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  1. Wasn't expecting this, but a forum member, @dogodog, texted me and said he was going to take a vacation about 2 hours from me and invited me to hunt the local beach. Got there at 8, he was there with his wife and a few other friends. He had made breakfast and invited me to join them, nice 👍 they were renting a house for a few days to catch an air show and get beach time. While we were out detecting we got a bit of a show from the Blue Angels and other aircraft: At one point we were watching the planes and got swamped by a wave 🤣 It was an incredibly nice day, pretty much everything event-wise is over at this beach as of Saturday, when we got there it was pretty empty but got busy later, surprising for a Sunday. I brought my Deus 2 to give it a real big beach run, I thought it would be better there with EMI than my Equinox, but found out that as long as we weren't too near the hotels it was quiet. We started out walking the surf line, the tide was coming in but we're got a chance at some low spots. The beach had been dragged earlier in the morning, we thought with the sifting machine but were later told by someone informed that they just bladed it. We really didn't find much along the surf, and ran into a few other detectorists. Pretty much everyone was saying there wasn't much out there, we were finding pennies and then I got a penny signal and was surprised to dig this copper junk ring: That gave us some hope. Turns out we are both pretty hardcore hunters, but stayed together for the most part to shoot the bull, seems we have a lot in common. 😀 One thing for sure is we both enjoy talking with people. We ran into a lot of nice folks there! Here's the total for me, kinda disappointing we didn't get more jewelry. It was ironic that Jamie was finding mostly pennies, he sure made up for it later. 🤔 32 coins and the ring. $3.21. we got up higher on the beach later in the day and found a lot more coins. Overall it was a memorable day, a real blast, and I have a true friend. 🙂 I can't thank him enough for inviting me. I'd do it again at a moments' notice.
  2. I got a bug up my rear to do a park hunt yesterday after I seen the gold ring that 350 found. First target 12-12 on the CTX. 14k over 10 grams...about 6 inches deep...been there a while. It would ring up higher but the band is broken. There are thousands of foil and pull tabs in this park not to mention bottle caps. The CTX 3030 is the George Washington of detectors (It cannot tell a lie) It's my favorite machine for trashy park hunting. Notice what is missing in the trash photos...bottle caps. I never dug one. The CTX can effectively eliminate them and still find the tiniest of foil and gold. There is no interrogation of the target no raising and lowering the coil...no looking at jumpy numbers etc...you just wont hear the bottle caps with the custom programs...there is a reason it's still king of the hill on minelabs vlf team. All I want is a faster CTX hopefully the Beast will fit the bill. BTW all I dug after that was trash and coins...even went back this morning for another 2 hour hunt just trash and coins. strick
  3. Sunday usually is a day for yard work and other stuff before going back to the grind of work. I woke up early at 3:45 am and planned my day. Mowing, garage cleaning and a trip to Lowes. By 1:30 pm I was done my list and felt the urge to hit my go to hunted out spot, which still keeps on giving. My goal/plan was to dig as many gold signals as possible but still dig any other good target along the way. So I told the wife I was headed out to do a couple of hours. I decided to hunt a tiny baseball field for kids that really only produced clad and a few rings over the years. . Yup clad again but around 2:00 I got a nice solid silver tone, Not positive it was silver because I was running the 800 in 40 Khz and have been just getting the hang of some of the tone and number nuances. Digging commenced and out popped a cheesy 1980's silver/turquoise ring, I'll take it. A few more swings and out came a Kennedy 1/2 dollar. Its the first in quite a while. More foil, more foil and no gold later I abandoned the ball field to hunt near the early house on the property. More clad, more foil, No gold and time closing in on my couple hour hunt. At this point I decided to swing along the flagstone walk from the house to the large driveway. I've hit this at least 4 times in the past. I got to the very end and hit on an odd 20-23 tone that was kinda shallow. Expecting a crap penny I was surprised to see a copper ring and an old one at that. I decided to call it a day at that point and not get too greedy and save a few targets for another day.
