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GB_Amateur

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  1. Here we go again.... Unless 'your gold' is a general term for 'good targets'. Kinda suspiciously worded if that's the case, though. Seems like this group is in over there heads. I just wish SeriousDetecting had been more serious on their vetting this product. So if the user has to provide the control pod, how is $450 a good deal, even if it's on par with the Teknetics Omega, for example (and that seems like too much benefit-of-the-doubt from what's been shown so far)?
  2. SeriousDetecting ad says Bluetooth 4.0, but I suppose that could be out-of-date....
  3. Is it possible they've made improvements since those reviews were made? Hopefully SeriousDetecting doesn't turn into Kellyco where ensuring the legitimacy of products (Long Range Locators being the example of illegitimacy) takes a back seat to other motivations. I've had very good experiences with SeriousDetecting and their products up until now. If this detector doesn't measure up to basic performance standards I hope they pull it off their products page until improvements show that it does.
  4. From Wikipedia: (Pocket watch) styles changed in the 17th century and men began to wear watches in pockets instead of as pendants (the woman's watch remained a pendant into the 20th century).[4][5] This is said to have occurred in 1675 when Charles II of England introduced waistcoats.[6] To fit in pockets, their shape evolved into the typical pocket watch shape, rounded and flattened with no sharp edges. Glass was used to cover the face beginning around 1610. Watch fobs began to be used, the name originating from the German word fuppe, a small pocket.[5] The watch was wound and also set by opening the back and fitting a key to a square arbor, and turning it. (emphasis mine)
  5. That's high praise (and I'm not being facetious). Some may not know that those detectors are the gold standard for balance in a moderate (~3.5 lb) weight package. Coincidentally I'm going to be doing some separation tests with my Fisher F75 (and my Minelab X-Terra 705) as soon as it warms up here today. Meanwhile I'm waiting anxiously for your report on the Legend's performance. Bet you didn't expect mid-March Georgia temps would be down there (not that you didn't know it was possible), but if it's like here we're going to have great detecting weather this week.
  6. Didn't the fact that it took someone nearly 25 years to build a detector that exceeded it for the smallest size gold have something to do with this also? They established a standard that everyone recognized. Pretty sure the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 is roughly equal in performance and much easier to tune (for about the same price). A year or two after its release the ML Equinox 800 became available and was almost as good for tiny gold as either, better for larger sized gold, and an all-purpose detector to boot, for just $100-$200 more. (Steve H. touts the 600 model for its nugget hunting ability and it's cheaper than all of the above.) In fact, if not for the GM1000's simplicity of operation I wonder if there would be much market for it today. Simon, I forget. Since you have all three (plus a White's GM24k, right?), which do you grab when you're wanting to swing an IB/VLF?
  7. Interesting. The tip has a permanent plastic shield to protect the targets? And it doesn't work its way off with repeated use? Oh, that sounds like a significant expense. What do they cost? Appears to be one of those good (niche) ideas that never really caught on with the general population of detectorists. Fortunately I can dig plugs in my parks so I'm not so constrained in recovery as some of you. I'm only interested in older coins which tend to be deeper, thus the screwdriver-pop method isn't really an option for my intended targets. Near surface coins and jewelry is obviously a different story. That was my experience. I bought a used one for ~$100 for my Fisher F75. I actually wrote up my impressions here (it's still around if someone wants to search) but basically having to move the probe around to get it to work (in motion mode) was a big downer for me. I got lucky and someone here posted a Wanted ad for one within a couple weeks after I bought it. I got my money out of it minus a nominal shipping fee, so worth the try. I recall Steve H. saying they were a big hit with FBS detectorists, and the prices at that time (~$200-$250) for used ones bore that out. schoolofhardNox was apparently one of those.
  8. Overall I like your approach (and review) -- no drama! I see you are in Florida (looked up Cocoa Beach -- halfway up penninsula on the Atlantic coast, to save others like me who want a drone's eye view ?). Thus your depth and 'sensitivity at depth' reflect that. One thing which might be a typo: Equinox 5 lbs? How about ~3 lb w/11" coil. Even with the 12"x15" coil (which at present has no comparison with the Deus 2) it's more like 3 1/3 lb. (That coil is 170 g heavier than the 11" when both are outfitted with scuff covers.) But Deus 2 is lighter? No issue on the qualitative result. For water detectorists it looked from the start (before the first detectors was in a reviewers hands) that the Deus 2 was going to be the clear choice. The Minelab Excaibur was possibly the bigger bullseye than the Equinox. You (and others) are confirming the beach and water features and performance that XP advertised. For land detectorists who don't have the pristine low ferromagnetic mineralized ground, the jury is still out, IMO. I look forward to objective reviews such as yours by more landlubbers.
