F350Platinum

I have 3 fiberglass lowers, one for my Deus and 2 for the Manticore. I don't think fiberglass will act the same way, but certainly will find out. The ribbed structure of the lowers I have does tend to trap fine silt. 🤔 I haven't had much trouble as yet but I always clean my gear thoroughly after every water hunt now because I have had a seized rig in the past. The wax is working for me! 🙂

Quite an achievement, Skull. Not as much the end of a chapter as the top of your game. 🏆 I noticed right away that the M9 coil is a really great coil, and the Manticore is especially sensitive to low conductors.

Hope ya get that site cleaned up, ☘️🍀 Both a shamrock for St Patrick's Day and a 4 leaf clover for luck! 🏴‍☠️

Well worth the trip and the effort, I'd say. Congrats Dan! What coil were you using? The M9 and M8 are both great in trashy spots.

Thanks man! ☘️ I've seen the target trace go round like a coin on a mere piece of foil. 😵 Could be I'm not used to it yet, I notice it sorta focuses in on stuff. 🤔 Lots more to learn! 🙂

Yeah, the pipe is one of your newer relics, they were sold in "head shops" all over the USA in the 70s 🤐 🍀

That's a really good spot Ghound! 🏆 Are the nickel sized coins in the first pic V nickels? They usually come up red here. Nice um, err, vintage brass pipe, and the Barber dime is a real topper. 👍 Some really cool old stuff there. Congrats on the silver! I would imagine there is more there.

Thanks Ghound, The last 2 or 3 hunts before this were either fairly unproductive or a matter of "taking one for the team". It was nice to get something really awesome along with some silver coins and other stuff. I'm going to find the owner and return it, if the person isn't known I'll take it to the local Masonic Lodge. I may know who owned it already though. 🤔 This will up my karma points for the year, maybe I'll get my wife something awesome at the beach. 🙂

Thanks strick, I wonder if it is the Manticore's seemingly enhanced sensitivity to low conductors that makes it the latest rage with beach hunters, it goes off like a firecracker on even the smallest objects. 🤔 Many times I have spent a long time searching for what the detector found to find out it was a tiny piece of lead or a shard of Tombac. I hope this translates to finding chains and more gold on the beach. I didn't find much in Florida but nobody did 😅 pretty much off-season. We're traveling to Myrtle Beach soon if there's anything left of it after the fires and tornadoes today, 😬 Spring break is on so maybe that will be good. Meantime I'm going to get out and hit as many fields as I can before they cultivate, and dig more lead 🤣

Thanks Joe, Did some research, and as usual, my finds often come with a moral obligation. 🙄 At this point I will probably contact the landowner, and if he doesn't have any ties to the Freemasons, I'll probably call a local lodge and return it. Thank you for the heads up! 🙂

My wife and I bought each other wedding bands back in 2008, mine is 9.9g white gold with a 1/8 carat diamond. I use a ceramic ring ($10) on the beach 😏 it was $900 back then, about $2 or 3k now! 🤯 No wonder we find so many stainless and tungsten bands these days... Poor kids 🫤 I'm going to decide whether or not to sell that honker when it's finished, might bring more than the melt value if I post it low. 🤔 Notice the way the white gold was "pinned" on rather than using rhodium, that's interesting. 🙂

Now that's a bit of sage info right there! 🏆 Those were different times... 🤣 I'm sure pretty much any detector would "find" everything I find, just at what cost. 🤔 I proved that to myself 4 years after I grid searched a spot with my trusty ol' Equinox 600. 🤯 Got nothin'. I don't want to advise and compare here, I'll do it later in another forum, but the two most important things to me are separation and audio. If I'm digging twice as many undesirable targets with one detector over another, I either haven't learned the "language" of one of them, or one just isn't as good. 😅 I guess I'm in tune with these newfangled Multifrequency VLF's, and have zero experience with the old stuff. If I didn't have any experience with a Minelab machine, it would have been just as difficult to operate the Manticore as it was learning the Deus 2. 🙏 Thankfully that's pretty much what I started on, and stealing great programs from others put me ahead, but I still have a way to go. 😏

