UT Dave

Checking out historical maps and images are definitely on my to do list. And yes, the little coil is working great! Combined with the Manticore live ID in pinpoint (an underrated Manticore feature), it really excels at scrubbing good stuff out of heavy trash. - Dave

Excellent! I didn't find that in my searches. It's the right place - I found it in Salt Lake. And lines up in time with the padlock. Has to be a silver coin or two hiding in all that modern trash where those 1920s items were. Vegetation will be getting tall soon and make that little spot hard to hunt. But I'll definitely get back to it while I still can. And remember it for next year. It's only 15 minutes from home which is extra nice. - Dave

I actually like digging clad. So... Pigging out on a big clad haul is always fun for me. And, clad pig outs are getting fewer and farther between as the clad just kind of dries up for good it seems. Last Friday, I got out to a known clad sprinkle. It's super, super pop tab and bottle cap trashy, but the trash is also just littered with clad. I worked it over for awhile with the M8 and did pretty good on the clad. Got tired of digging so much and wandered off into a little wooded section, where it was if anything even more trashy and also sprinkled with clad. But, from about a foot apart, I pulled these two pretty oldies out. I don't see intact old pocket watches, like, ever. I've dug a lot of backs, and frames, and guts, and lids, but this is the first time I've dug one fully together. The token, I could tell was unusual, but not sure what it was. Found what it looked like when new online - poached these two pictures. Did not find any date for them, but if $10 off a used car was worth advertising, it has to be pretty old :D. About then, it went from sprinkling rain and wind to hard wind and hail and it was time to leave. It snowed heavy they next day, which was one week ago today. Snow is melted now one week later and I had a whole entire morning free. So I went back! And hit it with the Manticore and M8 again. And found another cool old relic. A Denver & Rio Grande Railroad padlock, which I was able to find online just now and looks likely from the 1920's. And pigged out on clad too! Over 100 coins, about half of them quarters. Snagged five nickels without a single pop tab. It was a good day. The weather is starting to break, will be able to get out to the ghost towns pretty soon! - Dave

Wowsa. Not many detectorists get to notch that one! - Dave

Killer recovery! Nicely done and well told. - Dave

Yeah, but I was already spending that nickel! Which I knew it was going to be. But there have been a few nickels turn out to be gold rings with the Manticore, so, I thought, yeah, no... - Dave

The invisibility makes it all totally worth it though! - Dave

Solid two way 27 with no wavering on the Manticore. Came out in the plug looking shiny yellow. Heavy! Gold Plated Tungsten 💩. Should be international sanctions against this... Disgusting. - Dave

I got it out again yesterday. To a very iron infested and very hammered - as in detected many times by many people - 1870's mining camp site. No amazing finds, but very pleased with how the coil operated in that environment. Find of the day was a Chinese cash coin, in some thicker sage brush where the M11 would have been very difficult to use. Really liking this little sucker. - Dave

Mine arrived yesterday. What a nifty little coil! I only had a few hours, so I took it to the trashiest area of a trashy park just to play with it. Dug 60 coins, mostly clad dimes (one wheatie), in about 2-1/2 hours. And zero surprise trash. Did dig some trash that was collocated with the coins, but knew before digging there was a coin and "some other stuff" under the coil. Was able to pluck four nickels right out of the machine gun pop top tabs. And after mostly swinging the M15 these past few weeks, it felt weightless. - Dave

I see those quite often. Sometimes by the hundreds. I believe the ones with the knife punches like that, are most often evaporated or condensed milk. Which I've been told was popular to put on rice (a staple, along with beans), to sex it up a little. - Dave

Still seeing it like that this morning on two different devices with two different browsers. It's just a page template that hasn't been finished. Not a security threat or anything. It did contribute to my uncertainty about actual availability is all. Had no intention of implying anything about the proprietor. Just that I've had my doubts about that coil actually being in stock there for some time. And that largely due to my own sour disposition towards Minelab over availability of the M8, I've not simply called and asked to find out for sure. For all my complaining out loud about not having an M8 yet, I have actually stopped looking very hard. Minelab won't get my money for one until it's easy to get. - Dave

