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CPT_GhostLight
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Posts posted by CPT_GhostLight
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Congrats on the gold and silver, great job!
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17 hours ago, Doc Bach said:
That's not a bad array of finds their Captain.Looks like you have the bug and are on your way to becoming a relic hunting fanatic for certain.Keep digging those big iron targets and you will eventually be rewarded with something outstanding.On the rare occasion iron even leads to surprises and much better things including non metallic items.
Thank Doc! I will dig that big iron! One of my first detecting finds when I tried detecting 40 years ago happened when we were out gold panning and I decided to try out my brand new Fisher Gold Bug while poking around in a dilapidated old cabin frame near the creek. I got a huge hit in the corner of the timbers and just new I hit a chest full of gold nuggets. It turned out to be the door to an old iron potbelly stove, but as I pulled up the door, underneath was an intact small Kuhn's Remedy Co. bottle (circa 1880s) with the cork stopper still in it. It's sits on my desk as a reminder to check always everything! 😉
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6 hours ago, Bill in MI said:
What all is involved in the modification?
Here's a good thread showing a couple of different mods for the simplex carbon lower shaft.
Personally, I just removed the rubber stopper in the top of the shaft and sanded the sides of the part that fits into the coil. I also put a thin round plastic shim (with a hole drilled in it) on one side of the shaft hole and the stock simplex rubber washer on the other side. That's it and it works great.
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9 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:
Congrats on a great bunch of relics, Cap'n. 👍 Top picture top left is a Model T valve cover, I find them all the time. The "Neusilber" thing is "German Silver", or nickel silver. I almost misread the "Face Cream" compact or lid. 😀
Doesn't look like you're missing a thing with the Deus 2, truly killing it. Great stuff! That '32 penny does look new.
Thanks, F350! I was wondering what that hub looking thing was. It was in the vacinity of the license plate. German Neusilber was common and cheaper back in the day. My grandpa used to call it "Near Sliver". 😆
Yeah that Face Cream lid made me do a double take too! 🤣
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3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:
Most USA minted coins from 1931-33 are moderate (to low) mintage. Apparently those early Great Depression years didn't see much need for freshly minted coins. Your 32-D Lincoln fits that generalization and it appears to have hardly made it out of the mint before it was lost. A lot of date+mm issues for those three years weren't even produced, especially at the branch mints. Only cents were produced in all three years, all three in Philly and Denver, with only the semi-key 1931-S coming out of San Francisco for that time period.
Thanks for the report. Looks like your relics give you a good picture of the living conditions of that site when it was in its populated years.
Thank you for the information on the coin, GB_A! The rails and ties are long gone from this track and from the looks of the things I was finding, I think it must have been in decline by the time of the depression.
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Great finds again, F350, keep 'em coming!
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I've been trying to improve my relic hunting chops since I detected my first ghost town a little over a year ago. For a relatively new detectorist, it was a daunting experience, but I managed to make a couple of cool finds and was instantly hooked on relics. Hunting in "machine gun iron" is not for the faint of heart and I was mentally and physically exahausted after my first relic hunt. At that time I was using my Nox 800 with the 11" coil and it was absolute chaos in the headphones. Fortunately I had just received the Coiltek 10x5" coil and put that on and it was like night and day. That combination made the hunt manageable and was my first dip into the concept of separaration. Previously, I had just swung around in parks and would make an occasional good find but was completely oblivious to what I was missing.
As relic hunters know, separation is king. I got the Deus II last Spring largely because of it's reputaion of being able to separate well in iron. Of course the first thing to do was to learn the machine and learn how separating works on it. Learning basic operation of the D2 has been relatively easy, but learning the intricasies is where the learning curve is and I've been working hard on that. While I'm not to the end of that curve, I'm making some progress and it's starting to to show in the field.
Case and point is a hunt I did a little over a week ago when I followed the relic trail far enough to escape some of the frozen ground between the weekly snow storms. The site was pretty clear of snow but the wind was howling, but the hunt must go on! Following a railroad track, I came upon the scattered remains of a foundation. The iron in the ground was intense but I started turning up some personal artifacts and indications that there was a house or possibly hotel or gaming house at the location.
