GB_Amateur

The full article (which Steve linked) says it goes up for auction this week. It states 'Sunday' so I assume that means 23 January. BTW, I think that contraption shown in your post is patented so if you're going to modify it with soup and energy drink you might need to get permission.

The *real* indication of its size is to see it in Gerry's mouth. Have you thought about measuring its specific gravity and then doing a calculation based upon a couple assumptions (host rock density and gold purity ==> gold alloy density)?

Does the following maxim apply here? Necessity is the mother of invention. XP has proven they have some really smart innovators and engineers. I have a feeling they can solve this battery issue. For the sake of many, both here (on this forum) and elsewhere, I hope they will.

My recollection is that the purpose of that section of the class, at least at the time I took it 3 years ago, was to show that every detector has native gold targets that it misses. There isn't (or wasn't at the time) a single detector sensitive to every native gold target.

Well, the illustration in that snippet show the Beach 1 icon. I think that answers the question/concern! Thanks for the completeness -- I wasn't aware of this override as I never hunt saltwater beaches (and only seldom freshwater beaches). I recall Andy Sabisch's book (in which you are featured 😄) where one of the several 'canned' user setups involved using Beach 1 on dry land. I have always been a bit suspicious that this would limit some things that the alternate modes (Parks and Fields) wouldn't. And when comparison videos are made where the comparer puts the Equinox in Beach mode in a dry land site to draw conclusions.... But from the manual I now think my suspicions may be unfounded.

I've attached below the pertinent(?) part of the Equinox Instruction Manual ('user manual') that covers the two beach modes. I can't find there that Beach 1 has its transmit power reduced. (Beach 2, yes.) Chase, is this something you've uncovered or learned from a different source?

In the middle of Day 2 of Gerry McMullen's and assitants' 3 day class, he brings over a dozen gold specimens of many shapes, sizes, and compositions. Then he takes the state-of-the-art detectors (including GPX, GPZ, and top IB/VLF's) to see which detectors sound off on which nuggets. Best part of the lecture section of the class (but obviously not close to the one-on-one in-field instruction that follows). Anyone who was paying attention during that demonstration won't be surprised at your experience with the GPX5k, nor the haul that Gerry and his expert assitants have made with that detector over the years.

Are you referring to this Bounty Hunter detector that was released two years ago? That's an F19 with a change of color, stock coil, and brand -- nothing more. Coils are waterproof (as are all First Texas coils that fit the Gold Bug family) but not the control unit. A good detector, yes, IMO. But still a 'seasoned' 10 year old model inside.

Nice haul and accompanying story and photos, as usual in your case, Simon. (And kudos to your wife and daughter.) Regarding the vegetation, how do you deal with it? Do you just let your coil glide along (think 'hovercraft') or do you force it down (which I think could be strenuous to your wrist in particular)? "Nobody gets it all." Nature always wins in that poker game.

Despite some claims that the composition doesn't matter, it does to some of us. I appreciate the effort in measuring the CTX3030 responses but the Lincoln Cents never had equal amounts of tin and zinc. I have 6 of the 75 editions of Yeoman's Red Book, including the latest (2022) version and none of those six says the amount of tin and zinc were equal. Later this week I will measure the dTID response of 95% coppter Indian Heads and Lincolns with the ML Equinox and will report here. It will be ineresting to see if the response to the Lincolns (where there is known variation of tin and zinc content as I pointed out in the thread I linked earlier) will correlate to those contents. Needless to say you are welcome to use the numbers from that post -- they aren't mine but rather those of Q. David Bowers who coincidentally is currently the Research Editor of the Red Book and has been a contributing editor to more than 3/4 of all the editions of that excellent handbook.

And I bet the excitement didn't end there. I'm curious to read how this compares to @Lunk's GB meteorite finds in terms of size. I was thinking most meteorites found there are pretty small pieces, not 6/7 of a lb. I assume a Radio Shack detector would have found this one, even if operated by a raw beginner. Does that mean you were in an unsearched (for gold) area or is this another case of people ignoring really large signals, thinking it must be trash?

