GB_Amateur

My concern is what happens when you go to even larger coins (halves or large format dollars). Does it wrap around to iron zone?

I recently bought a 4WD vehicle. Should I expect it to be better in all situations than a 2WD vehicle? Even that may not be a fair analogy because the Equinox (and most/all simultaneous multifrequency detectors) allow you to run in single frequency -- best of both worlds. It would be nice for you to detail how these tests were performed.

The problem I have now is my eyesight -- it's just too difficult to look through many at one sitting. I have probably close to $100 worth of circulated Memorials (mostly bronze but some zinc) that need searched for errors. My dream is a 1969-S Double Die. Dreams are what keep us going.

Amazon has two listings of book(s) with this title. Althought "25th Anniversary Edition" (2017) is consistent with the original published date (1992), the author of the newer one is different and the number of pages (352 vs. 112) is vastly different. Which did you get and can you shed any light on this? https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Coins-North-American-Colonies/dp/0873412109/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543412268&sr=1-2&keywords=Forgotten+Coins+of+the+North+American+Colonies https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Coins-North-American-Colonies/dp/1981898042/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543412268&sr=1-1&keywords=Forgotten+Coins+of+the+North+American+Colonies

Welcome, Bozko! I wouldn't say my record keeping is for everyone, and it does evolve with time. I keep a simple Excel spreadsheet, with date, location (detailing exactly where within the property I hunted), number of hours spent searching, air temperature, detector(s) and search coil(s) used, a breakout of coins found (columns for clad dimes and quarters, Jefferson nickels, copper pennies, zinc pennies, 'old' coins) plus a record of pulltabs (number by type) and a column for brief notes. I bought a digital voice recorder (I'm old fashioned) with the intent of giving details in the field, but have never gotten around to that. My plan was to audio record details of good finds, such as depth, TID (including trash contamination ID's when applicable), and detector settings. Maybe I'll get around to that in 2019.

In which US state did you find this? Steveg reports these from Oklahoma. I'm curious as to whether or not this could be a regional issue. That is, could an off-metal series of blanks be to blame, all of which were shipped to the same location? Also, is this in 'as found' condition or did you clean it up? 90% silver coins typically (depending upon the ground they were removed from, of course) come out looking like the day they were dropped. Cu-Ni 'nickels' are either dark grey or orange in my soil. Warnicks I've found (just a few) are in-between, that is whiter than typical nickels but not close to 90% silver coins.

The competitors I see are (Ebay new pricing with free shipping): Fisher F44 ($309) White's Treasure Pro ($369) Garrett Ace 400 ($339) F44 and T-Pro operate at about the same frequency (7.69 kHz and 8.2 kHz respectively) with Ace 400 transmitting 10 kHz. I don't know how much the higher frequency of the Ace affects perfrormance. The F44 standard package has a concentric coil (vs. DD's of the other two) but you can still get the "limited time special offer" of DD coil instead from at least one online dealer (SeriousDetecting) for the $309 price. Regarding notching, I think all three of these have broad band notching (as opposed to single TID notching capability of higher priced detectors). None is fully waterproof but rather "weather resistant" or equivalent. The F44 has true minimally filtered ("all metal" in US terminology) mode as well as customizable tones. I don't think either the T-Pro nor the Ace 400 has either of these features. Maybe those would go unused for many, but since I acquired the Minelab Equinox 800 with its customizable tones I personally find it much preferred as it requires less time spent looking at the screen's TID readings. (True, the Eqx 800 has a higher resolution of tone selection, but, again, it's $900....) I agree that for my dollar, the (gold prospecting capable) 19 kHz F19 at $450 would be my choice, but to some people the extra $140 really makes a difference, and even the F19 lacks multitones let alone customizable tones. For a pure coin hunter in less than severe mineralization the F44 would still be the better option and for 70% of the price, IMO. However, for the more highly mineralized soil you experience, I can understand why it's undesirable. Mike Hillis mentioned a similar issue for the F44 in this thread from 1.5 years ago:

Don't know how you define 'semi-modern', but the F44 is their newest product (still a few years old...) and possibly their best competitive model -- comparing with the competition's price and its features relative to that competition. Unfortunately you can only rest on your laurels for so long (just ask Tesoro..., oh, wait, there might not be anyone there to answer). In terms of engineering effort, I doubt anyone has put as much muscle (and total salary compensation) into creating new detectors as First Texas has done in the past few years. Yet so far, nothing to market. That has to be a much bigger concern in El Paso than on this forum (or for that matter, all forums, Facebook pages, etc. combined). The positive spin on this is that, contrary to their recent marketing style, the engineers (and apparently their superiors) aren't willing to put out a disappointing (for example, repainted pre-existing) model just to try and save face in a competitive marketplace. And some of us are still optimistic they will produce before it's too late.

A parallel topic is book reading. How many (or what percentage) read books and magazines? Charles Garrett (among others) was writing books 40+ years ago. Those works (and orders of magnitude more) are still available today. Have they ruined the hobby? There certainly is a tradeoff -- if you never come in contact with others then you can't learn from them and they can't learn from you. Of course you can be a one-way communicator, devouring the knowledge others are willing to offer but never returning the favors, if that suits your conscience. I'm reminded of a conversation with Gerry McMullen a couple weeks back regarding his YouTube videos. The question was how important is it to keep the video exciting enough for the typical viewer to continue watching. What percentage of viewers stay for the full video, and how hard do you try to keep them? My opinion was that this shouldn't be the goal. In Gerry's case, he wants his videos to (among other things) attract customers. Ask yourself "what is the typical YouTube viewer interested in?" IMO, instant gratification, thrills, etc., like a video game experience. How many of those are going to get into metal detecting? The goal should be to keep it interesting for the type of person who likes a physical hobby and can accept 100 disappointments for every exciting moment. That's far from your typical YouTube viewer, social media frequenter, etc. It seems I'm veering off-topic, so I'll summarize my opinion: although you occasionally are going to draw someone into metal detecting you don't want around (for example, the stealth site thieves, trespassers, etc.) for the most part this hobby is too much effort for insufficient reward for the typical 21st century human being. So we can continue to share our efforts, stories, and advice with little worry of attracting the parasites. I hope that continues to be the atmoshere here.

This might clear things up (or not): http://www.modernsilver.com/basichallmarks.htm

To drive home your distinctions, there are three audio setting menus for the Eqx 800 (not in the order they show up in the menu...): 1) Tone breaks, 2) Tone volume, 3) Tone (audio) frequency. For landlubber coin hunting (I don't get in the water...) I come very close to sharing your breaks, Tom. -9 --> 0, 1 --> 11, 12 --> 13, 14 --> V, V+1 and up. ('V' means variable because it can be as low as 17 and as high as 21, depending upon my expectation of finding Indian Head pennies). I run 'all metal' (no blocking out any metal range). 12-13 is the US nickel sweetspot and I assign both high audio frequency (just below max) and high volume. Higher than V are the high conductor (copper and silver) coins. That zone gets max volume and max audio frequency. The three 'trash' zones have tone volume and audio frequency set from low to medium. For example, lowest bin (iron) gets lowest tone frequency and lowest tone volume. 1 --> 11 ('foil') gets a bit higher in both. 14 --> V (poptop, Zincoln) is assigned a bit higher in both, but well below nickel zone. I haven't yet been to a site where I thought I might find gold coins, 3 cent pieces (either kind), silver 5 cent pieces. There you need to be in jewelry mode and open up everything from high single digits up.

Ok, I have Sunray Pro Golds and they work with my WM08. Here is the ($5 US) adapter I use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000068O6B/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The Pro Golds have two switches on the earcup where the cord is attached. I put both in the 'up' position. That gives the highest volume.

