GB_Amateur

Excellent report, Jeff. Gives other Manticore owners (myself included) a lot of hope/confidence. But more than just the detector and the sites I've got to think that the detectorist has a big part in this. I have yet to find such masked targets as you are getting and I have hunted some parks with it that likely have a lot in common with yours (other than high mineralization which makes some of yours even tougher). Thanks for posting your settings. I'm confused with what "iron bias 0" means for the Manticore, though.

My experience is similar, and yes, they did mint a lot (2.8 billion from two mints, each over 1 billion). That's about six times as many as any previous year and still a record. It wasn't until 35 years later that the billion mark was again exceeded by a single mint. I think it relates to the change from silver to clad (although the 5 cent composition didn't change). Congress was slow to make a decision so the mint kept putting out 1964 dated coins until well into 1965. Bowers also mentioned hoarding of coins in general, related to the popularity of the new Kennedy half dollar. Seems strange but he knows his stuff. Yes, that's a common find in school yards as well as parks. I guess they brought them out in their pockets for recess, and then... They don't always read as clean (TID-wise) as the typical nickel, but they are close enough for those of us who don't want to miss any of the 5-cent coins, especially the older ones (Buffies and V-s) which can read a tad low sometimes.

I've been slow out of the gates for the 3rd year in a row, but hopefully I can follow through better than recently. I do have some ideas for sites I haven't hunted (and if I'm real lucky, no one else has either). But that needs to wait for summer. In the meantime.... A site that has produced modestly (Wheaties and a few silver dimes) in the past has a previously closed area that's opened up. I was able to get out last weekend and give the Manticore a chance. Here's what I found in 3 hours: The highlight is the four silvers, the best of those being the nearly uncirculated 1953-D Roosie. It's a very common date+mintmark but a bonus is that it's from my birth year. Wish I looked that good after 70 years. Maybe being buried in the ground is an advantage! 😁 (On second thought, I'll find out about that soon enough....) The denomination breakdown is interesting but may not be terribly meaningful: three 1-centers (two are Wheaties), nine 5-centers ('nickels), three dimes but two are silver (I'll take that ratio!), no 25-centers at all. Only three of the nickels have dates later than 1964. Has this area ever been searched? And how long has it been 'uninhabited'? Or did someone hunt it decades ago but ignored nickels, not wanting to dig beavertails? Note I found more nickels than imposters (five folded-over beavertails, a couple pencil ferrules, and a misc. scrap of aluminum). The shotgun butt (next to the padlock) is very likely from quite long ago given this area has been settled for longer than I've been alive. The small item left of the padlock is a piece of junk jewelry, probably a broken off pierced earpiece (plated copper with a blue glass 'stone'). I didn't photograph all the trash targets, but that's 2/3 to 3/4 of them. Surprisingly the two Warnicks (1943-P and 1943-S) show the gray patina that is representative of that population which have circulated but never been in the ground. Usually the acid in the soil eats off that surface, leaving the white metal (silver) finish. For one of the two I didn't even realize what it was until I got home and cleaned off the dirt. Only one coin was even close to being challenging -- the Roosie was 7 1/2 inches deep. I picked up a faint but clean signal with the Manticore 11" coil (All Terrain High Conductor mode). While investigating I turned up the sensitivity from 17 to 21, then backed off to 19 for the rest of the hunt. It definitely sounded louder at the higher sensitivity settings. (In my test garden it seems going much higher than 18 smears out the VDI resolution, getting worse the higher the sensitivity. That's why I've been using 17.) Anyway, I'm not done there so hopefully I can show more goodies in the near future. Quantity of hunts has been low but quality of finds the opposite!

Welcome, Heavy Metal! I don't watch many videos, but this site is all about sharing experiences and knowledge with like-minded detectorists. You should feel comfortable here as many share your passion and your interest in history.

Ah, there's half of that economics lesson -- Supply and Demand. Apparently that also carries over to concentric coils. When was the last time a high(er) end IB/VLF even had a concentric option? I'm thinking it was something from Nokta, but even that has been quite a while (as in more than 5 years), I'm guessing. Is it really the case that a DD (of the proper size) has all the advantages of a concentric? That didn't used to be the claim by many detectorists, but maybe they voted with their wallets in the end and thus we're where we are in 2024.... Or is it a physics/engineering issue, that Multifrequency and Concentric are incompatible? (That doesn't let them off the hook, though, given that MF released models have single frequency option already built in.)

Let me get this straight, because I might be misunderstanding what you wrote. In ideal conditions (low or no trash), you still don't see a clean, small disk even for shallow (say 3" or less deep) targets?

