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I tripped fell and landed on the article All that glitters is not gold, the old saying warns, but it may be just as valuable under new government rules for buried treasure. Metal detectorists are responsible for most of Britain’s historical finds, but UK law has allowed hobbyists to sell artefacts rather than give them to museums if they do not meet the narrow criteria of “treasure”. Ministers have long sought to ensure objects end up on public display and not in private collections, and now the Government has redefined treasure as any object that is “exceptionally” important to British history, not merely those made of gold, in a move which will oblige detectorists to hand over more of their discoveries. Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the arts minister, said: “There has been a huge surge in the number of detectorists – thanks in part to a range of TV programmes – and we want to ensure that new treasure discoveries are protected so everyone can enjoy them. Found by an army veteran on Lincolnshire farm land in 2019, the brooch depicts a horse and would have been studded with bright enamel and used to adorn a Roman’s cloak. The item fell outside the power of the Treasure Act and the Collection Museum in Lincoln depended on the finder’s donation to acquire it Credit: Lincolnshire.gov.uk “Archaeological treasures offer a fascinating window into the history of our nation and the lives of our ancestors. “We are changing the law so that more artefacts uncovered by archaeologists and members of the public can go on display in museums rather than ending up in private hands. This will make sure they can be studied, admired and enjoyed by future generations.” The decision comes amid a rise in metal detecting – partly inspired by BBC series Detectorists – which has been harnessed by museums to acquire increasing numbers of artefacts found annually in Britain, where 96 per cent of discoveries are now made by hobbyists. The reporting and ultimate ownership of these finds is governed by the 1996 Treasure Act, which has defined treasure as over 300 years old, made of gold or silver, or found with artefacts made of precious metals. Detectorists are obliged to report potential treasure to the local coroner, and if they decide it fits the definition, the find can be claimed by the Crown and made available to museums. Roman ‘licking dog’ believed to be a religious object related to healing and the Celtic medicine god Nodens found in a farmer’s field in Gloucestershire in 2017. The bronze piece was sold off in 2019 for £137,000 Credit: Gloucestershire County Council/PA More than 5,000 objects have been added to collections since the passing of the 1996 act, including the Iron Age Havering Hoard and the solid gold Ringlemere cup, which both fitted into the legal criteria. But the narrow definition has allowed some items to fall through the cracks of the Treasure Act, including an extremely rare Roman dog sculpture found in Gloucestershire in 2017, which sold for £137,000 rather than being made available to a museum, because it was made of bronze and not a precious metal. In 2014 a unique figurine depicting a Roman “hoody” was found in Chelmsford, and because it was made of a copper alloy was allowed to be auctioned off. It was only saved after the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport imposed a sales bar. Romano-British sculpture depicting the ‘hoodie’ garment the Birrus Britannicus, designed for the British weather. It was found in 2014 and a sale for the bronze object was agreed. It was only saved for the public by a DCMS expert bar which allowed the Chelmsford City Museum time to raise funds for the item Credit: Gareth Fuller/PA The department has now moved to expand the definition of treasure to prevent significant historical artefacts being lost, announcing that “treasure” can also mean “exceptional” finds over 200 years old, regardless of the type of metal of which they are made. This will apply to these artefacts so long as they provide an important insight into British heritage. This will include items which are extremely rare, or provide a particular insight into a historical figure or event. The copper alloy Roman helmet was found in Crosby Garrett in Cumbria in 2010, It may have been the ornate helmet of a cavalry officer. The piece was sold through Christie's in 2010 for £2.3 million to an undisclosed private buyer Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe New rules will mean more finds will likely have to be handed over to museums, and while some detectorists have welcomed the added protection of heritage the move may offer, there are calls for hobbyists to be properly rewarded. Stephen Aslett, a detectorist, said: “We’re out there trying to find history, it’s the history itself that is the real treasure. In that sense I think it will be good, as we will get more of our finds on display, and we want to share that history. He added: “But what I want is a bit of recognition. So often you go to museums, see a display, and the detectorist who has been out in the rain working hard to get that find is not mentioned, they’re totally forgotten. Meanwhile, archaeologists ride in and take all the glory. “I would like to see some recognition factored into the process, and a fair system of reward. Because there is worry that doing things the illegal way could make more money than being low-balled by the coroner.”

Spot on analysis, I've noticed the same. It's one of an elite few detectors that noise cancel appears to do more than select a random channel, and actually does work (if using long press), and yes, lowering sensitivity can be to your advantage, in fact can provide better target ID even on very deep targets in my mild soils.

