King-Of-Bling

At least he didn't show all his probes hanging in the shower !

Definitely a great find. Pretty rare to find something that old that still has some good detail. The ones I've found were never that nice.

1 minute ago, Sirius said:

Fluffy sand is the worst from what I experienced over the weekend. There's just nothing to be found there.

Yeah , I give that about 15 minutes of hunting then bail. When your feet sink 4" on every step it's not good. On very rare occasions bigger surf will vomit light jewelry up high , but typically it sucks.

2 minutes ago, Sirius said:

Made some more observations these last few days. The gravel bed that I used to hunt on my favorite beach has pretty much gone and the coins with it. Instead something else popped up on the beach which is really compact gravelly sand further down. This area shifted from being a bad area to a loaded area with plenty of coins to be had, including the surprising find of a standing liberty! It is important to note that the area where there was compact gravelly sand also did not have a barrier of gravel where the waves meet the beach, thus more stuff was able to migrate up the wet sand I would think.
This idea was replicated at another beach where the main focus was in front of gravel beds with no gravel at the water line, and I found tons of coins as well as a really worn merc dime, a silver ring, and possibly a silver heart of some sort. Solid day today, but man i'm tired. No gold yet, but i'm still trying!

Sounds like you have a good area and are learning alot. I love that gravelly sand in general. Also start paying attention to the colors. Over time you will be able to just look at the sand color and know if it's going to be a good day or not. A deep PI machine is my weapon of choice for this scenario. GL

13 minutes ago, cjc said:

Tempting to say that the 900 is how M/L fixes a leak and gets  you to pay--but it does have some nice touches.  

Seems that these  days, everyone with a puffed out chest and a YouTube channel is a teacher (or even "Detexpert)"--basic skills and theory notwithstanding.  Amazing how many of these guys have the slickest tech out in hand but still manage to dig spikes, odd  flyspecks and massive, miss-shapen lumps of iron--like I said, basic skills  notwithstanding.  It also  concerns me that Ml/L is so smittten with the tech of the Manticore that they  don't think that anyone needs Sizing Pinpoint to tell whats what.  (To me that's the bread and butter of becoming accurate any machine).  Watching these  YouTube experts, many do-- (if they had the basic target correlation skills to make use of it).  There I've said it all...breathing heavy--gotta sit down--or lie down...or something...😆

cjc

Imagine releasing a product that doesn't properly do what you promised it would do.... and then blaming the malfunction on those  people who didn't purchase said product....whilst telling those who bought it that they must buy it again every 6 months...😂

4 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

I don't like the way the guy chose to edit his new video trying to explain what Mark explained to him what facts were wrong with his original video.

Why go to all this "Here's this part of the video from yesterday' and then insert a rambling interpretation of what you think Mark said.

Just say "This is what I said yesterday and this is what Mark had to say about that."

So much easier than muddying the waters on what was wrong about your original video and what you now know is correct after talking/corresponding with Mark.

 

I agree on this one. I usually like his videos. Except for some of his sound effects and comedic bits he sometimes throws in. These were a bit strange. But I do give him credit for getting a response/reply from ML. Nobody else seems to get a reaction. Better than that other guy , who I just don't watch anymore.

That looks to be in great shape. Good going.

Triple gold ! Notice you slowed down. Where 1 gold is , there is often another nearby. I'm jelly. Haven't found gold in like...well , 2 weeks. Lol

1 hour ago, strick said:

What the heck is a sled run ? If you don’t mind me asking  🙂

strick

Look close up on the top edge. Dad holding the plastic sled for his daughter. She's gonna get on it and he will push her over the edge down to the people below. Happens all the time here. Sand skiing on the beach. Lol

1 hour ago, Sirius said:

I'm hunting in the winter, so I'm not sure where the towel line is and it's probably been hunted out already by actual local detectorists. My best bet is the new stuff that keeps washing in at that gravel bed, but I will be checking out a nearby smaller new beach soon. As soon as my hands heal from over working them these past two days!  
Haven't seen many cuts, and the only cuts i've seen so far are from stuff getting sanded in. Waves are up to that cut already so it's tough to get into that area. I didn't find much when I went there last week. 
Thanks for the advice!

Look for towel lines like this. It is also a 12-14' cut. And a giant sled run. These should be easy to find. Lol

29 minutes ago, UT Dave said:

My wife spends about $300 a month at the hair salon, the nail salon, the eyelash salon.  I figure I'll keep buying myself new toys as I see fit until her hair falls out.

