Tom_in_CA

There is more memories and fitting thread here too : https://metaldetectingforum.com/index.php?threads/loss-of-one-of-our-own.301875/

Good play-by-play. Good pix.

Good show !

I Love these "MD'r to the rescue" reunion repatriation stories. Thanx for bringing us along !!

Good play-by-play and great pix !

But OF COURSE ! What else do we expect out here on our west coast OTHER than the better S mint coins. Tsk tsk. After all, we're closer to SF than to Philly 😍

Wow !

Good write-up and good pix !

Thanx CJC ! I've enjoyed hunting with this Nox 800 loaner for the past 2 weeks. That's for sure.

Even though it was not riddled with older coins, yet : It is great pix and great play-by-play. Well done !

FMDF is up and running as of today.

Great pix and good play-by-play. Thanx for bringing us along !

great report . Great pix !

Haha, yes, several buddies and I have been "all over this". Santa Cruz main beach got "overpowered" . Ie.: flattened, and just brought down fluffy dry sand on to the wet. But other beaches in Monterey bay got benefited. I'm at about 10 pieces of gold now, lots of silver coins, and tons and tons of clad. The beach that's been the best for me (as far as target count) has an unfortunately poor ratio of gold jewelry. But is giving up silver coins. Albeit beach toast, but .... I love 'em still 🙂 Keep an eye on Santa Cruz main and Seabright in the coming days and weeks . Because they are known for having their action come AFTER the event. Because mother nature can be robbing sand off the inter-tidal zone, to fill in off-shore voids that occurred during the events. A buddy of mine tried the main beach last night, and had 120-ish coins, some silver jewelry, and a 14k ring. But ... aside from a singular pocket near the river mouth, the rest were scattered. So it hasn't turned red-hot yet. Haven't heard any reports from Seabright yet. Anyone here heard ?

wow. Just : Wow.

Yes. For some strange reason, of those found on the east coast, a good percentage of them have come from NH. Very interesting !

Great input Steve. Thanx ! What control menu options/buttons do I press to get to the iron-volume adjust ? And as far as zinc. vs copper : Yes, I was only referring to fresh air tests. Obviously if zinc begins to corrode in the ground or on the beach, they slip down even further, down into the mid-tone ranges. And then yes : Utterly no way to tell them apart from mid-range gold rings. Sure. But for my purposes, I have no intention of skipping zinc, whether corroded OR fresh. Because some fatty men's gold rings come in at zinc, at you know. HOWEVER : Very few gold rings are ever going to read at copper penny / dime (unless 24k). So my question was assuming fresh air tests. On beach, a copper penny or dime that is beach-kissed thin (tumbled by a decades of being washed in and out with the surf) will read lower as well. So I realize that trying to up odds at gold rings is not perfect. It's merely Las Vegas odds. Like .... for sure if I can tell without doubt that it's a copper dime or quarter, then : I am not in the mood to dig clad, if targets are everywhere, fast & furious. Kiss silver coins goodbye in that case, since they're beach toast anyhow, haha I realize the #'s of zinc are 20 to 21, and the # of copper penny/dime is 23 -24. A clear numerical readout difference. However, the tonal difference is harder to tell, than what I'm used to on the Explorer II. But maybe that's simply because I have so so many year's experience on the Exp.

Hello. I'm new to the Nox 800. I have one on loan for a temporary objective. And after reading the instructions, I'm left with a few questions : 1) I see that the difference between beach 1 and beach 2 is that beach 2 turns off the high-transmit . So I would assume that is for when you would anticipate nasty minerals, for example, right ? Thus if someone is at a low mineral wet-salt beach, then I assume that beach 1 is the preferred (deeper) mode. Right ? I will only be in the inter-tidal wet zone (not wading, not scuba). What else is the stock difference between beach 1 and beach 2 ? 2) In beach one, I moved the tones up to "50". Because I'm a fan of the explorer II, in ferrous mode, with the entire screen opened up (ie.: hear everything, and let my ears do-the-choosing). But I noticed that , on the Nox, this Beach -2 mode made nails "null". I prefer to hear the nails (albeit as a low tone that I'll mentally pass). So I figured out that the way to allow them , is to press the horse-shoe button. Right ? But I noticed that the nails are extremely wimpy ! Ie.: As if their volume is very weak, when compared to the volume of similar size conductive objects. Yes I've set the target volume to max (25). But that only seems to apply to the conductive zone targets. Not iron. Am I doing something wrong ? 3) I notice that the tonal difference between zinc and copper pennies is very subtle. Not much difference. As opposed to my Exp. II, where the difference is very pronounced. Is there any way to accentuate the tonal difference between them ? Because if the beach is red hot after these storms (targets everywhere) I intend to pass copper pennies and up, and only dig mid conductors (zinc) and down. In order to increase my odds at gold jewelry (try to pass pesky coins). So is there a way to make the zinc vs copper penny tones more pronounced ? 4) Any other recommended adjustments to beach -1, for wet-salt Calif. beaches ? I am NOT after micro-jewelry. So as long as I'm getting down into foil-range, that's fine.

