GB_Amateur

IMO some of you are being overly hard on Garrett. Do you think there was a line of suitors wanting to take defunct White's to the royal ball? Recall what happened to Tesoro -- no one bought anything except the building, maybe the out-dated test equipment, and now we know someone (2 or 3 years later!) got some of the components. I also don't agree (and I've expressed this before) that Garrett won't release a product which will compete with something they already have. They are in business to make money. If they can make more $ with two detectors that have similar applications, why wouldn't they? Giving the customer options is a wise decision as long as the overhead, etc. doesn't eat into the bottom line. I really like the TRX and I also have a Carrot. I'm more likely to buy a competitor's pinpointer to replace my Carrot (which is showing it's age, BTW...) right now. If they re-released the TRX that would likely be a different story. The TRX has no competition AFAIC (forward sensitivity zone, ratcheting tone). What a shame to let that fade away without something better to replace it. Outside of Garrett, probably the best person with inside knowledge (because he used to work at White's and helped develop some of the products being discussed AND I think he still lives in Sweet Home) is Carl Moreland (user Geotech here). In fact he's already commented on some of this, including some difficulties in continuing to produce White's products. AFAIC, Garrett has already done the detecting world a favor by re-introducing the 24k, but I'm with many of you that I hope there are more (such as the Bullseye TRX and V3i/VX3) to come.

Thanks, F350P. Yes, it did still have the remanants of the shank and I think it was soldered (but will need to take a further look; I'll ask the property owner who has it now). As far as composition, I'm pretty sure from the look and feel that it's a copper alloy, not zinc. I did find a zinc canning jar lid (it's in the first photo, on the left but covered by the broken milk glass liner). That lid wasn't in very good shape which is typical of those -- I find them here at home a lot and the ones I find here are badly deteriorated. I was hoping that large flat button was turn-of-the-Century (late 1700's / early 1800's) so thank you for confirming that. Interesting that it was under a bush and only a few inches deep -- very loud target. My guess is that when the bush was planted they inadvertently dug up the button and when they subsequently backfilled the hole the button ended up near the surface. In one old photo (my guess was that the photo was taken ~1900 but could have been earlier) there is a bush right where the current one is. I don't know if it's the same bush (how long do they live?).

I took I-80 through most of Pennsylvania and then North, East, North, East to get to NW Mass. On the way up through Eastern NY I took the Taconic Pkwy but because of Henri's path being close to there, on the way home I went over to Albany and angled SW to Scranton before heading South to DoD country.

The female property owner and I disagreed on which side of that broach/pin was the display side. I'm far from expert on jewelry so I don't know who was right. Her argument for one side (the concave one) is that it showed hollowed out wells where jewels/stones were captured. Could it have been a piece of jewelry with both sides viewable, depending upon mood of the wearer? Hmmm. Cane tip idea in particular is tantalizing. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the suggestion. I think I said it was copper but actually, brass or bronze are also possibilities. Bronze would be perfect for a cane (or chair leg) tip.

