GB_Amateur

Welcome, Rick! You've come to the right place, and the Minelab Equinox 800 is top notch. It took me a long time to "become one with it" but it still was finding lots of good stuff even before that. Patience, perseverance, and enjoy the ride.

I would change that to "never again will I give that dealer any of my business!" Was the dealer holding your money, just a deposit or the full amount?

Excellent advice -- makes me want to go out now. Some curb strips have a lot of coins due to things like parking meters and bus stops where coins were more likely to get dropped. I've noticed in some of those there are a lot of 1 cent pieces (aka 'pennies'), probably due to peoples' disgust that the meters won't accept them.

That's an amazing number of 150+ year old copper coins! I see a lot of USA Large Cents but other stuff I don't recognize. Did you post this just to make the West Coast detectorists envious??

I think I just read a report here in the last couple days that this isn't necessarily the case. (Don't recall the thread but it was one of the X-Terra Pro threads.)

That would have been a painful lesson for me given the scarcity/rarity of the 1804 Large Cent. Likely it didn't have much numismatic value in the condition it was in, but it would still be enjoyable to have something so unusual. Well, I assume you still have it... All USA large cents and half cents were made from 100% copper planchets. AFAIK no small cents were ever made of 100% copper -- early ones (1856-64) were 88% copper and 1864-1982 were 95% copper. (I don't recognize anything later as other than trash. 😠) I do think those with more tin included in the alloy (Indian Heads being typical) are resistant to corrosion -- at least they tend to be more attractive. But as to whether the alloys are more resistant than pure copper? Given that the early ones (Largies and Halfies) have been in the ground longer, maybe it's just the time effect that makes the biggest difference in them being more delicate. 18th and early 19th Century coins from other countries (e.g. Great Britain) might help break the stalemate, assuming they were alloys and not pure copper. (I have no idea of their detailed composition.) Maybe @kac , @F350Platinum , @Badger-NH , and others here can shed some light given they've found those coins too.

Shhh! Don't give them any ideas on their next pricepoint.

I assume you intend to use the kind with conductive adhesive, but since both kinds are sold it's worth a mention for others who may not be aware of its importance.

This point cannot be ignored but that seems to happen too often, even in some posts in this thread.... Certainly Eric Foster understood this and said as much in at least one of the two posts quoting him here. "Know the assumptions!" is a lesson I was taught long ago but even with that and decades of experience I still lose track of it sometimes. Air tests have assumptions. If you ignore them you're eventually going to be wrong drawing conclusions when those assumptions don't apply.

There's probably a way to reason this out with sufficient knowledge of how detectors work. The easy solution is to look it up in the book I've touted here a bunch of times over the years (cf. p55): Note the heavy gauge wire used in the TX coil versus the much smaller gauge RX coil wire.

So could just about everyone with access to one. Good to hear that, and it shows that with so many combined settings options (way more than the Equinox, for example) that your earlier statement is correct. I recall previously that you had not yet found a combo of settings that allowed you to detect in those difficult ferrous conditions. I was thinking similarly to GPT_G regarding your trash collection. I also note that two of your three silver coins from the grass/turf show signs of salt damage. So (probably not surprising to those of who live near the ocean) you were hunting in some intermediate zone between true dry-land turf and true beach conditions. At least that's this land-lubber's viewpoint. 😁 Thanks for your typical thorough report.

Nokta, Minelab, and Quest (to name three respected (?) companies who seem to be releasing low priced but relatively high performing detectors) making a big impact in the generic marketplace (Walmart, Amazon, and their parallels around the world) might not be as obvious as it sounds to us here who understand way more about detectors than the typical consumer. Consider someone entering (or viewing) one of these outlets looking for a Christmas gift. Do they have a clue about the relative performance characteristics of these "big boys'" products? If not, why couldn't an unproven, unknown cheapo brand look just as good performance-wise AND still beat those in price? You can argue "you get what you pay for" until blue in the face, but there are so many examples of lower quality products eliminating their quality brethren simply because their price advantage was too seductive for the average cash-strapped consumer to ignore.

There's a more accurate way to get specific gravity (S.G.). The problem with direct volume measurement (e.g. with graduated cylinder) is that it seldom is sufficiently accurate. See this video for the Archimedes S.G. determination method. There's another similar way which works for scales that have insufficient dynamic range to handle a beaker full of water. When I get some time (gotta run right now) I'll show how to do that. Nice find!

Do you run your tumbler outside? (I'm not so fond of ammonia fumes....)

I checked Ebay and there is a Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro (member of the same family as the F19 but with 7"x11" DD coil) listed there (new with free shipping) for $399. But even for that price probably not competitive with some of the new models (e.g. from Nokta and Minelab 'wars') being released now or very soon for under $300. (Then there's the highly anticipated, soon-to-be-released Quest models which are IMO still TBD performancewise.) I haven't looked but there could be some used ones for reasonable prices, and dealers with stock they'd like to reduce/clear who will possbibly go less than the $399 for new ones, including the Fisher F19, Teknetics G2+, etc. One thing the bargain priced new detectors may not have is this high of an operating frequency (19 kHz) that the F19 and siblings have. For most detecting (and this Gold Bug family is good at general detecting applications) that probably doesn't matter much, but for small native gold, maybe?? (Again, I'm talking the under $400 priced market since lots of more expensive detectors will find smaller gold than the ~20 kHz models. And obviously Steve knows all this better than I do, but just trying for completeness.) FWIW, my Fisher Gold Bug Pro did well for me in the parks and schoolyards, just not up with the (more expensive) multifrequency ML Equinox which eventually replaced it.