I have been trying to learn how to hunt by ear to be able to hear the differences in target sounds and while it's a work in progress I was able to hear some important differences. The best representaion of that was the 1932 wheat penny I found about 7 inches down in a veritable bed of nails. I was able to distinguish the penny sound mixed in with the nail grunts and falsing high tones. The ID showed a flashing mix of high and low numbers and if I was depending on that I would have passed it by, but I could hear the penny sound so I dug it.
That ended up bing the only coin I found but I did find some other interesting items including a miner's tag, suspender clips, a stocking clip, a small flower desing snap button, a metal 2-hole button, some smaller snap buttons, a couple of ladies brooches (one still has some gilding on the back), ladies face cream jar lids (circa 1890s-1920s), part of a 1936 license plate, and a back of a Victorian ladies watch marked "Neusilber", which is German nickel-silver. Unfortunately nickel silver has no silver in it, it's an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc. So while they're not necessarily jaw dropping finds, to me they're pieces of the history of lives lived long ago and possibly more clues to even bigger finds.
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Your finds are not boring to me. I love seeing all the history you unearth and there's something about that stirrup that caught my eye.
I look forward to your farm hunting tutorial too!
BTW, if you want to post it, I'd love to see a photo of the sword.
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Wow, congrats again, F350, very cool finds and that stirrup look very old. Well done!
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Great photos, strick, but what's wrong with the ground there, it just opens up when you tap it with a pick? And what's that funny color all over the ground? Oh, wait... I remember now, thats called green... I've seen that before... long ago. 🤣
But seriously, great finds and hunt, well done!
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Well congrats on the Barber, Buffie, IHP, Wheaties, and the Silver & Gold! It looks like some great hunts to me, Zincoln, specailly this time of year. Well done!
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What's the phrase... "It's not the tool, it's how well you use it!"
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I'll bite, the best detector out there for me is the one that works well for me in my hunting conditions right now, one that I feel comfortable with, and makes me a better detectorist.
I have had a few detectors over the years and some of them were very good detectors, but none of them were "the best out there" for me because I was inexperienced, impatient, and I wasn't ready or willing to take the time to learn the machines or detecting properly.
Years later when I was older, more patient, and ready to learn detecting, I bought what ended up being the "best out there" for me because it performed well and made me want to learn it thoroughly and learn more about detecting.
Now I feel I have progressed enough to take on a new more complex "best out there" detector that is working well for me and allowing me to learn even more about detectors and detecting. So I now have two "best out there" detectors, but they're only what is the Best Out There for me at this point in time, in my particular hunting scenarios.
As I progress in my learning and as detector technology progresses, there could come a time when I might feel I need a new "best out there" for me detector and regardless of brand I will consider adding it to my other "best out there" for me detectors, but for now I still have much to learn.
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Congrats on the Silver Ring, well done!
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Wow, that's an impressive haul, well done!
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Congrats on the silver & gold, well done!
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Congrats, Jeff, on the silver honker, that's a sweet looking ring!
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Well dang, F350, you're a Relicstar! I was impressed with that your buffalo nickel had a date, but the King James hammered silver... holy cow!!! What's next, the Holy Grail? If it's anywhere, it's probably in one of your fields! 😆
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Well there's something you don't find every day, congrats!
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21 hours ago, Ogliuga said:
Very good hunt, congrats!
Have you ever used Pitch? With Pitch you don’t need to look at the screen because you can easily recognize the targets depth due to the intensity of the tone. My program for mineralized soils is with Pitch tone and, in my opinion, is performing. Obviously, sound identification isn’t detailed but, if your soils are mineralized, Pitch can be a good choice..
Yes I do like Pitch and use it with a few programs like the Silver Slayer when cherry picking. Pitch works great, but I also want to learn the subtle responses of Full Tones to hear the differences in target conductivity and shape, as well as depth for relic hunting.
21 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:Are those the small aluminum caps from individual one drink size liquor bottles like sometimes served by airlines? I suspect you'll find plenty of the larger aluminum screw caps from liquor and wine bottles along those railroad tracks. I certainly do, often with the broken and jagged glass necks still attached. Some of those go way back (to the Great Depression), I suspect.
Yes those small caps are from what we use to call shot bottles. There were also some larger caps and broken bottle pieces which you can see in the last trash photo. The small screw caps are modern, the larger ones are older. I think that place has been a popular drinking spot for a long time. 😉
22 hours ago, JCR said:That’s a nice selection of old & newer keepers. Have you viewed that area & rail line on Historic Aerials? Must have been a busy spot.