I've been investigating a technique for a while now and it seems to work pretty well for me so I decided to put it out here for others to try, if they so choose. It's something I took advantage of with the Eqx 800, but there only for discriminating shallow USA nickels vs. shallow aluminum trash. My new method with the Manticore has a broader appeal. Specifically I use this for coin detecting but it may also work for other intended targets, particularly relics. I'll just describe it first and at the end give you my settings, which may just be specific to my soils but may also be key to the effect -- IDK. My default hunt mode is All Terrain, High Conductors (AT-HC). When I get a high conductivity hit (70 or above, where most USA copper and silver coins live), I then change the mode to All Terrain General (AT-G). This is easy to do by setting one of the two upper front panel buttons, aka 'soft keys' (I choose the left one) to be 'Favorite'. I have AT-HC set as my favorite and AT-G as default search mode, but it really doesn't matter which is set to which since pressing the Favorite button just toggles between the two. What I've found is that if the AT-HC digital TID (dTID) is the same or close to the AT-G dTID, the target ID is reliable -- i.e. a high conductor. OTOH, if the AT-G dTID is well below the AT-HC dTID (10-15 units is typical), it's likely some kind of unwanted trash (e.g. a roofing nail or bolt). Now for my settings for both modes: 'All metal' (no notching, etc.), recovery speed = 4, Ferrous Limits 8/3, Stabilizer = 0. I was running sensitivity = 17 initially but have recently upped that to 19. And, yes, I Ground Balance and Noise Cancel at the start of a session, which typically remains steady for the rest of the hunt. The following are very unlikely to affect the method described above, but for completeness: I have Ferrous Tones set to a low volume (I think it's 3), Normal Audio Theme, Medium Audio Profile, Custom 5 tones, with breaks to enhance USA coin ID's, each tone having a flat (constant) pitch.

So almost half a Troy Ounce (~14/31) at 6 inch depth?

I saw an ML Gold Monster and what I think was a GPX 5000. (Surely you recognized whatever it was.) Also he gave away a Royal cleanup device. I suspect both ML and Royal have contributed -- it should show up in the credits, I think, if that's the case. The problem I have with the show is that it seems to be exaggerating what can be done. (And you're correct there. If the audience falls for this it's going to sell quite a bit of equipment.) "$3 trillion in gold still available (in the USA alone)"?????? 30 minutes of sniping leads to several hundred dollars worth of gold? Even if some have the sites, knowledge, stamina, etc. to accomplish that, claiming the general public can do so?? Give me a break. That middle aged+ couple in Siskiyou County California (borders on Oregon) sluicing in the Klamath River for (maybe) $1000/wk, both working 7 days/week and probably 10-14 hour days -- divides out to less than $10/hr per person. That's more realistic, IMO. Then he says "that's over $50,000/yr", (assuming, of course, they can do this every week of the year). How realistic is that?

@phrunt I stand corrected, it says 'Manticore' right there in the illustration's title. In that case I'll agree with Cudamark, maybe then some. 30 on the Equinox 600/800 is where the USA 25c ('quarter') hits. On the Manticore it's more like 87, not 82 as in the cartoon. 82 in fact is where our 10c (dime) comes in on the M-core, at least some of them (maybe only the silver ones with the clad version a couple units lower). In their defense it's possible on some settings (different search modes and/or different frequencies) or even on particular targets the Eqx 800 TID of 30 does line up with the Manticore 82 TID. I go by the All Terrain High Conductor scale in multifrequency. Tough crowd here? OK, sometimes I resemble that remark.

Assuming it's magnetite, isn't this analogous to saying "oh, I got bit by a poisonous snake, but just some swelling, pain, high fever, and vomiting,... not ridiculous"? When you were swinging while no targets were under the coil there appeared 02 and 03 on the screen. What does that mean? And has anyone figured out, concluded, been told whether the TID in pinpoint mode is or isn't from a true IB process, making this a hybrid detector? Thanks for the vid and report. Snow before the Autumnal Equinox? Sounds like the northern part of our North American continent! I've experienced snow (flurries) on 1st Sept. in Northern Manitoba, and I was headed (far) South the next day!

That's usually a bad assumption. 😏 There's almost always at least one person who will find value in an observation. And already (as I post) seven have. You must have a sophisticated piece of software (maybe it's your brain?) to come up with that fit curve. A small suggestion: if you could also plot this with the two scales (horizontal and vertical) being the same, i.e. 5 notches on the horizontal scale taking up the same distance as 5 notches on the vertical scale, it might be a bit more revealing (or not...). Regardless, I think this shows that where the slope is steeper the Manticore (in theory) has better resolution, relative to the Equinox, than where the slope is shallow. But to be fair (to the Equinox?), that's a relative conclusion. I think it takes a different study to conclude that an absolute resolution advantage exists. The ML Marketing 'cartoon' claimed this when it showed two nearby (artificial?) targets being split into two different TID's on the 900 while both showed the same TID on the 800. BTW, wasn't the Minelab Marketing illustration strictly for the 800 vs 900, with the Manticore unmentioned? If so maybe it's risky to compare your plot (specifically Equinox 800 vs. Manticore) with the Marketing illustration. (I say that as much for myself as anyone, since I've kind of mixed up the two, at least in my head).