- Dave

I hear that. I been trying to convince the wife to shave her head. That way I could have a different flavored (color) girl whenever I wanted. But then I realized that quality wigs cost a small fortune.😂

I don't care what kind of product it is. I refuse to knowingly be a beta tester without being properly compensated. It is not my job. When buying a detector I expect it to have already been run through the gauntlet , gone through the company testing procedures and in my hands as the intended finished product. Anything other than that I expect to be paid , given products , etc. It should be illegal that a company knowingly releases an unfinished product and says "Let us know if you find anything wrong with it" or "we should be able to repair it with a software update". I'm not talking about cellphones or computers where they are constantly under attack from hackers and security updates are expected and required. It's a damn metal detector. So I'll wait until you figure it out. And don't be ramming this 9 months of marketing promises down my throat either. Shame on you once ! I learned there won't be a second...

13 minutes ago, Sirius said:

here's a few graphics to illustrate this idea.

I would in no way compare the 2. Not for free anyway. This is where you can start to get into specifics after you locate the appropriate beach. I don't mind offering a bit of free advice , but not for days on end. Stuff that took me along time to learn. You need to get out there and pay your dues. Put in the work. GL

9 minutes ago, Sirius said:

I've seen people wear waders if they wanted to be half in the surf. I probably can't go too deep because i've got into the surf before and got my glasses knocked off. Better to stay in the wet and run in when the tide recedes to do a quick scan. Also wearing a hat is probably important cause sunburns and all that good stuff.
The Legend has a bottle cap reject feature and seems to work pretty well. The most I find are going to be targets like can slaw, and for some reason a ton of copper wiring. 

I seldom wade in the water anymore. If your not finding good targets within 20-30 minutes , pick up the pace , move to a more promising spot down the beach. Or go to a different beach. By good targets I mean clad , junk jewelry and mainly fishing weights. When you find all 3 , slow down. Gold is nearby .

27 minutes ago, Sirius said:

Hunting during a storm is pretty risky and I personally wouldn't want to get soaked. But the hunting from high tide down to low tide is a pretty solid plan especially if high tide is early morning. Plenty of time to hunt, and it's something i'm planning to do this sunday!
Would you also suggest picking a few beaches you know would produce to narrow your search down? Seems like a few of these beaches just keep on giving time after time even with other detectorists around! So It might be cool to keep searching the same areas for new goodies that might have washed up.

Those are all great suggestions. I always have 2 or 3 beaches as backups if my 1st choice doesn't produce. You only want to hunt what is comfortable for you. Me personally , I was born a surf rat. Always in or around water. High risk = high reward. I typically wear shorts , a rain jacket , 3 finds bags , often barefoot. Others wear wetsuits or other rain gear, etc. Low tides are not always the best but allow you to cover more ground. Often they are loaded with lightweight trash like bottlecaps and light foil. All depends. Troughs , sandbars,  rocks , sand texture and compaction all play a factor.

Look. I could probably write a book on generalized beach hunting tips. There are the generic basics that most people already know. Most importantly is knowing your beaches. This is done over years , and often decades. Tons of research and physical beach inspections. All this equates to experience on your own local beaches.

But here is 1 tip over the decades that have paid off for me. Hunt DURING a storm and at HIGH TIDE and follow it down. If you were ever to be thrown in the fire , this is it. Not always possible and can be dangerous. But often targets bleed out , rolling down the slope before they are reburied. Eyeball finds can also be for the taking. GL & HH !

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

Well it's simple, the Nox wasn't near as good on silver coins as my CTX in my soils.  This is especially true as most of my silver coins are deep having been in the ground a long time in soft soils and the CTX is certainly deeper than the Nox in this situation finding many coins I'd left behind with my Nox, without a doubt it is deeper.   

I found myself not using my Nox much at all anymore for coins after getting a CTX due to finding so many coins I'd missed with my Nox, I liked the CTX target trace too.  The problem is the Nox was lighter, less complicated and more compact, plus I could just take one detector as I could use the Nox for gold nuggets in the morning and then hit a park in the afternoon with it.  I liked it was an all rounder.

The Manticore ended up being a crossover between the Nox and CTX bringing the Target trace across to what I see as essentially an upgraded Nox.   They also touted it as deeper than the Nox, I'm yet to see this depth advantage although I haven't used it in the places that will take advantage of that as I was away for 6 weeks.  So far I'm very happy with my Manticore, the only downside is it has significantly less stable Target ID than the Nox perhaps due to the wider target ID range but there is something more to it as the numbers are often bouncing within 10 digits out not 2-3 out, I see Nox 900 users are reporting similar.   

For someone that's used both the Nox and the CTX the Manticore is not such a big learning curve, more a successive model.

