RickUK

A terrific question,i do own many many machines from old Classics right upto the latest multi freq that cost 4 figures or more,do these newer modern machines find me more ?? i have found the reverse,my old original green T2 from 2006/7 has still found me more gold hammered/milled coinage than all my other machines put together.

Do the latest machines have some advantages my reply would be yes on say highly mineralised sites,but for 95% of the time a single freq detector will do here in the UK of course not on wet sand etc,since i started using my Deus 1 about 7/8 years ago my find rate plummeted like a lead balloon as did when i started using my Nox 3 years back,so after giving these 2 popular machines a go and with 100s if our on both and many other high end machines my finds rate never returned,but when i started using my old faithful T2 and also my old DFX in single freq my finds rate shot up again back to how it was many years ago.

The amount of settings that need to be changed on these modern machine i honestly dont thing folks gain much,simplicity and enjoyment and increase back into my old finds level is why i love using my T2,it takes just seconds to setup and i am away finding decent finds again.

1 hour ago, Shelton said:

That is right... so I have two. Butterfly double 10 low frequency inches and CC 10 high frequency. We see. Im using also Pathfinder twobox from Nexus... and that is part of electronic art.

The 11'' 24khz is a really lovely coil,also the 8x6,10'' and 13'' LF coil.....my favourite is still the old standard SE model with the dual 9'' coil i may possibly take the MP out this weekend on a roman site as i have not used it for a while,have the machine on charge and currently have the 11'' coil on it because the permission is very trashy as usually roman sites are.

Certainly a very interesting machine,look forward to see how the larger coils performs,not your everyday use coil for sure,obviously aimed at deep artefact hunting and WW2 military items....deep machine for sure.

Welcome from 20 miles north of Londinium,tis a great forum for sure,never used a Vanquish but they certainly do seem a very popular detector here in good old Blighty.

90+% i use my T2 as my main machine and either my Deus or Nox as a back up,as almost all of my detecting is done inland then single freq machines suit me just fine,my original green T2 from 2007 has found me more gold hammer and milled coins and also silver hammered coins that all my other detector and i own and use alot of them.....but my T2 is still the best all time detector.

2 hours ago, Grewocckl said:

Thanks for the reply, I am looking for £300-£400 but have had no interest 

If i recall correctly that Staffs Detectors had one a few months back and that X5 went for about £275,a X3 goes for about £225-250,unless its in mint condition then you could possibly get a bit more,but although folks across the pond use too like them they are a rare beast in the UK and also getting a bit long in the tooth as they say.

Not sure what the current prices for the X5 on the 2nd hand market,but i purchased a brand new one i think it was around 2007 and the new price for them here in the UK about £1000,build quality was amazing,i used one for about 2 years every weekend so did have a fair few hours on the clock....my personal opinion is that it was and still has been the worse detector that i have ever owned and i own alot 25 at the moment and very rarely do i sell one....but someone wanted on so badly that over a 2 year time duration i only lost about £25.

I phoned Troy up many times but we could never sort the iron rejection issue sorted out,as i have mentioned it was a lovely well built detector but terrible in amongst iron even with the 7'' coil and the 10x5 i think it was.....so when someone offered me cash i could not get rid of it quick enough,they never did sell may over here and rarely come onto the UK 2nd hand market.

I never listen to hearsay in the detecting world,i much prefer to wait until the item is actually on sale,and even then if its a brand new detector that has just been launched i would still wait a minimum of 12-18 months to see if any design flaws or other issues appear....which of course they do happen.

Great read Steve,and yes a extremely rare find,often seen as the Holy Grail of gold coinage here in the UK,it may be seen as really bet up,but the main coin itself is untouched and will handed over to a skilled goldsmith to be heated to the correct temperature and will be made totally flat again back into near perfect condition,that also will then be a stunning coin again and wont detract anything from the value of this rare find.

Steve,great story on a great find,a extremely valuable coin as well,very well found.

5 hours ago, Jim in Idaho said:

I think Karelian, in his tests on the Pro, decided that coil is one of, if not the best, coil for small objects. If you dig back in his tests, you may find that, Rick.

Best,

Jim

Hi Jim,many thanks for you reply,just checked and this coil does indeed seem to work exceptionally well on the TDI Pro,as this band new coil was on offer at a crazy low price with the option of a offer i made a very low cheeky offer and it was accepted.....so very please with that result...coil should be here on tuesday.

Would like some help please on a specific coil for my TDI Pro,i have the option of buying this brand new Coiltek 6'' Mono coil which was of course specifically designed for the GPX range of detector,the GPX Mono coils do work very well on my TDI Pro as i own and use most of them on the TDI.