Nice find, and it looks like you're already having fun trying to identify it. Here are a couple sources: https://www.pcgs.com/prices/ https://www.ebay.com/i/153222067374?chn=ps In the first (PCGS page) look under 'Colonials'. There are photos there as well as other info. The Bowers book: Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins by Q. David Bowers apparently was never printed in softcover, at least my quick search didn't find one. New hardocovers are in the mid-40's in cost. I linked to a used copy on Ebay. Also, I looked on Worldcat site and they show a copy at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, so if that is closeby you could search through theirs. Of course it could be a foreign coin. That might require an even more exhaustive search to identify. It's ineteresting that the coin is not round. That could be due to abuse, but it also could be to crude minting methods. I hope it's the latter since that could mean it is quite rare, at least if it was minted in what is now US or Canada.

Interesting thought. Large non-ferrous (desirable target) not particularly deep doesn't require a lot of gain. But gain can be your enemy when nearby (including deep) iron is present. Sounds like my standard sites, and until I got the Eqx with 11" coil I fed off the small coils with all my VLF/IB detectors. I've done well with the Eqx 6" in the few hours I've had it. Now I have two sharp tools in my toolbox! Thanks for showing your finds and reporting your settings, and particularly for experimenting out-of-the-box. Several (Steve H. being one) have said the Equinox is far from understood given all its 'knobs'. You are covering nearly virgin space.

I've even wondered about highly corroded 'Zincolns'. Given that corroded Indian Heads read similarly in TID, I'm going to go back through my Zincolns (I don't throw them out and no one will redeem them) to verify. One easy way is to check the weight. IH's when freshly minted (since 1864+ when they switched from copper-nickel to bronze) have a mass of 3.11 grams. Zincolns, on the other hand, 2.5 grams. If the coin is partly missing, then it's almost surely a Zincoln due to the galvanic process of zinc-copper interaction eating away at it while in the moist ground. But if it's just so highly surface scaled that you can't see details, either is a candidate and weight will reveal the identity.

From my observation, very few 3rd party aftermarket coil manufacturers make closed coils. The exceptions that come to mind are the Cors Point (5" round) and Shrew (3.5" x 6.5") -- same as NEL Sharp and Snake. Other than that...??? With the expected sales for Equinox coils, though, I doubt they would hesitate at developing a closed eliptical of the 5-6" X 9-11" size. If I get into gold hunting (finding out soon) I'll buy one.

Wow! Coming from someone who doesn't exaggerate I can't wait to see it.

Purpose: to filter electromagnetic interference (EMI). It's not always clear that these are necessary (or even help). You can buy them for ~$1 and attach yourself. I've tried this before and it didn't improve things in my case. It may also help to minimize the interference generated by the detector (that might bother other nearby devices, particularly other detectors). Bottom line is having one attached won't deteriorate the performance and if you don't have one and would like to try, it's a very easy mod.

Glad you didn't spend that $30 on the two big lotteries (MegaMillions pays $1 billion; Powerball about half that this weekend). ? Rough conversion: 0.7 * silverspot*$face is silver content value for 90% silver. So in your case: 0.7 * $14.67 * 0.5 for each 90%-er (45 of those) and 4/9 of that for the 40%-ers (15 of those). 45*$5.13 + 15*$2.28 = $265. Actually the 0.7 should really be 0.68 (harder to do in your head...) so take off about 3% ==> $255. On top of that, wear to the coins reduce the amount of silver so just call it a nice round $250 for your $30 investment. I'd be excited!

Not particularly cleaner. But instead of tone+dead hits I get high-tone+low-tone hits which I find are easier to register. Further, I can hear nearby iron tones and I also can pick up when iron tone and high tone are co-located, such as what you sometimes get with nails. I know some people who use discrimation (threshold in particular) will switch that off when they get an iffy signal, but I just find it easier & faster to keep it off in the first place. In high trash I've gotten false high tone hits halfway between two iron hits. Maybe there are ways to figure this out when threshold discriminating. Another thing I sometimes do is to dig up the offending iron hit in order to get a better location for the good hit (and often that clears up the TID of the good hit). Knowing there is something nearby from the start makes it easier for me. I really don't have much experience running discrimination except for back in the old days when there wern't multi-tones (Garrett Groundhog in my case). I just got comfortable listening for all tones when I learned to detect with my Gold Bug Pro, which is simply 2 tone, but IMO 2 is a lot better than 1! Apparently some detectorists let the site determine which way to go, and probably that's better if you're confident in both methods. All my life when I learn a way to do something I just stick with it and try to learn something completely different rather than spending the time to 'improve' something I already know how to do. Can't say that's the best approach for everyone, though.