Upon departing the Colonial Site in NW Massachusetts I made my way towards Eastern Pennsylvania to meet up with member here dogodog and spend half a day detecting one of his sites. I was fortunate that he had previously mentioned he'd like to get together for a hunt and since I was on his side of the world this seemed like a good time to take him up on his offer. The hunt was only part of the enjoyment as we spent some time (while driving and also over lunch, which he generously bought) to discuss detecting. The site, which is one he's hunted previously but continues to hunt and make good finds -- see his recent posts -- was previously a private swim and sports club recently acquired by the local government. I don't think I'm going out a limb to say that except for DoD and his friends he's brought there, it had never been previously detected. This is like stepping on a time machine back to the 1970's but with a 2020 metal detector! We began searching an open area which may have been a sports field or maybe just a play area for kids (of all ages) but it was in the open sun and it was becoming what dog said was the hottest day of the year so after about 15-20 minutes we headed to the backside of the property where we could detect in the shade of some large trees. I was using the Minelab Equinox 800 and 11" coil with my standard park and school settings: Park 1, 5 custom tones, no notching, Recovery Speed = 4, Iron Bias F2 = 0. He told me he was finding silver coins at shallow depths so I turned down the gain to 22 from my 24, but even that was overkill although the EMI was easily eliminated with noise cancel. I actually never did a ground balance since pumping the coil showed the current setting at turn-on was quiet as a mouse. The early 15-20 minutes in the open produced some clad and copper Memorials. The back (shaded) part proved more promising. I got the first trophy (and as it turned out, my best find of the day) -- a 1941-S Merc in excellent condition other than the dark toning which was surely caused by some chemical in the ground. After showing DoD, it wasn't more than 10 minutes when he called me over to show me his first silver -- a Roosie. Then he shifted into high gear and found a 9 kt gold mens wedding band followed by his own Merc. I found quite a few pennies (see photo below) and a few (not old) nickels the remainder of the total 3 1/2 hours of detecting but only about half the number of coins (old and new) that dog did. Hey, I didn't want to show him up on his own turf! Here's a pic of my total recoveries: Oh, that's not a pulltab from a dinosaur's drink can but rather a thoughtful gift from DoD -- a detecting towel. I still haven't figured out why he put a pulltab image on it.... At least it wasn't a Stinkin' Zincoln. Speaking of which, there wasn't a huge amount of trash, and particularly not that many beavertails which often fool me as being nickels. I got more aluminum bottle caps (three, one of which isn't shown) than classic pulltabs and not a single modern tab although I was doing some mental discrimination. Three tacks (which DoD warned me about) sure sounded sweet, as usual. Here's a closeup of my coin haul: As usual my photography leaves something to be desired, but you're not missing much detail. From right to left: clad quarter (2001 North Carolina state quarter -- most recent date of all my recovered coins), four clad dimes, three Jeffies (oldest is the top one, a rather crusty and corroded 1941-D). Next are three rows of copper Memorials sorted by decade: one from 1980-82, nine from the 70's and four from the 60's. On the left are three heavily green scaled Wheaties and my best find, the Merc. I did find 3 Zincolns (shown in the previous photo) but in my book those are trash, not coins. Here are closeups of the 1941-S Merc (also shown are my two best finds from earlier in the trip which are highlighted in another post): Except for the dark toning (which isn't all that bad), the condition of the Merc is quite nice. I note that the ground in this part of the country, and that include NW Massachusetts where the large cent was found, seems to be even more unfriendly to copper and copper alloy coins (including USA 25% nickel composition coins) than my soils at home. I know others have found similar deterioration of coin in other part of the Eastern USA. I don't think it's due to the trees since we pretty much share the same species, so it must be some inorganic chemical(s) in the soil. Better than the detect was meeting dogodog and discussing several topics including soil effects, depth of finds, and coil options -- particularly DD vs. concentric. To put an exclamation point on this last topic, he showed me how well his Tesoro Compadre (w/fixed 8" concentric) performs, which he switched to after a short time detecting with his Eqx800. I've returned home with a new found respect for Tesoro analog circuitry and am planning on learning my Vaquero. (kac, don't say "I told you so" even though... you told me so, as have Monte, Rick N, and others here.)

