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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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

No, not my retirement -- that happened three years ago. I'm talking about the Minelab Equinox 800, and it's not going on mothballs since it will at least be my IB/VLF backup and probably take the lead when I need a small(er) coil -- Western ghost towning and nugget hunting. My 2022 year was good, relative to previous years, in terms of normalized finds (finds per hour of detecting) but I didn't get out park, school, and permission detecting nearly as much as previously -- only 106.5 hours compared to over 200 hours in each of the previous five (288 hours and 311 hours being my best years for sheer hours in the local 'fields'). I don't count my Western ghost town and nugget hunting in these totals. I've done a bit better this year and expect the rate to pick up considerably.... Since early January I've been preparing for the Manticore arrival by checking out some of my previously detected sites and in some cases varying coils and settings to start "thinking outside the box". My last two hunts are good examples of that. For both I dropped the recovery speed to 3 (based upon some things abenson posted regarding his Manticore). Yesterday I switched from my stock 11" coil (what I use 90% of the time) to the Coiltek Nox 5"x10" and chose a particularly aluminum trashy site to work on my separation skills. Other search settings are Park 1, 5 tones, Iron Bias F2=0, all VDI channels open ("all metal" in Minelab parlance). I use two other modes for target investigation. For possible USA 5 cent 'nickel' coins that aren't too weak signalwise I use Field 2, full tones, recovery speed = 6. For iffy possible deep coins (which might be falsing iron) I investigate with Gold 1, recovery speed = 5. A mental change I decided to make for both of these hunts was to investigate VDI 19 partial tones -- i.e. if the target hits 19 at all, even if that's not the centroid, I'm digging. As you'll see that made a huge difference. Typically I require 20 or above for most coins and 12-13 for specifically nickels. During the first hunt I thought I was detecting an area I had previously hunted, but afterwards was unsure of that. In the first 5 minutes I dug a clad quarter and a 95% copper Memorial cent, neither a recent drop so I should have found these earlier IF I had gotten my coil over them. Moving forward in the direction I should have hunted before I got an odd signal with VDI varrying between 16 and 19, mostly in those lower VDI channels. I checked with Field 2 out of curiosity and saw consistent 16-17 (in only one direction; the Park 1 signals were from multiple directions). The strength indicator in Park 1 was 3 bars -- that's typically about 5 inches deep for a small coin in my local sites. My expectation was a badly deteriorated Zinc Memorial (aka 'Stinkin Zincoln') since although those start out fresh at 21, as the galvanic action takes its course it will drop without limit, given enough years in the ground. At the expected 4-5 inch depth I recovered what looked like a cent, but it was a full disk and I could see some green coloring. Could it be? A few squirts from the water bottle revealed not what I had expected but what I had hoped -- an Indian Head Cent. But why such a low VDI? I set it on the plug before replacing that and ran the coil over it, getting a consistent 20. Hmmm. After replacing the plug I swung over that and got a soft but noticeable iron tone. Likely a small nail was quite close to the IHC and pulled down the VDI in the process. If the coin was on edge, or nearly so, that also might have contributed to the low VDI. Now for a report on yesterday's session. As mentioned I decided to give the Coiltek Nox 5"x10" a workout in a picnic area with lots of aluminum trash. As you'll see I didn't restrict all of my hunting to the trashiest spots, but I figured the 5x10 would be better at separation, and it did seem to be quite good at that. Even with my restriction to 12-13 VDI's for nickel hunting I still dug a lot of pulltabs, especially the (broken off) beavertails. Some larger pulltabs were dug in the corroded Zincoln zone. When I was making my way between picnic tables I got a strong 12-13 in Park 1 and verified a solid 12 in Field 2. Park 1 showed 2 bars so I was thinking a fairly modern, shallow nickel. Well, I was partly right -- it was a shallow nickel -- about 3" depth. But in trying to ID it with careful water bathing I couldn't get any indication of Thomas Jefferson, his monument, nor even an Indian nor Buffalo. It was well worn and finally I saw Lady Liberty's head. Now that's a good find and a good sign. Not more than 1 meter away I heard a mostly 19 VDI with only about 2 bar strength, indicating likely a ~2-3 inch deep Zincoln. Note I was again in an area I thought I had deteted previously. I didn't notice any extremely nearby trash targets, either, but out came the nicest IHC I've ever found! And this one kept its VDI of 19 even out of the ground. I recalled finding an IHC about 10-15 meters from here in late 2020, also about 3 inches deep, with the Tesoro Vaquero and its 5"x9" DD coil (stock on the Super Trac). I now realize this is a hot spot I need to return to. It's become typical here for people to show their trash, and although I'm not promising to do that in the future, here is yesterday's collection: Everything on the right is aluminum; the Stinkin Zincolns are in the middle and to the left of that are the other metals. (OK, one recent drop clad dime and three 95% copper Memorial cents aren't really trash.) Next are the good finds from these two hunts, all but the lower left hand Indian is from yesterday: Centered is the Liberty Head ('V-') nickel with date 1908. Lower left is a 1900 IHC in not very good shape. Lower right is my best ever IHC, conditionwise -- an 1899. Upper left is a toasty 1917 with mintmark, but I can't tell if it's -D or -S. And upper right is a seriously acid degraded 1931 plain (so Philadelphia mint) Lincoln. Coincidentally I mentioned in a thread of CPT_Ghostlight's (when he showed a 1932-D Lincoln in nice condition) that those three early great depression years of 1931-33 show low mintages or no mintages in all denomination USA coins. This 1931 plain is the highest mintage of any USA coin in that three year time period -- 19.4 million. Starting in 1934 and forward to today, only two Lincoln Cents date+mm minted for circulation have lower mintages than this 1931 -- 1938-S (15.2 million) and 1939-D (also 15.2 million). The 1938-D is close at 20.0 million. Even in nice condition this 1931 would not be worth more than about $1. None of the other four coins in the photo are low mintage dates (relative to their peers). So what led to me finding these coins in previously detected sites. 1) You've got to get the coil over 'em. In most cases above I doubt I did. 2) Sometimes my mental discrimination of VDI's is too strict. I may have been over either or both of these IHC's but blew them off from the combination of low VDI and strong signal (implying shallow depth). I hate digging Zincolns and they are usually shallow and can easily fall into the high teen VDI's. Glad I didn't avoid digging these two faux Zincolns. Oh, bonus image 👍 :