Well done for just a 45 minute hunt. Interesting that it hit mostly 11-12, not the 12-13 of typical US nickel 5 cent piece. I wonder if the TID was pulled down by the surrounding trash you mention. Those who despise lone beavertails (not I) wouldn't have even dug it. ?

Thanks for all the 'likes' and comments. I'd post if no one ever spoke up but it is confirmation to receive appreciation from others, particularly those who themselves are excellent chroniclers of our pasttime. Pardon me for not responding to each of you, but I certainly appreciate (and read with great interest) everything you say, both in response to my post but especially elsewhere on the forum. I can only hope that my reports give you 1/10 the inspiration that yours have given me.

For me, the key here is to adjust the volume of the various tone regions. I want to hear iron but I don't want it blasting my ears so the volume for the iron region (0 and below) is my lowest. Highest volume for the silver/copper zone and just as high for nickels (12-13 sweetspot). The part between iron and nickel and also between nickel and silver/copper are intermediate. (As noted previously, if Indian Heads are expected I lower the highest tone breakpoint to ~19.) It's great that the Eqx 800 has so many settings that allows each detectorist to choose his/her own. I've read here that many like to operate in 50 tones and if I had a 600 I'm sure I would learn to work in that space. But for me the signal confusion has been pretty overwhelming when I've tried searching with 50 tones. What I've settled upon (and it seems to work for me) is to use the profile setting for Park 2, 50 tones and my default hunting to be Park 1, 5 tones. If I get a solid/consistent hit in default I don't worry about it -- just dig. If I get iffy ID's & tones in Park 1, 5 tones I can quickly switch over to Park 2, 50 tones and see how steady the tone (ID) is before making a dig/not decision. Of course there are other techniques which I use, such as the 90 degree angle of attack. But the more info you have the better your decision will be. And when in doubt... ?

