F350Platinum

Nice hunt Ghound! First of all, what version are you on? As to the coins, on V2 I've been noticing that a bit, I've heard a low tone with a great coin now and again, but if I get over 50% positive signals, I'll dig it anyway. Your pistol appears to have some markings on it, at best it's a toy, and at worst it may still have ammunition in it, so don't go banging it around. 😬 🤣 You got a brass ring, silver, and old coins, a great bit of detecting by any standard. 👍 I'd like to see some better photos of the pistol, mostly likely it's in the 22-25 caliber range.

Here we go! 🥳 We had a big rain yesterday while the rest of the Northeast got a big snowstorm. The last few years we have had mild winters here, I'm hoping the trend continues. Yesterday I rolled my brand new remote and one pair of WSA II headphones back to V0.71 to prepare for this test, I ended up using my old Relic Reaper program that was very successful on V0.71. I put it on the older remote that is on V2, it was difficult because I had to turn off any parameter that didn't exist previously like Audio Filter and Offset Full tones, I set them to 0, so the program was as close to the same as it could be. My methodology was fairly simple, I grid searched a portion of the field out in front of my house. My first pass was with V2, I flagged every target that produced a tone other than mostly iron and recorded the IDs. I then went back with the other remote and a second pair of headphones on V0.71, digging each target and noting its ID and depth. The soil in this field, like nearly every other permission I have, has no mineralization. There is little sense in telling anyone what my settings were, it was my old successful relic program based on General, today I needed moisture subtraction especially because it rained yesterday and the field was muddy. I will give up a couple settings however, Sensitivity was at 98 and Reactivity was 0. Maybe extremes for some places but here the machine runs quiet, both remotes ground balanced to 78. There is no EMI. I flagged 9 targets, and got tired of it. I figure that was a pretty decent sample and it wasn't getting any earlier in the day, rain storms passed by frequently. Ok, here's the spreadsheet of results, and then I'll give my impressions. Here's the stuff I dug: All junk at least to me. Tack studs are everywhere, as are percussion primers, shotgun shells, lead and can slaw. I know how old this area is. 🤣 My post in another thread mentioned that Id be looking for ID changes, increased sensitivity overall, and bump sensitivity. Previously I tested my new unit and my old unit with the same V2 program, so I'm confident that no hardware was changed perceptibly, and I used the 13" coil both times on the same shaft made by SteveG, just swapped the remote. ID CHANGES ID changes can be seen above, IDs are definitely tighter on V2. The scale is different, observations of myself and others here are that some coin IDs changed, but for this I noticed/noted a difference overall. It's right there in the table. 🙂 ID is a hard thing to nail down, with V0.71 there were way more unstable spreads, I took the spread that was repeatable - what any detectorist would use to decide whether to dig or not. INCREASED SENSITIVITY I'm very sure sensitivity was increased across all programs, again the table reflects weak and unstable ID's. Sometimes the target at the same sensitivity (98) was strong with V2 and not with V0.71. the next observation takes this a step further: BUMP SENSITIVITY The last thing I noticed between the two versions is a definite increase in bump sensitivity. I'm detecting in corn stalks. Under V0.71 it was barely perceptible, I found today I could hit the ground and stalks, and barely/rarely hear bump tones, either high or low. Under V2 bump sensitivity is much greater. At Sensitivity 98 which is what I used to use all the time here, you'd be like "well, duh", but it's there all the way down to 87 which is about as low as I'll go. CONCLUSION I am really glad I have borne the slings and arrows of upgrading to V2. With the addition of High Square Audio, Audio Filter and Offset Full tones, Frequency limiting, expanded range on Audio Response and other improvements, there is no reason for me to hold onto the past or my old programs for that matter. The bump sensitivity may be a concern to others, but with increased overall sensitivity and tighter ID's I'm sure it can be worked around. I don't bury coins in my yard, so someone else will have to bear the depth mantle. The D2 has always hit stuff as deep as a VLF will go. These are live objective results in a live environment - my environment. Take this report for what it's worth to you. 🙂 What did I get for all this work? When setting up my grid flags I dug this snappy button: Cleaned up: HTH, GL, HH 🍀

Thanks Cap, Looks like we both did well on our first hunts of the year! I sure wasn't expecting it.

