Search the Community

Returned to a relic site that has been good so far. Had a new gadget to try, a magnetic iron rake. It worked just okay. Needs a redesign to get the faces of the magnets both parallel to and closer to the ground and it will work a lot better. I raked out just a few square yards around where I'd found an Indian Head last time I was here. There's visible iron all over the ground in this spot. So I thought moving some of it out of the way couldn't hurt. It was still missing visible nails though. Definitely needs a redo. But lo and behold... Three feet from where I found the Indian last time... I got a dimey signal, but I thought it was another Indian when I first saw it. But no, it's a Seated! 1888. That felt good! Manticore with the M9 in ATG, running wide open. Moved out from the little raked area and just started hunting. Lots of targets, mostly old ammo, harmonica reeds and such. But some cool stuff too. A broken skeleton key, a pocket watch frame. And then a cool old lock and the next target twelve inches from it, a Barber quarter. Good times! Ended up with two more coins before it got too hot and I headed for home. A 1906 Barber dime and a Chinese cash coin. Interesting decorated piece of lead. And an ancient trigger guard - no numbers or markings on it and I don't know what it might have been off of. Anxious for cooler weather! I'll re-do that rake probably tomorrow and will give it another try in a similar kind of spot. - Dave

I got the Minelab Manticore in early January or February 2024 I think, (Thanks Gerry from Gerry's Detectors) but it was too frozen here to start using it much until early March when the thaw out started slowly happening. I have just started to scratch the surface for turf hunting with the Manticore. I have had a couple of short gold prospecting hunts with it and no water hunts. I have almost exclusively been using it at public parks with it setup in All Terrain General Multi, with all targets accepted and with sensitivity between 22 and 25 of 35 using the 11" coil. Today I recovered the 67 and 68th (my age is 68) silver coin/ring/relic since my first hunt with the Manticore in early March. To say that I am surprised and amazed with the Manticore would be a vast understatement. I keep detecting logs. In 2022 I recovered 20 silver rings/coins with the Nox 800 and Legend. In 2023 I recovered 32 silver rings/coins with the Legend and Deus 2. This year, I may be able to break 100 with just the Manticore. None of these targets were less than 6" deep. Most were 8"+ and without the very deep Fisher F Pulse, finding them with a less deep pinpointer and just a screwdriver would be really hard. So, this post is not about me. It's all about the Manticore and the F Pulse and the difference they have made at hunted out parks in just 4 months. Found some old tokens and a 1909 S V.D.B. Wheat too.

Today's hunt was in an old field inland about 5 miles . Short session. Did a grid on a section with lots of moss under a tree. Swept it with the 15x12 ,marked targets and switched to 6" to pinpoint. (9v dead in the 35) Would have switched to the small one anyway , still aching from yesterday....... Half a rivet , an old nail and a 3" piece of barbed wire.

i had a good day with my vanquish 440 3 silvers and 11 wheats thanks for looking Steve

I was less than neutral about Minelab's Manticore when it was introduced. I wasn't negative about it but I certainly did not celebrate its release or the fanfare that went with it. I waited for almost a year before buying one. Thanks Gerry/Gerry's Detectors for making my Manticore purchase happen!!! I only started using it full time for coin and jewelry hunting around the last week of January 2024 when it warmed up enough here to melt most of the snow. We have had small amounts of snow and cool temperatures since with no hard freezes so hunting for deeper targets in moist soil conditions has been ideal and still is now after the 14" of snow melted from a recent blizzard. So my Manticore has been doing great (so did my Deus 2 with 13X11" coil during September and October of 2023) as far as detecting these deeper, challenging targets shown in the photo by giving me enough information to choose to recover them. Sure, I am digging some rusted nails too but my US wheat penny count for the last two months is 128 and I haven't dug anywhere close to 128 rusted nails. All of these silver, gold and copper target finds have been in public parks. All targets were at least 6" to 12" deep and there were no easy, totally isolated, no brainer finds. All were in high iron mineralized dirt that by itself would mask these targets using single frequency VLF detectors and these parks have plenty of trash to deal with and listen to. Plus, I have hunted these same parks extensively with the Equinox 800 and I did not find those 128 wheat pennies or the targets in the photo. With the Equinox 800, I would average 1 or 2 wheats a week, a silver ring or jewelry find once a week and a silver coin and gold jewelry find once a month at these same parks. I am using All Terrain General with the All Metal discrimination pattern and the ATG Preset default upper and lower ferrous limits unchanged, Normal audio theme, 5 tones with tone volumes, tone pitches and tone breaks adjusted for my preferred targets, recovery speed 4 or 5, and sensitivity between 22 and 24 with the stock 11" coil. Basically, I had no idea that this much silver was still left in these parks and I have only hunted 22 times during the last 2 months in parks that are old enough to have these types of targets. Thanks Minelab for the Manticore!!!