I've seen this argued previously but it is inconsistent with what I've read about the US Mint. The only 'out' is that they may have allowed the tin/zinc ratio to vary when purchasing bronze sheets, but the 95% is locked in. In the case the Lincolns the tin & zinc components were sprecified but I have been unable to find evidence for either side (consistent or variable composition) for the IHP's. A good read on how well compositions were able to be measured can be found with the early California Gold Rush assaying, such as Kagin's book shows (kind of expensive if you have to buy it -- check the library). Very early on (first 15 years or so, up to around 1810) the mintage of coins was less precise although I don't know if that imprecission spilled over to composition. After that it was quite consistent in general. Good idea to measure both dug coins and undug, and I'll do that as best I can based upon the dates I have access to.

Wow, that ain't no dink! Fantastic find. Do you know when the meteoroid expired there over Gold Basin (spreading its offspring)? Four inches deep in the desert -- is the overburden primarily wind deposited or did you find this in a wash or ?? Regardless, that's quite a prize find.

I'm on it next week! (With the ML Equinox since I have no CTX3030 -- more meaningful to the masses = po-folk, anyway. 😁) Glad to hear someone reliable report on dTID changes from bronze coins that have been in the ground (compared to those never suffering that treatment). It's something I've suspected for copper alloy coins in general (so including Cu-Ni coins) but have yet to confirm.

I didn't want to watch the full 15 minutes, not understanding the language (Russian)? Were there any Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) plots/traces/images shown (as ELNINO77 does)? Sometimes superposition of waves (aka 'interference) will show misleading/confusing info on an oscilloscope trace. (That may only be for simultaneously transmitted waves, though, and I don't know if multifrequency detectors do that or alternate.) Where is @EL NINO77when we need him??

I assume when you say '0.25' in the tin and zinc columns you mean 0.025. I'm curious where you got these numbers. The tin&zinc numbers you show are inconsistent with what I've found for the Lincoln series. I'm also curious as to what coins you used to determine the CTX3030 dTID's -- were they dug coins or undug? I've been unable to find the tin&zinc breakdown for the bronze Indian Heads. See post I made a week or so ago for the Lincoln Cent compositions by year with referecnes, some of those detailed in earlier posts in that same thread:

Good to know. I sometimes do similar when driving home from Colorado using Google maps (and HistoricAerials). So far it seems I've ended up in places that have been detected, but one in particular was producing a Wheat or two. Just wish I had more than a couple hours to hunt them.... It'll cost me an extra night in a hotel to accomodate that. Whatever you're doing, it's obviously the right thing for your area. I look forward to seeing what you find in 2022. And you've inspired me to find some old parks in out-of-the-way towns within a couple hours of me for some weekend jaunts! I think I'm lucky compared to many that my area and the entire state hasn't seen much detecting (relatively speaking) in the last several years. I know there are some unhunted public places here. But I'm also going to ask for some private permissions. Back to my younger days getting rejected by the lasses. At least the land owners won't laugh when they turn me down while thinking "and you thought you had a chance?!"

Spectacular results for this late into the 50+ years that affordable, lightweight instruments for making such finds have existed. No doubt you have significant skills in the swinging, recognition, and recovery part of MD'ing but I suspect you are among the best at researching to uncover ununted or lightly hunted sites that contain old coins. Six silver halves and 25 silver quarters -- those don't come out of sites that have seen much (if any) detecting, at least not when you're using an IB/VLF. "Well done" doesn't do this justice. You mentioned a tone break (presumably dig / no dig break) at 18. I see a few silver content USA 5 centers (aka 'Warnicks'). Did those come in above 18 or were those incidental finds (e.g. from a multi-coin hole with higher conductive sidekicks)? Also, did you log the number of hours swinging, and if not will you give an estimate?

That's an impressive collection of recovered IHP's! Looks like you need a lot of 186x and 187x, most of which are the scarcer in the series, but they are out there. I have a feeling you are going to fill in some more spots in that folder. Diverging a bit, is that a Whitman folder?

