F350Platinum

Ok, figured out the spoon guy, as best as possible. Used some 0000 steel wool.

Meet Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia prior to World War 1. The stem says "Deutschland", and the Germanic eagle is at the top. The back would depict two soldiers and the German Flag at the time, but no matter how much I steel wool this spoon it won't come out.

This spoon was made by the "Oneida Community" pre-Oneida Limited of New York. The "Community" was disbanded in 1881, an odd story in itself.

There were two commemorative spoons made possibly to celebrate the second marriage of the Kaiser to his wife pictured above, or as an earlier tribute.

This puts this spoon at the latest to be 1906, but it was probably made before 1881.

Fun stuff!

57 minutes ago, Geologyhound said:

That is starting to look like the trash I bring back…😄

Yikes! Starting? If this area wasn't so full of broken bits of everything, but had so many interesting bits as well, I wouldn't dig all non ferrous. 😅

The signal corps badge is WW1 era, the screw back gives that away. 👍 Really like the Fleur de Lis pin, may have signified some alliance with France.

Wild guess on the double ring thing, may be part of a horse bit, or an alligator teething ring 😏

Great finds!

I updated my Equinox 600 to version 3 about 3 years ago. The 3.0 version adds 4kHz single frequency, I think it was intended for Asian customers, but it's a good option everywhere.

You don't lose any custom settings, and supposedly the machine is more stable.

I don't see any good reason not to update unless you believe in voodoo 🙂

Dollar coins are unusual finds in the USA, so great job. 🏆 That half must have been a real ear popper! Well done.

56 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Did you get hungry while you were out there? 😄 You didn't have to take a bite out of that Lincoln cent. What did it ever do to you? 🤔

Isn't that how you check to see if it's real? 🤔

After 2 hours of walking around the field and crossing it diagonally, I had to have a bite. I heard nothing but the occasional big iron blast. 😅 Spent another hour in another part and found even less.

Going to go back there and check the other half on a better day, that was too much walking for nothing. 😵 At least I had the smaller field next to it that had plenty of stuff. 🙂

A small update on what I thought was a lapel watch:

It's a Ketcham and McDougall retractable eyeglass or pencil chain, ca. 1903-1920.

Here is a nice one, this person didn't have it engraved:

This one had the older logo but the newer clasp:

I really like researching stuff I find, I'm pretty sure the chain is all rusted up inside.

10 hours ago, JCR said:

Interesting assortment of finds. Looks like George Washington on the spoon handle. Quite a few War Nickels posted on the forums lately.

Thanks JCR,

I've found two or three of them myself lately, newer detectors seem to hit them better 🤔 

Oddly mine showed up as a 63, not the 85 the others were.

Got a new permission yesterday, a nice older gentleman approached me while I was digging in a small field I call the Jewelry Box. After talking to him for an hour (really more listening), I asked if I could detect his farm and he said that would be fine.

It's a big place, 100 acres but only about half that is field. The coolest thing is that there is an old blacksmith shop sort of on the property, but the landowner doesn't own it.

There were also two older houses far back on the farm, now gone. There is a much newer one there now where the owner lives.

I went there today to scout it and see if there are any hotspots. I managed to find about 3 things, but man that place is clean. It was probably detected in the past. I walked for 3 hours and other than a buckle, a clad dime and a small pin on watch, all I find there was buck shot and shotgun shell ends. 😢

I only searched half of it today, it was warm but the wind was blowing about 20mph with gusts to 35. It was absolutely brutal, walking on bean stalks and getting blown all over the place. I finally gave up and went back to the small field next door hoping to save the day.

I had both the 9" and 13" coils with me, and ran Relic most of the day but switched to the new Tekkna program when the trash got dense. This also prompted me to switch to the 9" coil.

While the 13" has pretty good separation, the 9" really sees so much less ground it can pick targets a bit better.

Ended up with some pretty good stuff, the last 3 hours I searched my small field and scratched a few more good finds.

Here's what I dug:

Some sort of famous person spoon, a large brass buckle used to hold a strap on the pin, a General Service button.

Got a 1937 wheat and the small gold plated watch near the shop, the brass buckle in the back of the field.

The 1943 war nickel, the incredibly detailed buckle among other things came from the small field, it was a tough but decent day.