  4. I got a call a few days ago from my detecting buddy, Richard, who got a call from the Parks Dept asking for help to find a gold wedding band lost by an army officer playing football in one of the parks a few days before. The game had been played in a relatively smaller area of the park so the two of us started gridding it off but ended up getting rained out. The officer met us out there a few days later to show us exactly where they had played hoping to make it a little easier so we hit it again. As Richard continued gridding the main area, I searched my way to where the officer said he had parked his car. Pretty close to that area I got a solid 94 on the Deus 2 and since we had been told it was a "beefy gold band" I though that could be a good number. I pinpointed the target and when I opend the hole I could see the side of a wedding band. I thought I had it, but it turned out to Silver. Close but, no cigar! There were surprizingly few targets for the area's size and we didn't find the ring. I feel like the park had detected before we got there as I could see evidence of digging in someplaces and think that unfortunately the ring was probably found by someone else. That got me wondering if I was missing gold somehow, then I realized that I haven't found any gold jewelry since last year. I began to wonder if people just aren't wearing their good stuff to the parks anymore. I know there are a lot more detectorists now, so maybe that's it. Anyway I went out again yesterday to a park I hadn't searched yet and doubled down on the low conductors. Normally I don't pass on good sounding low numbers but I was digging everything this time just to see if I was missing something good. I hit a loud 91 and thought it was a stack of dimes or a can, but came up with a copper and onyx ring. So again, no gold, but I'll take Silver and Copper as consolation prizes. The search continues. 😏 Note: These photos don't show the grocery bags full of trash, foil, and can slaw that I threw away.
  5. I've come back down to earth a bit after my marathon hunts due to Hurricane Kay. A friend of mine and I hit a local lake yesterday and even though I found 6 rings, none were gold. One of them was a nice silver "good luck" ring adorned with symbols such as a 4-leaf clover, horseshoe, elephant, old man and number "13" (?) but the best find IMO was a small pocket knife. It was a bit tarnished but showed no signs of rust or wear. It has a "Damascus" style blade and walnut inlays below ornate brass castings. It cleaned up very easily with WD40 and elbow grease. I'm always looking for gold but I often find other items that are just as valuable to me and this is one of them. GL&HH!
  6. I figured I would come here to get y'all's opinion on what I should do about a ring that I found. 5 weeks ago I found a large Texas A&M University class ring. I spent three days searching the internet trying to find the owner. I came across a department at A&M for lost and found class rings. I sent an email with all the pertinent information first. After 3 days I went back to the website and found a phone number. I called the phone number and talked to a lady there and gave her all the information again and she said she would do what she could to find the owner. A week later I received an email asking for some more information. It's now been 3 weeks since I had the last contact with A&M. What is a reasonable amount of time to wait before I declare the ring unclaimed? My wife says that in her opinion they weren't able to contact the owner. It's a huge 10 karat class ring. I appreciate any and all opinions, thanks.
  7. I made a display of finds of the month. These were all found with the Equinox 800/15 inch coil. I wonder what I'll find with an Axiom? The rings and finds are placed on sandstones with fossils in them.
  8. Back to the same park yesterday with the Equinox and the 10x5". I was in the concession area where people put up canopies in a row next to a chain link fence. The bracelet was not found by the coil, but I was digging a target that allowed me to see the silver in situ. The cross was a slamming 4-5 TID. Equinox, 10x5, Park 1, 6 recovery, all metal
  9. I just needed to get out of the house yesterday, so I headed to a local beach about an hour before high tide. My intention was to just hit the towel line down. Well, when I got there, there was an active 4–6-foot cut about one hundred yards long. So, in it I went. About halfway through it I was getting pounded by the surges but hit basically a pocket of green coins and a few silver rings and more. I detected for about 2 1/2 hours before the cut had turned back into a slope and the coin finds dried up. I ended up with 203 coins, three of them were silver dimes and one was a wheatie. Only one of the coins is what I would call "spendable" and with some tumble time, some of the other might be. LOL I was using the Equinox 800. I was in Beach 1, with the 15 inch coil, sensitivity at 23 and constantly in and out of the surf as it was surging. Amongst the coin digs I got a hit that was a grunt to foil on tones. The number was -1 to 1. I dug it and came out with a tiny 7 1/4 inch bracelet that was hallmarked 14k (and tested 14K) and weighed .8 gram. It was intact but had a broken link at the clasp. That is by far the tiniest chain I have dug. This morning I wanted to confirm the number so I air tested it. Nothing, Nada, no tone what so ever. Now to be perfectly fair, there is tad bit of EMI so that might have been the reason that it did not make a peep. The value of the gold is not much but the value in detecting knowledge is priceless. I do wonder now just how many "tiny" pieces of gold I have been over and just walked on by???