I feel like I’m in rut as far as detecting goes. I don’t have any permissions and all of my public sites have been hit hard by me. Yesterday I decided to hit an old ballfield from the 1940s that I’ve been to twice before. Once I got there I quickly remembered why I’ve only detected it twice before. The dirt has been moved around and probably more dirt added as the edge of the outfield is higher than the adjacent field. But even if fill is brought in and moved around there’s still the chance of a coin not getting buried too deeply. Right behind second base is where I got the 1954 rosie. I also got two or three wheats and the two foreign coins. One is 1977 and I can’t get a date off the larger one. As I made my way back to the car I got the old makeup compact in the adjacent field. Once I found that, I randomly detected that field and not finding anything else old, I quit for the day. Yesterday I hit a large park that’s not old although I did find a silver rosie the last time I was there. Today I was in jewelry mode and had the D2 in Sensitive Full Tones. I left it stock other than turning the silencer down to 2 and sensitivity up to 95. I varied the reactivity from 1.5-3. First thing was the compass pendant. It’s stainless and rang up a solid 57. Next was the earring and I don’t remember what TID it came in at, but in the bright sun it looked like gold. Once I got home and cleaned it up it’s marked YGF 925 CHINA. I’m guessing ygf stands for yellow gold filled. I then got the silver clasp and try as I might I couldn’t find the chain. I even used gold mode on the D2 and dug everything in about a 20’ radius from where I dug the clasp. So that rosie puts me at 3 for the year. Unless I happen upon a good permission, I don’t see me getting more than 10-12 silvers this year, but you never know. Lol

Well, decided to hit the park where I've pulled around 20 IHC, wheats, buff an barbers this past 2 weeks. Decided it was time for a bigger 11" coil on the Deus to see what I've been missing. Best finds that I'd missed before were 2 buffs at an honest 7-8 inches. The deepest was absolutely standing on edge and had a nail 3 inches away. Was pretty impressed to hit that coin. (27, 29s) Pulled another 6 early wheats. Nothing deeper than 6", but all very scratchy signals (could have been pull tabs, a bent nail, or deep foil). No wonder they've remained all these years. Too bad the 1914 is missing a D! (13s, 14, 19s, 20, 28s, 37s)

