GB_Amateur

Ever wonder why there is a bad relationship between detectorists and archaeologists? Now you know the answer. Thanks, dipsh_t.

Just one word: perseverence!

After 3 years of posts on this subject we finally get some objective evidence! ("Picture's worth a thousand words.") We don't know if this illustration is common to all of the breakage, but it might be a smoking gun. Absolutely this should not happen. However, does it happen because of flaws in dimensional tolerances (possibly), flaws in the washer's durometer (hardness) tolerance or selection (possibly) or from overtightening of the coil bolt (possibly)? And answering that is the first part although maybe the most important. For example, are people overtightening the bolt because otherwise the coil moves too easily? That would indicate a mechanical design shortcoming more so than user error. I'm not much of horn tooter when it comes to Minelab attitudes and policies, in case you haven't noticed. However, convicting them of the coil breakage doesn't strike me as right, yet (and that's after 3+ years of problem reports).

First off, I compliment you on having the wisdom to take Gerry's 'short course' with his crack crew of assistants, and kudos getting ready to take it a second time. I've said it repeatedly here -- it was well worth the time and expense for me. Your purchase actions mimic mine, although even more accelerated. I returned (from a 35 year hiatus) to detecting in 2015 and in the first 2 years I bought four detectors, then before the third year was up I got swept up by the ML Equinox craze and got #5. Lost along the way was actually learning the subtlties and nuances of those four detectors. I heard sounds; I saw a screen full of pixels; and I found some good things (with the accompanying pile of trash). Next! As a result, I ended up starting to use the Equinox thinking I knew more than I did (Oh, BTW, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" ) and had (...have -- i.e. still do) a steeper learning curve than many. If I could start over, one or two of those first four would have given me a better head start when I got the Eqx. ("Hindsight is 2020...") Your three detectors are complementary (do-it-all ML Equinox, salt water specialist ML Excalibur, native gold finding PI, the ML GPX6000) but there are still many techniques common to two and even all three. You have your work cut out for you, but the tools are in hand. Enjoy the ride!

Reminds me of the Garrett ad before the release of the AT/Max as well as several recent Minelab ads. Do all these companies use the same (lame, IMO) ad agency? OK, some of the Minelab ads in particular as well as Garrett's Apex ads were even lamer than this. Tease, tease, tease on their part. Wait, wait, wait on ours.

DIG5050 got you off to a good start and others have taken it from there. I will summarize a few things already said with minor corrections. 1) If the ring isn't there anymore there is nothing you can do about that and you'll never no. So just ignore that possibility, at least until you no longer have access to this site and decide to drown your sorrows. The ring is there; go find it! 2) I would use one detector, the one you are the most comfortable and confident with. All three should be able to find it. 3) If possible, mow the grass before searching. That extra inch being able to get the coil closer to the ground could pay off. 4) I would forget the area you've excavated. It's very unlikely that it's in that exact rectangle and if it is, it's probably out of your ability to find it. (If you do get others to come help, it wouldn't hurt for one of them to go over that area, though. A dfifferent detector and particularly a different detectorist might pick up on something you missed.) 5) Unless you have an exact version of the ring, don't concentrate your digital Target ID range too tightly or setting your discrimination threshold too high for the Tesoro. (I'm not familiar with the Garrett.) 6) Definitely go over any area (assuming you have time) from different directions. Some gold detectorists actually cover an area from 4(!) directions -- each 45 degrees or in other words up/back, left/right, and both diagonals. All of the above assumes you have time for it. If time doesn't allow, prioritize by picking one detector, searching away from your previous excavated spot, and covering from 2 directions. BTW, I don't recall you stating the metal content of the ring nor the year it was lost. The metal content (and even if 'gold', what was the concentration, i.e. karat specification?). Stay confident you are doing things correctly and will find it. ("Power of Positive Thinking") And enjoy the ride!

Leaning increasingly towards a lapel pin. The R with a circle (standing for 'Registered Trade Mark'?) is interesting and narrows it down some. Has anyone tried to put it into that artificial intelligence engine on the internet that finds matches? (Obviously I haven't since I don't even remember the name of it. ?)

There are two things that this thread drives home, at least for me. The first is that we all have our preferences, more specifically targets we want to make sure not to miss and those that we don't mind if we (occasionally?) miss. We all hunt in different soils with different histories. The second point is that the ML Equinox has so many 'knobs to turn' that it's really many different detectors in one package. So each of us can set it to cater to his/her preferences, soil conditions, drop history,.... (The list is much longer but the highlighted apply most directly to this thread.)

