F350Platinum

Thanks Cap, Wish it had a date on it, but lots of them don't. This one doesn't have any other ID marks which would place it accurately, but all the same I was happy to find one. 🙂

That's a parking lot 😀

Nice going Compass! Now that's an achievement, probably rarer still than coming back and finding the second earring, congratulations! I think that's great to find a prize you can use. My wife thinks so too 😏

Great real time observations! Thanks for getting out there and doing the hard work. I don't encounter much black sand but when I do it makes me wonder if I should keep my old Equinox 600 handy. For me the problem is usually EMI at the places I travel in the summer, and that's why the Deus is what I always bring now, but the Equinox is in the RV just in case 😀 It's interesting, for relic and coin hunting I'm finding the Deus 2 more useful and my go to machine. I've observed that with others as well 🤔 I have had occasions where I got more than others at my beaches, but the people I meet could be withholding. I hate to say keep the info coming, I did some documentation recently and know what a pain it is. Sometimes it's better to just post raw observations and take a hit now and again. I haven't explored all of the improvements to the Deus 2, but I keep pushing forward. Small wonder it took almost a year to get the last batch out, and then they had to put out the fires. Nice finds!

Thanks VL, Got the shirt. 🤣

Thanks, first tiny one for me, I've got a few of the King Charles halves but this is my second cob. I really did think it was junk for a hot second. 😳 Hit it with my spray bottle and put it in the good stuff box. Had to buy dinner on the way home for my wife 😀 I do that now with every button and coin unless I know the coin is modern. The spray bottle really knocks the dirt off safely. Gotta get in the habit of doing them all that way. I've found gold rings, but gold coins still elude me. At least I know I will find them having found other gold, so it's something to look forward to.

Thanks! Wish the thimble was whole and solid silver. When you turn the pieces over you see the brass. Quite a few of these items were found in places that were hunted before, or just so trashy it wasn't worth looking. Got the Deus tuned to separate. I was happy to see it was possible. Others were random finds just walking. I'm still trying to think of what the head might have been on, it reflects period hairstyle (wigs), and appears to be winking. 🤔

Thanks George, I've seen you post a few, any guess as to its age?

Heh I doubt it. We tend not to follow each other around. 🤣

Thanks Matt, I hope I influence some to get out there. Some live vicariously if they can't. Granted I am in the middle of a very old area, so like others who do this a lot of it is informational. 🙂 Helps to recognize finds. Yeah there's some bragging rights too, I'm not gonna lie 😎

Thanks Doc, I think Chase got more buttons than me, and believe he got some of the shiny stuff too. 🤔 We left some spots to have something to come back to! 😀

Thanks Colonel, Silencer worked for me here, I see the logic of turning it off some places but here it really helped get around the iron and under it 😀 it amused me to find the target in the hole and hear the iron in the plug. We've been through this place before, didn't find many buttons. For some reason, probably soil moisture, they lit up today.

Conditions were optimal for a hunt today, despite another big storm coming I managed to get Chase to come down. Rain wasn't expected until the evening. High winds after the last storm quickly dried out the field surface, but the targets were hot. We've been to this place in the past and didn't think some of the stuff we found would be there, it turned out to be a really good day. We both ended up with quite good finds! I had the D2 and 13". Today I was experimenting with Silencer settings, since V1 it was changed dramatically. I was using my modified General program, but incrementally increased Silencer to eliminate iron falsing, there is iron everywhere in patches. Ended up at 6, thought reactivity was too low at 0, so I bumped it to 2. The day went well. I would hear the iron in the same pass, but the target stood out. Happened again and again, no loss of depth either. Many of the targets were co-located with iron up to 10" deep. I'll run this backward, here's the trash: A crazy mix of stuff, a bit more than a handful. Next are the things too big for a display box: Some kind of drain thingy, a brass leg, and other bits of brass. The shell I believe is a .45/70. Big round. Here's everything going to the Riker case: 3 buckles, one really old huge brass cast one. It was at least a foot deep. Got a silver plated thimble, sadly crushed, but I got all the parts. 7 buttons, 3 Tombac , one with gold plating still on it, 8 if this green stone thing is actually a button: And one with a very delicate design in gold: Use water to rinse those buttons! Don't thumb or brush them. 🤔 Got a watch key, various bits of unknown metal, and one of the strangest things I have ever found: It has a threaded casting in the back for a bolt. Here's my killer find, it was an 83 and at first I thought it was junk or a pull tab, but then I saw the Spanish cross: Here it is with a penny, it's really small. I'm thinking Half Reale Cob from the late 1600s. Only walked a little over 4 miles and it took 7 hours. What a day. 😅

Nice finds George. The oval object looks like an old county dog tag. 🙂 Did you get a date on the large cent?

