GB_Amateur

Could it have fallen out of a bezel (on chain)? A cousin of mine carried in his pocket for many years two (silver) half dollars, one with his father's birth date and one with his mother's. When he showed them to me they were badly worn and rather highly polished. The one you show doesn't look as though it's been rubbing against cloth, etc. for very long. Beautiful find and a bucket lister for many.

So it's not just the kids playing pirate games that are disguising objects by painting them?? I've learned not to try and figure out what marketers are thinking, other than one common theme -- squeeze as much money out of the consumers as possible.

Are you referring to pure hydrogen peroxide or a solution of peroxide dissolved in water? I can buy 3% peroxide at Sam's Club (and other places) for quite cheap. Getting pure hydrogen peroxide I assume means going to a chemical supply outlet (and maybe even being required to provide some kind of credentials).

Is that what your Warnicks typically look like from the dry sand? Do you think it's been exposed to ocean water for a long period? Mine often look nicer than any I've ever gotten from circulation. Soil and water chemistry at play once again.

Here's the officlal page on the Quest website. You may have to click on Read more button to see their full writeup. The specs are on the lower left of the page whether or not you click on that, though.

The finds were pretty lean, especially for native gold, but I will make a post. This turned out to be another 'learning experience' which is always welcome, but kind of a consolation prize, if you know what I mean. ?

It seems there is an advantage to going first, not second. I read this all the time -- some people think detector companies have new products ready for release but sit on them. I'm no expert but that doesn't strike me as the way the competitive world works. The graveyard of products is littered with those that were second to the finish line, and not infrequently they were even better products than the race 'winner'! Snatch the consumer's money before they have a chance to burn it on your competitor's product. A company like Minelab (and likely even smaller detector manufacturers) have ideas, breadboards, prototypes in the works and may have to shuffle their researchers from one to another as the need dictates. (Carl Moreland mentioned this occurring when he was called to help develop and/or finish the Tekpoint/F-pulse handheld pinpointer at First Texas.) So priorities can affect R&D flow. But many of those ideas/projects never make it because of technical, etc. shortcomings that aren't solved, at least not as a marketable product. When they see the light at the end of the tunnel -- in demand marketable product is doable -- I don't envision them waiting for the competition to catch up.

Field Report: I got to try this out at a NE Nevada ghost town. As typical around old buildings (still standing or just the surviving foundation in this case) there are oodles of nails, etc., and many are simply on the surface in the desert environment. I first used the rake side to clear the dead vegitation, then the magnet side to pick up the loose surface iron. That led to more non-ferrous target hits than my detecting prior to the cleanup -- i.e. less masking. The attachment clamp I made to keep the cylinder from unintentional rotation turned out to be a more time consuming step than planned (when I wanted to rotate the cylinder to easily clean off the iron+ferrous). Also, the screw threads not surprisingly wanted to retain loose sand, etc. and risk damaging the connection. Some kind of quick cam lock/release would solve both problems. Is this the right tool for everyone and every situation? Obviously not. I emphasize its light weight which makes it easy to backpack or carry to a remote site. If your vehicle (truck, trailer, 4-wheeler, etc.) can be parked nearby and accomodate a heavy rake+magnet that is more robust then that's likely a better solution. If you like low weight, particularly if you're packing tools and detector for quite a distance, this will clear small loose surface trash nicely and not wear you out with extra weight to carry. P.S. I had hoped to do some desert gold detecting in NW Nevada around old miner's dwellings (where this rake also would have had usefulness) but by the time I got a chance the daytime highs were over 100F. Even if I got up at dawn to hunt until it got hot, what was I going to do the rest of the day, and how long would I have to wait in the evening for my vehicle to cool down before I could sleep? (No AC for this cheapskate, nor a shower for that matter....) Instead I headed to 9000 ft. in the Colorado mountains just south of the Wyoming border. Not much trash there other than the usual lead bullets and brass casings and occasional discarded barbed wire.

You Atlantic Coast guys are so nonchalant with your 'early' European influence finds. Kac was dead-panning his 1797 USA mint large cent, too. Ship spike from a heavily gold laden Spanish Galleon? Ho hum....