Learning the audio subtleties of an expressive detector is well worth the time & effort, in fact you never stop learning.
Nice hunt & post. Thanks
Thanks, JCR. I did check that area on Historic Aerials. The railroad track was at the eastern edge of town in the 1940s and more houses show up on the east side beyond the track in the 1950s in the aerial phots which only go back to 1940s there. Early 1900s city maps show the same houses on the western edge of the track where they are in the first aerial photo, so I think there were people living next to the track for 120-140 years.
19 hours ago, F350Platinum said:Nice hunt Cap'n!
Does the ring have any marks inside? Looks like plated brass.
I've found lots of those airline liquor bottle caps myself 🙄 annoying. One field had lots of 82's (I always react to the tone and then look at the ID anyway) and they all turn out to be bullets. Another has 85's that are all bullets. Just one of those things... No harm no foul. If you didn't keep digging them you would not have got the ring!
High trash count but I don't seem much iron in there, great job 👍
Thanks F350. The ring doesn't have any hallmark that I can make out. I think it's plated too, it looks almost a identical to a ring I found at ghost town last Fall. The higher trash count was because I was trying to hunt by ear. I could tell many of the trash targets weren't good by the sound, but I dug them to verify. The iron was eay to tell so I only dug more interesting sounding pieces. I'm really liking Full tones like you suggested, it's got a lot of information going on in there. The hard part is learning to decipher the code, but I'm getting a little better. 😏
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Wow! How deep was it?
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Gongrats on the silver & gold! Great hunt,well done!
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Wow, pretty beach! It looks like your WS Master water rig worked flawlessly and you snagged another dream permission, what an awesome day, well done!
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The Deus and Deus II have a reputation for allowing you to hunt by audio only and as I continue to learn my D2, I've been on a mission to train my ears to hear good target sounds and not look at the ID display so much. It's a work in progress for me, but I thank all the more experienced hunters here who have shared their knowledge and tips. It is sinking in and I am getting to where I can apply some of your expertise to my particular hunting sites and conditions.
Without getting into my usual long winded detecting stories, I'll say that I've been developing a variation in the Fast program that will allow good unmasking and go deep with good target sounds and separation to use in my mineralized ground. Isn't that what everybody wants? 😉 But I want to be able to use it without having my gaze glued onto the screen all the time. That's the hard part, but it's coming along.
I went out to a running trail here in town that was built on top of an old 1800s railroad track that has been gone since the 60s. I wanted to see if I could find any older targets that might be there and if I could hunt more by sound than sight. I ran Fast in Full Tones, PWM audio, Disc at -2.0, no Notch, Reactivity 2, Silencer 2, B-Caps 3, Sensitivity 96 (remember these setting don't work everywhere). This running trail has some benches around it and is loaded with modern park type trash. The cement top of the trail sits on a 4-5 foot mound of dirt covering and following the old RR track. I suspected the dirt mound was original dirt pushed in to cover the tracks after the rails and ties were removed, so I sarted off hunting the slopes along the sides of the trail and finding period targets right away. The cool thing about this program is I could easily tell iron by the sounds and only dug iron targets that I was curious about. Coins sounded like coins so I only glanced at the screen on the Zinc pennies because they sounded good and scratchy at the same time and ID confirmed it.
The ring was a great test for audio hunting at this site. There was a bench on a concrete pad on top of the mound next to the trail and I was hitting these little black twist caps everywhere around the bench. They were all a solid 82, fairly shallow, and sounded identical, but after the 4th one I dug, there was a a similar sound, but slightly fainter and more solid sounding if that makes any sense. I checked the screen and it was a solid 82 as well. I figured it was another screw cap, but it was quite a bit deeper into the mound. Imagine my surprise when out popped an old looking ring. I think it's silver or silver plated.
So short story long, I'm getting a little better at hearing difference in target sounds on the D2 and I dug 7 identical 82 ID targets together, but one sounded a little different and it was! 🙂
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New D2 Software
in XP Deus II Forum
Posted
I've said it before, the update will come when it's ready. Until then I'm enjoying the hell out of my D2, quirks and all. Even when the update comes out there will still be quirks. All detectors have quirks. Even if there was a perfect detector, it wouldn't be perfect for all detectorists in all places. That's just the nature of the machines and the hobby. Meanwhile, if ya'll will excuse me, I'm going to go out and find stuff with my D2. 😎