It might be a big ask being such an old detector but this place maybe able to help you. https://www.centrevilleelectronics.net/

I hope you're a one off strick, sad it's happened but hope it's not a plague of faulty speakers coming, I only use the speaker. I think the biggest issue maybe getting stock for warranty when they can't even supply enough to sell. Maybe they bought the speakers off Nokta's old Legend speaker supplier 🙂

Other than a bit of testing the 10x5" isn't coming off my 6000 in a hurry, in fact the next time it comes off will be when the NF Sadie comes out to test it against the 10x5" 🙂 You're doing well, glad you're enjoying the 10x5", you must give it one hell of a clean after each use, my looks all beaten up already.

I always get confused as the Americans tend to use grains and I have to convert them over 😛 then I get conufsed as I talk in grams and when an American talks in grams I get mixed up. The sizes I'm talking about where the Nox appears to be excelling over the Manticore are when you get to 0.05 of a gram and below, especially when you're in the 0.00X of a gram range (I've got it right this time) that's where the Manticore is significantly worse than the Equinox. Not a big deal to most people I'm sure, I was just hoping it would be equal to the Equinox when both using the same coil with it's higher sensitivity options, it's slightly worse and when the Nox is lucky enough to have a 6" coil and the Manticore 8x5.5 the gap will likely grow when you compare those two. Again not a big deal to most people, just a bit disappointing it's not at least equal to the Nox.

I find on sizes like that they're pretty similar, it's very small gold the Equinox exceeds the performance of the Manticore, tiny gold... 0.0X of a gram type stuff.

If you strike it lucky, put in the hard yards to get out of the most commonly known areas and go a bit more remote you can do quite well, this has been a patch JW has found a couple of weeks ago remote in the mountains, he tends to drive there and sleep and detect the next day, then he's been going back to on the weekends to finish it off He was just showing some visitors the area for an exploration day and he took the GM along for a bit of fun and found these in 20 minutes Went back the next day again with the GM to the same spot and got these in 5 hours. All looking very promising so in come the big guns, the next day with the GM and 6000. Noticeable how the gold jumps when the 6000 comes to the party, the smaller bits are the GM checking dig holes. His wife even had a go with the 6000 and did pretty good for a short time, her first nugget was after 5 minutes It was getting a lot harder to find anything now so he went back with the GPZ and 15" CC And this was Friday just gone again with the GPZ and 15"CC with the tiny bits with the GM from the dig holes. And the GPZ didn't disappoint with a whopper for NZ on that last day So while yes we mostly have small gold, there is good gold to be found if you can get off the beaten track a bit, that is just not easy to do, the easy to access areas are just finding the bits missed over the years with older technology or by chance, once you get out away from civilization a bit things can improve dramatically. A small gold mining operation a short drive from my house pulled 75,000 oz of alluvial gold out of what was basically lush green farm paddocks over recent years. Unfortunately for me the gold is small, and very deep so not detectable gold. Alaska sounds so much like New Zealand it's crazy, the soil types, the geography, even the photos 😉 I guess it's why Parker from Gold Rush came here for in the hunt for his wash plant as the ones made here suited his needs, Tony Beets always has his Kiwi gear too. The two areas seem very similar. A mine on the North Island is pulling 35,000 – 45,000 oz gold a year at the moment, it's been there for a long time, a big open pit, and there is another mine in the South Island about 3 hours drive from my house is pulling 145,000 – 155,000 oz gold a year at a place called Macraes. Again, just in farmland. We do have insane black sand beaches though and they're the most mineralized places I ever detect and they just shut down any detector, Tarsacci made a coil specifically for our NZ black sand beaches called their NZ coil for the MDT 8000 detector, from what I can tell it wasn't a success, the only guy I know that bought one was disappointed. The most success I've had was with the GPX 4500 and 5000 where they could actually work on the beaches, the Equinox just overloads and gets about 2cm depth 😛 On the South Island’s West Coast, black sand beaches such as this have successfully been mined for gold. The sands also contain other heavy minerals eroded from the Southern Alps and concentrated on beaches through wave action. In the North Island the black sands are derived from volcanic rocks and dominate the 750 km of shoreline between Taranaki and Cape Rēinga in the far north. Auckland’s black sands are mined and smelted into iron. The same beach close up A lot of New Zealand is national park, and the gold is locked up forever safe in place you're not allowed to mine it, or even detect it, 30% of the entire country is National Park. The other areas are just too difficult to get approval to mine, it's a very difficult thing to do even for the hobbyist with a little dredge, very costly and difficult to get approval anywhere. So while we are known as the land of mild soils, we also have large areas of soils no detector can handle and hot rocks that near kill any detector with the best I've seen so far the GPX 5000 in the hot rocks, although still troubled at least works without sounding off on them when buried as if they were a small nugget, I'm looking at you GPX 6000.

