ShintoSunrise

Has @Steve Herschbach commented on this development yet? I seem to remember him being intimately involved with testing of Equinox, and his absence here makes me skeptical that this is a high end machine capable of replacing that product line. I'm getting less "Equinox 1000" vibes and more "Vanguish plus"

Hey @MD Bigfoot welcome to the forums. Where are you in Washington state? Snohomish/Bothell area myself. 

I'd say you're right; I was honestly very pleased to see so many updates come out already, as sometimes it seems as though very few companies have a financial incentive to give consumers an upgraded a product years after it has already been purchased. My guess is that 3.0 was the last update we'll get, and intent is to get Nox users increasingly thirsty for a new machine in the series sometime in the next few years. 

Morning y'all,

I know we are all at least mildly interested in seeing what new functions or upgrades the folks at Minelab might be cooking up for the Nox line; any idea if we can expect a fourth summer update, or do we think 3.0 was the final? If we get a fourth, what do you think might change? Interested to hear everyone's thoughts as many of you are much smarter than I am when it comes to what is possible or probable in this field.

On 3/23/2021 at 7:11 PM, F350Platinum said:

Hey Shinto,

I got 1811 looking at the photo. Try the Flashlight Trick, shine a low powered flashlight sideways at the coin face and rotate the coin until the date jumps out.

If it's an 1811 it is a rare one. Sometimes just taking a picture of it will make the date stand out!

I tried but still couldn't quite get a reading; surface is highly mottled with copper erosion and breaks up whatever numbers may have once been. If you say you see 1811 I believe you! Anyone smarter than me know how much this would have been to lose back then, taking inflation into account? 

2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Quite an exciting spot you happened upon.  Most detectorists never find a single Seated coin and you get four in one hole! 

Did you check for mintmarks?  -O's (New Orleans mint) aren't much scarcer than the plains (Philadelphia) but one or two of those had an -S (San Francisco) version which are scarce to rare.  Also, there were two date variety errors for the 1858 half dime and yours appears to be in nice condition, meaning those errors have a chance of showing if you have one.  Check PCGS for details (i.e. photos).

For the spill in particular, the tight date range makes me wonder if it could have been a CW soldier's ration/pay.  Any known CW activity (e.g. river crossing) known for that area?  Another (unlikely but not impossible) hypothesis is that you came across a mini-cache.  Any sign of a container where you found those five?

How about a bank at a swimming hole?  I don't recall you saying how close you were to the current river channel but keep in mind that rivers change course, even in short time periods.

All great input, and I myself will be the first to admit I didn't "deserve" this find as I've never really been a coin shooter at all. The area where it was found absolutely could have been a river shoreline in the past as satellite lidar scans show several boundary layers across what is now forest. I will have to check the coins for the details you mention when I get home, but there was no other material I could find in the hole. Challenging location as there is a large amount of hot rocks throwing up interference across the search area. As to the owner hard to say; a strategic bridge nearby likely changed sides several times throughout the war! 

47 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Can you shed a little light as to the location itself ?   Eg.:  Stage stop ?  homestead (cellar-hole, or whatever) ?  etc...     Because machine-settings are one-thing.  But the bigger picture (of "tricks to find old coins) is:  Location location location.   Right ?

I wish I could tell an exciting tale of background research and lost homesteads, but honestly I was shocked at the location; seemingly a completely random spot in a floodplain forest so typical of Northern Virginia. The vast majority of the area is old shotgun shells, aluminum cans, and hot rocks galore. Truly wasn't expecting such a find. 

Final tally after going back at dawn this morning to clean out the rest of the spill hole:

1 large one cent, date illegible

4 Indian heads, dates illegible

3 seated dimes, 1856, 1857 and 1862

2 seated half dimes, 1858 and 1854

1 silver quarter, 1858

1 trime, 1861

All for now! 

2 hours ago, rod-pa said:

that is an awesome dig!!  might drive to VA just to have you rub my Nox coils.

Hah I'll have to find a way to explain it to my wife first

19 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

So about that meet up we were discussing via PM, still on the table?...lol.

Congrats.  You got most of the denomination bases covered there. Really rare to get a spill like that because that is not something that would easily escape being picked up by just about any detector whose coil crossed over it.  Silver is the first thing that drys up at a site that has been hit by detectorists because it is so easy to differentiate from junk.  So that is really is a once or twice in a lifetime single day haul, these days.  Savor it because it is going to be hard to top. 

BTW - I would hit that spot hard because there could be more silver and possibly a more difficult to detect target lurking there, a small denomination gold coin or two.  Field 2 or Park 2 is probably your best bet because they are higher frequency weighted and better for picking up gold and other mid-conductors like brass and lead.  If I had the Nox 800, I'd also consider gold mode or 20 or 40 khz single frequency.