Ahhh....OK. Thanks for clarification , it makes sense now as to why you wanted it so bad. Hope you get those bouncing #s figured out. Those are big gap swings. Looking forward to your successful hunts with it.

21 hours ago, phrunt said:

I certainly wouldn't say I'm skilled in iron, put me in some of the places you guys hunt and I'd panic not knowing what to do or how to deal with it, I've been spoilt with my hunting areas that trash has never really been much of a problem, even in my worst spots all that is required is a smaller coil and I'm pretty good.  Masked targets are relatively uncommon for me, big areas, few targets.

I even hear people saying their gold prospecting areas are loaded with trash, here I've rarely found any modern trash in a gold area other than bullets and shotgun pellets.  Some of the more rare trash items like old metal match boxes which can be a pain as they rust away and break apart into bits and the odd square nail there isn't all that much junk.  I think I've found less than 10 nails prospecting my entire time. If shotgun pellets didn't exist I'd dig more gold than I would junk when prospecting, something like 10 bits of gold to 1 bit of junk wouldn't surprise me.

Even in my park type areas coins are often more common than junk, the worst place for junk I've been finding is lakefronts which is such a shame as the lakes are beautiful clean clear things and clowns throw bottle caps down on the rocky beaches when they're sitting there drinking I guess, sadly this is more common on the heavily used tourist beaches more so than the more hidden spots locals only go to. 

I detected this beach for 4 hours with my Manticore, it was one of my first times using it once it arrived, I found ZERO targets, not one target in that 4 hours.  If I didn't know better I'd not have a good impression of the Manticore after that hunt, but I was at the same beach a year ago and with the Nox and only found one target, someones car key from memory.  The surprising thing is this beach is a 10 minute drive from the city center of the second biggest city in the South Island, and has suburbs go right to the beach and houses all along next to the beach, why there is no targets on the beach I have no idea, people just don't litter so all I can find is something someone has lost.... not an easy task.

At this beach I would have been happy to find some junk, at least then I'd find a target to experience my Manticore finding targets!

So no, I'm not a skilled detector user although I thank you for the comment, I am just lucky I live in a place with not much junk, very few detector users so more targets in the ground to find, and by the looks of it some of the more milder soils around, all this makes for some easy detecting so generally I am just a turn on and go detector user, not needing to delve deep into settings. 

I don't think Manticore owners are beta testers, 3 years in development based on existing technology of the Nox that's been around for 4-5 years now, it to me is an Equinox where they've put on a better screen which then allowed them to add on 2D target trace visuals which is just a modified simplified version of the CTX target trace which has been around what, a decade?  If anything the original Nox users were the beta testers as it was the first detector based upon Multi-IQ, and for the most part Minelab did a fine job of the software on it, a few updates were required, they never did fix the pinpoint volume bug on it but overall it appeared a well tested machine with only build quality letting it down.  They've now improved that on the Nox 700/900 and Manticore, based upon data they gathered from the original Nox, the detector that would be more likely considered a beta detector, being the first in the range.

I'd be interested to hear if the pinpoint bug is fixed on the 700/900.

I took a break from reading your posts because I was actually out hunting for a few weeks solid. I'm happy you finally got a Manticore. It seems all I read was you crying for months about not getting 1 fast enough. Ok.

So now I read that you don't really have trash to worry about. Seldom do you deal with rusty nails , coins are more common than trash in parks , masking is not an issue , relatively barren beaches , etc , etc ,etc.

My big question then is why not just stick with your trusted Nox and save yourself (and us) all this aggravation ? Unless I'm reading this wrong , you don't really need a Manticore to do what the Nox has been doing for you all along. Just seems like you would be constantly setting yourself up for failure on every new release and never truly be happy with what you got. Never mastering any one detector. 

8 minutes ago, TampaBayBrad said:

I don't know the mechanics of how they work. I imagine screen sifter size is a big deal. But if it's small enough to hold coins or rings, you would think it would back up easily and not allow them to drive as fast as they do.

I think being in a tourist area like I am, the rake is mainly used for appearance of the sand. There is no trash at all on the beach where I see these guys running in the early morning EVERY day. Not enough time to get trashy in between runs.

I find deep coins in the dry sand 8"-10" down, so was wondering if these machines swipe them off the top layer or if they can't get that small.

