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I really like my CTX, it really suits my milder soils loaded with older silver coins, but I think a bit of a giveaway its days are numbered is Coiltek discontinuing their CTX aftermarket coils for it, I'm a bit sad about this, I never got to try one as I was a very late adopter of the CTX getting it not too long before I got my Manticore. Coiltek CTX coils discontinued. To me at least this is a pretty obvious sign the CTX is done for. It's not selling anymore and obviously the aftermarket coils were not viable with the Equinox and Manticore taking over, even though it's still their flagship it's clearly done for by the powers that be. I don't think we'll see a new CTX, they've moved on, the technology was obviously not capable for higher mineralised soils and they were unable to improve that. My hopes of a CTX 4040 are at an all-time low. I should try track down a CTX coil from @Coiltek before it's too late, perhaps they have one floating around on a shelf somewhere they'd sell. The real "Legend" is dead. As a big fan of Coiltek coils and the CTX, this is bad news for me.

It’s been awhile since I’ve found something to post about. Not that I haven’t been out though. I’ve been getting a fair amount of clad but with no new sites even the clad is starting to get sparse. So this morning I got up early and resorted to hit a couple of totlots in two local parks. I’m not a big totlot hunter but they’re quick and easy. First park was a bust other than about a dollar in clad. Second park got the tiny earring which at first I thought was gold, but on closer inspection it’s marked 925 so it may be gold plated. I think it rang up at 41. I worked my way out of the totlot and went a round about way back to the car. Right in the front lawn near the park office I got a nice quarter signal and down in the roots of the grass was a nice 925 ring. BTW, I was using my GOLDRNG program which doesn’t go very deep, but runs extremely quietly. Iron volume set at zero, silencer at 5, bottlecaps at 5, audio response at 1, sometimes 2. This makes it perfect for shallow clad and fresh drops. Another thing about this program is that it’s pretty much immune to areas with lots of EMI. I sometimes alternate between this program and TEKKNA and it’s so much quieter.

NCtoad pillages his dirt and wins another silver for the home team ! 🥸👍

I just got back from visiting family in Upstate NY where I was metal detecting 2 different old properties. Last year one of them produced early 1800's pennies, buttons and a very nice "dandy" button. Nothing too exciting from that property other than this copper tube that has two pieces of sterling bands on each end. No idea what it could have been used for. Someone suggested it might be what's left of a parasol handle. It's about 6 inches long. The bullets and all the flat buttons came from the same property as well as the 3-disc shaped objects that all came out of the same hole. Don't know what they are but guessing some horse gear? The next property is still an active house dated around 1895. That one had an assortment of newer coins but did produce a 1901o and a 1902o Barber dime. I gave the '01 to the homeowner. There is also an IH and a few Wheaties but the dates are gone. A few Morel mushrooms that were really enjoyed! I also brought a tick embedded in my armpit all the way to Florida, so please do your tick check thoroughly. Thanks for looking! Bob

Finding silver is ALWAYS a good thing! Congrats!

Hi all. Just want to put it out there, I've just made my first youtube video. I'll aim for somewhat regular uploads as I have hours of footage saved up. This is a video where I found 5 gold rings, a silver bar, a watch and some gold pendants. Probably in my top 10 favourite hunts. You don't have to subscribe, but it would definitely help 🙂 I'm fully open to criticism no matter how harsh. if you think the video is crap let me know what I can change. if you want it shorter or longer, or more talking? This took me forever to edit as I'm fairly new to it all. Otherwise I hope you enjoy the video. cheers.

Like Andy and UT Dave, most of the places I hunt are plagued by higher iron mineralization. I have owned a Whites DFX, XLT, MXT, M6, MX5, MX7, and V3i. I really liked all of these detectors. However, they were simply the wrong detector for my area unless I was just looking for 5” or shallower targets and only needed some basic non-ferrous target IDs. If I was trying to do anything more advanced like actually hit and accurately ID 6” deep or deeper coin sized targets……..forget it. This plate of mostly high conductor targets including 4 early 1940s wheat pennies and an old .925 silver ring were found during a recent wild target group hunt. So 41 of 51 targets on that plate could have easily been silver coins. I was using the Manticore. I was told by some very experienced detector users who have been long time members of the club here in Denver that there was no point hunting the area of the park that I was planning to hunt since it had been completely cleaned out by some of the best hunters in the club on previous trips to the park in years past. During that time the detectors of choice were Garrett AT series and Whites like the ones I mentioned above along with some people using Deus 1 a bit later. There was actually a fantastic hunter using an MXT right in front of me looking for recent drops. I will say that there were virtually no recent drops aside from the shiny zinc penny in the photo. Everything I recovered with the Manticore was 6” deep at least so I guess the advice I got was true from the perspective that people had pounded that area of the park for sure, but only with detectors that could penetrate the iron mineralization to about 5”.