You really "nailed" that one. 🤣 Great report, I find the same thing going on so I bump bottle caps setting to 3, makes most but for the hardest forged and curved nails go full iron on a turn. I still get a few, the fields are loaded with shoe nails from animals and old houses. If I'm really in the thick of it I'll go to 5, at that point what do I have to lose? Big nor'easter coming today, going to get the new remote rolled back and programmed. I'll probably have to wait until the high winds dry up the surface, probably by Monday. Edit: Gotta add for those unfamiliar with the Deus 2, the shortcut buttons are well documented in the literature, but not as prominently as one would hope. I run into noise often especially with underground power lines, so I caught the hotkeys early on. They call it "Automatic Frequency Scan".

Nice find! Looked for it with the conventional methods, got nothing. Looks almost like a custom challenge coin from a prospecting group? 🤔 Got some dimensions? BTW I have some something similar. I'm not particularly superstitious but put 4 leaf clovers on my gear. Started with a cast pin sent to everyone in my "group".

Thank you Gerry! I've only got 3 years into this hobby. I'm in a place that has great potential, many hundreds of acres to search in many very old farms. Purely random spectacular finds seem to be my specialty 😅 but they reinforce my suspicion I'm doing well often enough to keep me out there looking. I'm beginning to feel much less than a novice now that I'm used to the Deus 2. I appreciate your assessment and encouragement. 🙂

Thanks strick, You might have missed the part above where I wrote that the inscriptions tie the ring to the original settlers that established the farm. 🤔 There's a lot of genealogy to wade through, 300 years of it! 😅 I'm pretty sure it was commissioned by a family member who then lost it while out on the farm. Sad all around, really. 😢

I think you will be very happy with V2. I'll try to get this test done very soon, doing Christmas cleanup right now 😅 Not going to hide the opinion that some programs might require a little re-tweaking, but over time I've got a program for General that I'm very satisfied with now, and also a reliable beach program. As the good Colonel wrote you will also find a lot more small stuff. 🙂 Really small stuff.

Thanks NC, I do have a test kit, but I'll leave this one to the experts. 😅 It commands proper and responsible conservation, and it will get it. 🙂 Got a buddy who used to grace this forum that I've found is a reliable source of info and has the uncanny ability to tell gold quality among other things from a mere photo. He speculates that it may be 24k+. It's tiny but weighs almost 2 grams.

Thanks VL, Rest assured all measures are underway to see that an object of such significance is properly conserved, and legacy well considered. 🙂

The ring was a shock many times, first I thought I'd found a gold coin, then I thought it might be a wedding band, then I found it was a lost mourning ring. 🤯 as old as it could be for the most part. I'm sure there are more things to find, this was pretty much in the middle of the field, a completely random find. I'm sure it was lost while horse riding or through some other activity. 🙂 The Zincoln was found very close to the road that passes by the farm, it was probably thrown from a vehicle.

Nice coin kac! 👍 I too like the fancy button, you sure have some nice places to hunt. I do remember the terrain up there though, it must be difficult sometimes. 🤔

Thanks Compass, Each ring like that is one of a kind, with specific information. In the 1700s it had to be made by a craftsman at probably great cost, as SoHn wrote. Luckily there are many "bucket listers" I have yet to find 😅 This was pretty unexpected.

Thanks! They are one of a kind, I'd like to know the gold content. It looks cast. It weighs 1.7g and is a woman's size, research says they were worn on the smallest finger. Mourning rings fell out of fashion after WW1.

It certainly is. Considering you have 10+ or more times the metallic history than exists in the USA (with the exception of native creations using copper), it must be difficult at times to identify finds. Congratulations go to you for saving history! 👏 More good luck to you.