(See matt's post to find the 13:47 m::s video by Gigmaster.) Thanks for posting that, matt. I haven't watched too many of his videos but the ones I've seen (none comparing detectors, if he even does that) have been great. I don't know if he's a trained scientist but he sure uses proper scientific techniques, unlike so many.... (OK, enough of that. ) His title says "beach coins" but the pre-clean patina looks a lot like what I find in the turf. (My worst coins have that 'natural' orange acid etch. I don't see those in his tests. But most of mine are just dark gray or dark brown.) I'm definitely going to get some stainless steel shot now. One thing I'm trying to do is not to spend a lot of money to simply get stuff in shape to cash in. There are the initial costs (particlarly the tumbler) and although I haven't figured out the electricity cost, which might be tiny(?), there's no reason to run the tumbler longer than necessary and put wear-and-tear on it. I've been running for 2 1/2 to 3 hours based upon other videos' recommendations. Don't know if that's optimal. Gigmaster only ran for 1 hour. BTW, the manuals (my Lortone one anyway) talk about not exceeding a max gross weight limit. IMO that should be followed. Basically about half full (combined coins, medium, cleaners, and water) seems to be about right in my 3 lb (gross, not net!) rated (single cylinder) model. These tumblers are mostly sold for shining up rocks and minerals. But the Lortone manual talks about cleaning&shining jewerly (without the precious mineral settings!) and recommends stainless steel shot for that, including for silver (but they don't mention gold... 🤔).

Quite possible.

I've been experimenting with tumbler cleaning concoctions. CLR is an acid and unfortunately turns some coins an unsightly orange color -- the ones that aren't already that color. The problem I've had with all my washings so far is that the surface coins' finish when completed tumbling&cleaning is not smooth. I don't know if this will cause them to be rejected in the auto-counting machines, though. (I've so far been using only river/creek gravel, about 1/4" size and smaller, as the 'abrasive'/mechanical medium to go along with various chemicals/household cleaners.) I haven't tried stainless steel shot -- sounds like I should give it a whirl. Thanks, matt. If not too much trouble would you post here the YouTube video that you refer to?

OK, I haven't nitpicked in at least a couple..., weeks, err days, err, OK, hours.... The author is Michael Moore (not the documentary film-maker, if the photo at the end of the linked article is legit). His history is way off, saying Garrett (along with Fisher) were the first to produce commercial metal detectors -- not even close. George and Carl have the history of metal detector creation down pat, just another reason to own their book. I don't say that to diminish Charles Garrett's accomplishments as his influence is amazing, covering the full spectrum of detectorist/treasure hunter, designer/engineer, author, business entrepeneur, and champion of the endeavor. But there were quite a few companies that popped up in the 1960's that beat Garrett to the punch of designing, building, and marketing/selling detectors, if only by a few years or even a few months.

Had you had either one in the water? I ask because I had one with a cracked housing (couldn't see the crack, but...) and it went haywire after I used it in a creek. I sent it in for repair and Garrett replaced the housing and some parts inside, too, under warranty. Came back looking like new. That was many hundreds of hours ago (warranty long expired) and the replacement now looks well worn but still ticks. I do have to take the battery out after a hunt since the LED light often stays on and runs down the battery (I use rechargeble), but as far as its performance -- as good as ever. But I don't use it underwater. However I do dunk it during cleaning every now and then. I suspect your housing cracked when you dropped it. I suppose they could argue but Garrett is known to be very accommodating to customers so I'd give them another chance. I've learned to take my pinpointers out of my pouch and off my belt before taking that stuff off as I've dropped my (irreplaceable 🙄) White's Bullseye TRX on pavement more than once. (So far, so good, though....)

Now that's full service bank, not just lip service as such! I'm not aware that you can even go to a Federal Reserve Bank; I thought they only deal with other banks. Could be wrong, though; I am a lot. There may be a way to ship/mail in damaged coins and currency and get sent a refund check or direct deposit, but shipping might eat a large chunk of the value? Best would be for a bank or credit union to be the 'middle man' as F350's does, but cooperative organizations like that are a dying breed.

Bet you're now sorry you put it in your mouth to clean it.

Welcome, StarVatrex! Modesty is commendable but with 6 years and over 2000 hours experience I have a feeling you know more than a little. Either way, I look forward to your contributions. Oh, and nice finds!

So it was as if there was never a target there to begin with? Were you in all-metal or were you notching out some of the Conductive (horizontal) scale and/or silencing the gray areas on the Ferrous (vertical) scale?

I'll turn the question around to you and other jewelry detectorists: how many ring finds are sold for more than bullion value? Does it only count as a ring if it actually brings (in a real transaction) value over bullion? Your Franklin half probably only has bullion value, given its condition, even if it's a scarce date+mm. It's still a silver coin, right? Quite a successful hunt!