A couple years ago a friend of mine (who already had gotten me 5 permissions) asked her sister if I could come detect her 18th Century homestead in NW Massachusetts. I had hoped to go in 2019 but time got away from me, and you all know what happened in 2020. Finally we agreed upon a time window and I made it out there in the past couple weeks. Basically, after the Revolutionary War, soldiers were rewarded with property in unsettled parts of the previous Colonies and one of them started this homestead in 1785. The original cabin burned (remnants can still be seen but it was overgrown this trip) and was replaced by a larger house at the beginning of the 19th Century. The current owners have a lot of property but most is wooded and I had only three full days to detect so I decided to confine my searching to the 2-3 acres of cleared ground surrounding the house. Except for recently constructed garage (which replaced a barn burned down by an arson), there are no other current buildings, but with the help of a 1911 survey which they showed me we were able to figure out the location (and find the foundations) of a couple other long ago razed outbuildings. My goal this trip was twofold -- survey as much of this cleared area as possible and try to hone in on the best spots to cherry pick, meaning specifically undisturbed ground. As is typical, improvements to property occur over time, covering up some of the history. I wanted to avoid those areas during this short trip. I began in the front yard close to the house and not surprisingly got some nail hits, although trash wasn't thick. After digging 3 or 4 good sounding targets that turned out to be nails, I moved closer to the road, below a bulkhead wall. BTW, I was using the Minelab Equinox 800 in Field 1, 2 tones, wide open (i.e. no notching), recovery speed=5, iron bias F2=0, gain = 22. About 45 minutes into the first day's hunt I got a good, strong high tone and the dTID showed low 30's (silver quarter/half region). (I tend not to spend a lot of time requiring perfect, consistent dTID's since I've found so many good targets which don't give them. But I do listen for iron hints although even those don't necessarily turn me away, especially from weak signals.) The ground was suprisingly soft and sandy, unlike the stickly clay I deal with at home. Also, they'd been having quite a bit of rain (the mosquitoes were evidence of that!) so digging conditions were near perfect. At about 6 inches I pulled out a metal disc the size of a USA Large Cent (size no coincidence because that's what it was)! First target and I dig a coin I've never found before. I wasn't sure -- could have been a slug -- and took it inside to rinse it off and carefully blot dry (even that seemingly benign action might have been a mistake) and still couldn't see detail but showed it to one of the owners and she, with better eyes than I, said in the center it said 'One Cent'. Bingo! Already I knew it was my oldest coin ever since the last year of minting large cents was 1857 and my oldest previous coin was an 1864 2-Cent piece. I returned outside to that spot (coins congretate in patches, too ) and a few meters away got a nice high 20's hit, but rather weak. Eight inches down was a Barber dime. What a start! Unfortunately the only old coins I found the remainder of the trip were a few Wheat pennies. I did get a lot of relics, not surprisingly. Here's a picture of all but the obvious nails and modern metal trash: Lower right group are what I consider the best finds and I'll show a closeup of those shortly. I'm pretty sure everything around and directly below the horseshoe are related to horses ('tack') including the two obscure pieces inside the horseshoe which are similar, one a piece of leather with two large copper rivets and the other just a bare rivet. Interestingly I found almost identical pieces in June when ghost-towning in NE Nevada. I guess leather survives in wet climates as well as in dry ones. Some of the buckles are chrome plated which I assume (but don't really know) means they are fairly recent, meaning 20th Century. (I apologize for not taking better pictures. It was the last day and I was in a hurry to get on the road for a long drive to my next stop. I left all but the old coins with the property owners.) Here's a picture of what I consider the best finds: (Again, my photography leaves a lot to be desired....) I'll show the old coins (upper left) in a better photo. Lower left are modern coins (clad and Memorial pennies). Lower right are ladies' items -- stocking clip, powder compact, and lipstick tube cover. (The woman of the property owners really liked the compact and cleaned it up with some metal cleaner. It really looked sharp after she did that; too bad it was bent.) Upper right are four buttons, two of which were flat buttons. The large one had no identifying marks. It was made of a copper alloy (brass?). If anyone can shed light on its possible age I and the owners would really appreciate it. One of the several mystery pieces I found is the dark looking floral(?) shaped item above with compact. It had 8 holes arranged symmetrically (two of them don't show up) and was attracted to a magnet). It was quite thin and reminded me of jewelry. Above it is a copper broach or pin, possibly previously silver or gold plated. Now for the old coins: Four Wheaties (one from each of the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's) plus a 1954-D Jeffie (ok, not very old...) with the two best coin finds. And those two best: The 1941-S Merc came from a different site which I'll discuss in a separate post ('Part 2'). The 1911 plain (Philadelphia minted) Barber dime is in nice condition although not a scarce issue. But I'm still happy to get it. Unfortuantely you can't see detail on the Large Cent in these photos, but I can with a magnifying glass (still no date discerned 😞), and here's what I've found out so far: On the obverse ('heads' side) the lady is facing right. That's very important because only USA Large Cents minted between 1793 and 1807 faced right. So that alone tells me that I didn't find a coin which might be as late as 1857 but rather my 'new' oldest coin find ever is now at least 50 years older than that! I can see some clothing at the bottom of the bust making it a 'Draped Bust' type. That narrows its birthdate down to 1796-1807. There are still a lot of varieties in those 12 years and after trying to figure things out on the PCGS site I broke down and ordered the definitive work on these coins. It won't arrive until Thursday so you will have to wait along with me to see if I can narrow down further info. Meanwhile, can you help me identify this unknown find? It appears to be brass, but is hollow. The lower left of the picture shows damage, but it's breakage, not corrosive loss. You can see the seam to the left of the head where it joins the conical part. It reminds me of a calibrated weight for a scale but the only ones of those I've seen are solid, not hollow. Anyone?? To summarize the first part of this trip, in 10 1/2 hours of detecting (oh, I didn't mention that most of two of the three days was interferred with by Hurricane Henri!) I found some very promising post Colonial artifacts while just scratching the surface of a small part of this property. The (very generous, hospitable) owners were sufficiently pleased with what I found that I've been invited back, but I doubt I'll be able to make my return this year. I'll probably bring a weed eater next time and detect around that original cabin foundation. I can't wait....

