Tom_in_CA

Nice job !

Strick is right : Get on California gold rush relics FB site, and these are the type sought-after niche that the guys there love. And yes, we find stuff in our CA gold rush sites that came from Australia as well. Since : You guys had a gold rush there at approx. the same time (?). Thus some of the miners went back and forth, USA to Australia and vice-versa. So it stands to reason that you will occasionally get stuff that came from us, towards your direction gold rush. Very interesting !

Good observation. Yes, it's very annoying when someone's show & tell video is like the Bass-fishing-channel. Where "every cast is a lunker". So when my buddy and I do videos, we include shots of both good and bad. Also beneficial when the videos capture audio of both good and bad. That brings the viewer into it, and is music to the hard-core md'rs ears 🙂

So what we do, to avoid this bias, is to test each other by purposefully marking some bad ones. Just to see what the other person says. Or to mark out a 3 ft. square area, and see what they can isolate in a larger spot. And even once they *do* hear it, then to make sure that they're not simply getting the same beep-type elsewhere, and digging junk .

One time I had a dealer telling me that a certain machine was going to utterly kick-butt in the turf. So he & I agreed to meet up in a certain park that ....... for the right ear and skill ..... was known to still have some deepie silver and wheaties. We met up and began to compare flagged signals. And I noticed that each time I showed him a signal (that I suspected to be a potential deep silver or wheatie hiding in the junk), he's concur : "Yup, I hear it loud and clear", etc... So at first, I was impressed. But as the morning wore on, I began to notice that he had not shown me any signals, so far, that were turning out to be deep coins. He'd flag an occasional clad or pulltab or whatever. So I began to suspect that he was merely concurring with whatever I pointed out to him, and merely repeating my evaluation. In other words, it's VERY EASY to be shown a flagged spot, and THEN to hear something. And if someone else (who has a reputation for finding deep silver in junky parks) says "This sounds good", then it's VERY EASY to subconsciously amp up the evaluation in-your-mind, and simply agree : "Yes I hear it, and yes I would have dug that, and yes it sounds like such & such". Heck, the guy would even un-plug his headphones, show me the same signal, and I couldn't deny that, yes, it was giving a beep on the spots (maybe even a nice loud beep !). But then I noticed that the moment he moved off yonder in any other direction, he'd get the same exact beeps elsewhere, with no tell-tale difference. Hence not a good cherry picking machine. So I played a little trick on him: I purposefully chose a shallow zinc penny or tab or a one-way-nail-false, and called him over. I painted a rosy picture that I thought it was going to be a super deep wheatie or silver. And sure as heck, he agreed with my assessment word-for-word. The point being : You have to have 2 persons who can *honestly* (without subconscious bias) be asking themselves : "Would I have truly heard this on my own". Needless to say, I never went out tech.-comparing with that dealer again .

This is why it's beneficial to have a buddy system, where each of them flags signals with competing machines. Then makes their evaluations , and then ..... see the results. And will be honestly asking themselves "... Would I have heard that if it hadn't been pointed out to me ?"

Another great video. Love the live digs. Love the Great Coat button @ 4:07. Question for you : In retrospect, could your Equinox or Deus 1 have gotten those signals ?

Or ..... wait ..... maybe a different story ?

This subject, and I believe the same source/link, came up here : http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=294750&highlight=Coronado And I put my thoughts on that one.

thanx for the acknowledgement . The brainchild friend of ours will make the next batch to drop the word "California". As soon as the current order (50 hat minimum order) is passed out. When we make another batch with the revised wording, we'll do another forum prompt. This beats-the-heck out of the lame "looking for my dad's boyscout ring that he lost here in 1965". Eh ? 😏 Hey, we md'rs have to do-our-part to save the environment !

love those photos of the ruins and walls. What state is this in ? Good job !

Tsk tsk tsk, where's the moderators to clean up such smut ? tsk tsk 😬

Luv those lost & found repatriation stories. Good job !

My dad was a young teenager (13, 14, 15) during the WWII years. And because men of draft age were leaving town in his small Texas town, that opened up jobs for young teens. Eg.: Gas stations, store clerks, etc...... And I guess there were no child-labor laws in those days (ie.: younger teens could enter the work force w/o question). I remember my dad telling me that he worked in a movie-theater during the war years (manning the ticket booth and popcorn sales). And his pay was : .07c per hour ! So a standing lib. quarter like that would be like 4 hrs. of work ! Doh ! As far as adult pay goes, I read that lower level blue-collar laborers , in the 1880s, might have $20 for a month's work, with room & board. So as you can see, with that formula, you can see that an adult's wage was only like .10 or .15c p/h .

Good job !