Thanks TBB, It's one of those great things about gold that make our day when we find stuff made of it. Any details are still as they were, even gold coins that have been in the sea for 500 years look great for the most part. 🙂 It is quite the casting! It clearly identifies the remembered individuals. I've only been relic detecting for 3 or so years, and this is the second gold ring I've found in the middle of a big field. First one was a 14k gold band at least over 150 years old. With minimal cleaning it looks brand new. The hike yesterday was a little under 4 miles in 5.5 hours. I guess that is similar to some of my beach hunts. 🤔

Thanks kac, I did search the dirt I dug out, looks like the stone separated from the ring long ago, the clasp is mangled. Could be anywhere.

Heh, a little over 3 years. 😀 Started with a Garrett Ace 400 after a roof replacement to find nails, checked the yard and started finding colonial relics. In the summer we travel to beach locations on the East Coast, so I'm a beach hunter then. It's been quite a wild ride.

I just got through posting here recently that I'd never top some of my finds of 2023, but I guess I did. 🤯 I dug something so unique and interesting, and got such a rush from its discovery I feel I have to share it. I waited until today to see how I felt about it. Please forgive the lack of specific detail and understand I'm detecting in a place I have permission to and have the current landowner's permission to appropriately preserve the relics I find taking into consideration their significance and potential ties to the original landowners or local area history. It was supposed to be a fairly warm and windless day yesterday, so I decided to go to one of my permissions and detect parts of it that I have not been over. Deer Hunting season is almost over, and it was really quiet, I didn't see a single hunter anywhere. Ground conditions are perfect, enough moisture to keep the ground loose and easy to dig. I first hunted the "beer zone" and "turn zone" of the field, and in almost 4 hours I got some small bits of aluminum, a Zincoln, and a very nice button with a shank as you'll see. Then I decided to go a little further into the field, got another button, what I think is a lead weight, and some odd piece of metal with a loop in it. Upon finding that odd piece of metal, it occurred to me to circle around it, and I'm glad I did. I want to preface this find with some advice, don't ever think you're cool bypassing buck balls, on the Deus 2 the ID is about 55-62 depending upon composition. Just like pull tabs at the beach, you will miss some incredible stuff if you're not digging buck balls from any century. Most of the balls in my area come up white indicating they are really old. So are some other things, like the ~300 year old gold ring I found. It was a 58 on the Deus 2 with the 13" coil, about 4-6" deep. It came out as a ball of dirt with a shiny gold strip in the center, at first I thought I had found a gold coin because the edge looked reeded but it was much more than that. I carefully picked the dirt away, and when the dirt fell out I was shocked. Upon closer inspection and help from friends, the ring is likely a Lost Wax cast with names and dates, the stone is missing but from researching history (and listening to my wife 😀) it was quite possibly a black stone called "Jet". I looked through the dirt and could not find it. The setting is mangled so it could be anywhere, sadly lost forever. Turns out it is a "Mourning ring", a classic way to memorialize relatives dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. The dates on the ring put it at about 300 years old and the inscription ties the find directly to some of the original Colonial landowners of the permission. Here's the total haul, 3 buttons, a lead weight, a few tack studs, and the metal thing with the loop that prompted me to look more next to the weight. The coin next to the Zincoln is a wheat, too crusty bother with finding a date. Here's the trash, not even a handful. Even got a Revolutionary war Pull Tab! 🤣 This is truly saving history and I am taking the appropriate steps to preserve it for the benefit of future generations so the local history of these properties won't be lost or forgotten. Good start to the year!

Meh, that one is on you 😀, I did notice some small instability, but you have a lot more experience there, and I don't think I have a as much of it here as you do. 👍 I call attention to my last paragraph particularly, but hey it'll probably be 4 more years until there's a D3 so we have to have something to talk about 🤣