I've been slow out of the gates for the 3rd year in a row, but hopefully I can follow through better than recently. I do have some ideas for sites I haven't hunted (and if I'm real lucky, no one else has either). But that needs to wait for summer. In the meantime.... A site that has produced modestly (Wheaties and a few silver dimes) in the past has a previously closed area that's opened up. I was able to get out last weekend and give the Manticore a chance. Here's what I found in 3 hours: The highlight is the four silvers, the best of those being the nearly uncirculated 1953-D Roosie. It's a very common date+mintmark but a bonus is that it's from my birth year. Wish I looked that good after 70 years. Maybe being buried in the ground is an advantage! ? (On second thought, I'll find out about that soon enough....) The denomination breakdown is interesting but may not be terribly meaningful: three 1-centers (two are Wheaties), nine 5-centers ('nickels), three dimes but two are silver (I'll take that ratio!), no 25-centers at all. Only three of the nickels have dates later than 1964. Has this area ever been searched? And how long has it been 'uninhabited'? Or did someone hunt it decades ago but ignored nickels, not wanting to dig beavertails? Note I found more nickels than imposters (five folded-over beavertails, a couple pencil ferrules, and a misc. scrap of aluminum). The shotgun butt (next to the padlock) is very likely from quite long ago given this area has been settled for longer than I've been alive. The small item left of the padlock is a piece of junk jewelry, probably a broken off pierced earpiece (plated copper with a blue glass 'stone'). I didn't photograph all the trash targets, but that's 2/3 to 3/4 of them. Surprisingly the two Warnicks (1943-P and 1943-S) show the gray patina that is representative of that population which have circulated but never been in the ground. Usually the acid in the soil eats off that surface, leaving the white metal (silver) finish. For one of the two I didn't even realize what it was until I got home and cleaned off the dirt. Only one coin was even close to being challenging -- the Roosie was 7 1/2 inches deep. I picked up a faint but clean signal with the Manticore 11" coil (All Terrain High Conductor mode). While investigating I turned up the sensitivity from 17 to 21, then backed off to 19 for the rest of the hunt. It definitely sounded louder at the higher sensitivity settings. (In my test garden it seems going much higher than 18 smears out the VDI resolution, getting worse the higher the sensitivity. That's why I've been using 17.) Anyway, I'm not done there so hopefully I can show more goodies in the near future. Quantity of hunts has been low but quality of finds the opposite!

Wow, thanks for the quick response! Do you realize you've just solved a mystery that has been floating around this site (and other detecting sites) for quite a few years? I'm serious. There have been multiple reports of Warnicks giving considerably higher VDI's than other nickels, even though no one has ever given evidence that Warnicks *not* coming from the ground read anything different than standard 25-75 Ni-Cu. (I measured over 150 in my non-detected collection with the Eqx and all were either 13 or (occasionally) 13-14. The Manticore's USA nickel VDI's peak around 26-27 so your recent two are way above that. (And they are consistent with many of the earlier reports of coins which were found in the ground, but not in saltwater.) The environment has seriously changed the conductivity and selective removal of manganese (9% of the Warnick and a very low conductor) is pretty much now the solid explanation.

Had two hours today at a park I've been frequenting recently. The temp was 68° F, and I was able to wear a T-shirt and baseball cap--all things that during a normal weather year would be absolutely insane and likely deadly. I was focusing on quarters so I can come back and focus on higher value targets in the future. Final count of quarters was 43, and total value was over $12. For a park in February in Minnesota, I'll take that all day long! The park is in a low-income housing area, so I haven't found anything of super value yet. The ring is aluminum. Equinox 800 with 15" coil in Park 1

I sure do miss coins.....I can remember when they were everywhere. Here in Australia, we have $1 and $2 coins and these were lost in vast numbers. I can recall finding $50 worth most hunts. Nowadays, maybe $10. But to me, these lost coins and the condition they were in held greater value. Were they shiny, blackened, green or crusty green?....that information was priceless. Everyone swipes the plastic or their phone....no need for cash at the beach anymore. It's a shame the pull tabs and can slaw haven't suffered the same fate.......and then there's the proliferation of stainless steel and Tungsten Carbide rings. Whinge over........?