The 77b would be circa 1973 -ish And yes, they were sold even into the late 1970s. I can't remember if the Judge 2 all-metal mode was VLD or all-metal TR. If it was all-metal TR, then its all-metal mode would mimic the 77b , in that department. They were great for seeing through small iron. Ie.: Combatting iron-masking. You could put 2 or 3 square nails over the top of a coin, and STILL get a hint of the conductive coin. As opposed to the nails alone, which would null. But other than that, the 77b had no other form of disc. The all-metal depth was limited, and a bear-to-keep balanced. They would be good for some relic hunting need, where there's a carpet-of-nails, as long as depth isn't an issue. Eg.: For oldtown sidewalk tearouts, or where buildings burned down, etc.... You can sort of mimic the same objective with a few of the Tesoro machines (sabre, bandido, etc...)

George, Phoenix buttons are highly prized here in CA. As the sought-after contact era trade item. They only show up at spots here dating from 1800 -ish to 1840s-ish. Which is old for CA :) I have probably 200 of them by now (nearly 100 from a single location alone) . Yes, some get found on the east coast. But they are primarily a west coast curiosity, for those of us who seek out the earliest CA toe-hold colonial and mission era stuff. Here's an rarity chart I've written on them. Find yours on here ! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rX9XFCFw-SKRiUFZfdtzFg7GIjUwzoJJ/view?ts=6182e46f

Chuck, great story. Questions for you : 1) What inspired you to buy that first machine ? 2) Where did you buy the machine ? Eg.: Catalog mail-order, or a dealer, or ... ? 3) What city and state were you hunting in, back in the mid 1960s ? 4) How deep do you recall that it would detect a dime -sized object to ? thanx !

Nice !!

Kac, yes it was a regional thing. Some areas had the hobby catch on as early as some time in the 1960s (albeit limited by the tech. of their era). My area was also one such spot, where I know there was a few guy plying the school yards as early as 1964. Eg.: with the old BFOs and such. And as early as the mid 1970s, there was already a club in my area, and 2 dealers. So by the late 1970s, you were already "Johnny-come-lately" to the obvious spots. So the people coming by the early 1980s, picking up the exact same history books as we had, were merely getting leftovers. Doh ! But we noticed that if we drove an hour in any direction, we would come into cities where the parks hadn't been hit as well. For example: In the very early 1980s, there was a park an hour away from my city, where the only local machines that had hit it, was wimpy old school fisher TR disc. So the entire top 4 or 5" (clad and 1940s-50s silver) had been cleaned out pretty good. But those of us who rolled into town with motion discriminators got the barbers to '20s stuff with ease. Doh ! So it just depended on where you were. Some areas had pressure, while others did not.

I'm not George, but I'll take a crack at this : It depended on who you were , and how hard-core you were. There were a LOT of hunters back in those days that were strictly doing park turf, beach, etc... And did not have the "presence of mind" to do exotic things like stage stops, forts, old-town demolition, etc..... Not sure how true this is of back-east (and CW areas, etc...) . But it's true of where I'm at in CA. We were content to ply the parks for silver . Didn't know any better. Doh ! And the machines had no disc. up to the mid 1970s, in the era of 77b, 66TR, etc... (aside from ignoring small iron). And the early TR discriminators (mid to late 1970s) were wimpy. And didn't tackle minerals. And were a bear to keep balanced. Even when the original motion discrimination came out (1978 -ish with the Red Baron and the 6000d), they were slow to catch on. News traveled slower in those days. And these early motion machines were wimpy compared to today's depth. Nonetheless, silver was "easy" for a few years in the late 1970s to early 1980s, for turf hunters. Albeit just mercs and roosies type-stuff. To be honest with you, we'd have thought 3 or 4 silver from park hunt day was good. And , heck, I can still do that today at-will. I'm sure there were pioneers who got the better tech. earlier. And who went to virgin sites first (virgin fairgrounds, etc....). And I'm sure there were guys that wised up to relic-mindset earlier than others. But for others of us, it was all about turf and tame beach stuff in the earlier years. So there was still virgin stage stop stuff into the 1990s and 2000s (heck, even to this day if you're a researcher and ballsy-type).

Beautiful. Drips with old-ness.