GB_Amateur

I've never tried Black Widows but when I bought my Fisher F75 the online seller threw in a brand new set of Jolly Rogers (and several other bonus items as a matter of fact) for free. I was so unimpressed that I used them for spare parts. But, always worth mentioning, headphone performance is a personal preference so likely some out there love the Jolly Rogers.

You and I are on the same page again, Jeff. I just this morning climbed back on my soapbox indirectly praising the WM08 (except for complaining about its lack of 1/4" socket). A lot of people like the ML80 headphones that come with the Equinox 800 so obviously they perform. But for me they don't (nor do any other of the five sets of over-ear headphones I own) come close for my hearing to the Sunray Pro Golds. Further, the Pro Golds block out the ambient noise better than any of the others -- again not close. Two of my parks and one of my schools are right next to busy streets/highways. The difference in eliminating that distracting and performance depleting noise is huge. Throw in (as you mention) the very low latency of the WM08 module and I would really feel like I gave up something significant if I didn't have it. For my other detectors I have the Garrett Z-Link transmitter-receiver pair which is also good. (I previously had a similar device pair from Deteknix but they crapped out after not all that long in service.) I would never discourage anyone who likes the ML80 headphones from using them. However, the WM08 offers something the ML80's don't, and for those of us who prefer those 'somethings' it's a worthwhile option.

Ugh. And grass still grows in it, at least well enough for a football field, which often is pretty demanding application? Nice find otherwise. Is it possible they brought the coins in with the sand when they backfilled the football field? More likely they were just dropped there since, though, unless the backfill occurred after ~1970.

And JW doesn't, either? I don't know if the White's TDI coils work on the QED, but they (or someone) did make the 4" x 6" for it. I have that and the Sadie but I'm a bit far for you to run by and pick them up.... Good thread and thanks for your testing and videos.

Your first ever silver coin is a Seated half dollar?? You are so hooked now! Well done and nice writeup. Makes me wonder what others were thinking. At 4 inches deep this had to just scream. Did no one bother to hunt there, or were they 'convinced' it was a large chunk of metal dropped by the power pole techs? Your lesson is their loss, obviously. I've always thought that fairgrounds (with carnival areas) have to be one of the best places to find coins -- people with coins just burning holes in their pockets. Most around here are off-limits except during events. I've never asked for permission but you've got me thinking.... The most difficult coins to recover without scratching are those in hardpack, especially when in gravel or stone such as parking lots. I've been pretty lucky but unfortunately late in a hunt when I'm tired I get sloppy. Thanks for the reminder. (I can't even see the damage in your photos so apparently not too bad of a scratch.)

When the next update is released, will you still have the option of choosing with/without detune? At every fork in the road do they continue to allow multiple legacy choices? Yeh, hopefully there won't be any more updates.... There's that annoying h-word again.

I'm on the same page as you, Nuke-em, as far as being picky about the quality of the headphone sound. I don't care for the stock wireless headphones that come with the Equinox 800 and haven't used them since maybe the first week. I'm with Steve regarding the Sunray Pro Golds. (I bought mine well before the Eqx was released and don't have the special ML version, but they still work, with possible quirkiness -- see below.) Have you tried them? Make sure to get the two switches in the right place (four combinations you have to step through, although one switch doesn't seem to matter but the other matters a lot). My complaint (and this is aimed at the detector manufacturers although the headphone makers can help) is having to use an 3.5 mm male to 1/4 inch female adapter. The first one I bought (admittedly inexpensive) made a flaky contact. The second one (~$6 on Amazon) worked great for a year and a half but has since gone bad. I just tried to buy the exact replacement from Amazon but the manufacturer has changed the design and now it is unreliable without adding some 1/4 inch nylon washers as shims -- those slide on the 1/4" male plug of the headphones. I know many have had issue with ML's wiring quirk when using aftermarket adapters and headphones, so this might be part of my issue. The ML WM08 receiver is great AFAIC but couldn't they have included a 1/4" female socket, particularly for what they charge if you don't get this device as part of the Eqx 800 package? I've already bought (used) a backup of the WM08 just in case my original goes bad. I like using it that much and can't imagine being without one. I was considering buying the Gray Ghost Gold Series headphones which actually have the 3.5 mm plug (only 'tradtional' high end aftermarket headphones for metal detecting I know of that do this) but now you've got me concerned. I don't want to spend $125 only to discover they don't sound good.... Why does this have to be so difficult?