Thank you and your company for your interest in the metal detecting hobby and field. A couple of years ago I wrote many bone conduction backphone manufacturers asking them to include APTX-LL technology with some degree of IP water resistance. I got a few excited replies but no products surfaced save one recently, it works fairly well but reliability is dubious. The lower the latency and more resistance to water intrusion the better! As another in this thread mentioned, the product should be loud enough to hear in a beach environment with waves and crowds, and be a true bone conduction design. I think many detectorists would not spare expense to have such a product once reviews on this site come out. Many here would be excellent test subjects. The device should have as long lasting a battery as possible, and possibly a sealed jack for an external cable, maybe a magnetic connection? This would be an important advance in safety while detecting both in the field and on the beach. From what I have read here it will also benefit some who have hearing deficiencies.

Great stuff Doc, Truly a fascinating and well preserved and presented group of finds. You make iron hunting interesting and desirable. Even the buttons are unique, thanks for posting this! Gotta love it when JCR weighs in 👍

The WS6, the WSA II and WSA II XL are all great for me, primarily the WSA II. I have the Quest headset too. Don't forget about the equalizer on the remote, you can adjust audio quite a bit. At first I thought the XL's were too flat, and quickly found the RC saw them as new and started out that way with them. I like the WSA II the most for situational awareness everywhere, they're loud enough to overcome most beach noise. I got the WSA II XL's recently to keep my ears warm once hunting season is over and it gets colder. February is usually the coldest month here. You can also get a fleece headband for a few bucks, use the WSA II and still wear just about any hat you want for sun, even a baseball cap. That's the beauty of backphones. I'll see if I can show you what I am talking about without showing my ugly mug 😏 For some reason the Quest phones aren't my favorite, they didn't seem loud enough.

@palzynski, I hope I'm not misunderstanding your question for Jeff above and hope he will answer. I've had the 13x11 coil since it first came to the USA, I was literally one of the first to use it. I bought the 11" while waiting, didn't like it much then, and honestly save for it being a blessing while recovering from a shoulder dislocation, I still don't like the 11". It allowed me to stay out there longer and stays a bit more rigid on the SteveG shaft coil yoke, but that's where it ends. Who knows, I may have bought a defective 11", it finds stuff just fine and is slightly more accurate locating a target, but it is characteristically not as good as the 13x11". I can say with almost complete certainty that the 11" gives false high tones on iron far more than the 13x11. I will also assert that the 13x11 separates targets much better than the 11". I'm not a scientist so I can't tell you why. Again it could be that I have a defective 11" coil, but I'm seeing this posted more lately now that others have invested in the 13x11. Depending upon how I have audio response adjusted, I've hit US dimes (17.91mm) at depths that seem ridiculous for a VLF, 5 scoops or more on the beach which is about as deep as I want to dig. In the field my 11" long Ranger digger takes a big plug out, and I've found them in the bottom of the hole. If I recall posts from engineers regarding coil size and shape with respect to depth, I believe there is a "sweet spot" in coil size and shape where depth is at maximum and my results in the field and beach tell me that other than the Xtrem Hunter, XP isn't going to give us another coil. 🤣 Were I to do it all over, I'd have just the 9" and the 13x11", I'm keeping the 11" as a backup if I forget to charge the larger coil and often bring it with me on another lower to use if I get tired. At US $400 each no matter the size, the 13x11 is the best value for the money if you already have the 9".

Thanks, I appreciate the nod. 🙂 I've dug 2 gold rings now over a year in massive expanse of farm, the first on V0.71 and the second small one on V2. I've also found a couple in brackish water with some black sand and other minerals when I decided to get serious and put the waders on. Each one caused an unquestionable and solid response. I wish I could describe it. It's no accident I found them because they were there. 😏 If I get a faint 89/90 while on the beach, I am 90% certain I am going to dig a US clad dime at anywhere from 6" to 12" deep. 91 to 93 and it's going to be a US clad Quarter. I have found probably 30 or more this past year. 94 and up is a toy 🤣, but I've seen this response for larger silver coins too. The best and probably sometimes frustrating setting on the Deus 2 is Audio Response, they widened this parameter for V2. As a low setting it will indicate depth, and as a high setting it will increase the volume of a deep target. It can also increase EMI sensitivity, it's a value that commands attention from time to time. From my perspective having a detector that is reliably waterproof is a bonus, and I have used the WS6 in water as well. Some of the best "rural engineering" is well documented here on DP Forum. 🙂 I do not mind switching the detector from "relic mode" in the fall to "water mode" in the summer. That's how my year is. A couple zip ties and off I go, they get clipped off in the fall. Since I purchased the machine I have knocked the remote off maybe twice, and since I bought custom remote locking devices and a custom shaft from SteveG, I have little to no problem with the detector falling over or rolling down a beach slope even with the 13" elliptical on it, or remote issues if I'm careful to attach it properly and leave it on when charging. When an attachment knob or shaft lock wears out, I'm ready with spares. They are cheap and plentiful. I'm aware you are in New Zealand so some aftermarket items and replacement parts may be hard or costly for you to get. I don't do any prospecting nor generally care about tiny stuff, but Colonel Dan has reinforced my claims about that. 😀 I'm hoping my test will influence a depth investigation, personally I prefer to be out looking for real stuff in real places, and mostly finding as much as I can is a bit more fun than disciplined documentation. 🙄