I bought skid plates for my 24k from Serious Detecting in USA off their website, perhaps they were off Ebay actually but still from Serious Detecting using Ebays Global shipping program, can't remember what I paid but I'm sure it was far too much, not for the skid plates, but that crazy shipping fee from USA is a killer. I've bought a plane ticket to fly myself to Australia for cheaper than I've paid to bring a small box from the USA to New Zealand.

You're right GB, but that's the decision people have to make, so many of us have to base the decision on previous experience and that was with the Nox 800, Minelab have said the changelog of the 900, we know what to expect, and users have said what they find different about it, mostly the more unstable target ID's perhaps due to the bigger range but I think there is more to that. What we can do is estimate how the 900 is though as build quality we can base it on the Manticore as they share similar traits. I was thinking I might have to get a 900 too due to the small gold limitations of the Manticore but now they're looking into that and were not aware the issue existed I have high hopes I won't need a 900 now as other than the small gold side of things I'd never pick up my 800 again, and I would say the same would go for a 900.

The 6000 DD coil is only sensitive on the left side of the coil, so it chops the 14" in half. It's the price you pay for using certain types of coils, but the benefits of them outweigh the negatives which is why they exist, you use them when you need to, for certain situations they give a big advantage. I have the same thing with my 15" Concentric coil on the GPZ, it's a 15" coil but it's really like using a 10" coil, I continue to use it as the performance I am getting on small gold is well above what my 10" DOD GPZ coil can achieve on small deep targets. If I need edge sensitivity I change to a different coil that better suits the situation. I can see these Garrett DD's being good having the sensitive center area, and if they're more sensitive than the Mono which they appear to be I'd be using one a lot for the small gold we have around here, as long as you are aware of the limitations you can take advantage of the coil to its fullest. It's good Garrett did this video as it explains the detection field of the coil so everyone using it understands what they're using.

Yes, I would certainly take the Manticore over an improved build quality and slightly modified Equinox And the good news today is Minelab are looking into the small gold sensitivity, they were not aware it was any less sensitive than the Equinox and obviously didn't expect it to be, so perhaps if it turns out I'm right that it is less sensitive there might be a fix coming? That would be fantastic.

When I was a kid in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia my parents house near a Bauxite mine, I used to ride around on my bike there in my early years with my mates, later on we rode dirtbikes around in there, I think it's all filled in and houses now, our dirt was red as red could be, grass even struggled to grow, didn't help by the climate, our gardens were terrible, we had to buy in top soil to grow anything worthwhile as the soil was terrible, the one thing that did grow oddly was Coffee trees, I grew my own beans and roasted them in a popcorn air popper 😉 I didn't care at all about metal detecting then but obviously the soil was pretty hot. I'm glad I don't have to detect around there now with my mild soil around here. I would guess there are soils all over the world that can be difficult, we have very mild soil here but absolutely insane hot rocks, a very volcanic country probably doesn't help with that. If you look at countries by iron ore production Australia is at the top of the list, I guess that doesn't mean they have the most, it means they mine the most, I have no idea which has the hottest soils, some country somewhere may surprise us all. Excuse my crazy spacing at the bottom of the post, it won't let me fix it. 1 Australia 930,000 2019 2 Brazil 480,000 2019 3 China 350,000 2019 4 India 210,000 2019 5 Russia 99,000 2019 6 South Africa 77,000 2019 7 Ukraine 62,000 2019 8 Canada 54,000 2019 9 United States 48,000 2019 10 Kazakhstan 43,000 2019 11 Iran 38,000 2019

Don't worry Erik, we live in a throw away world, they have replaced your coil, I'd bet my left eyeball on it. Minelab do have exceptional warranty service in my experience, and I have a lot of it.