Most are adjustable for depth. They usually only go about 3" down. The speed they drive is a big indicator of how deep they are going. Also it doesn't take much for fresh drop coins and jewelry to sink 10" down in dry sand on a crowded beach. My advice : go up to 1 of the maintenance guys at your beach building early in the morning and chat a few minutes , look at the machines they use. That's all I did. But I also talk and chat when they jump out of the rig to look for treasure under the guise of checking the operation of the screens. Lol

Lots of different types of machines are used with different size screens , etc. Have seen them up close and every operator I've talked to looks for treasure. Mainly bigger finds that catch their eyes like chains and phones. One of the reasons we find so many dimes here is because they fall through the holes. Beach cleaners by no means get everything. The key is finding where they dump the piles from the bucket. Sometimes at the high tide line bit more often in a dumpster. Which I have gone through with a sifter. Have made some great finds but generally very time consuming and labor intensive. 

What I learned from your video : #1- you state you find alot of gold there. #2- you are passing over signals I would dig. #3- a garden rake may be helpful for taking the top layer off.

Nice little diamond ring. 99% of those earrings are junk , so it pays to look closely at them. I think I found its sister about a week ago. Haha

3 hours ago, Compass said:

  On 1/16/2023 at 6:13 PM, strick said:

The manticore ID's these targets correctly and with a faint whisper but then after the first scoop or two the target may entirely disappear...never fear it's still down there just keep scooping till it's out.

 

  On 1/16/2023 at 6:51 PM, abenson said:

Agree about those deep targets disappearing after the first scoop. Just keep digging and eventually the target ends up in the pile.

That is one thing I hate with the Equinox too. The D2 and Tarsacci do not do this.

Really makes target recovery in the active wave wash a PIA.  Def a Minelab thing. 

 

Thanks for the feedback guys! FWIW, I just hunted a few black sand beaches since January 1st, mostly with my pulse detectors, and I saw the same thing. Not only would the target disappear from the hole, but the pile of accumulated black sand that I would dump to the side of the hole with my scoop would now give a false signal making it sound like the target had moved. I can't believe that I had never noticed this before and I can only imagine how confusing this would be to someone new to beach detecting.

Nice to hear that the Manticore seems to be able to not only handle the black sand but also produce accurate TID's in the black sand as well. I don't think that the same can be said about the Nox 800, at least from my limited experience with it.

1 thing I have noticed over the years is not all blacksand is created equal. They could even look exactly the same but have a higher mineralized content. If receiving a solid small signal , it should be the same out of the hole. But not always ,  primarily due to target position. This rarely ever happens in clean sand , only the heavy black. Quite often the target is lost in the pile you just dug , lost in the high point being masked. Admittedly I've walked away from a few like this. Always kick and flatten down the piles for easier detection. Specifically looking for the gold against the black background ! Another secret : don't be afraid to go back over piles that others have abandoned. You may find a surprise !

On 1/20/2023 at 3:10 PM, matt said:

That's awesome! I wonder if the gold coin was a drop from a long time ago or if it fell off jewelry? No way to probably even know.

Thanks. I believe it was lost many years ago. No jewelry marks on it. Also an older beach with old coins.

Won't go into a bragfest but 8 hunts in a row with at least one gold. Includes doubles and triples. I know my streak will end soon as conditions are rapidly changing. Have put in many hours and been lucky on some finds with better hunters nearby. Only a few rare individuals are willing to risk it in massive surf , high tides , pouring rain or in the dark. 

No need to show or go into the diamond rings , bands , 30+ silver coins , gold tooth , endless clad porn , sinkers and trash because....anyone can find those right ?🤣

The 1906 5 pesos gold coin was found yesterday about 1' down and sounded just like a deep nickel. It is only the 2nd gold coin I've ever found. The 32 gram chain is 22k. Found in the crashing surf with Real Ratfink nearby. 1 scoop and I could see it dangling from the side of the hole as a wave came crashing in. I immediately jumped on it with both feet. 2nd scoop nabbed it with a foot of it hanging out the scoop. I haven't yelled on a find in decades as I ran up the slope and we both had an "OMG" moment. The chain is 24" long.

Here's where it gets tricky. The chain has no clasp. But the color and weight tells me it's high karat. Acid test at 18k would start to fade after a minute. My jeweler , who is very good at repairs had some older analog machine with a needle gauge that read 14k. Off to my 2nd stop the We Buy Gold Place. His acid test said no way this is 18k and he wouldn't be comfortable buying it without his brother present (who also gives me better prices). Off to my 3rd stop , the coin store. His acid test showed the same as mine. So I waited for 2 hours for his guy to show up with his yellow gun digital analyzer.  Google it. These go for $20-30k. Within 5 seconds he says "solid 22k". I sold it on the spot. Long story short , this guy who tests metals for a living says to change out your acid every 6 months if you want to be remotely accurate. Mine is 5 years old and the coin shops was 2.

The recent hunts flashback to my youth decades ago where hunts like this were a bit more common. Anyways , HH & GL out there !