Has anyone specifically used this small 6'' Mono coil i am looking at using it most of the time because i am using smaller coils more and more due to the problems that i am hving with a broken wrist that i had from a bike accident decades ago,does anyone have any thoughts on this combination please.

Been detecting since 1970 not all the time but did have a few small breaks,cannot recall how many i have used but currently own 25 detectors and 51 coils as i got my 15'' Nox coil last week to add to the collection,biggest problem is storing them all.

$teve,as usual some interesting input on the state of the most popular detecting machines around at the moment,the main 2 that you have mentioned that i use are of course the Deus and the Equinox as these machines basically cover all my everyday use.The 2 other that i am dusting off and plan on using more are the Nexus MP and the TDI Pro both the latter detectors are for real deep artefact hunters and best suited for pasture sites,both are deep especially with the larger coils that can be used on them but not used them much this year due to the Covid lockdown.

Thanks again for your thoughts on what is currently happening in the detector market but still my favourite machine and the one i grab as i am heading out is the Deus with the HF elliptical coil.

If in doubt dont,i have kept fish for over 50+ years and if i have had any doubts and it may harm any of the fish then its not used how ever pretty the rocks are.

Absolutely outstanding find,cannot beat finding full and quarter gold staters,found a similar hoard about 6 years ago but only 20 full staters which was Whadam Chase variations of the coins.These 20 coins had been been found in a very tight 75ft radius which indicates a scattered pot hoard rather than say a purse drop,alas we never did locate the pot/container or what ever the coins had been in and alas we never will as the farmer sold the land and the new owner wont allow anyone to detect.

he heading in the Daily Mail story mentions it was found by bird watchers which of course still requires the farmers/landowners permission on the land in the first place,public footpaths can of course run through such private land but if you are neither given permission initially from the land owner or you venture onto the land off the footpath then you are basically trespassing.

The trouble is that the Daily Mail is possibly not the most reliable source of decent reliable news and i would take some of the comments with a slight pinch of salt.Still a absolutely stunning find and possibly one of the top finds of 2020 as most detectorists or even bird watchers have been in lockdown mode for most of the year and currently still are.

Happy New Year to all members of Detector Prospector.

22 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

There have been many threads here that discuss the TDI's, and especially mods for the TDI/SL.  I recall some comments that not all TDI/SL (including the SPP variant) could be juiced up by simply adding more voltage.  Those concerns claimed the date-of-manufacture was a tipoff to whether or not a higher voltage would help.  (I don't know if those claims were solid/verified, though.)  Reg Smith was the expert outside of White's but unfortunately (in many more ways than just this) he's no longer around.

The only issue with using GPX coils (including aftermarket/3rd party versions) on the TDI's that I'm aware of is that sometimes the DD's don't work well on at least some TDI's (whether it's model dependent or just individual unit variation dependent, I don't remember).  But the monos (AFAIK) work great.

Must admit i have never used a GPX DD coil on my TDI Pro,only ever used the Mono coil and as you have mentioned they work a treat,one big advantage with using the GPX Mono coils is that you can pick them all up relatively dirt cheap brand new as most of mine cost me peanuts and i mean peanuts.

The TDI Pro is plenty deep enough for my needs and that is mainly on specific sites mainly my roman trading villa site,if i want the same depth or deeper then my one of my Nexus machines come out to play as that then offers me the same depth as a Pulse but with full discrimination its a no brainer really.

I personally would never ever use just one VDI reading when hunting for gold,as the shape and gold content can vary by a massive amount,also the same thing goes for any form of jewellery and even gold hammered coinage once again all down to the gold content and additives that are used.Also gold can come down into the iron range as well.

I never ever make a dig/no dig decision on what the TDI tells me,audio is king all the time if it gives a decent audio signal it has to come out,relying on what a TDI tels you is mainly i think a US pastime i guess its because almost all your coinage etc are of a specific size and weight and the silver/gold content is a specific standard as well,but in the UK gold and also silver content over the years and mainly with hammered coinage can alter by a massive amount.

For me using solely TID for detecting alas is not advisable in my mind,the theory sounds good but in practice and from previous experience i never ever do it.

I only have ever used the TDI Pro with the big battery,never really liked the 'S' shaped shaft of the 'sl' version,mainly use mine also in straight PI mode for the extra depth but when i am on my roman trading villa site which is basically like a 40 acre black beach but 70 miles inland then i will use it in target conductivity mode and must admit although i loose a small amount of depth it does work very well at discriminating out the non desirables.