I had to share my 2 hour experience with everyone. Not because of the gold or silver that was found, but for the simple fact that I was outside on February 5 detecting without thermals and chopper mittens in Minnesota! It was over 50 degrees with no wind, no snow on the ground, green grass, and no frost to dig through. In fact, even the worms are within the first few inches of the topsoil. I'm not complaining because it has been a great winter to be here since moving from Florida this last summer. Anyway, these finds were from a small park that apparently has not been hit hard. The watch and large token (closed restaurant in Rochester, MN) each rang in at 39-40 on the Equinox 800. Total amount was $9.13.

I hunted a park that I have hunted many times in the past for a couple of cold, windy hours today. I wanted to try out Depth Tones VCO on the Nox 900 in an area that I have gridded with the Equinox 800, Deus 1, Deus 2 and some other detectors. There is tons of ferrous and non-ferrous trash at every depth along with some older coins. Iron mineralization is 7 to 10 bars on Deus 2 at this park. I deliberately setup my Nox 900, 11" coil, with a Field 1 Multi, trashy park pattern that accepted -7 to 0 for some iron audio, 24 to 27 for US nickels, 55 to 62 for US Indian head, early wheat and zinc pennies, and 70 to 99 for anything else in the high conductor US coin range. The nickel target IDs worked out well for US nickels and also snared a few broken pull tabs and beaver tails with no ring pull attached. I did not hit any Indians or early wheats but I did get some deeper zinc pennies. The high conductor IDs accepted range did great with only two very rusty nails recovered that were standing almost straight up in their holes with the nail head facing up. They were 8" deep and were giving mid to high 90s target IDs along with constant iron grunts as I circled the targets. I was fairly certain they were nails before I dug them but digging them was the only way to know for sure. All of the coins in the photo were in the 6" to 8" range and were very close to iron or aluminum targets and had somewhat iffy target IDs but they were accurate enough to get my attention. I did some back and forth between Park 1 Multi, 5 tones, no notches, -7 to 99 accepted and Field 1 Multi DP tones as described above. The DP tones definitely gave stronger VCO audio responses on the deeper coins than the non VCO 5 tones. I could hear the responses using both types of audio but DP was more obvious. Personally, I have not gotten very used to the audio quality of DP tones through the ML 85s. It just sounds weird to me, but it works very well, seems to separate a bit better and is another tool in the tool box. Another 1919 mercury dime, along with some other silver era coins: 1951, 1959 and 1960 US pennies, 1960 US nickel, and some clad dimes and quarters from the 1970s and 1980s.

After doing the dishes and the floor ? I was told too clean up my shed. I did not get too far as I found a bucket full of my reject coins that I had not needed for my albums or give to kids on halloween trick or treat. Size of 1¢, 2¢, Halfpenny and Penny photo.

You've probably already seen my recent post at a campground, 337 coins in 4 days. I was mostly using the D2 and MI-6 pointer with the 13x11" coil and my "Hoover" program based on Beach Sensitive. There were a lot of sand spots, but the extra controls Beach sensitive offers (Salt sensitivity and Magnetic Accept/Reject), combined with full tones in High Square is so good everywhere there was no need to use anything else. Here is my other post: This was the largest amount of coins I've ever found at a campground, the 13" hit on chains, rings, and even bits so tiny they may have fallen out of my pouch through the mesh. A few things really jumped out to me this trip, not only is the 13x11" coil fabulous, but I came back with tricks to better separation and EMI mitigation. First the coil. I was able to use it next to tot lot equipment, under park benches and everywhere one wouldn't think it would be usable at all. I also found it was no worse than the 9" coil regarding EMI, and there was a lot of it, underground power, audio lines, cell boosters, Wi-Fi, park low voltage lighting, you name it. The 13" is good at separation initially, but varying reactivity was key. Most of the time I was able to use .5, but sometimes it got machine-gun, so I switched to 2 reactivity and slowed down. I'm amazed at the D2's ability to retrieve target info at any speed. ? Last is EMI. I found that varying Audio Response from 6 down to 3 pushed EMI to the background so it was barely audible, and good targets stood out plainly. Try it. You will lose depth but you can turn sensitivity up to compensate, I ran sensitivity as low as 87 most of the time and still hit stuff 8-12" down. If you're not in trashy spots keep your AR high and sensitivity low. Additionally I was using GB tracking with no ill effect. Obviously this is all dependent on your conditions, but where I am this works a treat. I found my program to be the same on both the D2 and WS6, making them interchangeable, just the coil size.