Trash in the small field was horrendous:

Got a little toy cap gun, sadly broken in half near the barn.

Welcome to the forum from Eastern Virginia. 

Nice hunt GB,

Looks like you're doing well with the M-Core, great to see a post from you. Nice silver score!! 👍 Pretty good place if you got that in 3 hours. 🤔

24 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

You're so right about location being most important , and you're surrounded by location ! 

I'm told I am too but can't prove it with finds

Thanks RVP,

Yesterday I got another big permission, the landowner came out to talk to me, a fella in his late 80s. Even offered to drive him back home but he said he needed the exercise. 🙂 I believe this is the final piece of this huge old plantation that was subdivided many years ago.

If you're sporting a smartphone, do yourself a big favor and get an app called CalTopo, it's free! You might need a cheap backup battery if you're going to track yourself.

I did a small tutorial on how to use it here:

This app is great, you can overlay old roads from historic maps and even see Lidar imagery. Soon you'll be seeing farmers and landowners out, strike while the iron is hot.

Here is a reliable backup battery for tracking:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B2R8YVWV

🍀

Thanks, this is a great idea. 👍 Might take a bit to find other lower priced models with an external jack for a transceiver.

38 minutes ago, NCtoad said:

Is there a reason that XP made the end cap with a hollow cavity?  Unless I’m missing something, I just don’t see any reason to this as it collects mud and debris.  

I'd like to know the answer to this too, and would like to know as well why I have to loosen it with pliers when I want to recharge it no matter how much I grease it up. 🫤Otherwise it's the best pinpointer I own.

This will probably be the last post from me about Tekkna for the Deus 2, I might mention it in passing but I want to show y'all a typical day out using it.

Brutal start today, when I got to this field I've named The Jewelry Box, one that Chase and I found a good amount of silver jewelry in. It was 38 degrees, it never got warmer than 50 and the wind was strong.

I've come back a couple of times, but today I really wanted to use Tekkna the whole day with both the 13" and the 9" coil, after seeing how well @NCtoad did with his 13".

Sadly it didn't really work out as well as I hoped, this field is so loaded with non-ferrous junk and iron it became apparent that I had to switch to the 9" coil for about half of it.

Tekkna really does a nice job of finding small stuff in iron, I can imagine if I had a spot with nothing but iron I'd be able to find a few more things there.

But that's about where it ends, I can use my heavily modified Relic program too with the same end result, just varying Reactivity where necessary.

I try to be very honest about the trash I end up with, here's a photo of everything I dug today that I will not be keeping:

Only one piece of iron fooled every program on my machine, everything else is Non-Ferrous. Clock and Pocket watch parts, flatware, pocket knife bits, knobs, shotgun shells and bullets, along with foil and other annoying aluminum are everywhere in a portion of this field. I rue the day the Concertina was invented, I think we have found just about every reed now. 🤬

Chase and I hit it really hard, almost all the silver stuff is gone, but I still managed to squeak a few more things out of it today:

Got a brooch that is really shot through with bronze disease but it's one of the more unique things I've ever found:

Even the back of it is interesting.

There are multiple ages of activity in this small field, probably from the 1700s to the 1890s, and then from about the 1920s to the 60s, there are things representing both eras. It was probably cherry picked long ago because no large coins have been found here and there should be some. Regardless, the Tekkna program is great for a spot like this, but I still think the 9" coil is preferable to use with it.

Bottom line is if there is a lot of non-ferrous junk, you are going to dig a lot of non-ferrous junk if there is the possibility of finding jewelry. That, it did quite well. I'll be keeping it on my machine, with the 9" coil handy.

There was another bright spot, a gentleman almost in his 90s approached me in this field today, and after an hour or so of talking with him he gave me permission to his 100 acre farm next door 🥳

2 hours ago, Heavy Metal said:

We hope to meet a lot of friends here with same type of thinking...

Welcome to the forum! I'd say this is the place for the most dedicated (and obsessive) detectorists.

I'm in just about the oldest part of the USA, and started detecting over 3 years ago. I don't do videos, but I do get out detecting more than most. History is all we have where I am.

Welcome to the forum Mr. Metal,

I second the choice of the Coiltek 10x5, it's still on my Equinox 600. If you search the forum for 10x5 (alternately 5x10), you'll bring up lots of stuff I found with that combination. 