All I know so far is the Equinox 800 with 11" coil is more sensitive to small targets such as a #9 lead pellet than the Manticore with 11" coil in every configuration and sensitivity setting I've tried. This translates over to tiny gold too from what I've seen but it's easier for people to replicate with the #9 lead pellet. This is rather disappointing as the marketing for the Manticore may lead someone to believe otherwise. If the 900 is at least as good as the 800 on small gold which I expect it will be, it even has an option for higher sensitivity which I personally would appreciate as I almost always ran 25 on my Nox looking for tiny gold so I maybe able to push a 900 that bit further. I'd buy the 900 for sure if prospecting was the primary purpose, especially with accessory coils available already and by the aftermarket. With the Equinox having a 6" coil available and the Manticore only getting a 8x5.5" coil the likelihood is the Equinox is going to be the most sensitive overall too. I've yet to find a reason I'd choose the Manticore over an Equinox for prospecting, in saying that it's very early days and opinions change with time, experience and further knowledge on usage. At this stage it looks like I'll keep my 800 until it dies then buy a 900 for prospecting, and at the moment I'll be using the 800 over the Manticore on the odd occasion I need a VLF for looking for gold. If my 800 takes too long to die and I get impatient I may take it swimming more often than I do to hurry the process up 😛 For all other detecting, with my only experience being the 800, not the 900 at this stage it is Manticore all of the way, keep that sensitivity under control and don't try push it too high and it leaves the Nox in the rear view mirror. I doubt I'll use my Nox again for coins, and the beach from my limited experience so far the Manticore is the better choice. I really do love the 2D target trace, not quite the CTX target trace but does the job good enough for my usage. Apposite to Abenson the 2D target trace is brilliant in my soil, to very good depth. If I never looked for gold nuggets I'd take the Manticore all day over the Nox 900.

I bet they wished they never did that now, by the looks of it they've well exceeded First Texas, releasing their SMF machine well above and beyond the First Texas line up. They can obviously do it themselves now.

The NZ Dealer now has Manticore's sitting in stock, this is the second batch, the first batch of 10 that mine came out of seems to of been able to fill all the back orders. https://www.jacobsdigital.co.nz/products/minelab-manticore-metal-detector?variant=43228156035331

They left out SMF as then it would be a better than Nox 600 detector, they wanted to fill a void to compete with something, possibly the Simplex, and it will destroy the Simplex if the sale price is similar, no way would I choose a Simplex over an X-Terra. I was initially very disappointed with the Manticore target ID stability, this was resolved by changing how I think when it comes to sensitivity, lower = more stable ID's on deep coins. With the Nox 800 I found higher sensitivity = more stable ID on my deep coins. Now while not quite as stable as the Vanquish it's not all that different to the Nox 800 stability.

I have two GME SPK-07's right up on my shoulders, wind doesn't bother me much at all with that setup using the SP01. Perhaps some get worse wind though so that would make a difference I guess.

You forgot to throw a joke in, are you feeling OK Klunker? need a coffee or something? Good post though, my mind often drifts when I'm detecting and it's not a good thing especially when it drifts to what I'm going to have for lunch or dinner, my detecting pace picks up like somehow swinging faster will make my next meal come quicker 🙂 I just like to turn the volume on the GPZ down, turn the sp01 right up to max and let my speakers do the talking. The lower that GPZ volume the easier the little guys are to hear for me. I like the idea of the Avantree but I've not overly liked the audio quality/stability of mine, perhaps it's some background EMI where I am causing it but they crackle too much with signal drop for my liking which throws my concentration out. Hopefully we soon see Bluetooth LE transmitters and Avantree or some other decent company makes a similar product to the Torus with LE support, far superior than aptX LL, rather than dropping signal and crackling it will drop bitrate to compensate, the lower bitrate won't affect the detecting experience.

Can't say I've used the Legend however I can sing praise for the 24k, especially with the 6" concentric coil, a very good combination.

Concentric coil users are already familiar with this style of recoveries, especially on tiny targets, I flip my detector upside down too.

I forgot the ATX used a similar design as I've paid next to no attention to the ATX, it's good they've given a name to the design as it appears to be Garrett exclusive, never seen a coil like that on any other detector, with the hundreds of GPX coils available nobody seems to have copied the design and used it on anything else.

I was meaning in general Chase, it's surprising how many people assume the technology is something Minelab made themselves, sort of like reinventing the wheel I think and just not something they would devote time and money and hire staff capable of doing, then the cost of making the chips.... just not going to happen. Their detectors benefit from advancements in technology from component manufacturers, newer models are often improved greatly by those advancements and then manufacturers like Minelab can take advantage of hardware improving over time. It's similar to coders for games on computers, the hardware is often the restrictive thing, some of the early tricks thy used to get games to work on hardware it shouldn't be able to work on in the early days of games was pretty awesome.

You don't need to worry, if you have an Axiom your DD coil is the focused core version. https://garrett.com/sport/axiom You may have noticed Steve talking about using the DD coils on his Australia trip and enjoying using them, I think he ended up using them the most from memory. Nobody else except Garrett has done this design from what I can see. I think they've just given a name to the design, a good idea as it seems a really good design and deserves it's own name, it's not a simple DD coil. From Garrett's website, "Garrett Exclusive! Axiom Focused Core (FC) DD Coils This video compares traditional DD and Mono prospecting search coils against the ultra-hot detection of Axiom Focused Core (FC) DD coils. Engineered with a centralized focused core, each Axiom DD search coil exceeds mono coil performance on small gold nuggets. "