A few days ago I went to a park in a different part of town to test the ground since parks closer to home are still pretty frozen. It was a really nice day, sunny and almost warm, and I had high hopes since this park has huge sports flields and playgrounds. The fields were still largely frozen but I could see there were small holes everywhere from the parks department aerators. I figured that could be a good sign and maybe that would make the ground thaw quicker. I had been there but about an hour when the park started filling up with people, a lot of people. I wasn't finding much anyway and really just wanted to see how the ground was, so I started working my way back to the car when a got a signal that had a typical ring pull number but it sounded just a little too good so decided to check it out. When I peeled open the small hole I made I saw a greyish curved edge and thought, "Yep, it's a ring pull", but I was wrong. I could see a weird looking part where the tab would be and it had a stone on it. "Holy cow, it's a ring!"' I thought, "but is it real?" Turns out it was .925 silver with a stone of some kind. It looks like the aerator tagged it on the back part, but it's still intact and still silver. Well I figured that made my day and it was time to beat a hasty retreat while more people were piling in. As I worked my way out of the field, I moved into a scrub area near a dirt trail leading off to a creek from the parking lot. I poked around the scrub a little while finding some nails and bits of iron when I hit what I thought was a dime signal. I dug down about 4-5 inches and found a square hunk of metal covered in dirt and mud laying on a rock layer. Well it wasn't a dime so I through it in the junk pouch and called it a day. When I got home and verified the ring was silver, I started going through the trash and got to the square thing. It had some weight to it and as I started to brush it off, an oblong hole appeared. I could start to make out some lettering and figured it is probably a dog license since there was a dog park not too far from where I was hunting. When I finally got it cleaned off I could see it had Santa Fe Hotel , the number 11, and 529 E.PP on it. It was a hotel key fob, and it looked older too. There hasn't been a Santa Fe Hotel in town for as far back as I can remember. I started doing some research and located the probable location of the hotel which has a bank building on the site now, but on 1800s maps of the city it was a large lot with a large building on it on the eastern edge of town and was directly across from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad depot. That building is gone in maps of the early 1900s and with the help of some of my detecting club members, we have narrowed the date of the key fob down to 1880-1890s. So there you have it. You just never know what you will find in the most unlikely places. And always check your trash, it could be something good, and strangely enough this has happened to me a few times lately.

You just never know what's going to come out of the ground! I found this this morning while hunting with the Equinox 800 and the Coiltek 10x5 in an area thick with pull tabs and bottle caps along the edge of a sidewalk and soccer field. This is the same Florida park that gave up the two gold rings last weekend. This time it was a bunch of junk, some modern trash, and an anomaly!

Have been trying to get out between some seasonably abnormal snow events in western Oregon the last 10 days. First, hit the beaches of the Columbia River not too far out of downtown Portland. Jewelry hunting was largely a bust, but I wanted to check all the black sand piled up from wave action, and satisfied my curiosity. 3 pans, 2 colors, and a dime in one pan not shown (How on earth in the millions of yards of sand up and down that 5 mile stretch did I pull a dime in a pan when i only found about 50 coins all day with the detector). Not enough to bother with....but there is gold underfoot! Next, hit an old park that has been incredibly stingy to me. I find plenty of good old stuff in our area, but this park has been well hunted and rarely gives up old coins. I used the Deus Hot program, and swapped in the Deep program checking targets, and found several whispers at 7-8 inches that have been waiting there a long time...and that countless detectors have passed over. Hit is twice more with modified programs that should have given me some additional depth and/or sensitivity to deep targets...and nuttin' in terms of old coins. One lonely vintage silver earing to show which was only 2-3 inches down. Bouncy signal probably resulted in it being undug. My buddy in our uncommon snow, taking the high ground to peer through the windows, and make sure she isn't left behind. Nothing that get's one too excited, but keeps me motivated to get out and dig a hole! Happy hunting! Brian

So, been a good while since I posted anything I've found! The beaches here have been pretty lean, since our back to back hurricanes washed everything out, and redeposited virgin sand! Only an odd Spanish coin or two, by a lucky few! And "mostly" very few recent drops for the rest of us! But there's always somewhere to hunt, even if it's not your preferred areas! Today was one such day! I've been slowly following up on some historical research, as many of you do, since I moved here about a year ago! And decided to work some old sidewalk strips! I had the 5x10 Coiltek on the 800, as I knew that there is always tons of trash in these spots! And while I didn't turn up any "vintage" coins🤯, just the regular clad and such, I did get a nice repeatable 33-34, that turned out to be a nice silver ring! While it won't win any value awards, it actually fit me perfectly! So it's a keeper! I'd be very happy with at least one silver (or gold) "something" a month, and so far, I'm on track this year! Last month was a nice Mercury dime at a WW2 Barracks area! But I can't wait for the beaches to pick up, with some Spanish, or Jewelry, etc... I'm not picky!!😁 And while I wouldn't wish for any more devastating hurricanes like we just had, a few well placed, "out-to-sea beach strippers" would be ok by me!👍👍