Regarding coils for the TDI Pro,although i do have the Whites stock coil and the 7.5DF ones the main ones i use are Minelab Mono coils and also the coils made for Jimmy Sierra by Miner John i bought some at a crazy low price brand new when he closed down a few years back,the largest one i like using is the 20'' Sierra Grande Mono.

Wont ever part with mine as they are getting very hard to get hold of these days.

Interesting topic,for the most part after doing tests on various size gold jewellery and small gold coins the Deus with the HF elliptical coil for gold coins like full staters the 30khz is ample for these size coins and also at reasonable depth as well.The settings that i personally use are the Hot programme XY screen and and either 30khz or 80khz for when i am after really small gold either coins or jewellery,small coins like 1/4 gold staters they will get smacked but of course the smaller the gold item and the worse case scenario gold chains then unless they have say a clasp or something else solid attached to the chain they start getting very hard to nail.

Small gold solid items are generally easy to locate its the small fine chains that are the elusive ones and almost all detectors will struggle finding these items although some are slightly better than other,a few that stand out in my detecting arsenal are the Nox c/w 6'' coil,TDI Pro with either the 7.5'' DF coil or my 10x5 Miner John folded mono and possibly my deadliest combination is my Mirage pulse with the 5'' Mono coil that was designed by Sven in Canada as that does have fine gold timing on and although possibly not the deepest option it certainly does not miss much even small chains.

As a general rule i am not into dedicated small gold jewellery hunting,but i can only highlight what works for me over the years and the equipment that i own and use or in some cases have found out just by doing some tests when unable to get out etc.One machine i will also add into the equation although i would not consider it to be a suitable candidate as a gold machine but my DFX with the 10x6 coil has found me a fair amount of gold items albeit they are not extremely small but it does have that certain something that the machine loves gold mainly gold coins.

The GPZ7k would probably be the very last machine to use for single coin hunting,of course they do give phenomenal depth but also would pick up about ever other non desirable target going unless you are into detecting sadism and i doubt that many are 😀. They would be fine going in for the kill as i call it when you have been detecting a scattered coin hoard and you have think you have located the centre of the hoard site and its deep.

But i personally would use a VLF machine and on the very odd occasion that a Pulse was required due to the soil conditions then a GPX or TDI Pro would be my option over the GPZ due to these having some sort of iron rejection.

The field right behind my garden before it was built on last year was one of the finest saxon villages in the area,provided many silver hammered and roman coins over the last 10 years,i can also see the main A1 roman road from London up North from my bedroom window.So yes i do totally agree of having a back garden treasure hunt.

Infact about 10ft from my boundry we found part of a Bronze Age axe,alas its all concrete and tar in the last 12 months but we probably have saved the best bits.

It sounds interesting but must admit i cannot see the logic behind it or would want to give it a try on my DFX,had mine for 17 years and never had the urge to play a stupid tune on it 🙂

Obviously it must be a design fault as so many folks have reported this problem,but must admit i have never had any issues with any coil lugs snapping in all the decades that i have been detecting.Currently still own and use 50 coils in my collection and non have ever cracked but i will admit that after hearing about this Equinox coil lug issue i did invest in a coil lug strengthener from Ebay.

The only coil i thought i would have issues with but never did was the stock coil on my original T2,rather than tightening the coil bolts up really tight and possibly bending the lugs in and stressing them i usually add a small spacer and pack the rubbers out so they dont bend it.

Alas its not as easy as picking other folks brains on what settings to use,what settings works for someone will not necessary work for anyone one else.How a machine is setup across the pond for the local coinage and conditions in your specific location can be totally different to how we setup a machine here in the UK.

Things like ground conditions,metal used in the coins and coins size ie for the most part in the US the coinage is milled and to a certain extent a consistent standard in the metal/s used so you can be pretty certain of the consistency but here in the UK for many 100s of years the coinage was hammered and not milled and the size although pretty standard for each specific coin/s the purity of the gold and silver can vary by a massive margin and is basically dictated by how the economy was doing at the the time if it was going through a lean time then the silver quality could be reduced by a fair amount and i guess gold could also be as well but not to the extent of silver coinage and other silver artefacts. 

Also another factor and a major one as well is what is the ground conditions and also are the soil condition pretty clean or is alot of trash due to human habitation around the detecting site,if its a trashy site then one would not use the stock or large coil so this then could also means possibly using the smaller coil and then you would also need to adjust settings accordingly.

In detecting no one set of settings do it all,you can also get a high amount of different suggested setting that folks could post up but non may work as we dont have the full knowledge of your condition.

Very well done,the 6'' coil on the Nox on trashy sites make a deadly combination,not all shabby on depth either although you do loose out on ground coverage.