired me Monte ! Now if I could just get carte-blanche for a ghost town, haha

Great play-by-play. And great to read Monte's inputs ! Thanx.

I went on the VA NDL hunt a few years ago, and bumped into some guys who were preparing to take Minelab nugget machines into the field. So I struck up conversation with them, asking "don't nails and iron drive you bonkers ?". To which one of them said that it can disc. out nails. But after some casual conversation, he admitted that .... any such disc. feature fails to work for targets deeper than 5 or 6". But then he regaled me with tales of how it will effortlessly get a dime to a foot deep, blah blah. Later in the hunt, 6 or 7 guys were working a cellar-hole location of the 100s of acres, where a home-site had been in the 1800s. It was full of iron, of course. And ... humorously .... I would see some of the nugget machine guys come hiking our way. But when they got within 50 yard of this mess, they turned away for "greener grounds". In other words, they were utterly restricted to wide-open fields, with random spread out targets, "lest they go psycho". So don't let the "balls-to-the-walls" depth be the determining factor. It comes with serious "gotchas". And as for the insane depth on pinheads, well .... gee .... that's not the objective of coin/relic guys in the first place. Ie.: the LAST THING YOU WANT in a relic/coin location, is for every pinhead to "ring the bells of Notre Dame" JMHO

Raphis - Dan, it's good to see you posting !

That is very kind of you to take kac's common date merc, for proper disposal. I've got tons of common date mercs too, so can I get your snail-mail address, to send these to you ? thanx ! 😘

Your contributions to the hobby , and your career story tallies nostalgia are the stuff of legend. Thanx Monte !

Which is why your Nox 800 will kick my Exp. II's b#tt. So c'mon on ! There's a bachelor pad duplex unit that you can crash out in here. Let's do a test 🙂