GB_Amateur

As with many of the early days of the USA mint, sizes of coins varied. Best example is the Large Cent diameter which was anywhere from 26 to 29 mm over its lifetime (1793-1857) and some of that variation was even within the same design. It seems their size was copied from the British halfpenny as reported in Q. David Bowers's reference work, (p. 2 of 2015 edition), at least with regards to coins minted prior to the 1792 created Philadelphia official federal mint: After the Revolutionary War, several states had their own copper coins produced under contract.... These various coppers bore no denomination, were the size of British halfpence, and... were known as pennies. As well as early USA cents and even possibly the more valuable pre-constitution ratification coins, it's not out-of-the-question you have some actual British coins from the first part of the 19th Century or earlier. Be extra careful cleaning them as even water can cause the surface to flake off of some 100% copper coins that have been stewing in the ground for 1.5+ centuries.

I assume you're referring to All Terrain (AT) Low Conductors (LC). It's been discussed here a bit (and from the manual) that this mode is optimized for small targets. I don't know if that's your optimum settings for the size targets you are finding. AT High Conductors (HC) might be best and AT General would also be in my arsenal, particularly if I wanted the extra run time compared to AT-HC's 20-25% hit on battery drain. It's not a huge deal but since you said the targets you're finding are deep you might actually be able to take advantage of those other modes' extra depth (under the right conditions, of course -- not a blanket statement for everyone, everywhere). Obviously you're in a good spot when you find a USA Large Cent, so maybe even more oldies are lurking. Hope you have more time to detect there before heading home.

Just WAGging: Red, White, and Blue; 1972 was an Olympics year (both winter and summer games). Were any Olympic Trials held in your area that year? OTOH '72' might not refer to a calendar year but rather the 72nd meeting of some organization. The condition of the button you show seems pretty good for having been in the ground 50 years....

It appears you are confusing terms. Here are the correct/accepted term meanings: Ground Tracking: detector adjusts on the fly to ground conditions while the coil is being swung. Other than setting the detector early on (e.g. at turn-on) in Ground Tracking, the detectorist does nothing. This is where it's sometimes possible that the circuitry silences a weak but desirable target. Auto Ground Balance (also called "Ground Grab" by First Texas): The detectorist pumps the coil up and down in a spot where there are no targets, only ground minerals, and the detector decides what channel to set the ground balance point. Manual Ground Balance: similar to Auto except now the detectorist listens to the detector's audio while pumping the coil up and down, and the detectorist adjusts the ground balance channel until a minimum of ground noise is heard.

That helps nail down a date range minimum lower limit for the site, IMO. (Exception could be if this was a "show-and-tell" item from Grandma's droor. 😁) A good find in its own right, regardless. I'm even more optimistic that there are silvers awaiting if you can just get back there before it's too late.

Seven Wheats -- could be a silver dime or two awaiting, if you can get in another hunt before they backfill. How old is the tax token? I figured you'd have something objective to say about the new XP Deus 2 update. 👍 "Whole lotta internet noise goin' on...."

That's the third 1886 Liberty Head ("V-") Nickel posted on the forum in the past few months. No wonder they are considered scarce/key -- they're all hiding in the ground! Unfortunately it looks like yours is definitely "the worse for the wear." Still fun (for me anyway) to find a key or semi-key coin regardless of the condition. Permissions may be the last of the fertile ground in the USA. Hope you get more of them.

I understand your reluctance. I suspect we've all been guilty of gorilla-ing a few times in our lives. (Or more than a few...) One of my two camocks was allowing the coil to easily get out of alignment so I did tighten the offending camlock a bit. Now it's fine and nothing has failed so far.

You went from single frequency to several selectable frequencies and a full warranty. Presumably with the ~$200 net you can get a coil or two to complement the X-Terra Pro stock coil. "Screwed up" doesn't sound right to me and frankly I find some of the replies unnecessarily harsh.

The Manticore currently doesn't have a small coil option, just the stock 11". Minelab has indicated a 5"x8" is coming.... Meanwhile the detectors Jeff has recommended all currently have small coil options. If you're going to do other detecting besides for native gold, such as for coins, relics, and/or jewelry then the two above *might* be a better choice although the Minelab Equinoxes and Nokta Legend are all-purpose detectors, too, and at lower prices. As of now, AFAIK, no one has reported better, or even as good of performance for small, natural gold with the Manticore w/11" or Deus 2 with any of its available coils, 9" being the smallest.

Always a good starting point is Steve's detector database. Here is the entry for the TDI/BH. Comparing with the TDI/SL, the non-changeable coil has already been mentioned. Note the weight (5.2 lb for the BH vs. 3.5 lb for the SL). Although most of the controls seem to be the same, I don't see the conductivity switch on the BH. I have the TDI/SPP model (an SL missing the conductivity switch and missing the adjustable delay -- locked at its minimum value of ~10 microseconds). According to the SL manual, putting the conductivity switch in either hi or lo makes the detector slightly less noisy than in the 'all' position, but if your brain can tell between hi and lo (pretty easy) and can deal with the more signals (think hear all just like an IB/VLF without any discrimination threshold or notching), a lack of the conductivity switch shouldn't be too big of a deal for coin and jewerly detecting, IMO. It seems the waterproof capability is the big difference, leading to the heavier weight, non-changeable coil, and missing(?) condictivity switch. Although in general covering a detector control box in a plastic bag risks overheating, assuiming there is no special heat transfer path on the BH then hermetically sealing the TDI/SL control box is likely no different -- apparently making that OK to do.

I won't be surprised if that turns out to be the case. I'm getting ready for my annual trip West and thus don't know how much time I'll have to 'play' with the Manticore before I leave. But I'll be aware of what you have hypothesized when I get a chance to get back at the Manticore testing (and field use). BTW, the manual says something about where mineralized ground grunt will show up on the 2-d screen. That's another thing to look at -- the info on that screen. That was the biggest reason I went with the Manticore, to get that 2-d screen. And although I have been looking at it I expect quite a long learning curve -- pattern recognition training if you get my drift -- so it will be a while before I trust what I see enough to reject a target based upon the 2-d screen image.

In my test garden I have three coins buried -- 5" deep 95% copper cent, 6" deep 'nickel' 5 cent, 8.5" deep clad quarter. I'm still in the infancy of (thorough) testing but for the quarter, in All Terrain Lo and All Terrain General I do get some iron grunt ("red line") mixed with good tones when running both sensitivities of 21 and 23, Recovery Speed =4 and Iron mask 8/3. My soil is moderately mineralized (2-3 bars on Fisher F75). I did not notice red-lining in All Terrain Hi mode (otherwise same settings as above). Both AT/Lo and AT/general were at about their detection limits for that 8.5" deep quarter with the above settings, meaning strong enough signals to indicate digable. A bit deeper and they sound off, but not at the level that would cause me to stop and investigate.

I'll one-up ya. Where's the rye? (Condor's beer doesn't count.)

Dave Crisp, 76, Wiltshire, Finder of the Frome Hoard I split the money that I was given with the landowner of the field, so we got about £180,000 each. I always say if I’m talking about it: “Well, 180 grand, that’s not bad for three days’ work.” I bought my council house, which I’m still in. My family did well out of it, too. When I pop my clogs, they’ll do better out of it again. It changed my life. (emphasis mine) When I think I know the English language I see an expression like that and it brings me back to earth. Maybe some here know these people or at least know of them. Typical but still interesting article.