I'm a tool and die guy too (but never professionally, just learned from on-the-job training from several true experts). I've also done seat-of-the-pants heat sinking (failing in the process) and I'm going to disagree with Joe D. -- that's something for a thermal engineer. Two suggestions: 1) Never compromise the heat disipation path of any detector. Even if they don't show you they are unhappy by freaking out, you still may be shortening the life. 2) I (and others here) use computer laptop/pad screen protectors for the display screens of my detectors. They don't compromise the desired optics and are better at stopping glare than those provided with the Equinoxes, for example. Your Equinox is waterproof and you have a warranty. I'd trust those two things if I were you.

I found a copper wedding band in an 1850's house yard. I was wondering the same thing. Now, with what you've found, I'm wondering if mine was plated originally and lost that due to decades of ground chemicals. Silver plate definitely gets eaten away in my ground. Cheap (i.e. low grade) gold alloy also?? After what you did to that previous IH, the detecting gods decided you only deserve half of one until you can cool your enthusiasm during recovery....

Sometimes there are reasons for that and sometimes it's just randomness trying to trick us. I know I've found what seems to be (note "seems to be", not to be confused with "surely is...") an inordinate fraction of early 40's Wheat pennies. In one homesite I think it might have the explanation that children, probably in the late 40's, were playing in the yard with pennies and carelessly dropping them. But even ignoring those, at other sites I get a lot of the early 40's and not very many late 40's or even what might seem more likely -- the 50's. Certainly the Walkers from the 40's were minted in greater quantity than those from earlier years (and pointing out to those not so familiar with the WL series, they were last minted in 1947): ~330 million in the 40's compared to ~150 million in all prior years (1916 to 1939), so a bit more than twice as many. In general, the first half of the 1940's (most of which we were involved in WWII) saw the mints producing a prodigious amount of coinage of all denominations compared to earlier times. Find several more Walkers and we'll be able to refine our hypotheses.

Ahaa! You were holding out on me, just letting me hunt the dregs while saving the garden spot for your buddy.... Five silvers in a day with one being the beautiful Walking Liberty half -- my favorite coin design of all time. When I was detecting with you a couple days earlier I was thinking "now I know what it was like back in the 1980's when high performing detectors were just starting to hit these unsearched, frequented spots." You proved that to the 9's. I thought you said the Silver umax was brand new? Didn't take you long to get it looking grungy. BTW, what's the date on the clad Kennedy half? Well done!

Got home last night and spent today trying to catch up with what I've missed here at home while gone (8 days). I'll confirm that it was great fun detecting with DoD. He was generous in taking me to one of his productive sites, and then buying my lunch! But the best part was our discussion on different detectors, different site conditions, etc. I have new found respect for his Compadre and more incentive to learn my Tesoro Vaquero. I'll post this weekend my finds in both the NW Massachusetts Colonial site I detected as well as my finds (more modest than dog's) when detecting with him in SE Pennsylvania.

