GB_Amateur

Recovered after almost 60 years:  read here.

More great finds!  The 1900-O dime is not common, particularly in higher grades (F-12 and above).  I hesitate to give my opinion of the grade as photos typically don't show enough detail, but you can try your hand here.

Unhunted sites are pretty difficult to find.  Thanks for the report and well done!

Finding even one silver half dollar is a great day, IMO, let alone two!  I find your depth measurements interesting/enlightening.  It makes me wonder what my 'hunted out' areas are hiding deep down....

I suspect you are getting in every free moment to detect that location before the inevitable 'development'.  Milk it for all it's worth!

5 hours ago, Skull diver said:

Can someone confirm this is the correct screen for the latest version?

That's what mine shows (installed with the latest software update), except for the last line (UVC) which is in the 8000's.  I wonder what 'UVC' means.  🤔

3 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

I bought the long cord version of these ear buds: Link

Those actually work underwater, i.e. keeping water from entering the ear canal?

I do:

8 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The mix of F75 features changed so much over the years...

Yep, and there are the various later models (F70, F75+, Teknetics Patriot) which included some but not all of their so-called 'processes'.  Pretty much the same detector, just varied features (and prices).

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

...The F75 Ltd does offer a static all metal mode the T2 lacks.

Just a small addition: I think all the F75 models have static all metal.  I do find their nomenclature confusing:  'Limited', 'Ltd', 'Special Edition', 'SE', etc.

Here's the manual for the regular (gold shaft) model after Digital Shielding Technology (DST) was added, but in addition I have a pre-DST manual for the gold model and it also shows static all metal:

6 hours ago, SwiftSword said:

...I was absolutely over the moon with my first Walker. What a rush! Silver has been slow in coming so far this season, but that same spot also yielded... a sterling spoon, and a sterling thimble.

You just named three items I've yet to find, too.  In fact I haven't gotten any thimbles, regardless of the material makeup, and my only halves are clad.  You must have a good spot there, and unless it's on the beach or a location soon to be developed, it'll still be there waiting for you after the storm passes.  Maybe some more firsts still there!

The Fisher Gold Bug Pro (twin sister of the F19) has a special place in my memory (and detector closet) since it re-introduced me to detecting in 2015 after ~35 year hiatus.

Last weekend my neighbor saw me coming back from a 'hunt' and asked me to find his property line stake.  He showed me its approximate location which was close to both a metal light pole and metal utility box cover.  Out comes the Fisher F75 with tiny 4"x6" concentric coil -- the right tool for the job.  I quickly located two screamer hits, one being the desired target.

First Texas gets a lot of negative criticism here, some of it justified and other just sharks in a feeding frenzy after seeing blood in the water.  As others (e.g. El Nino77 recently) have noted, we can be thankful for some great products they've produced over the years that are still getting the job done.  Your F19 is certainly one of those.

Excellent story to accompany your nice finds.  Coincidentally I've visited your grandfather's hometown 2 or 3 times for meetings and tests at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.  I recall it can get quite uncomfortable (as in hot+humid) in the summer months.  I see why you want to get out now before that starts!

2 hours ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

Teknetics home page and tek files

https://www.tekneticsdirect.com/blog/the-tek-files

thanks.  These are some of the files that used to be on the (old) FisherLabs webpage, but not all of them.  Hopefully the others will re-appear....

16 hours ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

Here's below is a Q & A from Dave Johnson

I think the 'John' who was part of this interview is John Gardiner, another First Texas Engineer.  Unfortunately Steve H. mentioned in another thread that First Texas's new website no longer includes several informative articles, etc.  I'm pretty sure this was from one of those although you didn't indicate where you found it.

Local libraries are good repositories of historical info and librarians tend to be very helpful.  And don't be surprised to find there were old newspapers even in small towns -- much bigger deal than today.  Sometimes small towns had more than one!  Libraries will have those on microfiche or maybe even on CD/DVD.

Not quite sure what you are asking, but here are some info (in some cases with numbers) that may help.