This TID'ed in the lower half of the 20's on the Equinox. (I'll do an air test later, but at this time it was good enough to dig so I didn't bother determining its TID centroid -- just pinpointed and dug.) I have seen a couple large pulltabs up there (like the kind that come on auto fluid cans), but the typical trash item 22-23 is the aluminum screw cap. Sometimes I skip 19-20 (zinc penny zone) but when I'm somewhere that I suspect Indian Head pennies may have been dropped I don't do that. My high tone region (out of 5) starts at 20 just to make sure I don't miss IHP's. I've already found three of those in this park. They usually TID a bit higher than Zincolns, and are typically deeper, but 'usually' and 'typically' don't mean always, as I've found out more times than I can remember.

Out again today in my current favorite (century old) park. Three Jefferson nickels in the first hour -- very first find was a consistent 12 (no 13) TID on the Minelab Equinox -- something I've been skipping over given the thousands of pulltabs in this park. I figured it was going to be a nickel kind of day but with 30 minutes left of the 3 hour hunt I had only added a couple corroded Zincolns. Then in a picnic area I got a nice shallow 13 TID, which could still be a pulltab but it was my 4th nickel. Shortly after I was about 1 foot from a utility pole and got a low-mid 20's signal which sounded very good in one direction but flutey at 90 degree angle of attack. I was also hearing some iron grunt, but when I shortened the swing amplitude over the target down to just a couple inches there was no iron sound. Strength indicator (what is popularly called "depth indicator") showed 4 bars = moderate. So far, so good, but as most of you know when near a utility pole, lots of decent sounding targets can show up -- copper and aluminum wire, copper lugs, steel bolts. And in a picnic area (which I was), the dreaded aluminum screw cap, especially when flattened, can sound good with TID low-mid 20's. It was even possible I was hearing an Indian Head penny or early Wheat penny. Digging down in the 4-5 inch range I popped out a disc which looked about the size of a nickel, but it was green (copper signature) and the TID was too high for a nickel. My next thought was 'token' but it was smaller than the tokens I'd been finding in this park, although could still be a different variety. A spray of water showed part of a shield. Hmmm. Shield nickel (no), 2 Cent Piece (unlikely) so I'm still thinking it's a token. But using a magnifier I clearly saw '1864'! What is a 150+ year old coin which hardly circulated even 125 years ago due to its unpopularity doing in this 100 year old park? Just in the last 9 months I can find three posts of USA 2 Cent Piece finds: post 1, post 2, post 3. Those are in better shape than mine, but it's the first ever 2 Cent Piece I've found so I'm going to count it. Mine is also an 1864, which I guess isn't too surprising given that 44% of all 2 Cent pieces ever minted in the USA had the 1864 date. (Throw in the next year, 1865, and almost 3/4 are accounted for.) Nice article in Wikipedia points out that they were first minted late in the Civil War in an attempt to alleviate the shortage of coins (caused by hording) but after the war ended and coins were in sufficient supply their popularity dropped considerably. 1873 was the last year of mintage and those 1100 were proofs for collectors. In 1872 only 65,000 were minted for circulation. Many (but unknown number) were returned to the mint and melted. We've discussed the small motto vs. large motto version of the 1864. Currently mine is so badly encrusted that it's difficult to tell. I can only see the 'W' in 'WE' and the 'R' in 'TRUST'. I'll get a friend with high quality camera to take better photos and maybe we can figure this out. (I'm still on hold cleaning with more than soft brush in water and olive oil until I can do more research on cleaning coins without damaging.) Odds are certainly in favor of it being the more common large motto, but I can still hold out hope, can't I? (fingers crossed)

Interesting. Has it ever made any difference?

Quite a find! You were rewarded for investigating that low TID. I'm surprised you found gold in a middle school lot. I've always figured parents wouldn't let the younger children take that kind of valuable to school. Shows what I know about current parenting, although I suppose it could have been dropped by someone older.

Nice, must be the 5th day of Christmas! Without revealing too much, were these recovered from the water?

Unfortunately we at DetectorProspector.com are the only ones listening to your whining.

I never try to swing toward/away from a large metal obstruction such as a post or chain link fence, but rather parallel -- that is with the toe of the coil pointing towards the obstruction. That way it's easier to know how close you can get without it sounding off. Trying to swing the other way leaves me wondering if I'm hearing a (different) target close to the obstruction or just the obstruction itself. Nice ring! Glad you got things figured out. A lower recovery speed sometimes helps reduce EMI. I typically use 5 myself, but have noticed dropping to 4 improved things when EMI was hassling me.

Yeh, only five years were they minted (not counting 1970-D which was only released in mint sealed collector sets, I think). Only one year, although they made a gazillion due to its popularity. But people were keeping them as souvenirs, not dropping them. All half dollars are tough finds. Even the nickel clads, which were mass produced, didn't see much circulation as for some reason the public decided half dollars were too large to deal with. Throw in the fact that they are easier to spot laying on the ground. I still only have found one half (merely nickel clad). I'm confident there's a silver one awaiting my swing, but going to take more time. Sorry to hijack your thread, Cowkiller. A silver quarter alone is a darn good day (in 2020) in my book! I bet there's more silver in that location. Hope you can get back there.

