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GB_Amateur

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  1. For one thing, you said they are operating ETrac and Explorer (Minelab simultaneous multifrequencies, yes). I've never tried either one. So maybe for those detectors what they say is true in general -- I guess we need to hear from other users of those. For a long time I've felt (transalation: gotten the impression but far from convinced) that higher gain amplifies iron more than non-ferrous. That feeling comes from other detectors as well as the Eqx. When the Eqx first came out there were some complaints that it didn't amplify nearby and large targets much compared to more distant and smaller ones. Well, it certainly doesn't have an overload. The sound amplitude is greater for large/nearby targets, but it does seem to be a more subtle effect than at least some other detectors. Obviously it has no minimally filtered (what many other companies call "all metal") mode which is the usual best way to hear audio amplitude proportional signals. As far as sensitivity, that really does seem to be one of those things that a) doesn't respond like other electronics such as the effect of turning up the volume on a radio, b) is background sensitive (EMI, ground, trash), and c) has a lot of user-personal preference. In my case I've only recently started running sensitivity of 22 as my standard. Previously my standard was 20. I do think the most recent upgrade (6+ months ago now) allowed me to do that by handling EMI better. I did well park hunting with sensitivity of 18, but my parks seem to have a fair number of old coins that aren't super deep. Definitely for air testing and in low mineral, not trashy ground I can get deeper with higher gain.
  2. Well, he would have gotten my dime, too. So you're saying there is no naked lady? (You might get my dime yet, Norm.)
  3. I look at both. In my area the website's aerial photos go back to the 1950's and the USGS maps back to right after turn of the century. I flip back and forth, etc. In particular the aerial photos are different in that some are taken when the foliage is thick (especially trees) and others in the winter months when the deciduous trees are bare. These latter are way better in most cases. As far as the resolution, it's not close to Google Maps/Earth, that's for sure. But I can usually figure out where the buildings were, and that's what I'm most interested in typically. I just live with their copyright, etc. lettering. Of course they will sell you copies that don't have those superimposed.
  4. I tend not to get too excited, especially before I go out for a hunt. This morning I was reviewing some of my recent sites with https://www.historicaerials.com when I stumbled upon some magic words on an older USGS topo -- "Drive-in Theater". If that doesn't get your detecting mouth salivating then you're not a coin hunter. Stay tuned. Update: Officer Murphy (the one the law was named after) pulled me over as I was getting ready to head down the driveway. The garage door cable came off the pully and in the process of fixing that I've messed up even more.... Detecting adventure is going to have to wait. Hopefully I get time tomorrow because they're predicting iffy weather for the next three days after that. Update 2: Garage door fixed, but too late to get in much detecting as I had evening plans. But I did have time to scout out the spot. Good news is that it's public property and thus accessible. However, I think I'm going to need to be discrete as some might object to me hunting this spot, even though I can freely walk into and out of it (not having to climb fences). I don't know exactly when the Drive-In closed. I think it opened in 1955 and was closed before turn-of-21st Century, so ballpark 40 years in operation. Unfortunately where the cars parked has been reworked (with fill) but the projector building location and hopefully concession stand and kiddie playground wasn't, at least it looks overgrown unlike the rest of the area. Now, have others detected there? Maybe back in the 90's but I suspect that in the last 20 years it's either been forgotten about or completely unknown to modern detectorists. Even if it's been hunted, my experience is they usually leave a few crumbs for me! I haven't decided when I'll go there, as I think it's going to be best for me to pick my spots when I won't be noticed, or at least if noticed, not hassled -- early mornings and late evenings during the long daylight months (I guess that includes now). I will report what I find, especially if that includes pre-1965 coins. There appears to have been about 10-15 year window when silver was in circulation there. I'm optimistic.
  5. You may have noticed that Garrett is located in Texas, and the videos seem to bear that out. Even mentioning 'solar power' in a state that exists because of oil wells.... Good thing you're half a world away.😅
  6. It's the standard reverse with no mintmark = Philadelphia. Now I'm wondering why you asked -- hoping for a Roosie reverse? 🤪
  7. The threads Steve H. linked go pretty deep into some of the anomalous TID's. But as you've heard, X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRFS) is the way to find out. From your photos I don't see the right color/shading so don't get your hopes up too high.