Whatever the truth may be in regard to where Whites was technology wise, there are going to be a significant percentage of people who are going to believe that whatever Garrett releases is some Whites-Garrett hybrid. It’s not entirely their fault. Anyone who followed Whites on FB and marketing influencers like The Silver Slingers were led to believe that not only was Whites on the verge of releasing some new high end tech, but there were working models. Dominique, a Silver Slinger and Whites FB page administrator, even claimed to have seen it with her own eyes. In hindsight it seems everyone was being misled. But not everyone has kept up and that information is imprinted in a lot of people’s minds, at least peripherally and it’s bound to spill over from its original source into the forums every now and again, the idea that Whites was on the verge of technological breakthrough.

I’ve got my iron volume set just loud enough to know it’s there . The main discrimination set so not to miss gold rings. The secondary discrimination set to pickup silver only. All other settings as suggested. Making me think 🤔 not doing the thinking for me. Chuck

Dug an 1843 Large Cent and a 1740 1 real today. It's been some time since I've dug both a copper and a silver on the same hunt. They were about 2 feet apart right up on the edge of the old homestead's well. The real is from one of the Mexican mints and is in nice shape. The buttons above the spike were from last week. Lodge

I have no idea either about that tube. It is hollow and I thought maybe an elaborate pipe? As the wet dirt and small roots dried out in and around the sterling, it started to split open. The thought on the parasol idea is that there would have been a grip of some material between the two silver pieces where you would grip it. The 3 discs were held together with a leather strap, but since digging it, the leather has dried and broken apart. Hopefully someone will know.

Hi Chris one ring and the two small items silver the other ring stainless steel I'm also dying to go back to the beach so much more to test on the Versa thanks again to Dave,Nino and you

I agree, the CTX 17" coil is the pinnacle of deep silver hunting machines, not yet surpassed from anything I've used.

I'm a bit late to the thread... I have posted about my love of the CTX + 17" coil previously so I am very biased... but it really was the perfect machine for park hunting. Here in a large Midwestern US city park hunting is the only game in town... and the CTX was perfect for the job. Around 2012 seemed to be the peak of park hunting - my competitors with Etracs were getting a few hundred silver a year. Could have been their skill level but I always did well in the years afterward with the CTX in the areas they considered "hunted out". I look forward to any CTX successor, but I don't think there is too much left undiscovered with regards to silver, and I see people just assume newer model = instantly better so most people I know use the Equinox.

Van, I see the big ring is broken too. Are the other 4 items Silver?

I had a Dentist appointment yesterday, so I took my Deus 2 with me for a short hunt afterwards. I went to a park in Corvallis that is close to Oregon State University. It has some volleyball courts that a lot of OSU students play on. I was going around the edge of the volleyball courts in the grass and this Tiffany & Co. silver bracelet was about 10" from the edge of the volleyball court in the grass. It was a recent drop because it was buried just under the surface of the grass. I looked on the Tiffany website and it sells new for $750.00. I put up a found sign by the volleyball courts with my phone number for someone who lost it to describe it in order to claim. Hopefully the person who lost it will be able to get it back.

This morning's price for sterling silver in the US is 91 cents per gram. Pure silver is 99 cents. Here's who I sell mine to... Midwest Refineries

I can only congratulate you on your approach to the owner...Considering instead the nature of the object and the real value of the metal, I wonder how one could spend such an amount. I don't know the quotations for silver in the United States, but if here in Europe we venture to take silver to the metal counter, not only do they demand that it be at least a kilo, but they value it at about 20 cents a gram🤔...

Really enjoying this outfit. Yes, at depth the numbers are jumpy but i go by sound first then check the #s. I think because of the expanded target id range that i will move around more. It up averages deep targets which is fine by me and my brother and i do a lot of comparisons on deep signals and it has the depth capabilities compared to the vanquish and the equinox. My iron ratio is a little higher with the pro than the smf machines but most of the time i can call an iron target but dig it anyways as i have found good targets in the same hole with iron. I like 5 tones and like the tone break on quarters better than the vanquish. On deep silver and wheats, it up averages so you get into the higher tones. I like it.