After moving to Minnesota this summer, it was time to see what the local parks still hold. The items in the pics represent a total of three times out. Some highlights: 2 50¢ pieces, a silver dime, a buffalo nickel, a State Farm license tag, and 29 dimes from one park that were mostly in one area above the soil hidden by grass. The tool shown is a spark plug wrench that I modified after speaking with an old-timer years back. It is what I have been using here so as not to leave a trace as it has been fairly dry. It works well for coins that are not too deep, and it does a great job hooking the pull tabs. Equinox 800 with 15" coil using park 1

Recently a group of us made a trip to the mountains in Colorado to search for coins and relics. We have made trips to these same sites in the past and came away with some nice coins, relics and tokens. Some of the sites can test your patience with the amount of iron you encounter lying above and below the surface, but putting in long hours of detecting you are sometimes rewarded with a few keepers. Three of us in the group were using XP Deus II and two were using the original XP Deus and we were able to come away with some nice coins, tokens and interesting relics. One of the tokens I was hoping to find this trip was a token from Bucktown, Colorado, as they are rare and valuable in any condition. The first two days I wasn't finding any thing spectacular compared to the others in the group, but the last day my luck had changed. I was very fortunate to find a "Good for 5 cents in Trade" square token from a proprietor that had a saloon in Bucktown. I check with several sources to see if others had been found and so far this is one of a kind. Another interesting find was a "Knights of Labor" pin. The pin is 1/2 inches in diameter and still trying to find out what the meaning of the letters S,O and MA are. Of course you find a "what is it". It measures 1 1/4" x 3/4" made of brass or copper, maybe a gunsight? A few of the non-ferrous targets that I found. . One of the sites we detected on this trip.

I'm speaking of Reno in particular. I don't want to go in anybody's front yards, but it seems like there's always a grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. I think this is probably maintain land within the city? All of the old neighborhoods have them. Are they fair game or will I get in trouble?

I have several buddies who own both the Deus II and the Manticore and the number of nickels they continue to pull from heavily hunted parks is just astounding. These parks have been hit and hit hard by every detector including the Equinox. I personally have hunted several of these parks with my Equinox and my Legend and usually come away with a ton of tabs and just a few nickels. Do you guys think this is due to the expanded TID on the Deus II and the Manticore? Perhaps the averaging that goes along with lower number TID scales is being nullified to a degree by the 0 - 100 scales on these two detectors. A buddy of mine dug 11 nickels in an hour and a half at a pounded park yesterday and he said every one came in at a 27. Bill

Weather it’s a new site your trying for the first time. Or it’s a site that you got stuff in the past and it’s slim pickings

I was able to get out a couple times this weekend to a local soccer complex. I stayed on the sidelines and in the shaded areas. I took the Deus II with the 11" on Saturday and was able to find 121 coins in 3 hours. There were 29 quarters and 29 dimes along with mostly pennies. I have hit this place many times before with the Equinox 800, so I was a bit surprised by the number of high conductors that sounded through the machine gun sounds of bottle caps and pull tabs. I ran the fast program with a few changes. The black ring that came from behind tall netting that stops balls from going into the water, is stainless. The pendant was right in front of a team bench; there were many targets under the coil, but the 72 ID was unwaivering. The other ring is aluminum. Today, I took the Equinox out for old times sake with the 15" coil. I wanted to cover some ground and focus on numbers between 5-12. The gold helmet, the second one I have found (the first was also at this park by the basketball area), rang up a steady 8. I was in Park 1 with the horseshoe engaged and 7 recovery speed.