  8. In this Covid-19 era you have to ask that? (OK, maybe cotton would be better for them and us.) Heck, just walking down the street of those shanty-towns was a risk to the lungs of a healthy 20 year-old.
  9. I got off to a pretty good start (for me) this year in terms of hours (over 60 thru March 23) and old coins (19 Wheaties and 9 'other old coins', 6 of those being silver). Then, like most of you, the pandemic put a damper on things, but of course there are worse results from that than simply not going detecting. Slowly over the past 10 days I've started to get back out, but with very limited time so far (3 hunts for 4.5 hours total). One of my New Year's resolutions was to try sites I haven't been to previously. That has really been the reason I've found 9 old coins the first 3 months. While honoring the stay-at-home recommendations other than daily walks and once/wk shopping trips I studied one of my parks and had an idea to try a couple spots that I hadn't searched previously. I start with a bit of background on what I know about this particular park, based upon internet research. 1) This park was established in 1969. (More on the significance of that shortly.) I believe the entire park was part of a farm/ranch which was all pasture. Nearby (unfortunately not on the park grounds but in a modern subdivision) was a 19th Century house and a couple outbuildings which were part of this homestead. On park grounds was a 1/4 mile long lane from which the house was accessible. The house disappeared from maps & photos around 1950. A couple years ago (4th of July 2018) I found the only previous keeper in this park, near the lane just mentioned -- a Civil War era cartridge box plate. From what I've researched there was not in the last 110 years a single building anywhere on what is now the park land. 2) The park is dominated by baseball and softball fields which are fenced in and kept locked unless there is a scheduled game in progress. There are walking trails and tennis courts and a large paved parking lot. Until last year there was a fairly large fenced and netted area with baseball & softball batting cages w/pitching machines. There are some wooded areas and a maintenance building plus some recently erected solar panels (fenced and locked) but no picnic areas, tot lots, swimming areas, etc. that you often find in parks. When on one of my walks I noticed that for the two baseball ('hardball') fields, a couple bullpens (warmup areas for substitute pitchers) were outside the locked fence. I figured these might be decent, possibly even for jewelry that might have come flying off accidentally during warmups. I searched one of those last week (only finding 31 cents in modern coins) for an hour and on Sunday tried the other one (2 hour hunt). [Eqx 800 w/11 inch coil, Park 1, 5 custom tones, gain = 22, recovery speed = 5, iron bias F2 = 5, ground balanced and noise cancelled.] I was getting similar results -- a few modern coins mixed in with the occasional aluminum can slaw / pulltab. When it was quitting time I sloppily swung my way back to my vehicle and right at the edge of the recent excavation (removal of the aforementioned batting cages) I got a strong 26-27. I usually check the strength meter ("depth meter") but this time I didn't. The signal was pretty strong and quite clear, and the TID was tight -- all of this indicating the target wasn't deep. For clad dimes and copper alloy pennies, when deeper than 5-6 inches in my soil it's common to see high 20's mixed in with low 20's and everything in between. But when those are shallow they seem to stick to TID's in the 24-26 range. As usual I optimistically made a mental wish ("be silver!") but that usually doesn't help. Popped out a ~3 inch thick plug of moist clay and put the pinpointer in the hole, getting a strong response -- I was very close. Carefully scooping around the pinpointed signal I pulled out a clod of dirt which showed the white reeded edge of a silver dime! Immediately I thought "wow, that's lucky and it's gotta be a Roosie" but carefully picking off some mud I could see it was a Merc. OK, not that big of a deal for seasoned coin hunters. However, here is where the mystery (and thus the title of this thread) enters. 