Great post, Jeff. Your study is way more controlled than anything I've done, but our results are consistent. (My soil is 2-3 bars on the Fisher F75 and Gold Bug Pro.) First off, I hate missing an old coin. Hate it! Secondly, I really like nickels and I almost never ignore 12-13 dTID sweetspot signals on the ML Equinox. I heard good things about the new F2 Iron Bias when it came out back in second half of 2019. (I think I have the date about right, but maybe not.) I would try it, play around with both FE and F2 settings after I got hits. It never jibed with me. I went back to it 3 or 4 times and I just didn't get a good feeling. (I've had similar experience with hunting in 50 tones. I use that for investigating targets, especially nickel-zone targets when pulltabs are present, but I never was able to mesh with it as a serach mode.) I recall one early find where, F2 set away from zero gave a lot of iron tones on a deep nickel (how deep? I don't recall but somewhere in the 6"-8" region). That soured me but I still experimented after that. BTW, I have iron in my sites. Is it bad? Most of the time it's not terrible and the more I 'practice' (by digging iff signals) the better I get at figuring out from the tone volume, quality, etc.) what nails often sound like. But vertical nails?? They aren't common but they sure sound good. Bottom line for me: I'll gladly dig a couple dozen nails that sound like they might be coins rather than leave a Jeffie (or Buffie or V) in the ground. A lot of detecting is personal preference, i.e. what one is comfortable with, and I excercise that option a lot. So for those who find value in Iron Bias settings above zero, I'm not about to try and talk them out of it. However, I do expect reciprocation. ?

'NG' may be 'National Guard' (so this possibly was a member of a Massachusetts National Guard unit). Here's a link to WWI military abbreviations. Name appears to be William S. S___Y. Scully? (That's a real WAG. Might be more letters in the last name than just 6.) This tag is obviously very crudely made, but maybe that is what they used during WWI. Pretty cool find with lots of history. Finding who that person is might be difficult, IDK.... Genealogy is huge in this internet age. I wouldn't be surprised if that person's decendents (or other relatives) would be interested in this.

My deepest coin is a 9" USA nickel 5 cent piece, found the the ML Equinox 800 (multi, Park 1, RS = 4, IB F2 = 0). In my soil (moderate = 2-3 bars on the Fisher Fe3O4 scales) I've never noticed a shift in dTID with depth of nickels. However, deep coins in general (and this includes nickels) broaden the dTID response in my experience. So I have gotten some 11 and/or 14 with the majority 12-13, overall weak, which turned out to be nickels. (I always dig pure 12-13 signals. If the signal is strong, though, throw in some 14 and it's likely a modern pulltab or can slaw. Strong 12-13 with some 11 is likely a broken off beavertail. Weak signal with majority in 12-13 with or without some 11 and/or 14 -- I'm digging for sure. All of this assumes the coin is below the coil's sweetspot during the swing.) The dTID reading for nickels may be soil dependent, though, so I'm curious as to how others respond. I think it is also a bit dependent upon either mode or recovery speed (or both), so everyone should say which mode and recovery speed they are referring to.

Nice haul! Another trip on the time machine back to before these productive areas were searched. Can you figure out that 4th digit off the early IHP? There are several semi-keys in the later 1860's: '66, '67, '68, and '69 are all low mintage semi-keys.

Did you happen to determine the orientation of this coin? (I seldom do myself with my recovery methods....) I've noticed the ML Eqx can struggle with vertically oriented coins, particularly with higher recovery speeds. But you were running RS = 4 so that particular 'feature' should have been less of a problem, relatively speaking. Thanks for the thorough, objective review.

Fair enough. I don't know enough about his situation (particularly priorities) and I happen to enjoy tinkering myself. Greg, I wish you success in your efforts, and welcome to the forum!

Seems like this thread has gone past its original topic and evolved into something more appropriate for the Advice and Comparisons subforum.... More work for Steve. ?

I typically try to help by going along with the proposal but in this case I'm making an exception. Nokta Makro has for years been making detectors that vibrate, just to accomodate this situation. It seems like you are needlessly trying to re-invent the wheel.

One half of the faux leather band was attached but I removed and pitched it. This very watch is available on Amazon for $36 so it's not an oldie by any means. The coin loss pattern for this park has pretty much crystallized. Anything within 20 or so meters of the (current) restroom building has a decent chance of being old. (There was a building there previously, when this was an industrial yard.) Outside of that I've only found two old coins (both Wheaties) but lots of modern coins plus this wristwatch. But there is one spot in particular that HistoricAerials indicates previously held a building of some kind going back about a century (or more). I've saved that spot for later in the season when the grass isn't growing and there are fewer park visitors since it's right next to a paved walking path that is heavily used. Fingers crossed... ?