Oh sheesshh, I detect with Bill Gates Jr. computer expert. And he can't even lend 10 minutes to a "good cause". To put his skills to work for the good-of-mankind. Instead, before he lifts a finger, he demands gold coins ? Sheesshh. C'mon Brian, be altruistic and charitable for once ! And besides, I CAN'T spend 10 minutes per day less on md'ing forums. Because if it wasn't for control freaks like me, nothing would get done right in the world ! Tsk tsk.

Here's the error message I get when trying to PM you : mn90403 cannot receive messages. So it must be an issue just between us. Try PM'ing me through the Friendly md'ing forum system.

my prompt says "8% full". So I'm not sure what the problem was. I'll try PM'ing you now.

we thought about getting an FB site domain name, or a website, or some such link. So that we could refer persons to a link. That would be populated with show & tell pix of lead, and links to the horror that lead causes to the environment. But .... is probably overkill. No one is doubting, or asking for links anyhow. haha

I will never forget the time I had just gotten off work (where we do wear orange safety vest when driving the equipment). And I had gone straight to an oldtown demolition site in our city. A 1920s theater that was being prepped for teardown. So the insides were being gutted for any salvage materials. So for a day-or-two, a few of us made sport of finding coins in all the nooks and crannies around the yesteryear concession stand, ticket booth, air-vent-grates, etc... A few of us were md'ing there, making quite a racket with our crowbars, when we heard a cop on a loudspeaker outside , ordering us to "come out with our hands up ". Apparently a neighboring business had heard some of this after hours racket, and thought someone was up to no-good inside there ! We emerged from the dark building, out to the exterior. But he took one look at me, wearing my yellow vest, and busted out laughing. Said : "Oh, sorry to bother you guys. Didn't know you were still working this late. Someone called because they thought homeless persons were in here up to no good. Carry on. Sorry to bother you". And he left. It was only THEN that I realized that I was still wearing a yellow vest. And this had led him to assume we were workers. I'm fine with that. We went back inside and resumed our work 🙂

HHhhmmm, let me look into this when I get back to my work 'puter tomorrow. I didn't know "in-boxes" could be "full". I'll get back to you. Thanx !

And a funny "aha moment" occurred the other day when Brian (cal cobra) and I were on the beach : I normally don't chit-chat with passerbys. If you get the "what are you finding ?" question, I just say "a few pennies" and ignore them. And I would assume that the only reason to point to the hat, is if someone is griping for some reason. HOWEVER : Our two friends Aaron and Mark (who were wearing the hats this day) would gleefully point to their hats, and show a few sinkers from their aprons. And I figured that any passerby would "see right through that" and know that we're joking. BUT SURPRISINGLY people never questioned it. They were praising us. At first I thought "oh they're just joking around too". But then it became apparent that this noble cause was not doubted in the slightest. It was an eye-opener as to how good these hats could potentially be.

Thanx for all the input guys. Ok, here's the decision : The next hat run (once the current order is passed out) will drop the word "California".

Yes. That just occurred to me, after I'd posted the shameless pitch, that there's folk across the nation that chime in here. Doh ! Ok: If there is enough demand from other states : We can do the next run with a change of state name, to fit your state. Or we'll do a run where the word "California" is dropped.

Hats now available for distribution. If anyone is interested, PM me to arrange. $20 each, to cover our cost & shipping. This is the brain-child of a local friend of mine : "Aaron". Initially in response to a "Karen" type ranger, who had questioned a few guys md'ing on a certain beach in our area. But once he pushed back with the "lead removal" retort, the lady ranger seemed satisfied. We got a good laugh out of that. So the idea of the hat was born. And strangely enough, at another beach, a month or two later, it actually came in handy : Because it turns out, a nature-lover Sierra club hippy-type griped that our detecting on a low tide bedrock surface, was harming the Sea Anemones, or kelp, or whatever. But we pointed to the hat, showed them a handful of sinkers, and explained that we were doing a volunteer lead removal service for the wildlife. The person brightened up , and began to praise our efforts ! Brilliant Not sure about other parts of the USA, but where we're at, has various self-appointed "nature monitor" types. Who will chide you if they think you're bothering mating sea-lions. Or if you're harming the ice-plant, blah blah. And then of course any archie-minded ranger types who might think we're bumping into cultural heritage issues on the beach (which, thankfully, has never gained traction on state-of-CA ocean beaches) And it's actually a truism that : Lead is bad for the environment. A quick google search shows this. This is why, for example, lead bullets are outlawed for certain types hunting now. And why, for example, construction/demolition sites (building tear-downs) can be required to have hazmat measures, if inspectors think they've found lead in the soil. So let's all help our planet ! We're not out for old coins or jewelry. NNNeeeooohh. Those are only the pesky objects that get in the way of our lead sinker abatement objective. If you're interested in getting some of these hats : PM me.