F350Platinum

Wow! I find stuff like that in the fields all the time. I call 'em "depantzers". Heavy if all ya got is a small trash bag on your belt. 😀

The below example ID'd the same as the small one. 🤔 Solid 15 on the Equinox.

Cool relics tho. 🙂

19 minutes ago, Dug2gld said:

Hmmm....maybe?? I am in Southeast VA.  Near Suffolk. 

Nah. Glad to see colonial artifacts. I'm in NE VA. 🙂 Chase has been using a Tarsacci here, really nice machine. Your finds just look so... familiar. Bet there are some backmarks on those buttons. Farmers are going to kick me out of the fields soon, going to have to hit the river, and some other waterfront.

Great finds! Haven't had a day like that in a while.

You're not in my back yard are ya? 🤨 😀

I for one would look for the best deal on any particular detector, especially because buying all the other stuff you should have (pinpointer, digging tools, trash pouch, possibly a case) can cost you almost as much as a detector. I get by with an Ames spade in the farm for instance, but If I showed up at a public permission with that they would probably sound the alarm. There are specialty digging tools much better suited to the job! A pinpointer, while some would argue is not necessary, will save you a bit of time and most likely lead to a smaller hole. 😉 Plan to trash your backyard before going public.

Support after the sale is important for many. I bought my first detector on Amazon, the second from a "local" detector shop who sells detectors at the same price. Nothing is really local, it's an hour and a half one way. 😀 The shop owner walked me through the machine, and offered to help train in the field.

Be careful about buying discontinued products.

BTW get ready to have more than one, you may get hooked yourself! 😈

Love that huge silver y'all find. So far none for me. 😀

It's just a guess but the marks on the sides look kinda uniform. Could it have been clamped or mounted in something? Are the marks equidistant around the coin? Certainly looks like it happened a long time ago, just glad it wasn't taco'ed by a plow. 🤔

Hi and welcome. About 7 months ago I went through the same quandary as you, but with a larger budget. I started with a Garrett Ace 400 in August, but by December I ended up getting an Equinox 600. Both are out of your budget, one twice and the other 3 times+.

However there is good news. One detector stands out to me as a win on all fronts, it has much of the pluses of a Garrett and many of the Equinox...

The Nokta Makro Simplex+. It runs around $250, is reasonably light if this is a youngster we are talking about. It is waterproof, cold weather resistant due to the Lithium battery, comes with many accessories if you catch a promotion, and would be far above a beginner detector if you're willing to invest the time in learning it by going through a lot of the material here and getting a book or two. You can use it literally anywhere with care. It even does ground balancing.

I am currently hacking about with a loaner Simplex+, and while it makes me appreciate having bought the Equinox instead I find it does the job quite well.

As to metal detecting in the snow, well... Maybe that is best left to folks from the upper parts of the country, and for rocks and clay I'm sure there are locals here who can answer that better than I as well. I dig in clay but mostly farm topsoil, and rarely run into rocks here. Farm and beach are the life for me! 😀

The Simplex+ isn't considered a "toy" by any stretch. There are many others that will find things for a lot less money, but not quite reach the standard you set. I really can't think of a better bang for the buck and I too looked at lots of detectors.

Hats of to you Cap'n. I have a rough time in 35 degree weather, 23 in 20 mph wind on the shore has to be brutal. I'm close enough to the river that humidity gets sticky.

Fabulous finds, you earned 'em. 🏆

Kinda surprised that red dirt wasn't concrete for you. 😀 It's been butter here for the last month, really since October of last year. The past week has been so dry my shovel hardly gets down 4". Rain this week will help!

Welcome David. What detector do you have, and where are you looking to go with it?

You "Euros" have such great history to find. 🙂 That's quite a haul! Guess that coil is quite a beast. Congratulations!

5 hours ago, LoraRose said:

Wow, you are very lucky to find so many things!

Gotta say it's not so much luck as location. My area was settled in the mid 1600s and has remained a traditional rural farm area.

I got lucky at first to have all this land out my front door - about 400 acres - but now I'm researching and using maps and aerial photography to find locations in my permissions to zero in on. There is a lot of river to cover as well when I get a permit for that.

I could just walk around and still find stuff, but the large amount comes from setting up a grid search.

Welcome to the forum! 🙂

10 minutes ago, CVISChris said:

Thanks F350 it’s a first for me.  

Do you keep a spray bottle with you for silver and gold coins? Now that you are finding these stunners, you should.

I use this kinda as a joke but I learned early not to rub silvers and gold from them... For 5 bucks it could save a very valuable coin. 😀

Still killing it!!! Congratulations.

Coin is a beautiful one real, Segovia mint. I have a half real from 1778 but the only thing you can really make out is the date. You win! 😃

I have two others that are rubbed so clear there are hardly any identifying marks. Gotta say the soil there is much better for buttons and coins, I rarely find any gilt buttons with any gold on them.

persistence pays off. Great finds.

