F350Platinum

Two major reasons why I don't: Most campgrounds don't allow gas powered vehicles An RTV would be very difficult to get in my RV, not to mention the gasoline smell. My wife wouldn't have it. My golf cart can pull my 1200 pound 5x8 Carry On trailer with ease, And it's very sticky in the snow, has no problems. Sometimes I'll trailer that little monster to permissions. 🙂 Might do more of that this year. 🤔 I'll be motivated to bring the coffee when it gets colder, right now it's too warm in the afternoon. Believe me when I say I was pretty beat making the half mile detect back to the truck. Long day. 🙂

Good choice Joe! You really don't need anything else. 🤔 The Deus 2 is great as well, but those antennas 🙄 it sucks having to disassemble it every hunt to clean it, which is important. Gotta agree that gridding is good, but if you get out often you gotta find a new spot 🤣 I use the Dankowski settings, have since my fabulous wife bought me a Manticore in January. Returned 4 days later with a 1950s cocktail ring I dug in 34 degree water at a local river. He's a bit hard to follow, but I haven't had to change a thing except using Neil Jones' Explorer tone setup, but that's me. Don't discount the dry, got these this year it's been my best ever: I think you'll do fine, just adjust your mind to having good days and bad days. 🍀 Gonna be there in February hitting the Treasure Coast with a great friend I made on this forum. 🙂 At some point he might have a few tips for ya too.

Hey JD, There are a lot more dedicated beach hunters than me, and I don't often go in the water. However I spend half the year at beaches now, and the other half hunting farms in one of the oldest places in the United States. I'm blessed with a decent retirement and have a wife most would dream of who lets me get out there, and often. I've been doing this for almost 6 years now, found Spanish silver out in front of my house with a cheap detector, and now own the Deus 2 and Manticore. I go up and down the coast from early spring to mid fall, from Florida to Virginia. I feel from your post that you might be overthinking beach hunting and want to dive in with incredible finds right away, so my advice to you would be: Don't overthink it, and lower your expectations. There are many factors that affect what you will find, but the most important one is being in the right place at the right time, in essence - luck. As others have said you really don't ever know when that time is. To be truly successful in any situation, you first have to be really in sync with your machine, if you buy one in January for example, and use it at least (and I mean at least) one or twice a week for more than 4 hours at a time, you might fully understand it by October, if you don't change settings all the time or keep switching machines. All beaches are different, and at different times the same old beach will not be the same old beach. Best time to get there is an hour or two before low tide, I like onshore wind because it keeps you cooler. There are 3 major influences at any beach: The most important one is how low you keep your coil to the ground, both in and out of the water. I often talk to other detectorists, and they lie if they are "experienced", but they often tell me they haven't found much. Then I see them "high sticking", holding their coil 4" to 8" above the sand, which I would imagine they do in the water as well. It's almost like they don't want to get sand in the thing. 🙄 Next is the amount of detectorists you see, if there are a lot of people (and this is the bane of Florida detectorists especially) out there detecting, you got there too late. There are a lot of geezers with detectors (like me 😏) that can be out there every day if they want to be. Last is the beach conditions, if a beach has been replenished, you'll have to get out there first after a major weather event. Erosion is key especially in Florida. They spend a lot of money covering up the stuff you want to find. Watch the cameras. Personally I hate getting my butt kicked by waves, so I prefer low tides, but my weeks of travel dictate when I can get out early morning, so if it's high tide I'll hunt the upper beach and exits, and at low I'm zig zagging from the surf to the tide line. Many times I'll find only one thing every quarter mile, some times there are "lines" or pools where coins and other stuff accumulate, sometimes not. They become apparent quickly. I have no idea why I see a detectorist walking a straight line anywhere. 🤷‍♂️ Obviously the best place to be is the most frequented place. In a nutshell, just get out there and detect, and laugh when you find nothing but junk and pull tabs. 😅 Hope this helps as a general observation. 🙂 Good luck out there. 🍀

I think I'm as in sync with the Manticore as I have been with the Deus 2, Still can't decide which I like better. That's probably because they are on an even level. For low conductors I prefer the Manticore. 🤔 I prefer the Deus on longer hunts, no need for battery backup. It was odd to have the W&M come up at so low an ID, usually a large cent is more like 93. It's big and thick. Could have been dragged down by the surrounding iron, it's a very noisy spot. The cob is pretty large but was only a 77, like a dime. For sure I'm lucky to have old places to hunt, that either haven't been hunted or not well hunted. 😅

Thanks! I'm on a silver streak apparently, last 3 hunts. I imagine I'll break that soon 😅 You should be as well 🤔 Old farms are the place to find them, especially the large ones. Got any nearby?