Thanks, Okara. 🙂 Yep only 3 years, but I've found more than I ever thought I would, and it seems to get better all the time probably because I'm getting better at it. 😅 I'm also getting great places to look. I mentioned in my original post I thought I'd never top a 1607 hammered silver, but I did. 🤯 Wish I could show the detail but out of respect for the family and caution, I can't. It is really unbelievable. If you look at 18th and 17th century cast mourning rings you will get an idea anyway. There is a band of land through the state that has gold, but I'm not anywhere near it. I'm on the Eastern side near the Chesapeake Bay, one of the first areas in the country that was settled by the English. This peninsula has many endowments to prevent development, so it's still mostly farms. This is the second gold ring I've found in a farm, the first was over 150 years old and looks like it was made yesterday. Gold jewelry does very well in the ground here but some silver and lesser metals like bronze and copper do not. Almost 400 years of farming will do that. 🙂

Thanks UKD2, I am only slightly aware of Mr. Dankowski, and that's only seeing mentions on this forum. 🤔 I've long followed my "own nose" so to speak. 😀 My goal here is simply to help dispel myths and give those who are on the fence about updating some firm ground to land on the other side 😅 There is no substitute for accurate documentation, but in the absence of that, speculation abounds, either good or bad. Putting some hard data behind speculation has put my mind at ease, since I've been doing a lot of speculating 😏 I'm not out to shame others into updating, there have been valid reasons not to, and I wish those users well. Comparing my new custom programs to the old ones was really informative. XP went out of the way to make a good detector much better, but I haven't seen much to support it. I think that is primarily the reason others have not updated as it serves them well as is. My thought is fear that earlier versions may be dropped, but so far you can roll back to anything you want.

Apparently it is a Federal Marine Corps button from the 1830s. Chase got me in the ballpark of the 1850s, and additional searching got me the name and the era in more than one place, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 😎 Chase had dug a larger one a few miles down the road. 😀 As to the Reaper, I'm pretty close to a new version on V2, far more conservative and accurate, but it's all out mayhem with no disc or notch. Geologyhound posted something that jogged my memory regarding iron grunts with good coins, and I recall that behavior as well both on the beach and in the field. It's still a work in progress. 🙂

Thanks Rattlehead, your caution is justified. 🙂 Looking forward to your input! 👍 It was quite odd to hear the old program sounding exactly the same under the new operating system. Since none of the ID's and tones were too far off, I almost forgot which version I was using 🤪 For fun and extra laughs I also compared my newer V2 version of the Reaper to the old one, and there I really got the difference. I now know for a fact that I prefer the tones in High Square over Square, it sounds like a mashup of PWM and Square, giving you a lot more tonal expression. The old Reaper sounds like an Equinox save for an up/ down tone on some junk. I don't use Offset Full tones, but crank audio filter to 5 to get even more distortion in the sound when not over a "pure" target, it helps a bit. I'm also wide open at disc -6.4 because iron is my friend during endless walking through huge fields. If there's nothing to bump, there's... Nothing, and I want to find the iron patches. All my latest tweaks have come simply from finding an iffy target and fiddling with settings to get the truth out of it. I save that stuff. 🙂

Wow, how did I miss the Uptah Camp Updah? 🤔 Looks like a great and fun year to me. 👍 My whole summer was digging junk, toys, and not much silver, then I got serious and got in the water. Stuff happens, dislocated my shoulder before the last planned gold trip. No matter, got some anyway. 😎 Streamlight flashlights are great, I have a few, and gave some out as Christmas presents to the folks that put up with me as boss. Entertaining story as usual man, my condolences for your loss. I hope 2024 is a great one for ya Matey 🏴‍☠️

Thanks Colonel, I really don't like testing. It was a chore to do this in 40 degree weather with a wind. 😀 But you're right, there are so many new parameters you can change that only make the experience better. My new custom stuff does a much better job overall.