And so has the following, but worth repeating: any action taken to avoid digging a signal will result in some good targets being left in the ground. Coins are the most consistent target because their size, shape, weight, and composition are carefully controlled during manufacture. Yet, even the dTID's of those can be affected by factors such as orientation, depth, ground mineralization, nearby metallic targets, and time spent 'stewing' for decades in the chemically reactive soil. Objects that are less uniform (gold rings being an excellent example) will have dTID's even more disparate. Native gold detecting is probably the opposite extreme to coin detecting when it comes to uniformity of desired target, and successful detectorists in that subfield are the most averse to using any target recovery avoidance. Sometimes even they are forced to, but they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into that abyss. 😁 Still, some (successful) jewelry detectorists give them a run for their money in their dislike of discrimination.

Welcome, Billy! Enjoy your new detector and especially going detecting with your grandson.

I still don't have a Coiltek NOX 10x5 and don't know if I'll be getting one. But that doesn't stop me from speculating on what I would do if I got one and saw the dTID shift. Here's a solution I think would work for me. I start by stating my coin detecting stragegy. 1) All of my 20th Century coin detecting of parks and schools is done in Park 1 with everything customized in 5 tones. Thus factory resetting every time I swapped the coil would be a major PitA. 2) I'm pretty sure (wish Minelab would say...) that if you mimic every setting in Park 1 and Field 1 to match, the detector will perform identically. So..., I use Park 1 for the 11" coil and and Field 1 for the 10x5 coil. 3) If there is a difference in TID that affects my 20th Century coin searching (which is basically dTID's of 12-13 for USA nickels and 19 and above for all other 20th Century USA coins in Park 1) then I'll have to learn & memorize what dTID's to set my Field 1 for when using the 10x5. Again, this should only affect my medium-hi tone region (USA nickels) and the start of the high conductor coins (low edge of High tone being set for Indian Head cents). When I detect sites that might contain 18th Century coins I just use 2 tone mode and dig all (or most) above dTID of ~6 (USA nickel 3 cent piece being the low edge for the high tone). So if nickel 3-center dTID's vary depending upon coil I can still use both Park 1 and Field 1 as above.

Here's something it took me almost 3 years to learn -- I can (and will) only use one detector at a time. Yes, sounds trite and almost insulting, but it's true. It appears you are mostly (or even exclusively -- you didn't make it clear) going to be gold prospecting/fossicking, and in an (wide?) area around Las Vegas. You already have an excellent tiny gold IB/VLF detector. (You haven't said how much experience you have with it.) If you buy another detector for finding tiny gold, what will you do with your GB2? The real diversification move is to own one IB/VLF and one PI. You indicate that money isn't burning a hole in your pocket, and that buying a new $1k+ detector (don't forget the auxilliary coil costs) will have an effect on your detecting budget. PI's cost more, but prices always come down eventually and there are some good deals even now in the $1k-$2k range on high performance, used Minelab PI's, not the latest and greatest, but very good performers. If you're the kind of person who can sell for close to what you buy for, then getting more detectors (and liquidating others) is an option, but obviously don't expect to get what you paid.... If I were in your shoes, knowing what I know now and not what I didn't know 6 years ago, I'd learn the GB2 while finding gold with it and save up for a PI to complement it. But I'm the first to admit that what's best for me isn't necessarily best for someone else. I wish you positive experience as you go forward.

Seems like you asked this question in another thread yesterday, but apparently didn't get any answers? I don't have much experience here -- have hunted for and found small gold with the Eqx 800, but living where I do, I get little chance for that. The fact that you already own the Fisher Gold Bug 2 has a signifcant impact on your title question. IMO you should sit tight and get some more opinions. I have mine but the people who have used all three (GB2, GM1k, Eqx) are the most capable at answering, not someone like I who knows only one. BTW, Gerry McMullen (Gerry in Idaho -- here's his dealership website) answered this a few months ago right here on this forum. When I'm in the market for a new detector, Gerry is where I start.

Was there a date associated with that message? There's a bit of confusion (on my part, anyway) between the first sentence: and paragraph 2: Maybe the 'several weeks' means for later (larger) shipments? Or maybe in their meaning 'several' and {2,3,4} weeks are the same thing. And what about the Southern Hemisphere? It's peak of summer there. Anyone in Australia have one, or is XP showing solidarity with Novak Djokovic and punishing you ingrates?