I guess the NZ detecting community thinks it's done its dash too, a CTX just sold for $460 NZD at Auction, $281 USD with a new battery that cost a bulk of that, it had the typical CTX faulty screen lines which you can put up with or buy a new screen from China for $30 or so USD delivered and fit it yourself, not even a difficult repair for the electronics challenged. I'm quite annoyed I didn't buy it, cheaper than a coil for it here. I'll keep my eyes out for any other CTX's for sale now, I want a spare, it's my favourite deep silver detector by far.

But I was out trying this Vista X metal detector and my first target was a James Avery 925 silver ring. The house that was there burn down and the lot is almost downtown of what I call my home town . My son bought the property and so I can hunt as I please. I started hunting it yesterday but at 95 degrees I didn’t last long but plan on going back early one morning. The guy next door said the lady who lived there lost a lot of gold jewelry but did find some after the fire . The only problem they had a front in loader came in to clean up and the gold may have went with it. Chuck

Andrew, I totally agree on the Manticore. I've found two nuggets with it. The first one was within a few minutes of turning it on and swinging it to compliment the Gpx5000 in a dig and detect scenario. I had a very faint target the 5000 hit on but was so faint, it would not rise up to an apex to decern where in the ground it was exactly. I turned the 5000 off, picked up and turned on the Manticore and it had the nugget quick. It turned out to be deeper than I expected. It handles hot rocks way better than the 800 and the Monster. I knew at that point this was going to be a special detector to compliment a PI. I just found a 1.2 grain piece on my claim a few days ago after I accepted a skunk with my 5000 for the day. I cleared away some forest floor fluff and decaying organic material and proceeded to dig down to bedrock. Each layer I pulled out of the hole and spread out was hit with the Manticore and when I hit bedrock I scanned the last dirt to be spread out and I got a solid hit of 01,02 and the numbers were in black, not red indicating a good target. The tight blob showed up right on the conductivity line and this told me it was either going to be a nugget or a very small shard of lead. A lead pellet shows up at 06,07 and a pellet is much louder. So I knew I likely had a nugget. It was in fact! The Manticore saved me from a skunk day and I am looking forward to hitting more gold with it. The Manticore is, to date, the most perfect vlf to compliment a PI. It is far more stable than the Monster and especially the 800. Target ID is far more precise. The M8 coil is a joy to swing, compared to the small coil for the 800 or monster. Setting the ferrous indicator setting to red will let you know more accurately, each target being trash red, or black for a good target. If you have a monster or any other vlf and then get a Manticore, after using it and seeing the advantage of it, one of two things will take place. You will stop using the monster or other detector, taking them with you or you will sell them. I already have my Manticore set up in the all terrain high conductive target mode to hit on all of my silver coins and small and various gold targets- jewelry. Everything else is completely blocked out. You can extend the ferrous limits all the way over to the end of the screen and then swing each coin or jewelry you want to hit on to open up those notches. It works great and talk about cherry picking! This thing is a beauty when it comes to cherry picking good coins and targets from ground with a lot of targets in it. The necklace pendant I found with it is 12k black hills gold with a sapphire in it. I found each style of silver dimes had a different TID number. Mercury, seated, barber were all slightly different numbers.

That's sort of true.. There's still plenty of backpackers, just not so many families or day-trippers at the moment.. But this could all change again next week, it's up and down without much rhyme or reason.. There's a fair bit of 'poor me' in that article by some well known whingers.. Finds are still about the same as always, including two gold rings underneath a little waterfall at a swimming hole last week.. Townsville's also got a whole mob of detectorists, I still have the island to myself.. although I did meet a young fella with a Go-Find the other day.. He'd found a huge clunker silver ring and was nearly doing back flips with joy.. I think he'll be back!