Great couple of hunts! Finding a silver bar is an unusual find, no matter where it shows up. But what's it doing on the beach?? That ring that overlaps the silver bar in the photo reminds me of some of my pulltabs. Maybe I need to be a bit more careful from now on before tossing those pesky things.... 🤔

Any chance there was a CW encampment here? Fire pits (plural), Flying Eagle Cents (late 1850's), etc. Keep researching that button. Someone, somewhere would like to own that, with its historical meaning.

There are two scenarios. One occurs after the detector has been working fine, and while still on it starts to show signs of EMI. If I then go to the Noise Cancel screen and hit the button it turns itself off, tries to turn on, and then gets in that loop where it never makes it on. The other scenario occurs when I first turn it on (i.e. at the start of a day's hunt). It never gets to be fully on but rather turns itself off and on again, repeatedly. In both cases I can get it to settle down, sometimes after multiple tries at turning it off completely, then back on. And as mentioned if I can relocate (possibly to a quieter, EMI-wise, place), it will turn on normally. You mentioned the battery icon showing it being low. For the occasions that the detector won't start after having not been on for over a day I do recall it hadn't been recharged since last use. But never way low, just halfway or so. So maybe a not fully charged battery plays a role, too. I've never sent it in for repair, at least partly because I wasn't confident the problem would show itself. It really is an intermittent occurrence, and my experience (mostly with autos/trucks) is that after a couple tries the repair people just want to conclude everything's fine but the operator.... If it's EMI related, that makes it very difficult to reproduce since both the type of EMI and its intensity tends to be sensitive to both time and place.

Hey, come on. You have to admit that with all those silver coins you've been finding, you've been lapping up the gravy. Now you've got to pay the piper and settle for the potatoes....

My 800 has done this for years. I posted about it here probably 3 years ago and no one seemed to have experienced it. So now you've joined me! Misery loves company. 🤣 To be clear it doesn't always do this (thankfully). It does seem to be related to EMI, or the Noise Cancel function, though. For example, I'll be running fine and then EMI creeps in. No problem, just do a Noise Cancel. But just pressing that button causes the detector to shut off, try to start again, and get into this loop you mention (repeatedly shutting off and trying to restart in the middle of the restart cycle). Sometimes it happens when I first turn on the detector after having been dormant for a day or more. But more often it occurs during a session after it's been operating just fine. I've never had to end a session due to this problem, though. Going to an EMI quieter place seems to help, but again, I can't say 100% that the EMI is the problem. It's one of those pesky intermittent maladies, like happens with vehicles -- you take it to the repair shop and they say they can't find the problem.... The biggest frustration is that when it's in this crazy mode you can't change anything (e.g. lower the sensitivity) because it never gets far enough to allow you to make a change.

You've probably looked here already: https://firsttexasproducts.com/pages/coil-table That only shows the three concentrics so apparently First Texas never made a DD for the Land Ranger. That doesn't rule out one working.... I hesitate to push you in another direction, but assuming you're going to pay $100 minimum (likely more) for a new coil, have you considered buying a different detector? For example, the Nokta Simplex Lite (15 kHz operating frequency, manual and automatic ground balance) comes with a 6" x 9.5" DD coil. Here are a couple options for buying one in the USA: Serious Detecting (open box, $189 plus shipping) Ebay (new, $199 including shipping) There may be other affordable detectors with adjustable ground balance and small DD coils for ~$200. This is just an example, but probably a decent performer for the price. Others here may have suggestions. It's not crazy that you could find a ~20 kHz gold detector for $200, used.