Good luck!

Offer still stands, though my time here is running out; I'll be heading west and leaving all this history behind in just a few weeks. And yes I'm absolutely gonna hit that spot hard tomorrow; I was losing daylight today but i don't think that hole was finished! 

1 minute ago, Tiftaaft said:

Thanks for sharing.  I have toyed a little with 4 khz.  Glad it was successful for you.  That is a dig of a lifetime right there.  

I hope not I just bought this damn thing! 😐

Also came with three Indian heads, but they are severely corroded unfortunately. 

Just now, Tiftaaft said:

That is Incredible Shinto!!!

Tell me more about your settings.  4khz?  24-25 Sens?  

What a find!!  ~Tim

4khz, 23 sens. Was honestly looking to dial down bc it was just too chattery. I'm in Loudoun county Va, found about 25 feet from a riverbank 

Whether or not @EL NINO77 misspoke I still think it's an interesting concept, and hearing folks such as yourself explain that you can in fact sometimes hear a differentiating audio signal between similar looking targets leads me to believe that there are subtle differences that might be readily obvious with spectrum analysis, if not to an untrained ear. I think one immediate issue is that while the equinox can connect to headphones with Bluetooth, is not clear whether you could make a connection to say a computer or smartphone the same way. 

Good morning all! I saw a post yesterday where someone mentioned the possibility of linking the equinox to an audio analyzer to get a visual readout on target tones and I found the idea fascinating. I've never seen this done and was curious what the old hands here thought about the idea. I'm sure the engineers at minelab (or any other shop) configured the sound of their machines with the human brain in mind, so our wetware may already be the best analyzer there is. But I can't help but wondering if a visualization of the audio would provide interesting heretofore undetected differences in targets that appear to be mostly indistinguishable to a rookie ear, namely uniform can slaw and pulltabs. Anyone here have any idea? 

On 2/24/2018 at 1:15 PM, EL NINO77 said:

Equinox can use 1-4  wireles  audio ouputs at once,-in 50 tone, so it will not be a problem to use some spectral sound analyzer in a mobile phone ... even though a good sound signal is being heard ... and then VDI...

I've never seen this done, is it possible? Is it even useful? I'm wondering if there is a hidden realm of audio discrimination here or if the human brain is already good enough. I'd be curious to see this experiment.

Found 15 to 18 inches deep... That must have been at the raw edge of detection depth, and in saltwater no less, which is damn Impressive.

Hey all, while researching this question myself I came across a technical write-up from Minelab I hadn't seen before; sharing here in case others found it interesting! https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/11043/KBA_METAL_DETECTOR_BASICS_&_THEORY.pdf

Fantastic discussion folks, and many thanks for the explanations given as they fit well into my own understanding. While there are obviously many gray areas in target interrogation methods and results will be highly dependent on target composition, depth, environmental context, etc, I would be interested to hear what other phenomenon folks have noticed and whether they've been able to turn them into general rules. The 10hz check would be one example, or pumping a coil to detect for iron tones. 

Greetings fellow detectorists, I'm hoping someone with a deeper understanding of the technological methods of the Equinox series might be able to shed some light on why certain Interrogation methods work they do. I think we are all aware of the little trick whereby a potential target in the mid conductor range in multi frequency can be examined in 10hz; a sudden jump from the teens to the twenties indicates a likely bottle cap. My questions are two fold; first, what is responsible for this phenomenon? Why does a change in frequency potentially change the vdi of a target, and what determines when a change occurs?  Second, is there a potential logic here that one can use to devise further Interrogation methods using similar principles? Looking forward to your insights!

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Excellent find (and approach).  Another reminder that discrimination (whether detector settings or brain settings) should at least be site based.  Makes me wonder how many keepers I've missed by being too selective....  Too bad they didn't leave you a few pennies inside, but still a worthy display piece.  There was a period (1950's?) when commercial banks were advertising by handing out similar items, but I don't see advertising on yours (do you?).  There are collectors of those.  I agree that yours looks way older than 1950's.

Agreed, I too often get caught up in only focusing on mid and high tones myself, so I'm glad I did dig this one up. The piece simply says "BANK" across the front with no additional text. Here's a photo of it shortly after coming out of the ground for comparison purposes.

26 minutes ago, matt said:

Really nice! Are there any coins in it?

Unfortunately not, just a lot of dirt and roots! 

Welcome to the forum! I'm also a newbie and looking to absorb the knowledge of the pros around here. Where are you in Virginia? I'm up in Loudoun myself