Love those composite diggers. I tried one (they sell them 2 for $10 on Amazon), and while they are great for sand/loam, they're kinda light for clay. If I could put something like sand in the handle it might be better.

Haven't tried one at the beach yet but I'm sure it will be good for finding targets in the scoop.

7 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

Nice finds again, and now where are you going to.

I think I would be going back over some of the same areas again just to make sure that I didn't miss anything.

There has to be more where you are at.

Good luck and happy digging.

Thanks! I know this isn't very impressive.

I have some places in reserve, last two were never gone over by anyone due to the farm being there. Two are deep in the woods. One is really hard to get to.

Thinking of checking out this old farmhouse at the end of my road. There is one more in the immediate area where I found that old brass plate but there is not a lot of iron there, they may have done a really good job cleaning it up. It was a big house taken down in the 70s.

Off to the shore in a little while, going to try my hand at beach detecting.

Finished grid searching the farmhouse today. Last couple of days I spent working on my RV. Found some interesting stuff, more of those brass beads or rollers (they are indented but not hollow), an odd button that looks like a center-fire cartridge end but isn't. It has a stamp but it's very corroded. Has a single shank in back, may not even be a button. 4 aluminum buttons, one had traces of blue paint, the other 3 are like the others I dug, 6 total. Surprised I didn't find the shirt. A small octagonal tag that reads "E. F. & BRO."

Next is a bronze pin, I have no idea what it is for. Gold plated pocket watch plate, reads "patent pinion". Another pewter foot and a small box keyhole.

Got 1 more corroded Indian head, an 187-something. A 1940 wheat, and a 1925.

This makes 6 wheat pennies, 8 IHPs, one Trime, and one mercury dime at this site. I went back to where I found the silver but found nothing. Best coin haul ever for me, not the last I hope. Got "something" gold anyway! (plated) 😁

14 minutes ago, Tiftaaft said:

The alternative is to dig everything over a 9.

I'm just a "noob with a stick", but that's pretty much what I do. Many of my best buttons are 7-23. Even found some 3s. Concave Tombacs with iron shanks exhibit the 3-8 behavior particularly.

The "discrimination" I go through is first to try and get a repeatable signal, sometimes lift the coil a foot above the target, but mostly do a complete 360. If the signal acts a certain way I will dig it. I've learned to distinguish between aluminum "all over the place" and other metals. I also use 4 and 5 khz, which often makes iron iron. I run the detector in all metal almost all the time.

Another bit would be after I've been in a certain area  for a while I pretty much know what I'm gonna get.

If anyone wants my help with this, y'all can PM me with specs on how you want it done. I can take what wheats and IHPs I have and check 'em. Of course since I have a 600, the settings would not be exactly the same. 🤔😀

5 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

(And then there's the overlap with pulltabs for the trime TID that F350 mentions, although sites with both trimes and pulltabs -- manufactured a century apart -- are those common even on the East Coast?)

One thing for sure, farmers consume quite a lot of beverages on the job. I understand the beavertails, it's an unfortunate reality,  but not the tabs that are supposed to stay on the can! Dug quite a few of those today. 😵

17 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

It's worse than that.  You just know deep down this was an 1875.  🤬

Most likely, and the reason for the hole. Who wouldn't want to wear one? 🤔🤣

1 minute ago, kac said:

Nice going. Looking at the plotting it seems you missed a few spots....

That's the "when it works" caveat. 😀 I use it with GPS Locker Pro which makes it a bit more accurate. Once yesterday and once today it started messing up. A restart of both fixes it.

I always make the search area a lot larger than what I actually search too. Sometimes I get bored and go outside the box if you will. Did that today and found a button.

20 minutes ago, Tiftaaft said:

Thanks... That is helpful.  I have Tect-O-Trak, but I am usually too dirty to navigate my phone screen mid-hunt.  🙂

I wear gloves most of the time, have to take them off to use the phone. I have a great leather folio case for the Galaxy, No matter what I do it seems to keep the phone together.

Tect-O-Trak has been really good for my grid searches, at least when it works well. Shows coverage and find locations, all re-visitable by GPS. Details omitted but this shows what I did the last two days.

9 minutes ago, Tiftaaft said:

IHP's and I'm never sure how low to mentally disc when I'm hunting... but basically I let the depth make the decision for me.  I have a nice collection of rusty iron as a result. 🙂

Well, GB is your best bet, and somea the other members that do a lot of testing.

IHPs are weird, I get a symphony at first when I find one, but the 20-22 usually indicates my success. Heard it a lot today. A couple were 18-19.

I dug a few spikes today until I started using 4khz to check. It seemed to work on other trash too, but because of the Trime I went after any and all pull tabs. 😵

20 hours ago, Scarfoot said:

That Gardner is telling of the sites possibilities, Those Rebs didn't drop alot of bullets, I'd be beating it up looking for buttons!

I am, believe me. Only found three that are early 1860s. There wasn't much war here except for 1812, but many of the residents have veterans in their families.