3 hours ago, DigInTheSand said:

IT WORKED!  I tried both ways and ended up resetting the factory preset.  THANK U.

I really like those headphones, they are incredibly loud if you want them to be, and I used them all summer hunting beaches.

I wish they would pair with my Deus 2, but I like the XP backphones that come with it as well because they don't go over my head. They are "on ear" too.

11 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Stunning buckle. There are 2 kinds of spectacle buckles - Crude and Cruder  😄 Yours is the cruder (older). 😍 As for the gnats, do you have a drop down net hat? I've been save many times with a net on. Kind of weird at first with a net right on your eyeballs 🙄 but after getting some of those gnats in your eyes, nose and mouth, you'll be reaching for that net

Thanks! 🙂

To me a buckle like that is as good as finding an old coin.

This place was established about 1670, maybe even earlier. It was a grant from King Charles I or two anyway... So it's probably one of the first things they lost 🤣

I do have a Gnat Hat, but I already look scary enough. 😬 I wear that mowing at home. 🤣 I'm used to it but my wife never will be.

I'm glad we don't have the black flies you do up there, but we have deer flies and horse flies that are most annoying.

32 minutes ago, DigInTheSand said:

People on this forum are awesome!  Really.  Thanks so much to both of you.

Let us know how it worked out! 🙂

1 minute ago, brys said:

I am bothered by shotgun caps and nickel bullet heads how will it do on those ?

It will find every single one. 🫤

I seriously wouldn't put it past those guys. 😁

I wonder what I win? 🤔

48 minutes ago, UKD2User said:

I'm not Gary (😎😁) - and I'm sure he can/will speak for himself(!) - but I think it's interesting that if you look at PaystreakSuperfreaks recent YT videos he show his 'VCO' program which he uses with Disc at 44. Paystreak has clay soil with a lot of iron mineralisation in it - probably a lot more than in most of our soils here in southern England, he also seems to hunt in parks with loads of modern trash and a fair amount of EMI (you could imagine he would want to give his ears an easier time!). He says he uses it as a way to ignore most of the foil and other nuisance signals as a first pass - he then goes back using more 'conventional' Disc settings to find the stuff he missed the first time (ie 'cherrypicking' as I said upthread).

Basically, I don't think there's any magic in a specific Disc number - just a choice based on experience and local conditions (just like everything else in detecting!).

Y'all may not believe this, but something clicked on the number "42" for me, I looked it up and I was right. 🤣

Remember the Douglas Adams series:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything...

Is 42.

Take it or leave it. 😏 

1 minute ago, Chase Goldman said:

You don't need to factory reset the 800 if you don't intend to use the ML80's again. 

I never had ML 80s, so I always do a reset, just to clear the pairing log. 

Chase is probably right. 👍

5 hours ago, DigInTheSand said:

Hello again F350.  Followed your advice and got myself a new pair of Creative SoundBlaster Jam V2 headphones.  They are so light, love it.  Will need to wrap headband as you said - they are quite hard.  This is embarrassing for me to ask you.  I am at a loss as to how to pair them with my EQ800 which are already paired to Minelab ML80 phones.  Before I ask any forum questions, I search and search, but can't find specific instructions to help me on this.  Hoping that this won't waste your time too much.

First - do I need to unpair the ML80 phones by using Factory reset? Then, to pair the new CSB phones:

• turn on Eq800
• then turn on Creative phones and then press wireless button on side of Eq
• and then?

I must be driving you mad, I'm sorry.  p.s. the Creative headphone manual really stinks.  Many thanks if you are going to reply. Jane

Hey Jane, 

Nope this is what we are here for. 🙂

Just a slight adjustment:

Do a system reset

Turn the equinox on and wait until the Wi-Fi sign goes away and the Bluetooth "B" comes up, then turn the headphones on and listen for "power on" then "pairing".

If you hear it, Put them near the equinox, I hang them on it, and walk away. Make some coffee or tea or something.

By the time you come back they should be paired, with a B+ in the top right corner. 🙂 It can take more than 2 minutes.

If this doesn't work turn everything off and do it again. Worst case you might read the headphone instructions on resetting them, but it should work.

The procedure from then on is turn the detector on, then hold the big button on the headphones until you hear "power on". You'll look cool doing it! 😜