The page heading. - Dave

My experience, test garden results, were very similar to @abenson. So I went back to the old version and put off using the update until just recently. But, because I do hope to have an M8 while I'm still young enough to use it, and want to take it nugget hunting this spring, I just a couple of weeks ago reinstalled the update so that I could start getting used to it. As @abenson has shown it to be better for small gold with the M8. I only have four or five short park hunts and mostly with the M15 since reinstalling. I forgot to turn off the stabilizer on the first hunt and was reminded again how much it effects the audio in a way I don't like (I always run 1 region all tones). Running it with stabilizer off, still seems "different" somehow. But I'll get used to it. I have been running it with higher Recovery and lower Sensitivity, as most of even my park dirt is pretty mineralized and I saw the effects of these adjustments pretty clearly in my coin garden. Turning up Recovery and down Sensitivity for better depth and ID is not intuitive for a Nox user! Not enough hours or enough varied conditions with it yet to have a firm opinion. But I've not recovered anything particularly deep with it yet in the few hunts so far (mostly using the M15). Other than believing Andy on the small gold improvement, I'm still leaning towards preferring the previous software version. I can almost see myself going back again and only using the newest version for nugget hunting. But, I'm going to let it ride for awhile this time, give it a more of a chance. I really don't see any improvement to anything, at all, with it in my park hunting so far though. - Dave

That one has been showing as "in stock" for a long time. Which seems almost unreasonable. Which, along with the incomplete web page, is why I haven't ordered one from there already. And I've just been too lazy to just call and ask. But if it's legit in stock, cool, cool, cool. - Dave

Most of us are still just waiting to get one. One user who has had one quite a while now and used it quite a bit is @abenson and his reviews have been good. He's done some videos with it on his channel at Relics & Rings - YouTube I'll get one. Someday. But I think it's a race to be last between me and @strick. - Dave

I've got two @steveg lowers for my Manticore. Have the M15 on one and will put the M8 on the other if I ever actually get an M8. Two thumbs up on the @steveg lowers! Nice piece of kit! - DAA

I was pleasantly surprised to find they still had one in stock this morning. Supposed to be here early next week. Now, if only the M8, the one I really want, would show up as "in stock", anywhere. I'm not going to pre-order anything. - Dave

I got one with my Nox 800 that looks like it might be the same bag. It lasted about like yours too. For my Manticore I have been using a compound bow case and it's worked very well. I just went for an el-cheapo, this one: Amazon.com : LWANO Compound Bow Case Light-Weight Soft Bow Bag with Arrow Pocket and Backpack Straps : Sports & Outdoors There's a huge variety of such cases available though. This one should fit both extra coils mounted on extra shafts pretty well I think. - Dave

That's interesting Chase. The urban EMI in my area, with my Nox 800, for the most part, none of the lower SF's were any quieter than SMF. Almost invariably ended up in 20kHz when EMI was bad. Thankfully, I've not had to resort to SF at all since getting the Manticore. I've been able to run it in SMF even in places I totally avoided with the 800. Albeit, lowered sens, but have not had a situation yet where I felt compelled to abandon SMF with it. Whereas, in many places, SF was a given with the Nox. - Dave

I'd be tickled pink with that for 12 hours! - Dave

Some of the places I have detected this year, the only limit on how many zincs you could dig is your stamina to keep digging them. Machine gun low 60's. The odds are worse than pull tabs even. I avoid zincs as much as I can. And still end up with a bunch that are collocated with other coins. - Dave

Happy to have you reporting on your experience with the Manticore Jeff. I know I can learn from your thoughts. I've been very pleased with the Manticore as a trashy turf scrubber and ghost town silver seeker. I don't find it to be anything like a generational leap from the Nox 800. But I do find it to be a consistent improvement in many aspects. Much better ergonomics and build, screen, UI as you said. I think it is a bit deeper, sometimes. And I think it does scrub high conductors (and nickels) out of trashy turf a bit better. And it definitely handles my local EMI better. In some urban spots, non ferrous trashy turf combined with bad EMI, it really did "open up" some quarter sprinkles and .925 for me this summer. - Dave

That's a really impressive restoration on a really neat find! - Dave

Man... Snow will be hitting the ground before the M8 does! @abenson, sounds like, looks like, you'd consider running the update mandatory for nugget hunting with the Manticore? I'm still running the old version. But if I can ever get my hands on an M8 and do some nugget hunting with the Manticore, it looks to me like I'd be well served to update. - Dave