Today I invited Chase down to go to the old farm we went to last week. It's a huge farm with a central house that is long gone but some of the barns and the kitchen cellar hole are still there. We have permission to dig most anywhere. It started out pretty warm and only got better. Ended up at about 67 with very light wind. Perfect metal detecting day! I got there early, while waiting for Chase I got a WW1 service button and an old pocket knife in a field next to this one, it had been limed so it was like walking on the moon. For quite a while I wasn't finding much but a couple wheats, and tons of very, very good sounding trash. 😵 We went to the farmhouse site and started searching around late in the day, I went out into the front field and found literally nothing. 😀 I came back to the farmhouse, and Chase said he just found a silver coin, and I should search around there while he went elsewhere. Well that was a very nice thing for me! I turned around, took a couple of swings, and got a 91 on the D2. Today I was using the remote and the 13" coil. Dug a little and it went up to 93. About 6" down in the side of the plug I saw it, a 1904 Barber quarter! This is only the second one I've ever found. I was thrilled. First was a 1903. I swept my coil near the hole and got a jumbled 78, filled the other hole, and immediately dug a buffalo nickel with no date. As soon as that was out I got a 91 again, and dug a 1906 Barber dime! 🥳 Both coins are in pretty good shape. Filled that hole in and got a 95 nearby, for some reason it ended up being an old wheat. 🤔 It didn't end there. 😀 After digging all the stuff below: Got an 1896 IHP, and 4 wheats total, from 1912 to 1952 D. A rein guide, and a small cracked brass ring. No inscription. Then I was hunting next to the cellar hole and got this: It's either an 1800, 1803 or 1808 Draped Bust half cent. Wish I could get that last number. It was a 91, buried about 5" down under a brick. The reverse is so toasted you can barely see the wreath. I thanked Chase for his grace today, that was really nice, I didn't do so well the last time. He did good too, we both walked away with silver. 🥳 At one point I stopped to talk to a farmer that was "ripping" the field to loosen and aerate it, and ended up getting another 100ish acre permission a few miles away, one that has never been hunted (according to him) and used to be part of a very famous plantation here. YES! 👍 Here's my trash, horrendous today but no iron. Relic Reaper did its job. Those two huge solid copper washers sounded off like half dollars.

Chose to post this to illustrate what we all know, the masking effect is real. Went to a park that is pretty well picked through. It has been hit hard by every detector club and enthusiast in our area. Last year I was able to pull a $5 gold coin that was masked by iron out in the brush, and yesterday I was able to pull 4 coins, one being a nice semi-key barber quarter in areas that I've detected no less than 20 times with my host of detectors, and I'm sure has seen thousands of swings over it. It was only 4-5 inches down, but was surrounded by nails. After getting a new to me 10"DD replacement coil for my V3i, which seems a little hotter than my previous coil, I headed out to see if I would be able to find something I've missed. There are no 'dig me' signals to be found, just a rare bouncy or very iffy directional signal to dig. Working in an old nail bed with small river rock down about 4-5 inches where trails were once graveled, I was near big old iron and a lot of nail signals. First signal was messy, something I've never considered digging before, but it had a few inconsistent high beeps mixed in with plenty of iron in my Mixed audio program (iron in one ear, good tones in the other). Opened the plug and had several responses from the pin pointer. Picked one, loosened the soil a bit deeper expecting a nail, and removed a small scoop. Out pops a VF 1899 S Barber Quarter on edge. A bit surprised, but thrilled. Then I recovered 3 nails in the hole making a nice little circle around it, none further than 3 inches away. In the next few minutes I'd repeat the same dig on a signal I'd generally pass on, and out popped a 1907 IHC and a 1912S wheat all at about 5 inches in the rock/dirt matrix. and with iron nearby. Could have covered these with a garbage can lid. I'd dug 3 or 4 wheats before in the near vicinity, so I knew something might be here, but how on earth have they remained hidden this long with so many detectors passing over them, me included. Thank you iron! The hobby has gotten tough, but there are still good targets in those 'hunted out parks'. While i like my Deus quite well in many applications, the V3i with it's sophisticated programmability (such as selecting how many signal responses in a particular range result in an audible and visible VDI response, and it's mixed mode audio ) allows me to eke out a few well masked targets and keep the hobby fun!