I've recently been posting photos and commentary on a muni park which has been producing old coins inconsistent with the park's establishment date. Since I wrote that update I've been out an additional 20 hours and although the number of old finds per hour has decreased, there have still been some goodies dribbling in. Besides what I show in the photo below I've also recovered another 6 Wheat cents. Here are the best finds in those last seven hunts: Clockwise from upper left: a wristwatch with a five letter brand name ending in 'EX'. Want to guess what it is (and also what I over optimistically hoped it was)? Sterling child's ring with red glass setting, 1892 (plain) Barber dime, copper alloy token with "Good for 5c in trade" on one side but no company name on the rerverse ?, 1943-P silver alloy Warnick, and 1937 (plain) Buffalo nickel with all four digits of the date still fully present. That brings this site's silver coin total to 3, Buffalo Nickel count to 2, and Wheatie count to 25. There's no question now that there was human activity (accompanied by loss of coins) prior to the 1974 date posted on a plaque as the time of establishment as a municipal park. The dime deserves special documentation. I got a moderately weak 19-20 dTID on the ML Equinox which is spot on for a Zinc penny in my area. However, the weakness of the signal caught my attention. Yes, I occasionally find deep Zincolns, but that is unusual. Even though I sometimes pass over strong Zincoln zone signals, I always dig the weaker ones. After cutting a 6 inch diameter plug and removing a nugget scoop's worth of additional loose soil I was at a depth of about 4" and rechecked the hole with the detector. (I was already getting a weak but clear tone on both the Garrett Carrot pinpointer but wanted to get a better pinpoint location from the Eqx 800.) To my surprise I now was getting a solid (but still moderate strength) 24-25. I was liking this 'Zincoln' more and more! I loosened another 2-3 inches of dirt and after removing it I couldn't get a reaction on my White's TRX pinpointer when going through the hole. In my recovery pan I did get a signal and when I saw the light metal reeded edge of a small object I was pretty sure I had a silver dime. A squirt of water revealed the Barber head and a four digit date (which I couldn't read with my detecting glasses -- no matter as I can do that when I get home). I've recovered at least a couple dozen silver dimes with the Equinox and this is the first that gave such an low dTID initially. (26-27 seems to be the sweetspot in my typical soil.) This may have been an example of a coincident small piece of iron (small enough not to even cause the Eqx to grunt -- and note I keep all notches wide open when detecting). I did recheck the plug and hole after recovery without hearing anything obvious. I've graded the dime as a Good-4 on the Sheldon scale. A couple weeks back @Raphis posted a Barber dime for which he was unsure of the date. That one has more like a Fair-2 grade. I was curious how much of his coin was lost to wear and he cooperatively weighed it at 2.15 g which is a 14% loss from its mint state 2.50 g. Mine comes in considerably higher but still shows an 8% loss at 2.30 g. It would be overstating things to try and use those measurements to conclude when the coins were dropped since multiple variables determine a coin's circulation lifetime (i.e. from time of minting to time of loss). But I suspect both were dropped no later than the mid-1950's.

Sufficiently old enough that I'm not familiar with the devices you refer to. Would you please elaborate?

That's what buddies like Chase are for. CW relics are always both surprising and pleasing for me when I occasionally stumble onto one. That's a very nice one in my un-expert eye.

For a long time I've wondered what is a good way to search inside buildings for metal valuables hidden in walls, floors, masonry (such as fireplaces), etc. Given most wooden structures are riddled with nails, it seems like a tough task even compared to nail infested soil. Is discrimination key? Has a manufacturer ever made a detector specifically for this task? Is anyone aware of mods that can be made to standard detectors to make them easier to use in these conditions (particularly mounting of coil and control unit to be more manageable in tight locations)?

No price yet, of course, but I gotta think it will be reasonable, relatively speaking. The White's brand Bigfoot that was compatible with their MXT was selling for ridiculous prices on Ebay after White's discontinued them. Nice to see the MXT is one of the models that will be supported by this new coil. I don't think that this coil will fit my detecting requirements, but I still see it as excellent news for the metal detecting world. And if I decide I can't live without one, my F75 will get a new mate!

If it comes with concentric coil stock or even optional, might that fill a currently missing niche in the SiMF market right now? I know the CZ family was highly regarded as a coin hunter. But if I recall, target separation wasn't its strength. (Warning: take that recollection with multiple grains of salt.)

Saw this while browsing Serious Detecting's pages: Minelab Equinox replacement battery.

Always nice to start the day with a keeper find. It's all gravy after that. Is the Smokey the Bear token made of aluminum? Did you find it in gravel or crushed stone? (Looks like it's lived a hard life.)