  10. I wish I'd have filmed it. I went to the river with my family this afternoon. I specifically picked a beach that I knew would be heavily populated, so I could do a little jewelry hunting, while the family enjoyed the water. The river was indeed VERY busy. I was making my way around the shoreline when a gentleman spoke up, and said he had lost a wedding band the week before. He said this mostly in jest. I asked him where exactly he lost it, and he pointed to the opposite end of the river (A deeper area, probably 6-8ft). I told him if I came across it I'd return it to him. I didn't really feal like being fully submerged; I get real cold, real fast. The knowledge that a ring was possibly just sitting there was too much to bear. I knew, what I was looking for (A large black tungsten ring), and I knew where to look. I made my way over to the deep end. The water was up to my neck, with a slow current. I put my equinox into Field 1. Im usually looking for gold jewelry, and run in Park 2. I figured Field 1 would sound off better on tungsten, but honestly wasn't completely sure. My first couple targets were trash (pulltabs, and metal flakes) My third, or fourth target came threw loud, with a 10-11 on the VDI. I knew 10-11 was exactly the number I was looking for (My previous tungsten rings have all came threw in that range). I took a deep breath, and went under. I had no goggles, but I had my pinpointer. I released all my breath underwater so I'd sink, and with my pinpointer under my right thumb, I began to grab handfuls of river bottom, waiting for the vibration to follow the pinpointer into my hand. This lets me know I have the target. The ring was only an inch or so, and it only took one attempt to get a handful of river bottom with the target inside. I surfaced, and stared at my hand, waiting for the ability to see what I had. There it was, a large black tungsten ring. I made my way back to the family, and asked the man's wife where her husband had gone "he went to the bathroom", she said. I told her, I found her husband's ring, and, victoriously held it up. The wife, and various onlookers were astonished. I was so excited, not only to get the target, but to be able to return it. I ran into the husband on the way to tell my wife, and let him know. It took a little bit to convince him, but I assured him I was serious. He told me it was a 700$ ring that he used in place of his nicer band while at work. He offered to pay, but I couldn't accept. I finally know the feeling of retrieving, and returning a wedding band, and it was just as good as finding a keeper.
  11. Last night on a better tide I went back to a little patch I had found in the morning. In the morning I had found a few coins but no jewelry but I had a feeling with more beach I could do better. At night the parking lots near this beach are closed so I had to walk in about a mile but it proved to be worth it. Soon after arrival I found coins on the steep beach sides and just kept digging for over an hour. There was much more black sand than the beaches I normally hunt so I decided to change some settings. My first setting change was to move down from 23 on the sensitivity in Beach 1. That helped but then I decided I would try some F2 which is normally at 0 for me. Well, I'm here to tell you it worked like a charm. The 'noise' went away and I could hear the targets stand out. Soon after these changes I got a good clear 9 and was hopeful. It wasn't the 18-21s I had been getting or the 30s for quarters. Out popped a ring and in the light of my flashlight it looked to be golden but a little light. Bag it. Next target 2 feet away was a second ring. It looked like silver but maybe better so I bagged it. (The first ring had no markings and we think it is stainless. The second ring is marked P4SR. It is not a pure precious metal!) The 3rd little ring came along a bit later and it is not precious either. So I didn't have much, right? Well, not exactly. If you look closer at the picture there is a wirery looking chain. I knew it was silver but just thought it to be cheap. I didn't have my light on when I scratched it with my scoop. I was just using the half moon light at the time and just bagged it with the other stuff. I had loosened it a bit but thought it quite corroded. When I got it home and put some fresh water on it it was much more flexible. Then it was time clean it with the aluminum foil/vinegar/baking soda/salt. It blackened quickly and bubbled and then I was able to rub it with just baking soda. I could now see DY. I know that to be David Yurman from previous finds. It is a good feeling .925 chain that weighs in at 22 grams with a 26 inch length. That is when I was able to find the pattern and identify it as the Open Station Box Chain. It reminded me of my previous find so I looked it up here: The tag in the center was found several miles away but on July 22. That was 3 years ago. This new chain supports that pendant quite nicely. It makes for a nice combo.
  12. Yesterday, I spent the day at the lake with the Nox and 6" coil. I hunted in "gold" mode and was finding enough targets to keep things interesting. In the past I've hit gold chains that read "1" or "2" but only found dozens of small pieces of foil this time. After lunch I went to another area of the lake and actually found less trash and more coins. I also started to find a few rings. A couple of them looked like keepers but I really couldn't read any markings until I got home and put on my reading glasses. Fortunately, 2 of the 7 rings are gold although only 10k. Along with about $6 in clad I found enough to pay for gas and park entrance fee so it was definitely a successful and fun hunt. My gold drought is finally over!
  13. At the end of the story, I finally ended up to buy an Anderson dive shaft to use the D2 properly. Nothing to say about the thing and the lovely appearance of it, but just a bit expensive if shipping costs and importation tax added to the base price😬. As usual I'm pissed cause making a total of the money I spent for this unit I'm way over the old Ctx and not to mention that I still want the 9" not available when I bought the detector. I still want to approach the second dive with it😶. After the first attempt with the original shaft I just refused to do it again.