Thanks Joe, If anyone would know their rings, you'd be the first I'd ask. 👍 It's 14K in large plain characters, nothing fancy, nothing else. Most rings today are hollow, this one is solid with holes to let light through. Very hard to get a pic inside, bent as it is. He estimated its age at exactly what you did. It's the heaviest gold ring I've found so far, and my 3d this year. I especially like finding them in farms, while they can get beat up, sometimes they're pristine. A little polish and they're good. The jeweler told me the "lump" on the bottom was intended to not only make the ring smaller, but to possibly cover up a crack. He said that is not the best way to do it. He almost got it straight but we both decided a full restoration was the best course, they use heat to soften it a bit. I have a ring mandrel, but something like this is out of my pay grade 🤷‍♂️ This same farm gave me this one two years ago, possibly lost during an equestrian event: The cast purity mark identifies it as a J. R. Wood ring, the previous company to Artcarved. They were the first to do "seamless" gold rings over a hundred years ago. It cleaned up with just a bit of gold polish, and went right into my wife's jewelry box 🤣

Thanks Matt, Just dropped it off at the local jeweler, he would have straightened it for free, he got it to a certain point. They're the best. Even use their XRF gun for free. I left it there for restoration, he said it's an old one, and the diamond is 1/3 carat. 🥳 They're going to redo the enamel too! He said value after restoration would be over $1k. Glad you like my posts, I've always been a little worried about that 😅 I might be posting too much.

Thanks Colonel! 🫡 Going to make it a mission of sorts to figure out why the Manticore has a 3-0 score on gold rings this year, 2025 is really off to a great start between the two. After my upcoming beach trip and any relic hunts I go on before then, I'm going to be gathering info to write something comparing the two. So far I'd say the D2, at least from an audio standpoint, is really a great machine, I think I'd have found everything with it, but there has to be a way to be sure. For sure, at present I have to take my "Digitol" with the Manticore. 😅

Joined for free college in '81, got out 3 days after they lifted the mandatory reenlistment for the Sandbox in '91. We trained in Turkey for about a month. I had lots of 'Nam vets in my unit, those guys were worth their weight in gold to a noob. I'm a 'Tween, I guess. 😅

Well, I won't steal valor man. 🙂 I was in the Army for 10 years, missed being shipped off to Desert Storm by 🤏 that much. For sure the folks that were thrust into combat deserve such a reward, coming from the National Guard I was lucky to get a discount on Glocks 😅 I really enjoyed the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood too. Lots of women in my platoon over the years. 🤎 All great people I would have trusted my life to.

Thanks Ripcode, Think I've paid for the detector in ring value, that's #3 with it this year. 🥳

Thanks! I have a lot of fun writing my posts, wish I could download them all and make a book out of it, my whole detecting history is here. I'm glad to know I inspire, inform and entertain. 🥲 I've only had the Manticore for two months, and already got 3 gold rings with it. It's been a great start to the year. I love my Deus, but it's got me wondering. 🤔

Thanks RVP, I gots more Spanish silver than they will ever find on "Fantasy Island"... 🦜 The silver ring sizer was a bonus silver, had to take it off to find the Hallmark for gold content. It also exposed the Square and Compass below the 'G', which is my last name Initial. 😏 The sizer also threw off the ID. 🤣 The ring was a shocker, 🤯 but the second one I've found there. Lots 'o' Gentry, apparently. That's a Grand Poobah ring for sure. 🤔 At first I thought I might wear it after getting it straightened. Nope. My brother joined De Molay for a while, but quit when things got dark many years ago. I had my fun in the Brotherhood of the US Army. Shoulda got a ring. 🤔 Mebbe I'll find one someday... 🏴‍☠️

Y'all can look at my thoughts on the Killer B's here: ... And here. 🍀

Thanks Lodge, With the M15, yes. With other size coils, not so much 🤔 I only got one forged iron bolt, everything else was easy to pass on. These were "perfect" conditions however, as good as it gets. Not much stubble, low grass. I'll add that that's why I use the 13" elliptical on the Deus 2 as well. 🤔