What is so magic about left vs. right when it comes to hearing? Maybe a symphony orchestra has a convention that certain instruments are on the left and others on the right. But even there, why should it matter? Left brain vs. right brain? With my ML Equinox and its WM08 receiver attached to wired headphones, if I put the WM08 in a right breast shirt/coat pocket then I put the earphone with its attached cord on my right ear. Otherwise, on the left. I don't even know if the Eqx has stereo or mono output, but, again, why should it matter?

I'll quote (ok, paraphrase) Steve H.: "just understand that when you ignore a signal there's a chance you passed up a good target, and that chance isn't zero."

(I'll probably have to eat these words, but) I'd like to see someone who can distinguish the difference between a ring tab and a fatty. I need to remind myself that ignoring 14-19 dTID's is fine when old coin detecting if the site isn't likely to have mid-19th Century coins. Forgetting to change that habit in a site such as the one you were searching is going to cost me eventually (and of course I'll never know it...).

700+ employees at Minelab (or is that number for Codan)?

Nice older coin finds; too bad for the condition. Do you remember the dTID of the fatty? I think that's what they call those early small cents, when they contained enough nickel to look white (or is 'gray' a better description?). I've never found one but in old sites I need to make sure I don't mentally disc them out!

Who's laughing? That's a common ploy of natural gold detectorists. Thanks for the details of Tesoro operation. I have some work to do to get up-to-speed with you analog detectorists.

Yes, I forgot about that. I don't know what 'older' has to do with "oval square tabs" though. (Would you explain?) I wasn't aware there's a way to tell age if they are indeed oval (what I call 'racetrack' shape). But, yes, broken modern racetrack tabs as well as ones bent over onto themselves dTID lower, typically enough nickel sounding to make me dig them. Fortunately, like the pop-outs, they are pretty rare. But some people seem to have nothing better to do with their time than remove pieces that were designed not to be removed, bend them, break them, and finally toss them on the ground. 'Idiots' is too nice of a word for them. Thanks for your detailed response. It confirms my previous thoughts that running an analog or analog-like detector is all about listening carefully to the multitude of sounds it makes. I'm learning that backward, but hopefully I can still learn it.

My favorite times to go detecting where I live are September through April, and maybe into May. Summer -- with combo of heat, humidity, and direct sunlight -- are trying. I'm sure many (especially Australians) would relish my 'cool' summers but I'm spoiled. Our Southern Indiana winters are not like further north. The ground rarely freezes anymore (not the case in the recent pre-Gwarming past) and as long as it's above freezing (majority of winter days) and not windy, I can stay warm. No leaves on trees, grass not growing, no poison ivy (except for the stems/branches), a lot fewer people in the parks, damp but not soggy ground -- nearly perfect detecting conditions. (Depending of the site, I may need to push or rake leaves out of the way.) I still have to find unsearched or undersearched sites, though.... I see that a lot when I drive around the rural areas. Time for you to buy a bush hog with your detecting spoils??