1) According to the scientific work that the article was based upon, they're referring to something that happened *very* early in the earth's history.  To put this in relative terms, compare the earth's age with a human who lives 90 years.  Right now the earth is middle aged -- equivalently about 45 years old.  This meteorite bombardment occurred when the earth was (equiv.) 0.2 years (a few months) old.  Needless to say the place was a lot different then!  (The work referred to was done with 3.8 billion year old rocks from Greenland -- some of the oldest rocks on earth.  The human equivalent age of the earth for those -- 7 years old.)

2) The mass of those meteorites is estimated at 2x10^19 (think 2 followed by 19 zeros) tons or 2x10^22 kg.  The mass of today's earth is 6x10^24 kg, so this meteorite bombardment is about 1 part in 300 of the earth's current mass.  (BTW, you can think of mass as weight -- true at the earth's surface anyway.)

3) Meteorite compositions have a ballpark (there's a range but this number is good for getting our heads around it) mass ratio for Fe to Au of 1 million (1x10^6).  For the average earth's surface (crust) composition is about four times that high, so meteorites on average are a bit more concentrated in gold than other rocks/dirt/etc, but not ridiculously so.

People have speculated regarding mining asteroids.  IMO those stories tend to be exaggerated.  But here is a decent article on the subject.  Basically, though, they're still talking about ppm of precious metals, it's just that some asteroids are (relative to earth's mines) large and you can pick the ones that are primarily metals.  I.e. you don't need to clear overburden and get rid of all the worthless silicon, oxygen etc. -- the early solar system already did that for you.

The earth was formed from the solar nebula.  So were the sun, the other planets, natural satellites (aka 'moons') the asteroids, and comets.  The nascent sun had enough mass to collect the dominant elements:  hydrogen in particular, plus helium) while the planets' lower masses let those go and mostly kept the heavy stuff.  So no magic here, at least no more than has been known for quite a while.  Precious metals are rare and even when concentrated (e.g. nuggets) that's still the case.

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

I must say, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of excitement over the Storm,...

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

Hopefully Garrett can make the tide change,...

AFAIC all we have are rumors at this point.  A short response to a social media question -- is that the way of the world now? 

Detecting season in the Northern Hemisphere is fast approaching.  Similar to houses on the market, for the general detecting population (not necessarily the zealots here 😏), there's a sweet-zone in the calendar for people gearing up for summer recreation and we're pretty much on it with Spring popping up now.  (But there's always Christmas.  🤔)

Other marketing 'examples' of new detector announcements might have influenced Garrett.  Do they go the XP and Algoforce route, keeping quiet until they have models ready for sale, or Minelab and Nokta with teaser ads, etc. a few to several months before release?  They did the latter for the AT/Max, and I think for the Apex.  Wasn't the Axiom announcement fairly close to production?

4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Bolt is the same as White's coil bolt but the White's is just a bit too short, only grabs about a turn of thread. Is some kind of 3/8" coarse thread.

Here's another possible option which works in the field if you can just get to a hardware store:  Top photo shows the factory White's bolt and nut.  Bottom is a toilet seat bolt and nut -- 3/8-16 plastic (nylon) size.  Note:  some toilet seats use a larger 7/16 diameter bolt.  (I don't know what the standard is in the rest of the world, but wouldn't be surprised if a similar solution exists with metric sizes.)

You can see in the second photo that the White's coil bracket hole is just slightly undersized such that the non-threaded shank of the toilet seat bolt won't quite fit.  You could file or sand down the bolt pretty easily, and at least for the White's coils the 2 1/2 inch length leaves plenty of room to add the nut even if you don't go that extra step.

As to whether this works for the Axiom, IDK, but you could take the coil to the hardware store to find out.  Cost is ballpark $1.00 to $1.50 if I remember correctly.  They should have 3/8 plastic washers, too.  Here's an example of a pair from Menards (midwest big box lumber/hardware store similar to Lowes and Home Depot):

As someone who has done all three:

1) Gold clubs (GPAA being one, but where you live I suspect there are local/regional versions as well) are good in that they provide places to detect (claim access) as part of their membership.  Getting advice on how to use a detector, though, while possible from the right person (such as Kevin Hoagland of GPAA) is not always that easy.  Oh, you'll get plenty of people who think they know what they are doing, both in this regard and reading the land, etc.  Cost:  $50 to $100 per year (ballpark) which in the case of GPAA includes a subscription to the bi-monthly Gold Prospector magazine.