Fantastic find! Definitely go back to that site. As you note, once the construction crews take over the history will be lost forever. 😪 I think it's less likely to find gold coins in the Eastern USA than the Western. Same for silver dollars. The Easterners were more accepting of paper money; Westerners didn't trust that. Seems like from the depth and location that it likely was a drop. I suspect there are more intentionally hidden gold coins than drops. Bottom line, though, is that you saved this one. Well deserved!

Nice! You're definitely a dig-it-all detectorists if you're down there well below USA nickels. Have you started an aluminum foil collection yet? 😁 You are going to find gold jewelry down in that zone, too. And maybe even a nickel 3-cent piece (which TIDs somewhere around 6-8 on the Equinox). Keep it up!

I hate it when that happens. Turning down the recovery speed can help with that, trading off with turning down the gain/sensitivity. But lowering the sensitivity is fine. I've found plenty of coins in parks running sens at 18. Definitely. I don't know if there is a detector that one can just take out of the box and know what it's saying from day 1, but the Equinox certainly isn't that. That's a Matchbox vehicle, which were made in England until 1985. The boxes are often worth as much or more than the actual toys themselves, but we detectorists don't have much hope of finding those. I've recovered a lot of its cheap cousins -- HotWheels, but only one or two vintage Matchbox toys. Nice find!

Is it the coil size & shape, the gain you're running, or something else? (BTW, what gain are you running?) I don't have a Garrett AT Pro, but I don't notice the Equinox being much different in terms of target confusion (e.g. multiple targets in the coil detection zone) than my other detectors. In fact I think with the stock 11 inch coil, the Eqx provides the best separation. Greater than 95% of my hunting has been with gain/sensitivity in the 18-22 range, Park 1, no discrimination threshold or notching, recovery speed 5-6, and iron bias either Fe=0 or F2=5.

Great article! I wonder if they realize how much we detectorists could help them with their research (and just in case you are wondering -- I'm being 100% serious). Take this quote from the article to give an idea of what I mean: The number of different types of pull tabs that exist in the world is unknown and just one of many questions addressed in our project. But before we get too optimistic that 45 years (in the USA) since the ring-and-beavertail production was discontinued, here's another snippet from the article that should sober us up: One thing is sure: archaeologists today, tomorrow or 10.000 years in the future will keep finding 20th century pull tabs in every corner of the planet for ever.

Welcome, Felix! Found this on Wikipedia: Known for its industrial minerals, Ghana is the world's 7th largest producer of gold; producing over 102 metric tons of gold and the 10th largest producer of gold in the world in 2012; producing 89 metric tons of gold. Ghana is the 2nd largest producer of gold on the Africa continent behind South Africa.[127] Ghana has the 9th largest reserves, and is the 9th largest producer, of diamonds in the world. I hope there is some there for you!

thanks, coinhunterseth. I made a classic mistake of calling out Steve H. when others here are capable of answering. (Glad he answered, too.) Always good to have multiple knowledgeable posters here who can field the questions.

11-14 on the Minelab Equinox should get the nickels, with the rare exception of the anomalous Wartime nickels which hit higher. (I've never seen one in 160+ non-detected Warnicks and maybe a dozen detected ones, but others here have.) But, yeh, there probably isn't a Warnick out there which is as valuable as a gold ring! Nice find, Cowkiller.

I could spend considerable time looking at user mamuals, or just ask you, Steve. 😀 Doesn't the White's V3i let you choose 2 of 3 frequencies? Also, do any other detectors have this optionality?

I used to try and clean up the Stinkin' Zincolns but they just wouldn't. Biggest mistake USA mint ever made, IMO, and they stubbornly continue 38 years later even as 1 cent is insignificant. I keep count of them (and pulltabs as well) as they can contribute to my site understanding. (And I see you do similarly with the copper Memorials.) I also weigh them just to make sure I'm not missing something good (like a crusty Indian Head!). I can only imagine what it was like ~30 years ago when many sites were still loaded and detector manufacturers were making breakthroughs. Obviously some of you here were fortunate enough to live those days. Must have been quite exciting. I spend much of my detecting time thinking about what went on, etc. so I can hopefully concentrate on the more productive parts of a site. I'd rather go slowly and carefully over the remaining hotspots than race over all the ground like the parks' ground mowing contractors do.... I wish I could be pulling old coins out like a professional bass fisherman landing the lunkers, and maybe there is a day or two left for me like that when I find the right site. But in the meantime there's still fun to be had, IMO, just in the anticipation that the next target is going to produce the "find of a lifetime".