Hey, aren't you the guy who posted Minelab Marketing's 'perfect' TID conversion chart (my words, but their illustrations tend to do that -- make things look better than they are)? 😁 One thing we all (almost -- there's always an exhibitionist or two) can agree upon is the desire for the option of choosing between the (old) 800's [-9,40] scale and the new 900's [-9,100] scale. That didn't happen and it's very unlikely to happen, at least until another new model (CTX is what many are hoping for) is released. As far as I'm concerned, I don't feel like I dig more with the Manticore -- [1,99] conductivity scale with ferrous reported separately -- than I did with the Equinox. Yes, there's an initial time period where I have to learn where certain targets appear (especially USA coins but also the repeatable TID trash targets such as the many kinds of aluminum pulltabs), but that was true when I got the Equinox, whose TID scale was fresh and new to everyone. And what's to stop someone with a 100 point scale from taking a dig-it-all approach, regardless of whether or not that truly leads to "more success"? Just to give a bit of evidence (again, my personal experience so may not be true for everyone), here are two USA coins with their nemesis trash items that I've hunted with both the Eqx 800 and the M'core: 1) USA 5 cent 'nickel' (25% Ni, 75% Cu) -- the sweet spot on the 800 is 12-13 (usually both showing in an alternate pattern). Sometimes 11 and/or 14 would appear too, but 12 and/or 13 were present and dominant even in those outlier cases. (Orientation, corrosion, depth all seemed to have the effect of pulling the TID away from the sweet spot.) Meanwhile, the 'rolled over' beavertail (beavertail broken off the ring tab and then bent over itself) were the worst immitators. I dug/dig a lot of those. Some detectorists claim they can hear the difference. Maybe, but not I. With the Manticore the TID sweet spot for this coin is 26-27 but 25, 28 and even 24 (maybe some 29) can not only be present but I've even seen 24-25 dominate in some cases). Is that worse or better? IMO, it's the same, given the factor of 2.5 in scale expansion (40 point of conductivity vs. 100 points). Is it difficult to remember the new scale? Not IMO. Meanwhile the pesky rolled-over-beavertails are right there with them, hitting in the 24-27 range. Better? No. Worse? No. Second example is the Indian Head Cent (95% Cu with additions of tin and zinc, last minted in 1909) which due to varying amounts of tin added, can read a rather wide range. On the Equinox it's something like 17 to 21. On the Manticore it's low 50's (I dig 51's) to mid-60's (I dig 65). Yesterday I got one at 58 and another at 63. Here there may be some improvement for the Manticore in separating out the background trash as the ring only pull (what is left when the pests removed the beavertail) hits ~40-42 on the Manticore (well out of copper IHC range) but 17-18 on the Equinox (right in the lower IHC range). However, there are still other targets (the old large 'square' tabs from the early days of beavertail pulltabs, zinc cents over a wide range of deterioration, and other aluminum trash, particularly screwcaps of different sizes) that fall in the same range as the IHC's, for both Eqx and M'core.

Did you try these? http://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/usa

The "1 above 1" appears to be the most common die variety. However, the edge lettering ('T. A. & L.' for the planchet manufacturer) may not be on all of this die variety, adding a small premium compared to those with no lettering. 228 '1 above 1' have been graded & certified by PCGS (in all conditions). This one appears to be moderately worn with both the obverse and edge lettering showing up nicely. The reverse is a mixed bag, possibly due to crowning (becoming convex at the center) during minting, making the center part more vulnerable to wear. Any USA coin dated in the 18th Century from the official USA mint (so 1792-99) is at least a 3 figure retail value in good or better condition. Likely this simply reflects the low survival rate combined with high demand. With the luck your partner is having, maybe there's a 1794 silver dollar awaiting. Tell him it's your turn! 😏

Tell him to leave a couple 18th Century USA coppers for you! Another scarce and valuable find, it appears out-of-round but I suspect that was due to a poorly manufactured planchet (blank) as opposed to some kind of post-minting damage. According to Bowers: (1797 half cents) ...are apt to be casually struck, sometimes on rough planchets, and sometimes lacking detail in certain areas. Bowers (2017 copyright) has the mintage at only 27,525 whereas the 2022 Red Book (of which Bowers is a contributing editor) has it at 127,840. Regardless, none of those early mintages reflected the actual date on the coin but just the number minted during the calendar year, often from dies with earlier dates.

Vertically oriented coins seem to be a problem for all detectors due simply to physics. And the angle of attack is another key which is why swinging from different directions (as you know, and did) can make the difference between picking it up or not. You've proven that with careful investigation and an open mind, even iron masked vertical coins can be detected. Nice work, Jeff! I'm inspired to listen and watch even more carefully now when I encounter such mixed signals with the Manticore.

Who at Minelab told you this, because apparently that person didn't write (maybe not even read) the Manticore Manual? From page 7: Postscript: I notice your title specifically mentions the Vanquish models. Unlike many other models which have internal Lithium batteries, the Vanquish's rechargeable capability is simply the Minelab providing rechargeable (and removable) NiMH batteries as well as an external charger to plug them into. Even with that, I can't find in the Vanquish 440 & 540 manual the instructions you report. It does, however, say:

Excellent idea -- can't hurt to ask. When we can give back to society something meaningful that's been lost and then found, everyone wins. Learning history can be simultaneously enjoyable and enlightening; museums are a great example of that.