Shouldn't the Garrett Z-Lynk system solve this problem? Basically get the transmitter+receiver pair and Garrett Carrot that has Z-Lynk compatability. Plug the Z-Lynk transmitter (I think you'll need a 3.5 mm male to 1/4" female adapter, but those are easy to find for a few bucks) into the Eqx 3.5 mm socket on the back of the control unit. Strap the transmitter to the shaft with the included o-ring (or roll-your-own velcro attachment). Plug your favorite headphones (if 3.5 mm plug then you'll need a 1/4" male to 3.5 mm female adapter, even cheaper than the above version) into the receiver module and put the receiver module somewhere handy (shirt picket, strapped to your hat, etc.) You also have the option of using Garrett's Z-Lynk (MS-3) headphones which avoids having to deal with the typical coiled cord on most headphones. If someone has more knowledge of this system and I've misrepresented its capabilities, please speak up. I use the Z-Lynk T+R on my 'other' detectors and the ML WM08 (receiver) module and favorite headphones/earbuds with my ML Equinox 800. I don't have a wireless compatible pinpointer, though.

So if not gold, what composition is it? Not silver or copper (core) since the dTID would be higher. Even this shape aluminum should dTID higher than 13 (in my less-than-expert-jewelry-hunter view but rather expert pulltabber view). More investigation required.

Looks like (in the photo) ML Eqx w/11" DD, Garrett ATX (PI), White's MXT (w/Detech Ultimate coil?). Which detectors didn't pick up all six?

Just another 18th Century USA (official) Mint coin. (yawn) Great find in my book, kac! Agree with you and others that pulling one out with easily discernable date must be unusual given the reactive soils these typically 'simmer' in for a couple centuries. You just keep showing up with early USA coins from different sites. Maybe an 1804 dollar next?? My old comic book classifieds say they are out there just waiting for you to swing a detector over one. ?

Have you tried consecutive noise cancels? My experience is that when I do this I get a different channel most of the time, anyway. Yes, sometimes the noise cancel procedure will take me from a noisy channel to a quiet one, but that ideal situation is rare. Most of the time it takes me from a noisy channel to an equally noisy channel or a quiet channel to an equally quiet channel. I think it's due to narrow band sources being easy for the detector to notice and avoid but broad band -- well, that's why they call it 'broad'. Somewhere along the line in this forum I posted a histogram of channels created from about 50 consecutive noise cancel steps in my back yard (which is EMI noisy due to being close to my house and its wifi, etc.) There was a rather broad peak in that experiment so it was working, but not like many people think it does. If I'm really being persnickity I will manually go through all 19 channels and choose the one I find the quietest, but that may not be any better than just letting the detector 'brain' do it for me. BTW, for those who use notch discrimination, I think it's best to noise cancel with all TID channels notched 'in' (by toggling the Horseshoe button to show all TID channels dark boxed) and then switching to your favorite notch pattern. I don't know for sure that this leads to a 'better' noise cancel, though. Just kinda seems to make sense. Personally the only time I don't have all TID channels 'on' is when I'm detecting for native gold and the ground has lots of -9, -8,... hot rocks on the surface.

You continue to amaze with your finds in 'hunted out' parks. Beautiful Mercs! Were you running your usual Recovery Speed = 4? I ask because of the chirps since I associate shorter tones with higher recovery speeds for desirable targets. Yes, I get chirps with lower (4&5) recovery speeds but not (AFAIK) for desirable targets. Or was it the EMI that altered the quality of your hit tones? Listenting through EMI is painful, but apparently worth it.

Steve, I recall a similar(?) hiatus you made a couple years ago and everyone stepped up to be on his/her best behavior. Is it too much to expect a similar experience this time? (That was said with my best rhetorical voice.) Your trip is well deserved. Just finishing up from 27 days away from home myself, I'll confirm that it clenses the mind and rearranges priorities. (I'm sure you know that.) I'd wish you success but I supsect that is a given, even if you don't bring back even a single picker. Kudos and gratitude to Chase for taking the wheel for booting the spammers.

This might indicate a different solvent (e.g. oil or alcohol) could be used instead of water. I know there are some who feel all solvents are bad. I'd really like to know the chemistry here. Your mention of pH of the soil (remaining on the coin) when combined with water (releasing the OH- or H+ ions) attacking the copper certainly has to be a candidate culprit. This shouldn't happen with oil unless it harbors (disolved) water. But that begs the question why it doesn't happen 'naturally' when the coin is in the ground all those many years. (Maybe it does, but then the damage would already be done and cleaning with water just exposes it. And it could be a rate of reaction issue -- lots of water increasing the rate by orders of magnitude, which is where chemists could help explain.) Experimentation on my ToDo list....