Today was kind of a miserable day, gloomy and cold, in the 40s. I went to this field about 2 miles away, it's across the street from one of my largest permissions, but part of it. The landowner owns over 1000 acres on both sides of the road. I've been through this field a couple of times, really didn't find much so I put it on the back burner. I drive by it a lot, it's on the main road. Not a very big field, and it has a couple of really steep hills in it. It's only 50 yards wide, and about 3 acres total. I haven't been finding much in other places lately, so I thought I'd give this field a go. It's very noisy with highway traffic slowing down to go into the center of town, so today I tried out the Killer B headphones that just came back from being looked over, I want to thank @Keith Leppert for his support. I've decided I like the Killer B wireless enough to keep them, at first I thought I didn't like the audio, as it's thinner and mid-rangey as opposed to the ML105 headphones, but after a day of using them exclusively, I got used to them and definitely recommend them. They effectively blocked out about 90% of the road noise, and not having deep bass or sharp spikes ended up being quite pleasant. 🙂 They're comfortable for me, I wore them all day. At first I thought I'd zigzag the field and go somewhere else, but I kept finding coins, a memorial here, a dime there, a wheat penny or two, so I decided to stay in the field all day and make my passes tighter. It's a good thing I did! The Manticore was silent until it came upon a target, the ground was easy to dig albeit a bit muddy, and I had the M15 coil counter balanced with a battery so it was comfortable and felt almost weightless! I dug a lot of trash again today: Mostly aluminum, buck balls, bullets and wire. Unfortunately the target trace shows a solid dot in the center often on aluminum, I'm not used to it yet. Some aluminum has a ragged tone and lifting identifies it, but sometimes it doesn't. 🫤 It's going to take a while. Here are some things too large for display: A massive chunk of lead, what I think might be a bit crossbar, some sort of device inserted and clamped into a hose, and some other weird stuff. Got some modern coins: Mostly 70s stuff except for the wheats, one is a 1926. I also ended up with some nice relics: A large tombac, two pieces of an ancient spectacle buckle, some bits and a heart shaped lock. What kept my attention in this field was the fact that I kept finding silver occasionally: A silver cufflink, a 1942 nickel, and a 1939 Mercury dime. I'll explain the silver object on top in a bit. 😎 I was getting sort of close to my goal, and got a very strange signal. It wavered from the mid 30's to the mid 50's and finally sort of settled in the 40s. I thought for sure it was aluminum, but I was too far back in the field for that. Wow, was I wrong 🤯 I got this, a men's 10.3 gram 14k Freemason level 32 ring with a genuine 1/4 carat diamond! 🥳 This is the second gold ring I've dug on this property, and for sure the most gold. The little silver clasp above with the other silver was clamped on this ring to "size" it, in my experience, sized rings = lost rings. 🫤 My gain though! It's just incredible. Thick, solid - not hollow - white and yellow gold. The 32nd degree varies, either the person is a "Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret" or "Master of the Royal Secret", whatever that means. Some of my ancestors were Masons, but I am not familiar with the group. 🤔 I've seen these for sale anywhere from $800 to $6,000. Melt value is around $600. I didn't finish the field and might return, but I am very happy with the equipment I used today to find all this great stuff. I'm going to take the ring to a jeweler to have it straightened and cleaned up. 🍀

Thanks HJ, I pack it in when the battery is down to or near the last green, about 6 hours. There is a lot of voodoo regarding lithiums and one of the bones is that you should never let a battery go less than 50% for a few cycles 🤪 Another is never run it out. 🤔 I'm glad that at least the Manticore will allow a charge while running, so I do the battery thing, it's a Power Delivery charging pack made by Ravpower, a 15k they don't make anymore. 🥲 I like it because the button to see how much is left is on the side. It will bring the detector back up to full from half and only go down to 60%, the proper level to maintain integrity voodoo-wise. 😏 I suppose I could use it in the beginning of the hunt and take it off half way rather than use it at the last half. This pack isn't all that heavy, and where I attach it works out, it acts like a counter balance for the coil. I think one of the best design features of the Mcore is the balance. The worst is all the "fluff" that eats up the battery 🙄 The wire gets in the way of the grip, I'm right handed so I run it on the left side. It may be long enough to bungee away from the handle altogether, I'll try that today because I'm going to an old field or three to see if I can find anything else. 🍀

Yeah, sometimes my arms cramp up from carrying the shovel, luckily I've never blown out an elbow. I did have a left shoulder dislocation year before last, but the doc told me digging would help it heal, so I dug. 😎 I have been getting hand cramps lately on my way back from the local beaches, usually if the drive back is long. Gettin' old ain't for the weak... 🫤 I pretty much dug everything that have a positive repeatable tone, should have lifted on the aluminum. I don't have the Manticore dialed in yet, it's not as expressive as my other detector. Hopefully I can get it there. 🤔 I'll be a "son of a beach" in a couple of weeks... 🍀🏴‍☠️