These are finds from two days of hunting at the same site. I had never found a Civil War bullet and always wanted to. I thought perhaps I might someday find one or two, but I never imagined I would find this many. With all the iron grunts, I was using the Tekkna program with the 11x13 on my Deus 2. These all were a little twitchy on the VDI #, but were between 78-82. One which was mashed read 84. They all gave a nice tone. If I got a faint or iffy signal, I checked it with my custom fast program. If that gave me a better tone and/or a more consistent reading in the right range, I dug. There appear to be at least four or five styles, perhaps more. The main group all are about the same length with a domed top and a flat spot on the tip. All of the flanges are roughly equal in size. There is also a group of three on the right which are shorter and have much smaller flanges. There is a group of four two-ringers on the left - all of which are shorter than the main group and have a shorter tip. Two of these have a wider bottom flange and two have a shorter bottom flange. In the bottom row, one bullet has a wider bottom flange and a more conical top than the main group. Most of the rest in the bottom row appear to be slightly shorter and have a bigger flat spot on the tip. Perhaps this is from hitting something, but they are not mushroomed out. I don’t know how much of this variation might be due to different bullet molds. From what I have heard, if they don’t have a dimple in the bottom, the bullets are “newer“. The two in the lower right corner don’t have a dimple. There is also a completely mushroomed bullet on the lower left. But, it appears to have a copper sheath base with a central post, and as such is probably much newer. Any help on identifying the rifle types would be greatly appreciated! I found plenty of clad and five silvers. One of the Mercury dimes is 1916. I was afraid to look for the mint mark. Unfortunately it is Philadelphia. There are six wheats, three of which are from the 19 teens. I haven’t tried cleaning the full date area yet on those until they can dry out a bit more. The Iodex mentholated ointment sample tin is theoretically from the 1920s. One of the blank discs is actually an old wheat penny which appears to have been mashed on a railroad. The other one is copper or brass, 25 mm, and looks like it had a raised rim. However, I can’t make out any detail on either side other than what appears to be spokes around the rim like an IHP (which would be 19 mm). I do not know what the other grey disc is next to the Iodex tin. It is heavy, thicker than a coin, has no details on either side, is completely non-magnetic, looks more silver than lead, but not enough silver to be silver. Thanks for any help, and thanks for looking!

I'll add a few thoughts about my experience with the E1500. But I first want to thank Steve for lending it to me for a week to do some testing with it. After I tested it, we meet up in Nevada where Steve pulled the nugget. So yea, it will find gold. When I got the E1500, I tried it a few different places, including the park, relic hunting and some testing on small gold nuggets. First go around was at a local park that dates back to the late 1800's. I was hoping to get over a deep nickel or silver dime. I dug several targets that I thought possibly could be nickels based on the target ID, all of which turned out to be Pull tabs or shreds of aluminum. I never could get over a target that had an ID similar to a penny or dime, so I finally resorted to using the Manticore to find a deep target that I thought was either a penny or a dime. The target ID was very jumpy on the Manticore, which indicated it was close to It's depth limits. Then I grabbed the E1500 and went over the same target. It sounded good. Giving a low tone, but the target ID came in at 99. Now my dirt is very mineralized. And so in that regard, I think the Manticore and the E1500 we're at edge of detection. The target turned out to be a wheat penny at eight inches. The next thing I tried was relic hunting I took it to a few places. The first place I took it to was a field that is mainly full of bullets, occasionally you'll find a button and some other items, but for the most part it’s all CivilWar era bullets. There's very little iron in this field. So I thought it'd be a good first test for the E1500 and its target ID. You can watch the video in the first post to see how that went. Next up was a field a few blocks away where the fort was located. This filled has everything from square nails to buttons to bullets to coins. A lot more challenging for the E1500 and like all PI's struggled with the dense trash. I found out very quickly that testing every signal in the pinpoint mode to get an idea of what's under the coil is very time consuming. In addition, like Steve has stated in past posts, there's lots of iron targets that ID all over the PI target ID spectrum. It dug a few U shaped fence past nails that have the same ID as a bullet. Finally I buried some small gold nuggets in the very mineralized dirt near my house and used 4 detectors to compare signals. This dirt maxes out the mineral scale on the Dues 2. Below are the results. Gold nuggets used .03 about 1.5" deep .063 about 1.5" deep .15 about 3" deep .22 about 3.5" deep Results in order from top down Manticore M8 coil YES YES NO NO GPX 6000 5X9 YES ALL AXIOM 7X11 DD NO NO NO YES E1500 8" MONO NO NO NO NO So not the greatest results overall in all the testing I did with the E1500 compared to other VLF and PI'S on the market. However, for the price I still feel like it would be a good first move for anyone wanting to buy their first pulse induction metal detector.