  9. I've been doing some early year experimenting, too, with older detectors. I find it enlightening/educational whether I find anything or not. I just saw the weather report. I know you're one of the toughest detectorists out there when it comes to fighting bad weather, but it looks like even you will have to take Saturday off. ? Sunday and particularly next week look way better.
  10. What are the three keys to waterway gold? Gravity, gravity, gravity. There's a small creek near my house, which I don't think is old in geologic terms. It has exposed (limetstone) bedrock and I found one crack/crevice in particular that is about 1" wide by 4"-6" deep. I started by metal detecting it (with discrimination) and found a few modern coins. Next I cleaned it out with a crevice tool and panned what I removed. There was some rusty iron from fences and quite a bit of lead shot, I'm guessing from bird hunters. I know there have been farm/ranch homesteads here going back well into the 19th Century. So origin of the metal is likely from the past 150 years. I don't remember if I found spent bullets, but likely (not the herky Civil War kind, though.) If you can access bedrock cracks, crevices, and hollowed out holes you should be able to cash in, assuming others haven't beat you to it. I'm sure there are many good (and some not-so-good) YouTube videos that cover all this. Chris Ralph writes about streambed gold locating fairly often so maybe he has a YouTube video on the subject. Kevin Hoagland, Jeff Williams? Pretty standard stuff. (I quickly skiimmed through Steve's Guides titles but didn't find one. Likely he's written about it somewhere.)
  11. I filed the teeth off my Lesche hand digger with just a standard mill file. That steel is pretty tough and resistant to all but minor corrosion, but still soft enough to file. There's probably an optimum technique, though, to get the edge you want. If answers here are hard to come by (time will tell), I would find some YouTube videos on sharpening similar items, like large hunting knives and standard hollow point shovels. I doubt you want to go razor sharp, but the cross section profile could be similar.
  12. Please give details of this setup when you get a chance. It sounds like it's a standard setup but I'm not familiar with it. Thanks. Separation tests are good but given the number of variables in the real world (multiple targets, relative depths, relative transverse distances) it's probably realistically impossible to draw universal conclusions. But the more tests done, the better knowledge we have, just as long as those results don't lead to an oversimplified, erroneous picture.
  13. Couldn't agree more! That little option would wake up a lot of detectorists -- some of those married to ML and XP SMF's and some old schoolers who have avoided SMF because of the lack of a concentric coil option. I would prefer a concentric coil on the smaller end. 6" seems to be a sweetspot for trashy iron, which is where concentrics have the edge, I've heard. (Another option for consideration is a 4"x6" concentric such as the one Fisher made for its F75 family -- same sweep coverage but with a narrow nose to fit between rocks, etc.) And while we're at the wishing well, how about making it the full closed housing design like Cal_Cobra argues for above on the elliptical DD. Even without vegetiation attacking from the top, scrubbing desert sand/soil leads to material building up inside the strengtheing webs when an open coil is mated with a solid skidplate -- very annoying and time wasting. When used for prospecting, some prefer dropping material on top of the coil and listening for a response to find tiny nuggets -- another excellent reason for a fully closed coil housing.
  14. I could be wrong but I think that's a site that tries to push the detectors they have a bloated inventory on. Bounty Hunter Platinum the best coin detector? Even if you said "best coin detector under $400" I don't think that would be many peoples' first choice. Heck, it probably isn't First Texas's best coin detector under $400. But I bet they have a stack of them in the back room. Either that or they can get them really cheap. First Texas may be wanting to unload their inventory, too, so they can discontinue this model. Caveat emptor has never been more true than in the social media internet age.
  15. I'm 100% in agreement. When I came back to detecting I first joined GPAA, then bought a book or two on gold nugget detecting, and finally found this site and Steve's reviews. The best advice (maybe the only good advice) on detectors came from here. I've told this before but maybe others' memory is as bad as mine so I'll repeat. At that time, Steve had three detectors pretty much a tie concering best value in an IB/VLF -- Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Minelab X-Terra 705, and Garrett AT/Gold. Many reviewers would have caved to naming a best at the expense of the others, but Steve said something like (paraphrased) "if you force me to name one of these three then it's XYZ, but that's at best splitting hairs." I'd had a Garrett detector before (a good one) and Minelab was new enough ('new' for me since I had been out of detecting for 30 years) that I chose Fisher -- a company I remembered as having a good reputation from back in the 70's and I wanted to give them a try. I wasn't disappointed. Less than a year later the local newspaper classifieds had a next-to-new 705 for a very good price so I grabbed that. (Never got the AT/Gold, though.) Creating such a guide is a lot of work, and only a few are knowedgeable enough to be able to do it justice. Steve's been more than generous over the years sharing his knowledge so if such a project is to happen, others equally as experienced needs to step up for other categories (dry land parks/school coin hunting, beach/shore/water jewelry detecting, relic detecting, etc.) I always get a chuckle when someone suggests to Steve that he should write a book. Have you not looked around this site?? There's more than a couple books worth of information that he's already written and made available here, for free!