1969 (year park was established) was 4-5 years after the USA had minted the last of the 90% silver coins for circulation. It didn't take long (meaning starting late 1965 - early 1966) for people to realize that the reason the gov'mnt had switched to clad coinage is because silver was going up in value to where there was more silver bullion content in coins than the face value. There are a lot of ways to distinguish (date being the surest, but most people don't want to go to that much trouble). Viewing the edge of the new (at that time) clad coins revealed an orange stripe -- the pure copper core. That was the easiest way to know silver, because that orange color was absent. A careful eye (again, not what most depended upon) also would detect the brighter color of silver over the 25% Ni, 75% Cu alloy cladding. But -- and this is where the real mystery lies -- it didn't take a rocket scientist to recognize a Mercury dime. Those (plus Standing Liberty quarters and all halves except Kennedys) got swept out of circulation most easily. I always use 1970 as the cutoff (although obviously there is no true hard date) for when the public removal of silver coins from circulation reached completion. (Some others use even earlier years, btw.) Could this Merc that I just found have been dropped after the park was established? Unlikely but obviously not impossible. My standard 'solution' for this kind of mystery is to hypothesize that backfill was brought in from an older site -- something quite common then as now. BTW, the Merc was found about 1/2 mile from the previously mentioned home and lane, so as best I can tell, way out in the pasture. I guess a rancher/farmhand could have dropped it while out on his horse.... If you haven't already departed, bored with the length of this thread, I point out the other objects in the picture. I'm still unsure exactly what happened here but I explain. I was getting a 21-22 TID on a target, but only from one direction. As I rotated around, I heard only the iron grunt. The 21-22 (when detector properly positioned) was sufficiently consistent that I suspected I was picking up the head of a screw, bolt, or (most likely) a roofing nail. I dug about a 2" deep plug and the Carrot said nothing was in the hole, nor in the plug. Hmmm. I swung the detector over the hole -- nothing. I swung the coil over the plug and heard only an iron grunt no matter the coil orientation. Then I saw (based upon the TID and bright finish) what I was pretty sure was silver. In the photo you see two pieces but it was intact until after getting it home I tried to clean it with a toothbrush and the 'spike' part broke free. An air test only added to the mystery. The ring shaped shiny part didn't register at all. The spike is magnetic. Presumably the clasp part is aluminum (by itself it TID's ~12 on the Eqx). Spike alone grunts out "iron". Weighing the ring part, measuring its size and doing a Q&D ratio said its specific gravity is ~1.1+, so clearly plastic, probably aluminum coated. Interesting that when the clasp is on the spike it either (air test) TID's in the high single digits to low double digits (aluminum foil range) swinging perpendicular to the spike or is completely silent swinging along the spike's axis. Note: I always run with no discrimination -- iron wide open. This is apparently an example of silent masking that Tom Dankowski talks about. Still don't know how I got TID 21-22 in the ground but I think I'll go back, as maybe there is an aluminum screwcap or similar nearby that I missed finding. (Would it be too greedy to hope for an Indian Head penny?? 😁)
  10. That should be plenty big enough for a detector like the Tek Delta to pick up within a few inches of the bottom of the coil. (Again, assuming there's not some other larger nearby target interfering.)
  11. I assume you mean you've found one you can buy but don't want to invest in this extension cable if there's no chance it will work. (Otherwise I'd say "try it and tell us!"). The good news is that some gold detectors that allow the control unit to be detached from the shaft and mounted on a person have coils with longer cables (e.g. ~8 ft compared to ~3 ft). The fact that they go this route (require you to buy a separate coil with long cable as opposed to an extension), though, makes me wonder. And you're going to add another 17 feet.... Another issue is impedance matching the two cables, which is probably critical. (This means the two cables need to have similar inductance, capacitance, resistive properties in combination.) But now I'm getting out of my comfort zone. This is a really good question for Carl Moreland and his Geotech forum members. Unfortunately it's not as easy to join that forum as this one. He might answer a PM from here, though. The other thing that might make this difficult is how conductive the Be-Cu strip is. If it's large enough (thickness and extent) then probably possible. If it's super thin or tiny you may still have problems. Also, I assume this 2 inch diameter fiberglass tube is reasonably far from other conductors, otherwise that could nix your plan, too.