A couple things come to mind while I read this thread. The first is that the detector companies (won't name names becuase I don't know who is guilty and it could be more than one) have done us no favors by their poor terminology/nomenclature, especially when they use the same word/term to mean something different than a competitor. E.g. 'all metal'. Or how about 'auto ground balance'? But then we users also contribute: e.g. horseshoe 'on' vs. horseshoe 'off'. Which is which and what the hell is horseshoe, anyway? (I know the answers but I have an Equinox and have been reading this site's threads on the subject for 3 years, exhaustively. Put yourself in someone's shoes who hasn't done those two things!) And kudos to Jeff for expanding the horseshoe thing to make it understandable. My other observation/gripe is about Minelabs dribbling out information on the Equinox (and Vanquish) about how it works. They give us just enough rope to hang ourselves. The ML defenders say the purpose of this ploy is to prevent competition from knowing their secret sauce while the ML dissers says it's to confuse us enough to coerce us into spending the maximum amount of money buying their detectors. I even wonder if it's some kind of internal battle between the engineers (who want to be up-front and as transparent as possible) vs. all the zoot suits who just care about the almighty (Australian) dollar. I guess that's one more secret we'll never know....

Keep in mind that the new Gold Bug family (which includes the DP) has many members which are, with some minor(?) feature differences, the same. Here is a list of the family: with the Fisher brand label: (new in ~2011) Gold Bug, Gold Bug Pro, Gold Bug DP, F19; with the Teknetics brand label: G2, G2+; with the Bounty Hunter brand label: Time Ranger Pro. So if you are in the market for one, find the best price and pay attention to which coil(s) you want and which come with which detector. In your case, the Gold Bug DP has the 7"x11" coil and so do some of the others, including the Time Ranger Pro which tips the scales at $400 (new with 5 year warranty, I think). Having said that, it's good that your original Gold Bug is still producing the finds. "The best detector is the one in your hand."

Excellent find, double d! Which states are the four and which three do you have? I'm sure you'll return the favor for your detecting pal, but it's good that you are concerned for him. AFAIK there are no clear rules on where a person's personal detecting space is but as long as you are on good/friendly terms with that person it shouldn't matter. Seems your friend agrees. Can you explain why water damages a copper coin that has been in the (at least occasionally damp) ground for many decades? We need a resident chemist on the forum!

Isn't that the company well known for selling counterfeit detectors?

That's something else I was wondering about but felt it was better for an experienced detectorist like you to bring up than I. But I do understand not wanting to stress joints, etc. and if that means only very occasionally finding a keeper while preserving one's health, that may be the best solution for some individuals.

So if the GM1000 with its limited coil choice can't be desensitized to ignore small targets, does that mean there is a sweetspot of lower frequency (even possibly down into the coin detector frequencies less than 10 kHz) combined with larger coil size?

In the strict sense, Memorial Day is for remembering and honoring those who died in military service of the USA. It goes back to right after the USA Civil War. But it is customary to also honor those who have served but haven't given their lives in that pursuit. We also have a holiday on 11 November (Veterans Day) for honoring all who have served in the military. That one unfortantely isn't quite as celebrated. The following photo picked off of the internet emphasizes the distinction: (Gerry, not an entry, just for informational purposes.)

I agree with Chase here. Especially larger silver coins (quarters and up) get cherry-picked by about everyone. If you're finding Wheaties then there should be silver dimes. (Yes, some super-duper detectorists with super-duper detectors will discriminate between those....) I've never tried hunting in 4kHz since I don't want to skip the USA nickels and 4kHz really gives weird TID's on deeper nickels. You may just be dealing with statistics of small numbers. As far as Wheats vs. silver dimes, since I started keeping a log in 2017 my up-to-date park&schoolyard counts are 294 Wheats and 42 silver dimes, which turns out to be exactly 7::1. (Talk about random processes. ) In that same time period I've only found 2 silver quarters (one was from an unsearched homesite) and zilch of any higher denomination. Another indication that my sites have been cherry-picked. Keep pounding away.