Welcome! Gotta say you wrote a unique intro. 👏 I'm not going to recommend a detector to you (yet), first some questions: You write that you want the detector to be simple to operate, easy enough to handle by someone that is not one of "you kids" (I'm 64 BTW), and you want the whole "find of a lifetime" experience from just turning on the machine. 🤔 I've got a solid 3+years into this hobby (read "rabbit hole"), and have dug quite a few finds of a lifetime, but that's a long tale which incidentally is all here. 🙂 What sort of detecting do you wish to do? Relic detecting in farms or on old properties, Jewelry/coin detecting in parks, salt beach detecting, water detecting, even gold prospecting? I see you're in Kentucky, that is a pretty good relic and freshwater region of the USA, lots of old stuff and lakes, streams and such. Where do you plan to spend the most time Detecting? Do understand that you will need to be familiar with detecting laws, and a great place to start is here: https://www.mdhtalk.org/articles/legal-to-detect/law.htm It's a brilliant website that covers it all. Another bit of advice I can give you before you get going is to consider that if you do make incredible discoveries, this hobby can become time consuming and obsessive to the point that it causes dissent in your family. If your spouse is a saint like mine, it won't be as bad. 😀 There are many possibilities available, but you're not going to be immediately successful the minute you go out the door. You will quickly find that there is no detector out there that is 100% successful, you will have to learn it first and also have to learn to laugh at your foibles instead of throwing it as far as you can. Good luck, and Happy hunting. 🍀

I'll give it a go. Specifically what I'll be looking for: ID changes Increase in overall sensitivity Bump sensitivity And of course anything else that appears 😀 Here's what I have perceived in this transition: Coin IDs, particularly US 1 cent coins with their different compositions changed, and a slight shift in Dime ID. Overall IDs seem to have become "tighter", and more consistent. When I changed versions overall depth seems to have increased, and locating very small items was much more frequent, as Colonel Dan mentioned above. When I got out Relic hunting in the fall, I noticed increased bump sensitivity on stalks and stubble, and also noticed contour or maybe black sand sensitivity in the water before that. Enough to mention it. I'm not looking to bash the D2, or expose any sort of subterfuge, heck I think no other detector will do for me at present after a long time studying others' remarks about other new machines here. I just want to be able to clearly identify anything I've speculated on in as controlled a manner as possible, and have the resources for live trial a few steps from my door. I also have 2 WS6 units now, no better time to try that as well. 🙂 In a way the whole thing is moot, simply moving forward and dealing with perceived undocumented changes is the path we all have to tread these days with program updates (think cell phones, computers, watches etc.), but hey I'm retired and have the time to fool with it. 🤪 I don't think there will be a Deus 3 soon, but I do expect older versions to become unavailable.

Thanks for the report Colonel, I'm pleased to see that others are observing differences that may not be documented. The timeline of releases was such for me that certain nuances weren't perceptible until where I was hunting changed. I've followed the versions as they came out, and only having one RC unit and one WS6 until this past November made some transitions difficult at best. Not from an updating experience, but experience in the field. All updates were relatively smooth. As it stands now, after many sessions where I tweaked parameters during live hunts, I'm extremely pleased with V2 over the older versions. When I think about it the environments I hunted in did not change, but the way the detector worked did, and did so to sometimes an uncomfortable degree. I've already compared my two V2 RC's in the same environment with the same program and found there to be no additional fear of hardware differences, so that concern is out of the way. Maybe some took that for granted but I didn't. Now I'm thinking of rolling back one of the RCs to V0.71, creating identical programs on both - this may be of interest as well if some parameters are not the same - and trying both in the same live conditions. Would anyone interested in that? I have never used any of the Gold programs, for the most part it has been Beach Sensitive, Relic, and General. I want to help anyone who might be reluctant to update to V2. I was not reluctant and am pleased with the final outcome, but it took some effort to reach that outcome. 🙂 There are still some things that bother me, and I want to see if they were there all along.

Mostly I do, but it's not for you to be the self-appointed critic if I don't. You'll see over time that these observations will be shared by others, and maybe someone who you also implied is "chuckling" about what I've observed will weigh in. Time will tell. Don't act the victim here, you sent the first inflammatory salvo. The OP and I are good. GL, HH. 🍀

Yikes how did I miss this? Thanks Cap, the saga continues. 😀 Of course you've seen this wasn't the last one. 😎