I started a new thread on a subject that we were discussing in this thread. In a post there, @kac said: ...When you get into can slaw and pull tabs you can easily just skip all that by cranking up the disc to the pull ring mark where class rings sit and most aluminum has dropped off and make an easy and quiet hunt for coppers and silvers. This looks like what @dogodogwas saying he likes do when cherry-picking high conductor coins. Sounds like you stil accept Zincolns. Is that right? Do you set the disc so that ringtabs are truly silent or on the hairy edge (giving ratty response)? (kac continues:) Hunting in the aluminum range the Tejon has the advantage of dual disc so you can work a tighter range but that can be just as tedious as hunting with a VDI machine and constantly checking numbers with the exception that as I mentioned before there is a pop to most aluminum. Is the 'pop' dependent upon where you set the threshold? I recall you (and maybe others as well) mentioning this previously. Is this one feature that makes an analog detector superior to a digital (for that particular 'discrimination' technique -- I don't mean superior across the board)? Is this something that you need to train your ear to pick up? I think cut square tabs and nickels for me are too difficult to hear the difference and oddly their numbers are nearly identical on just about all my machines that have VDI screen. I don't know what you mean by 'cut square tabs'. Do you just mean modern racetrack shaped pulltabs broken off from the can? So listenting for the 'pop' doesn't distinguish those from nickels? If I'm expert at anything in metal detecting, it's aluminum drink can pulltabs. I really like nickels and as you note, their dTID's (on detectors with digital Target ID readout) are in the same general range as pulltabs, sometimes with overlap. Most of my experience is with the Minelab Equinox (to be specific I'm talking Park 1 or Field 1, 5 tones, Recovery Speed = 4) and here is a breakout of the types of targets by dTID: Nickels: (start with the 'wheat' and shift to the 'chaff'): dTID sweetspot in the 12-13. There can be differences depending upon such things as depth and amount of corrosion. Shallow fresh drops are usually 13 while corroded ones tend towards 12. Most of the time I get some 12's and some 13's. Deep nickels (quieter on the volume scale and also more bars on the strength meter) can blip an 11 or 14, but still most of their dTID signals will be in the 12-13 band). The signal strength is the key for me. If I'm getting a rather weak nickel signal I'm not strict with the techniques below. In my area pulltabs don't tend to be as deep as the deeper nickels so most of them give a pretty strong to very strong signal. Rolled over beaver (only): Have quite a bit of 11 along with 12 and a bit of 13. In fact I can (most of the time) distingish these by going to Park 2, 50 tones, recovery speed=6 where they always give lots of 11. Smallest (latest in series, so closer to 1975 vintage, particular the single piece ones as opposed to those with a rivet) ring+beavertail, extended: mostly 12-13. I end up digging all of these as trying to distinguish from nickels is too risky. Modern punchout (near disk-like piece of thin aluminum that's part of the can lid and gets pushed into the can when opened): almost completely in the 12-13. These are pretty much impossible to distinguish from nickels, IMO. Just dig 'em and cuss the idiot who went to all that trouble to remove them. Bent over itself ring-only pull: These are assymetric so probably give a 'tell' when picked up from different directions, but they tend to be strongly in the 12-13 sweetspot. Modern racetrack pulltab: Fortuantely these seem to be one of the easiest to distinguish with the Equinox as they give both 13 and 14 dTID's. The 14 is in the long direction so if perfectly aligned you may get only 13 but you don't have to be much off that alignment to get the 14. 'Early' circular ring only (i.e. beavertail missing): These are easily separated from nickels, somewhere in the 15-17 range but unless bent do not come close to the 12-13 sweetspot. Of course these (and all others) are still a problem for jewelry detectorists and their symmetry (except for the rivet extension) make them sound really sweet, as if a nice fat gold finger ring). Ring and beavertail (attached) but with tail folded over or even wrapped around the ring: These tend to dTID lower than ring only, but still above the nickel sweetspot. 14-15 with maybe some 13 thrown in. Some more unusual varieties (at least in my area) are the early 'squaretab' which rather than racetrack is closer to rectangle, and even kind of butterfly shaped sometime. These dTID higher than nickels, and in fact a bit higher than the modern racetrack 'cousins', especially when not on-axis (meaning you're coil trajectory isn't solely along the narrow part). Another less common are the small ring+beavertail (intact) which contain a rivet. I'm not confident these are easily separted (dTID-wise) from nickels. Finally, there are many varieties of ringtabs associated with other cans such as Pringle potato chip cans and some automotive fluid cans. Those are larger and still further distance from nickels. One last word of caution: a fair amount has been written about Wartime Nickels ("silver nickels" which have no nickel content but rather quite a bit of silver and some manganese). In my experience they signal with the same dTID's as standard nickels but some have reported their TID's going up even into the Zincoln zone. In those cases, discriminating against pulltabs can lead to missing those. I do think they are rare but maybe I've passed over some?? So, kac, after all that, how does your Tejon respond to these various pulltab types, and do you set your threshold so as to be able to ignore all of them?