  14. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfsJbj9DtOE/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= 😜
  15. The most common pull tabs In this neck of the woods , Ontario,Canada seem to hone in on the 29 value on my Legend . .Consequently I tend not to dig them too often .Just wondering if I may be missing something good on occasion.Any thoughts on this ?
  16. From Gold Coast Treasure Hunters “This chart shows the VDI (sometimes called TID, for Target ID) numbers for over 50 gold rings, which Bill pushed into a thick cardboard sheet. White’s VDIs are down the left, Minelab down the right. Weight in grams is across the bottom. Notice the nickel’s position in the center of the chart.” Bill Watson's Gold Ring VDI Chart The photo almost perfectly illustrates a study Fisher did decades ago on the distribution of rings and target ID. There are two distinct clusters, with a soft gap in the middle. In a nutshell, womens rings, often high value and with gems, fall below nickel and solidly in the foil range. Mens rings cluster above nickel in the tabs to screw cap range. The nickel range itself is actually weak on rings, as falling between the two classes in size. Fisher used this information specifically to design the CZ series and decide how to lay out the target id tones and bins. They tested 255 rings for the CZ-70 and came up with some interesting percentages. I have seen these percentages reflected in the field. 2% of the rings were in the copper penny, dime, quarter range. 4% of the rings were in the zinc penny/screw cap range 49% of the rings were in the "pull tab" range above U.S. nickel 10% of the rings were in the nickel range (emphasis added) 36% of the rings were in the foil range below nickel 0% of the rings were in the iron range If you stick with the 49% tab and 36% foil range, you will get 85% of the goods, especially the high value stuff, while missing a large percentage of "trash", and that in this case also means coins. I do consider digging coins a waste of time, especially at depth while fighting heavy surf. I have mentioned the Fisher CZ detectors. Rumor has it that CZ stood for "Coin Zapper". The CZ detector are unique in having a shuffled discrimination scale that puts nickels up high with the other coins. Little attention is paid to the fact they also lumped the bulk of the ring zones together, while intentionally excluding the ring weak nickel range. In addition to visual target identification, the original CZ has 3-tone, audio target ID. A low tone is for iron, a medium tone Is for pull tabs and foil and a high tone is for coins, including nickels. An overload signal, which sounds like a telephone, alerts you to large, shallow targets that are usually (but not always!) trash. The newer CZ-3D added a fourth tone, and was further refined as a coin detector, somewhat messing with the originals better jewelry hunting aspects. I think the older models, including the CZ-20/21 are actually better jewelry detectors. Basically with a older CZ, low tone is iron, medium tone the ring range, and high tone the coin range. The newest model, the CZ-3D adds a fourth tone to the scheme designed to capture old coins in the zinc penny range, but for jewelry detecting the original CZ scheme is pretty simple and ingenious. Fisher also offers this modified tone scheme in the F75 models. The good news is with many newer detectors that have custom tone id ranges, so you can duplicate this setup yourself. The main thing is to be aware, no matter what detector you are using, or where the possible ring "hot spots" are on the VDI scale depending on where you are hunting. From Fisher CZ-70 Pro Owners Manual, page 24 (tones added): More detailed information on gold and target id, various brands and models
  17. Everything on the digger came out of the same hole while detecting on a local football field today. The Deus II somehow detected the chain, which I thought was gold at first. The signal was strange, but it was mixed with enough high tones to get me to dig. The chain was spread out in a straight line in the soil, so that may have been the reason it sounded good enough to dig. I have been over this area before with the Equinox 15" coil.