I broke my S mint streak and added a D mint barber silver. 1908 D. The place I've been hunting has seen many, many detectors over the years. It has seen plenty of use from the early 1900's, and had history into the second half of the 1800s. Simply seems that with new tech and enough patience, there are always a few more goodies to find. I've hit this place at least a dozen times in the last 10 years, and I've rarely found a wheat penny. Finally landed a war nickel last year. Mind you, I do reasonably well with my equipment in other locations, so I had effectively given up on this one as too few targets to bother with. When i started posting a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled into a 1909 barber dime...and a buff nickel and several wheats. This reenergized me to give it a go again in part of the property that i hadn't hit much in years past. It's bare of underbrush, so it's easy enough to hit. Since, I've totaled 4 dimes, 4 buffs, 1 almost indiscernible V just today, 24 wheats (most 1909-1929), and 6 IHCs. Today I added the barber quarter. I've must say that I need to give some of the credit to the Deus. If I'd hit this part of the ground thoroughly with my V3i, I'd have found some of this haul, but I don't think I'd have found all of it. The D1 has been doing a nice job of pulling 8" deep nickels and pennies...which is close to the limit of what i've done with the V3i historically in our dirt (9"). And it's so nice that it is so light. Even the 11" coil I used today was easy enough to swing for 8 hours. Now, I think I'll let it sit for a bit and give both the ground an myself a break before i try it again. The targets a getting much harder to find...but they are still there. Hit the 1918s merc 2 days ago at 8+". Just a faint peep. Have to be more there. Today the big surprise was the Barber quarter at 4". While there was iron on one side and a tree on the other, the 11" coil fit easily in between and the signal was no mystery....but I didn't believe it. Could possibly be a shallow silver quarter left. I just took a quick shover scoop expecting a bottle cap or clad quarter, and out popped one of my favorite coin designs. How on earth did this survive the multitude of detectorists? Nothing to really hide it or protect it. Just dumb luck I suppose. Also added a sterling piece today that may have been part of a fountain pen? It had material inside the cylinder, but i couldn't ID it. Seems to be wood or tightly wrapped paper with some sort of core....but this piece is likely 100+ years old. Get out and hit that permission that went quiet! We never get it all! V below appeared to be an 1892 before a light clean up.

Had a three hour group hunt today with men and women from our Denver area metal detecting club at a local park. Screwdriver or probe hunting only by order of the city of Denver. I was using Deus 2, 9" coil Sensitive 5 tones, 95 sensitivity, discrimination 10, reactivity 2, silencer 0 audio response 4. Iron mineralization meter was 8 of 10 bars consistently. I was specifically looking for gold jewelry (skunked) silver jewelry (also skunked) silver coins, older coins and modern USA coins. I collected and threw away a lot of trash that I just picked up off the surface of the ground along with detecting and throwing away quite a bit of gold range can slaw. The 1919D Mercury dime was a full Teknetics Tek-Point deep so at least 9". So was the 1947 nickel and the wheat pennies. These targets were whispers but there were enough correct target IDs to dig. I think I could have found more silver coins but I got tired.

The focus while designing the Axiom was 100% on the nugget detecting aspects. But I do think it will end up finding favor with some relic and coin hunters also. I will add information and videos about the subject to this thread as I come across them. This is my best "not nugget" find with the Axiom so far is a silver 1914 sixpence I accidentally found while nugget detecting in Australia.

For years a place nearby has hosted scads of college students to get away from classes. My wife would take a book and read while I detected after work in the evenings, No idea how many coins I found but it was many. About 6 years ago I had stopped detecting after suffering a heart anurysm but decided I better get back out and start living. o back to the college farm I go, it had been landscaped. But remembering it had been a farms at one time, I started to bring up older coins , A walker a silver kennedy, a few rosies and a few mercs, last week ws the best find from there, a 1918 SLQ, It was about the only target I had, the ground was sloppy and half frozen. Anyway,dig them all

Had 3 hours today, so went back and changed up the reactivity and frequency on the Dues. No silver, but managed several nice early wheats and an IHC. That's two 1910s wheats from this spot in the last 10 days. Thought I had the elusive 1914D today before i cleaned it up, but turned out to be a 1917D. Others are a 1920s and 1919s. These are a mottled green color when dug (Some verdigris and some copper/bronze appearance - kinda ugly and unappealing). I soak em in boiling peroxide, Qtip them clean and then coat them with renaissance wax. They are all damaged already, so this gives them a more even tone and better detail contrast.

Decent hunt today at the same place from my last post. Again, using the Deus and 9" coil with an altered Hot program. Didn't know til I got home that I had a key date wheat - 1909s - too bad it wasn't the elusive VDB. That's 2 - 09s's for me now. Barbers are 07s, and 08s. Roached Buff is a 20s, and the little pendant is from the local high school circa 1920.