Or the site was too challenging for the detectorist and s/he threw in the towel. (I've heard of this happening from stories by the superintendant of the park I hunted all of 2020.) There was a post here by author and blogger Dick Stout a couple (maybe more) years ago where he said something similar -- that the reason people make finds with new detectors is because their lack of familiarity with the new toy leads them to do things differently, more carefully, more experimentally, digging things they wouldn't normally dig just out of curiosity as to what caused the odd response, etc. I've found even shallow, clean signal coins in places I'd hunted previously with the same detector. I could argue I knew the detector better or had the right settings this time, but the Occam's Razor reason is that I just hadn't gotten my coil over that target, and that's because my coverage isn't what I wanted, hoped, or thought I executed. I used to think when I found similar good&easy targets that it meant no detectorist had been there before. Now I know that conclusion takes much stronger evidence.

A recent thread and one of the responses got me thinking on a related topic (related to the response, not the original post question). I quote part of Steve H.'s response (referring specifically to finding natural gold in the Contintental USA): The best gold was gone a decade ago, and the leftovers have been hit hard the last ten years. That got me thinking about coin and relic detecting. Good detectors for that purpose have been around at least as long as those for natural gold detecting. Although there are many more locations for coins and relics, and those on average are more accessible, there are certainly more detectorists searching them. So should we arrive at the same conclusion? One argument I don't buy (although it might apply to jewelry detecting, but even there modern problems exist and are growing) is that coins (in particular) are being reseeded. True, if all you are after is face value (spending money) coins. With the rare exception of very rare mint errors (double dies in particular), almost no coins have been minted for circulation in the last 65 years which carry a collector premium, and few coins minted for circulation contain sufficient bullion value to make melting them down worthwhile, even if you can get away with it.... So, no, there isn't a reseeding of coins of value. We C&R detectorists do have one major advantage over natural gold detectorists -- private 'permissions'. (Although there are private gold bearing properties and private gold claims on public properties that are accessible, those invariably involve considerable compensation to the property/claim owner for access and/or recovery.) How many unsearched private properties with promise for old coins and valuable relics are still accessible? Let's continue with unserached public properties such as public schools and public parks. How many of those still exist? Better asked, what percentage of those still exist? Final set of questions: as is true with gold bearing sites, the earlier detectorists didn't get it all, just the easiest to find and recover. How many old coins (and valuable relics) are contained in sites which have been detected? Do we have the tools today to identify and extract them? While I (hopefully) still have your attention, I'm mentioning a book which I don't think gets as much notice as many detecting books that do: How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting by Otto von Helsing (2013). It's ~200 pages of no-nonesense instruction on the topic. To drive home my 'no-nonesense' claim, here is something he says in his second paragraph (in the Introduction): The goal of this book is to teach the average person how to do good research to find promising leads for metal detecting. I don't care if you have gray hair on your head and hate computers or if you are 20-something and like to text while driving (In which case it's likely you won't make it to the gray-hair stage.) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just getting started and don't expect it to be a lazy read, so I can't yet give a review. But I like his attitude.

Personally, a 6" (nominal) concentric, 4-pin 'delta'. My goals for the Vaquero are dense trash, both heavy small iron (nails) and heavy small aluminum (pulltabs). I'm quite happy with the ML Equinox (11" DD coil especially) for larger, open areas. Maybe the Eqx 6" DD (which I already have) will do as well, but there sure are quite a few people who swear by concentrics, particularly small ones for dense trash. I have some places loaded with pulltabs that I'm pretty sure are hiding coins. I'm still (playing Don Quixote?) in search of the 'Holy Grail' combo that will find those old coins without me having to dig out the thousands (literally) of pulltabs. I've found enough old coins in those spots to tell me that no detectorist who has hunted these sites has yet done what I'd like to do.

As a sidelight (not relevent to this thread title...), I'm curious to hear your experience with those as you accumulate them. In the 'catch-all brand detector' subforum, of course.

In other words, you're a scientist. No reason to be apologetic there, IMO. Nice writeup, written like..., a scientist would.