  12. Did I misunderstand, or did this thread that started out asking about used ML Equinox availability subsequently get hijacked into a discussion about the comparison of the Eqx with its less expensive sister, the ML Vanquish? 😁 OK, I'm as guilty as anyone on this site for shifting gears of a thread. But here I'm going to go back to the original topic. This is really about economics and its spinoffs (such as marketing, retail and wholesale sales) which I haven't studied since high school. But when in doubt, revert to the law of supply and demand! Certainly there are multiple markets for used metal detectors: Craigslist, local club forums/newsletters, internet forums such as this one, Ebay (the true elephant in the room) and even garage/yard/tag/rummage sales in our local neighborhoods. Although these share some common characteristics they are not necessarily in sync. The one I'm best familiar with is Ebay so I'll just concentrate on discussing that, with full understanding that the other markets can be quite different. Once or twice a week I review both the metal detector and metal dectector accessory categories on Ebay. I've been doing this for about four years. I haven't done an exhaustive study (and it appears none of you has either 😏) so I'm giving you my general impressions/opinions. IMO the dominant price impact for used metal detectors (the only thing I watch and thus the subject of this post) is seasonal variations. There are some commonalities between the N & S hemispheres but also one obvious difference as I point out. Since I'm from the Northern Hemisphere (temperate climate zone specifically) I'm going to concentrate on that. From my observations the best time to buy ("buyer's market") is late summer and much of the autumn. Similar to other warm weather activities (e.g. boating, cycling, golfing), that is when psychology drives people to think "the season is over" and consider liquidating their seasonal items. Christmastime (so now we see the hemisphere difference) pushes things somewhat in the other direction. People are looking for gifts and metal detectors certainly fall into the sights of some. So the trend reverses, although not necessarily completely to a seller's market, but closer to neutral in my simple view. After the holidays things don't necessarily go completely back to a buyer's market since cabin fever drives people to pine for the spring and chances to get out. Then the trend slowly climbs in favor of the sellers, which peaks in the springtime and early summer. And then the cycle starts to reverse and we're back to where we started. We are obviously currently faced with a once-in-a-lifetime experience -- pandemic triggering deep recession. That has to be superimposed upon the seasonal variation. As others opine, this doesn't necessarily drive a buyer's market across the board. Gold detetorists may be more inclined to attempt to supplement their income, and with more people off work (leisure time?) there is incentive to head to the beaches, parks, etc. But the economic downturn also provides incentive to liquidate property so the supply curve is impacted. Which one wins? The answer may well be "it depends upon when you decide to jump into the market". This is a pretty simple view of a complicated situation. For example, are the people who are currently suffering in a major way (e.g. short on food $) actually people who own detectors? Are the people in the market for detectors incentivized to buy immediately, or wait until the supply pressure increases further (driving the prices down), in the meantime satisfied with their already owned detectors? A complicated superposition of forces indeed. As far as the Equinox specifically, it does seem that the 600 model has a sweetspot in the $450-$500 range. The 800? I really don't recall as many of those for sale on Ebay as the 600's and/or when I do see them they go for closer to their new price of $900 (i.e. around $800). Could it be that those who bought the 800 have hit a satisfaction point that we don't typically see when new detectors saturate the market? ('New' now going past 2 years for the Eqx 800, admittedly.) Certainly time will provide more data.
  13. A friend of mine once told me that in Germany, if you're learning to work with metals, you're not allowed to use a machine until you've first proven that you know how to work with hand tools, files in particular. Only when you've mastered those tools and their associated techniques can you move up to lathes, milling machines, etc. Maybe that's the way it should be with metal detectors. I know when Kevin Hoagland is teaching finding native gold, he covers the screens of his students' detectors (the ones that have screens) and forces his students to listen to the subtle sounds that indicate a possible good target. Maybe coin, relic, and jewelry detecting should start the same way. Those who cut their teeth on the Tesoros learned the right way, IMO.
  14. Does that coil work on a TDI? I realize it was White's intention that coils made for the GPX would work on the TDI, but I don't think that turned out to be the case in 100% of coils made for the GPX. DetechUSA's webpage for the 8" mono coil doesn't mention the TDI.
  15. Could you have had a reaction to the puncture wound? I realize from your description it was a few hours after that incident that you passed out. Good to know you survived and are on the mend. It doesn't take much imagination to realize it could have been a lot worse.