Thanks Lodge, I found a large cent here too! Usually when I make a spectacular find at one of these permissions, I don't really find much else. However, this is a pretty big farm with all sorts of spots ranging from the late 1600s to present. The farmhouse was built in 1903, and was recently restored, they carved out a two acre plot for a relative of the landowner. There was another on this farm recorded on older maps with Victorian era finds, and then this spot where some really old stuff was going on. I stuck around in the oldest area until I found something. It just had to be there. 🤔 I hope I can return before the cover crop gets too high, but it's raining again today.

Sequel posted in Coins and relics... 😎

Thanks MN, I'm putting all my finds in display boxes with locations for future reference. 👍 It's getting to be a heckuva collection! I most certainly would have found the coins with the Deus 2 and the 13", but I brought the Manticore for its low conductor sensitivity. We have found lots of Tombacs and spectacle buckle bits, even a few whole ones in this place. That is what I was searching for, and expecting only to find higher conductors like lead. It's a 150 acre farm. Oddly enough the W&M coin was only a 55, and the cob was a 77. The only other stuff I found with IDs over 50 were bullets and old cans. The only other thing I can think of for both detectors is using an elliptical coil, I'm not sure why but I feel that ellipticals false less than round coils on iron, and iron is there in large quantity. I believe there was a structure of some sort, but so long ago it is not on any map. The M15, while somewhat heavy and difficult to maneuver in corn stalks no matter how well they turbo till, affords the user a greater advantage in that it catches "fringe" targets on a large scale than the smaller coils. I've used the M8 in similar conditions and find it can miss a target that is surrounded by iron, simply because of its size. With a larger coil, the edges will find the iron, but the center seems to take precedence over the edges. 🤔 Or at least the processing favors the higher conductor. I've been using Neil Jones' Freestyle settings since I first used the Manticore, and am now very used to the way it works. Apparently his soil conditions are very similar to mine. 🙂 Lucky guess when looking to hit the ground running!

Thank you Colonel, 🫡 Very early and quite unexpected finds, but after finding the second W&M coin, I had to stick around and search for silver, I'm surprised to find a whole coin. The last time I was there was 2 years ago, almost 3. It's a half mile slog to the site. The cob is my second oldest now.

Thanks JCR, This is the second William and Mary coin I've found in that spot. I believe it was an early hunting camp. The hill overlooks a large creek, wildfowl and deer still abound. Lead everywhere.

Check out the Sequel... 😅

Hard work but well rewarded, Joe. Great stuff. I'll bet that track is longer than one would imagine. 🏆

Today I went to a farm I haven't been to in a while, We have pounded this place with Deus 2 detectors, and found a lot of cool stuff dating from the late 1600s on. My favorite find there until today was a 1694 William and Mary twopence, I don't have it on my phone anymore. It's a huge farm, you have to park on one end of it and walk to the other. There is a small hotspot near where we park, and much larger spots on the other end. With corn stalks everywhere it's brutal to walk on, and tough to detect. They planted cover crop so it was a good idea to go there before it gets too high. Digging today was so easy it should be illegal 😅 Today was the first day of Daylight Savings Time here, so I got there early. Today I brought the Manticore with the M15, I wanted to see if it would find anything I hadn't with the Deus 2. Knowing I'd be there a long time I brought my backup battery: I was there a total of 8 hours, and walked over 5 miles. For the first 4 hours I found nothing but junk, lead, and shotgun shells. I really thought the day wasn't going to be all that great but the last 4 hours got really good. I'm happy to not dig any more iron with the Manticore: Same old same old. Here are the brass and other finds: Got two halves of and odd metal sphere, one is empty, the other filled with iron. 🤷‍♂️ A couple pieces of Saddle decoration, including what the Hoover Boys call a "Throckmorton" 😏 I think it is a badge identifying a male horse as a stud horse. 🤔 I also got a couple of cool buttons, or maybe they are saddle decorations as well: Really old stuff. At one point I got a solid 55, and I thought "oh, more aluminum". Well it wasn't, and I was thrilled: It's a 1694 William and Mary Half Cent with pretty good detail. I was just able to make out the date at the bottom. This is what it looks like cleaned up: But that's not all! I ended up beating that find with this: A 1687 Spanish cob. Sidelighting brings out the date on the reverse of the coin. And this is what this cob would look like if minted in Bolivia. It's very difficult to read that side of the coin. Two coins over 330 years old! What a day. 🍀

Thanks RVP, The ring is huge, no sense weighing it because the stone is big. Took a long time to get all that crud off, gotta use some polish on it. A truly rare find. 🙂 Headed out relic detecting today, an old farm where I found a Tuppence and a lot of old buttons and buckles a while back. Hope there's still something there. 🤔

Excellent, Compass. 👍 Kinda surprised the silver ring didn't go over 70, but great finds! 🏆 That's a good lake you have there.