2) Getting face-to-face instruction from an experienced person (such as Gerry and his crew) has a lot to be said for it.  Not only will they get you off on the right track but give you the confidence that you are going about it the right way.  And since the classes are (in Gerry's case anyway) taught in a location where gold has been found you have a good chance of finding your first nugget.  (I did.)  Cost:  several hundred dollars but can be discounted if you buy a detector from the teacher.

3) Books such as Chris Ralph's Fists Full of Gold are also helpful, particularly when you get to the point where you want to find promising spots on your own, but also when you are on a claim and want to find the spots to give you the best chance of finding gold.  Cost:  $30 (for Chris's book, and that puts you in the ballpark for others as well).

Bottom line is that 1) and 3) are of quite reasonable expense and 2) is worth it, IMO, to get you off and running.  You mention you aren't in a hurry, so you can probably get away without personal instruction, but I tried that for half a dozen trips West before I took Gerry's class.  I don't regret paying for any of the three as I think they are worth it to me personally (I've been a GPAA member for 10 years now) but if given a do-over I wouldn't have waited so long to get the personal instruction.

Excellent report, Jeff.  Gives other Manticore owners (myself included) a lot of hope/confidence.  But more than just the detector and the sites I've got to think that the detectorist has a big part in this.  I have yet to find such masked targets as you are getting and I have hunted some parks with it that likely have a lot in common with yours (other than high mineralization which makes some of yours even tougher).

Thanks for posting your settings.  I'm confused with what "iron bias 0" means for the Manticore, though.

3 hours ago, strick said:

What is it about 1964 nickels ? They must have made a lot of them...I have found so many of those....I was saving them but now I just throw them in the clad bucket...

My experience is similar, and yes, they did mint a lot (2.8 billion from two mints, each over 1 billion).  That's about six times as many as any previous year and still a record.  It wasn't until 35 years later that the billion mark was again exceeded by a single mint.  I think it relates to the change from silver to clad (although the 5 cent composition didn't change).  Congress was slow to make a decision so the mint kept putting out 1964 dated coins until well into 1965.  Bowers also mentioned hoarding of coins in general, related to the popularity of the new Kennedy half dollar.  Seems strange but he knows his stuff.

27 minutes ago, glacialgold said:

Those pencil eraser bands give me fits, showing up like solid nickel signals on both the Equinox and the Legend. Schoolyards are obviously rife with them -- it feels like kids must bring their pencils out for recess and fling them all over the place just to spite future detectorists.

Yes, that's a common find in school yards as well as parks.  I guess they brought them out in their pockets for recess, and then...  They don't always read as clean (TID-wise) as the typical nickel, but they are close enough for those of us who don't want to miss any of the 5-cent coins, especially the older ones (Buffies and V-s) which can read a tad low sometimes.

Welcome, Heavy Metal!  I don't watch many videos, but this site is all about sharing experiences and knowledge with like-minded detectorists.  You should feel comfortable here as many share your passion and your interest in history.

On 3/17/2024 at 12:01 PM, Chase Goldman said:

Even if Coiltek gets on board, though, getting them to produce something smaller than the M8 is doubtful because of demand.

Ah, there's half of that economics lesson -- Supply and Demand.  Apparently that also carries over to concentric coils.  When was the last time a high(er) end IB/VLF even had a concentric option?  I'm thinking it was something from Nokta, but even that has been quite a while (as in more than 5 years), I'm guessing.  Is it really the case that a DD (of the proper size) has all the advantages of a concentric?  That didn't used to be the claim by many detectorists, but maybe they voted with their wallets in the end and thus we're where we are in 2024....  Or is it a physics/engineering issue, that Multifrequency and Concentric are incompatible?  (That doesn't let them off the hook, though, given that MF released models have single frequency option already built in.)

1 hour ago, longbow62 said:

I can't think of a time a single blob/fuzzy circle sitting directly on the center line has been a good target while hunting ground that is somewhat trash free and mild.

Let me get this straight, because I might be misunderstanding what you wrote.  In ideal conditions (low or no trash), you still don't see a clean, small disk even for shallow (say 3" or less deep) targets?