  16. One of these days I'm going to keep my mouth shut (err, fingers dormant) but at the same time I feel that's being dishonest. So here I go again, but I'll start with some disclamiers: 1) Jeff, I respect your knowledge and your sharing of that as much as anyone who posts here. Anyone. I also appreciate your posting this video as I seem there are things I need to learn. In that sense I give the video a plus. 2) I don't have any XP products. However, there are enough positive things posted on this site that I'm confident the Deus and ORX are top performers. I even consulted with one of you (Chase) privately when I was considering picking one up, but decided it wasn't enough of an improvement over the Minelab Equinox (as always, better at some things, not as good at others) and buying another detector to share time with one I'm still learning is more like treading water -- one more detector I haven't mastered -- that I'm better off currently putting all my attention on the Eqx. OK, now I'll (again) play the little boy watching the King dance around in his underwear. Let's review the hits shown in the video: 14 total -- one clad quarter (90's TID), one copper alloy Lincoln cent (right around 88-90 TID), one zinc penny (low 80's TID), ten pieces of various aluminum (square tabs, foil, can slaw). I'll save the 'best' for last. The goal of the video was stated to be distinguishing aluminum trash from gold rings. The coins are up there where you almost never get gold. No big deal there, and the detectorist never claimed there was. Now here's a question -- how many aluminum trash targets do you typically detect in the course of finding a single gold ring? I've seen estimates from 100 to 500, and I think I vaguely recall someone saying 1000. The reality is there is way more trash in the ground than treasure, especially when the treasure is gold. Let's say I go out and try the same experiment, except I'm going to call everything less than zinc penny (and above ferrous) aluminum trash, or even more non-descript -- non-gold. What's the chances I dig 10 targets and all of them are non-gold? Oh, but there at the end of the video he does find a gold ring! Pretty impressive. He goes through all the techniques he's been using and shows the signal is different than the others. Then the deflating comment -- he found that ring two weeks prior. So this was planted. He knew all along while he was going over the target exactly what it was. This isn't simply about bravado ("I can tell trash from treasure"). This is why scientists do double-blind experiments. When they know the result they can easily fool themselves. Summary: apples to oranges, again. Real aluminum trash and a planted ring. I do appreciate his honesty in confessing he had dug this target previously. He had me fooled.
  17. The first piece of info I'll give you is that you will never eliminate damaging a coin occasionally. The best you can do is minimize it. I possibly go to an extreme compared to most. Life's decisions are always tradeoffs. Here are my techniques. 1) I use two pinpointers when coin hunting. (I warned you -- I go to extremes). The Garrett Carrot tells me when I've got a coin in range. The White's TRX hones in much better on its location (including distance, i.e. how much deeper do I need to dig). 2) If I'm in soft to moderately soft ground and the TRX says I'm close I use a plastic scoop. 3) When using a metal digger I always try to dig around the item. That means the target should come out in a clump of dirt. This can be very difficult to impossible if you are in packed gravel or limestone such as driveways or roadways. Those are the toughest conditions for both simply digging and avoiding nicking the target. Try your best but every once in a while the best detectorists still nick the target.
  18. Could this be a (not too difficult) DIY upgrade? I mentioned multi-turn lockable knobs in the Tesoro forum a few months ago. You would also need a multi-turn variable resistor who's max resistance value matches the max value of the currently installed single turn pot.
  19. Impressive! Is there a USA supplier/distributor?
  20. Just to make sure Bashin understands, the {0,1,2} TID's are the very small nuggets ('pickers'?), meaning those in the neighborhood of 0.1 g (or less). Bigger pieces will give higher TID's. There are two factors here -- the size distribution of the original virgin material and the efficiency of the dredge to remove them. Large pieces (again, if they were there at all) may have been rejected by the screening process. Small pieces (which the dredge was mainly concerned with) may have escaped due to either improper operation or just the limiting efficiency of the dredge itself. Wish I had options like yours in my neighborhood, Bashin. The good news is that there appears to be plenty of ground to cover!
  21. You're killing it! Is the Jeffy on the far right a Warnick (1942-45 with large mintmark above the Jefferson Memorial)? If so those contain about 80% as much silver as the dimes. Keep it going.
  22. I snipped three quotes from your post, all of which I consider warnning flags. 1) 150 hours doesn't sound like much. It took me 3x that long before I felt like I was really communicating with my Eqx800, and there's a lot more room for improvement. 2) You can always find a detector that does one or two things better, but often you lose something in the trade. Only way to get much more depth is to go with a pulse induction (PI) detector, and then you lose TID and much of the discriminating power of an IB/VLF. 3) If your five year budget is equal to one CTX-3030 (~$2500) then for sure you don't want to blow it right now. Get more hours on the Equinox and let it teach you what it has to say. If/when an affordable breakthrough detector comes along you'll be in better position, especially if you read this forum on a regular basis.
  23. Even though this article is ~14 months old, I didn't find it on the site. There was a short BBC video posted back then which (pretty sure) is the same expedition. If I'm just reposting something that was previously linked then sorry.... https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/hunting-for-antarcticas-lost-meteorites/583564/
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