Thanks okara, The shovel wouldn't really break the top layer of marl, under that it was wet, but I could never get it to go more than a few inches at a time. Every dig was difficult unless I came across a softer spot.

Thanks JCR, Definitely not a bad shovel, but it would only work well in loose ground here. The Predator I have is much better for this area, no matter the conditions. 🙂 What I thought would be a pretty slow day turned into a busy one. It wasn't a big spot, but there were a good lot of buttons!

Last week I hunted this farm with Chase, and he asked me if the landowner owned the field all the way to an old abandoned service station. He had gone into it while I was in another place, and found some pretty good stuff. That field had an old Victorian era house on it, it is long gone. The last time I hunted there I used my Equinox 600, and found a lot of stuff. Maybe someone cherry picked the silver, but they sure left everything else. 😏 Last weekend this field was very easy to dig, but that sure changed. A week of wind and dry weather, along with the fact that the farmers planted barley using a planting machine really turned this field into concrete. I thought I'd bring my new Root Slayer shovel, I bought it last spring but too late to use. I was thinking the ground would be like last weekend, and instead of digging an 11" plug, I'd be able to dig a 13" plug. I was wrong. 😵 The Root Slayer is a really nice shovel, but it's very heavy, and is almost useless on hard pan Blue Marl ground. The point may be great for roots, but in my farms there are no roots or rocks. It's topsoil, marl, clay, and then beach sand. The marl comes to the surface a lot, and when it hardens it's brutal. Well I soldiered on, used the shovel all day, wishing I had brought my Predator Ranger. 🙄 I walked a total of 5 miles, digging mostly lead buckshot, bullets, musket balls, and shotgun shells, it took almost 2 hours to locate my first find, a 1913 wheat penny. At least the coin is over 100 years old. 🥳 Here's all the trash, if you're not digging this stuff, you're not going to find what I found. I used the Manticore with the M15 again, I'm able to skip iron almost completely with my settings, and definitely find lots of deep low conductors, I'm finding it very reliable and accurate: I finally found a small hotspot and dug 18 buttons, from a large octagonal to 12 very small ones. There are two tiny ball buttons, one General Service cuff button, and even an old 4 hole. Two of the smaller buttons are heavily silvered, at first I thought each was a small silver coin. The big chunk of copper on the left with what appears to be a hexagonal stamp in it on both sides was a 97, really shocked me. It may have lettering or symbols but it's obliterated. I'm thinking some sort of assay weight. It's very heavy. I got a box plate, and pieces of a very old shoe buckle. Next all the coins: A 1934 Buffalo Nickel, the 1913 wheat, and a 1916 wheat. The bottom coin is aluminum with a large number 3 on it. I wasn't thinking jewelry at all, but I even found that! 😅 Got a brass ring, and a small piece of silver jewelry with stones in it. I hoped to find the rest of it but didn't. The ring was my last find on the way back to my truck. 🍀 I really hope this winter isn't too cold.

Nice (albeit tough) hunt, congrats on the gold and silver. As much as I love my Deus 2, I have to agree that the Manticore is really getting me the goods in places similar to yours. 🙂

Great story DC, and those are some nice finds from both sides of the turn of the century and older, if those etched buttons are Tombac.🏆 That is a site well worth revisiting, some of those early 1800s coins can be very valuable. I may be doing what you suggest in the next year or so, I have a neighbor who is building a house behind me and he mentioned his son is interested in detecting. I told him I'll leave his new property alone now, I've found many old items there, hopefully there is something left 😬 This forum has done the same for me, and I am grateful. 🙂

Great return on your return, Ghound. 😏 I have a few watch keys, they were used until pocket watches got stem wind, around 1842, according to my fiddling around on the Internet. I'd say it's probably ~ the era of your other finds. Materials used reflect the status of the owner, brass being the most common, although yours appears be a different sort of metal. The knob might be a cane topper, might be fun to clean it up and add it to a walking stick of some sort. 🤔 Is it threaded inside? The ring is also a curiosity, any idea as to its composition?

Thanks, it was a great day overall. 🙂 I was hoping for rings and got old silver coins. Always a surprise there. I pretty much knew there was an old dime in there, Got a quarter months ago the same way - in a ball of iron conglomerate. I've got about 12 or more Barber coins out of this one spot, along with a few Mercury dimes and maybe a Roosevelt. Yeah the 3 other dimes are clad.

Nice gold okara! Excellent. 👍 Gotta go for those magic disappearing targets. Happens to me a lot, but a few scoops more gets it.

Thanks! Good to see you back man, yeah it was getting kinda boring finding all those junk hoops in the water, but when I got to the old spot, there were some new finds, 8 old coins! I 🤯 think there's a wheat penny in there somewhere. 🤪

Outstanding NC, glad to see you posting. 🏆 That's a helluva find!