  18. Well, I finally did it, persistence paid off and I found not only my first silver ring with the XP Deus 2 yesterday in a park, but also a gold ring, my first in 24 years! I've had the Deus 2 with 9in. coil now for nearly 4 weeks and I've put in around 40 hours time using it primarily in park settings. I've been digging a lot of trash since its been my goal since last fall hunting with my ML Equinox 800 and 10x5 Coiltek coil to score some turf gold. I find plenty of nuggets detecting in the California Sierra Nevada mountains, so a "turf gold" goal was to give myself a real gold challenge. Since location matters, I targeted a place yesterday where people picnic and sunbathe, knowing chances for lost jewelry would be higher. I tried program 3, full tones briefly, but the audio is just to "weak" and muffled in my super hot soil, at least using software v0.6 right now. Back to my preferred P4, or "fast" program with its square, pitch audio. The only change was sensitivity 90 since I was focusing on quickly digging more shallow signals. I find P4, fast really helps to liven up mid conductor targets and make them stand out and say: "dig me!". After about 2.5 hours I had a "86" ID# and since I dig most all zinc cents, I didn't hesitate and dug up this one, or so I thought. It turned out to be a tiny, thin ladies .925 silver ring, the first with the Deus 2. I really slowed down and started to dig carefully and about 20 minutes later, I broke my 24-year-long turf gold drought and popped out an absolutely tiny 14kt ladies gold ring! It read as "36-38" ID#, so directly in the foil range. I'd been digging a lot more foil with the Deus. I have started to notice when the generally "wimpy" sounding foil gives a louder signal when balled up for example and have been digging more signals like that. Turned out this "foil" was gold this time. Eureka, I'd done it! This tiny gold band (.61 grams) rings up at "39" ID# above ground, so if you are after micro gold with the Deus 2, it is probably a good idea to dig targets that register in the 30's. Best of luck to you fellow turf warriors going for the gold. Battling turf trash isn't easy!
  19. Was able to get out yesterday and hunt a couple of different rivers. I had to pay my dues today though. I dug a lot of trash for several keepers. First place I dug up a lot of lead and a silver toe ring. On the way home from the first stop, I hit a crossing and was able to come across a 14k wedding band and a pet crematory tag which is a first for me.
  20. I am curious as to which machine you prefer for inland gold jewelry hunting and why. Always like learning about other peoples machines and methods. Thank you.
  21. April was a fair month for me. I was able to get access to a private boarding school which operated from 1906 until 1988 and sat on 50 acres. While it wouldn't have seen lots of commerce, and while jewelry wasn't part of the environment, I still had high hopes. I know the student body was quite small until the 20s. In the end, I managed 5 silver dimes, 4 war nickels, a buff, and 20+ wheat pennies. Also found quite a lot of clad (and very few zincolns - yeah!). Lots of keys from the old dorms. It was better than most locations I hunt, and I'm sure still has a few more out there. It became clear that when new facilities were built in the 50s and 60s, lots of dirt was moved around an much of the original turf has been buried under a foot or more of fill. You could easily tell original ground from the fill when cutting plugs. At the start of May, I spent one entire day working tot lots in schools I'd ignored since the start of the pandemic. Found several nice gold items, one of which I have hopes of returning. Also found a small mountain of bling and clad. I used a mix of my Deus with the 9" X35 coil and a derivation of the hot program, and my V3i with the 10" DD coil and my custom deep program at the old school. The class ring was found with my MX Sport and 7"DD. It was a very wet April (and now May) out West. Hoping to get some warmth soon! Zincoln
  22. Theres a lot of them out there. Different manufacturers have at least one Gold machine. A new analog machine recently debuted. So , I'm thinking some are buying these to use on the Beach and Park hunting. All these machines can't just be hunted in and around the Old Gold fields, can they? So I would think that these machines used in our parks and are set go find small gold would become Overwhelmed with all the small pieces of Aluminum. And such. I got a couple sensitive machines (vlf) that in order to hunt I got to discriminate these pieces out. So what I'm trying to ask is, why buy them for Park and Beach hunting ?
  23. An Easter egg hunt for the kiddies along a tropical beach might sound like great family fun, but it's my worst nightmare come true.. Not that I begrudge the kiddies their fun, just go have it somewhere else (or don't unwrap your eggs and eat them the moment you find them).. For weeks now I've been digging foil.. Every time I get my hopes up it's a gold ring.. It sounds good and the target ID doesn't jump about too much.. It's deep enough for a ring to have worked its way down into the sand over the weekend.. Even when I start digging I don't give up hope.. Maybe it's a small ring a lot shallower than I thought.. Oh, it's out of the hole already, the thing really is tiny.. Every time I go through this process only to find another bit of foil.. It's beyond heart breaking.. Even underwater you'd think that wave action, tides and currents would carry light foil pieces far away.. They don't.. There's a never ending supply of foil on land.. Maybe metal detector manufactures should concentrate less on iron filters and more on aluminium filters (if that's even possible without filtering out gold signals).. I'm sure that even in the bush or the desert, small pieces of foil can be a nightmare..
  24. I received the 11" Deus II on Tuesday, and I have used it about 6 hours so far. We are slowly becoming friends. Still trying to figure out the sounds and TID of targets. I have not done any update yet. At the local ball field again today with high hopes of gold. I dug a good amount of aluminum, so there is less for next time. The silver ring was likely passed over by the 15x12" Equinox coil in the past, but the bracelet was a recent drop. Ring was about an 88 and bracelet was a 52.
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