After a fairly lean summer (90 hours hunting from early June to late September), surprisingly that included five permissions, things have picked up over the last three weeks. Here are the details: Hunt 1 in Schoolyard: 4 1/2 hour hunt on my favorite (one of only two) schoolyard, running Park 1, ground balanced, custom 5 tones, Iron Bias 3, recovery speed 6, I got a clean 25-27 signal at moderate tone depth (turned out to be 4 inches) and was very surprised to see a 1912 (common issue) Barber dime. 'Surprised' because 1) this schoolyard was a pasture prior to 1955, 2) (when I got it home and cleaned) the condition graded out AU-53 meaning this coin had seen very little wear/circulation in its lifetime, and 3) I thought I had been over this area previously (obviously not). Does this make sense? It certainly is possible that a coin minted 40+ years previously and in near mint condition could get dropped. For example, a previous recent hunt produced a fresh drop (surface) 1980 near mint Lincoln. Now having searched this schoolyard for nearly 100 hours I've theorized backfill was brought in 26 years ago when the original school was replaced with a modern one. So this is my best theory -- I'm occasionally finding coins that were relocated to this site from a considerably earlier drop zone. No matter, gotta love that silver and the outstanding condition is a bonus. Hunt 2 (3.5 hours) in city park established 1948 (previously industrial site first occupied in the 1890's): This is my EMI noisiest site, one I've had a lot of trouble with in the past with multiple detectors but particularly the Eqx 800 in multifrequency. Besides buried power lines along the street there is a hospital with helipad across the street. As I neared the street I encountered serious EMI and checking the individual frequencies saw that the problem was at 40 kHz. In my experience this is the exception -- most of the time (from underground powerlines, I think) it's 5 kHz that suffers worst. So..., since I'm looking for coins I chose to run at 5 kHz with gain of 19 (custom 5 tones, iron bias of 0, ground balanced, recovery speed 6). Hunting in a spot I had never previously searched (thinking it was modern fill) I got a strong copper-penny / dime type signal, thinking likely a copper Memorial or clad dime. Nope, only about 2 inches down: silver!! After cleaning it in water at home it showed a 1928 plain (common) date with the reverse in no better than VG condition, but a reasonably attractive, strong obverse. Always thrilled to find silver and this time no exception. Note: the ID's I was seeing at 5 kHz were consistent with multi-frequency ID's. This is reassuring, that when forced to hunt in single frequency the detector acts as expected. Hunt 3 (3.5 hours) in same city park: While out on hunt 2 I recalled that my new, long-awaited 6 inch coil was to be delivered that afternoon while I was actually on the hunt. Sure enough, there it was in the mailbox when I arrived home. Next day was my chance to try it out. I chose a part of the park I had hunted many times in the past with great success, both with the F75 originally and later with the Eqx 800. This area had previously accomodated a 1920's home, so quite a bit of iron (nails). Park 1, gain of 20, custom 5 tones, iron bias at 2, recovery speed 6. Searching a spot I know I've been over at least once with the F75 and probably twice with the Eqx 11" coil I got a decent (but with neighboring iron hits) nickel zone signal. Expecting junk (pulltab, canslaw, pencil ferrule, crown cap to name just some of the imposters) out popped a Jefferson 'nickel'. It seemed to have the typical dark toning characteristic of this kind of coin after being in the ground for a few years, but it wasn't orange color which tend to represent the worst examples of alkali corrosion. Still, didn't think it was anything special. Turns out it was my 3rd Warnick (this one 1943-S) of the summer! Next I searched an area which (based upon the density of trash) I had previously concluded was the house's trash dump. Running a small coil gives me confidence in such an environment and under a bush I got a very strong penny/dime signal which turned out to be a near-surface Wheat penny (1945-D)! 40+ years lying there waiting for my new 6 inch coil. My last old find I'm still unsure of depth/location since I didn't remember much about its recovery. When in old sites I dig anything above 17, even though that means pulling up the hated Stinkin' Zincolns, since Indian Heads and long buried Wheaties can give signals in this low. I do remember excavating a copper penny which showed no detail at all based upon the amount of dirt/crud it had accumlated over decades in the ground, but at the time I didn't expect anything more than a 1940's Wheatie at best. Thus I was quite surprised after getting home and soaking it that the reverse wreath of an Indian Head (1896 so over 120 years old) -- my second IH of the year. Summary/Conclusion: Although the Eqx has been an excellent producer for me in 183 hours of hunting, I'm pretty sure any decent detector would have found the two silver dimes. Neither was particularly masked nor deep. However, given that I was covering previously well-searched ground on Hunt 3 it sure seems likely that the combination of the 6 inch coil and the unmasking ability of the Eqx 800 pulled those 3 oldies out where other searches have failed. To add an extra note to those latter finds, over those 3 1/2 hours I only found two other coins -- a clad dime and a Zincoln. 60% of the coins I found that hunt were oldies. As can be seen in the photo, the dimes are characteristically (for my soil) as nice as the day they were dropped, but the two pennies and even the Warnick suffer from staining and (in the case of the pennies) scaling. I hope to be able to clean those up in the future. P.S. all of the hunts were 'all metal' (no discrimination or notching).

I couldn't agree more. So far 95% of my detecting has been with old coins as my goal. If I get jewelry (occasionally) and relics (often) then I'll take those, too. Old coins are in old sites. I don't have the situation some do hunting 'cleaned out' old sites and I'm fine with that. So my old sites have lots of trash -- majority of which are nails. The masking is often extreme, even for the fast response Equinox with 11 inch coil. Even more so the case with my previous detectors which don't have as good of separation and/or target ID in high density trash. The smaller coils may have been a crutch for me and for this reason I'm glad I spent 175 hours with the Eqx 11 inch coil, even in my trashy hunting grounds. But it's always better to have options. As far as the Eqx big coil, I haven't decided and I'll be reading the reviews here, as always, before making my decision. Who knows, there might be some 3rd party aftermarket manufactured coils ? out by the time I need a large one.