  16. I've wondered for years (not just since I joined here) if most people don't understand plots/graphs. If this site is any indication, very few graphs are posted and when they are..., crickets. (With exceptions, of course.) That really seems to be the rule, not the exception. I came very close to buying a V3i but got scared off by both the price and the weight. As always, light weight without good balance is just as bad, probably worse than moderate to even heavy weight with good balance, so maybe on that feature my choice was unjustified. I recall the VX3 didn't have as many graphics features as the V3i which soured me a bit on going with the lower cost option. In the long run manufacturers deliver what customers want. Even the worst offender ever (IMO), McDonalds, finally came around, but it took them 40+ years. I think MD manufacturers have realized that the vast majority of customers don't want graphics so why go to the trouble and expense? XP seems to be an exception at the moment, though.
  17. IMO, the first thing most people should consider when making any purchase is "what's my budget?" It seems that gets lost here way too often. Newbie: "I want to get a detector under $500." Answer: "Minelab Equinox!" So each category you mention should also have some kind of value/affordability ranking list added to the "if cost is no object..." list. Are there a bunch of these "top 5" lists for detectors running around on the internet? I'm vaguely aware of Amazon's, but pretty sure those are based upon their sales volumes -- another worthless list, IMO -- popularity among people who don't know much about the endeavor. I assume Cipher was mostly looking to have fun. I'll retreat to other topics so I don't play too much of the party pooper role.
  18. Why do you need five tones for two zones (nickels and high conductive coins)? Are there other regions of the dTID spectrum you want to highlight? If not then four tone regions will work.
  19. From A Guide Book of Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels by Q. David Bowers: "In an insightful article in The Numistmatist in 2000, Mark A. Benvenuto, a chemistry professor, provided data suggesting that about 827,164 pounds of nickel metal might have been saved by the alloy switch, but "statistically this figure is insignificant in view of about 300 million pounds of nickel produced annually during World War II, about 60% of which was available for use of the Allies. (Benvenuto hypothesizes): My theory is that the action was intended simply to be a morale booster. Every time John Q. Public saw the enlarged mintmark atop Monticello, he knew that even the United State Mint was doing its part for the war effort...." 153.5 cents of 95% copper composition, with no wear contains 1 lb of copper. At the current $4.81/lb spot price that's a bit over 3 cents of copper each. Reprocessing to remove the remaining 5% component of the alloy will reduce the value some, but it's still a very nice profit, in quantity. The problem (as you likely know from your failed attempt to cash in at the salvage yard) is that melting USA cents is currently illegal in this country. If you want to follow gold spot price in near real time (probably 5 minute delay), this is the site and here's what you can see there:
  20. Nothing wrong with that. When you mentioned copper plates being used in the refining of gold I Googled and found this interesting article: https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/mercury-gold-amalgamation-works Unfortunately it refers back to another page on how the copper plates are initally prepared (as if this article has been cut and pasted from a book). Still a good read and has some interesting videos embedded.
  21. Looks like the shipment has arrived. Serious Detecting has at least 10 available as I write this: https://www.ebay.com/str/seriousdetecting/Nokta-Makro/_i.html?store_cat=14364028018
  22. Thanks for letting us look over your shoulder. Did you pull any dates off of the Wheaties? When were those tax tokens in use?
  23. We currently have two candidate explanations of why a 90% silver, 10% copper coin would look shiny after being immersed/dipped/smeared in mercury. Yours is that the Mercury removes some of the surface of the coin, leaving a fresh looking coin -- lustre actually is the original Ag-Cu alloy. Mine is that the mercury stays on the surface -- lustre is actually from the mercury coating. (Both of us allude to mercury's ability to alloy with many metals.) I used the 95% copper cent example as evidence that a mercury coating explains the silver coin's lustre since that's what happens to a copper cent when it comes into intimate contact with mercury.
  24. When you rub mercury on a 95% copper cent, it doesn't clean off a layer of tarnished copper alloy, leaving a fresh clean copper surface. Instead it leaves a white metal coating on the coin.
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