Small coins can be interesting. Chuck

Its been 40 years since I swung a detector. The last 3 months have been a blast. Met lots of nice people, hunted a couple of un-touched sites, and hauled a few nice coins out of the ground. Nothing terribly old. This area off northern Alberta was mostly settled in the 1930's. Some highlights include an 1899 English penny (an odd find for this area), 1922 nickel, 1935 cent, two 1943 tombac nickels, a few George V silvers, a 1954 dime (a bit of a key date), and a bunch of pre 1960 silver. The 1948 bronze chauffeur's badge was a nice artifact. Winter's here. Time to pack up the Nox 600, catalog some coins, and start gathering permissions for next Spring. There are a couple of circa 1910 sites that look promising... Cheers!

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.

All I had to do today was get a material list for a deck repair side job in a neighboring town. On the way there I hit a large park that I hadn’t been to in probably 4 or 5 years. This isn’t an old park and from previous research that I had done there weren’t any houses there before the park went in. I was just going there to get clad and maybe some jewelry. I ended up on a large field that is used for soccer. Things were slow and target signals few and far between, but near the middle of the field I got a deeper sounding high tone (I was in program 3 but with the reactivity at 1.5) coming in at 89-91. About 5-6” down I see a silver rim and out pops a 1951 rosie. Definitely a nice surprise! Then not 10 feet away I got a bouncy 70s signal and a few inches down was a nice little rose petal 925 earring. I left not long after that and headed to the deck job. On my way back I stopped in my little town and figured I’d hit some curbstrips. I got a few wheaties and was heading back to the car and hit a strip without a sidewalk. I got a wheat then got a nice 95-97 signal and out pops a 1939 GW. A few feet further I got a 1950 rosie. I then rounded the corner and hit a very narrow (about 16-18”) strip along the sidewalk and got a well worn 1944 merc. By then it was getting dark so I called it quits. I ended up with 4 silvers, the 925 earring, 9 wheaties, a 1952 Canadian cent and $5.97 in clad. My last silver coin was back on the last day of July so these four were very welcomed. I’m now at 31 for the year.

I made a post in the Deus II section of the forum yesterday about my continuing learning journey with the D2. But it was also about my first experience coin shooting. Here's the link if you're interested. Exploring the D2 Learning Curve, Part Deux I usually never notch because of fear of missing something good and I end up with piles of trash, a sore back, and sometimes a cool find. I've been hearing about a coin shooting progarm call the Silver Slayer by Rattlehead (also NWGA on Youtube) and many folks like @NCtoad, @Jeff McClendon, and others have been making great silver finds in worked out areas. All of the older parks in my area have been hammered since the 1970s so there is little to no silver coins left at this point. Since I had a few hours off last weekend I decided to try coin shooting in one of the old parks I have gone over and over for a few years. I have pulled a few interesting artifacts from this park including a police coat button from the 1890s, a very old brooch, a couple of wheat pennies, but no silver. So I loaded up the Silver Slayer, lowered the second notch to 79, hit the ground running not really expecting to find anything. Saturday I was surprised by some 1960s nickels and dimes (not silver though), 3 wheat pennies, and a 1945 Mercury dime! All I can say is wow, that worked great and I didn't dig half the trash I normally do. I went back on Sunday for a couple of hours to see If I could find any more old coins. The area I hit the day before didn't give up any good signals so I moved over to the nearby old tree line and started popping out signals again. There was a lot more trash in the trees with quite a bit on the surface, and in one spot the was a hord of over 20 toasted zinc pennies just under the surface. If I didn't know better (and I don't) I'd say those were probably dumped there by another detectorist. 😱 While I didn't find any more Wheat pennies or silver coins, I did end up with 11 copper Memorial pennies, a carwash token, a small old pewter heart pendant, a silver or silver plated beaded necklace, and a nice silver earring among the modern clad and trash. So thanks to @Rattlehead for making the Silver Slayer program available. It works really well and has opened my mind to learning more about how notching works and aids in unmasking. While I'll still use my opened up Fast and Relic programs for most hunting, the Silver Slayer is permanently installed for coin/jewelry shooting and to check for unmasking. 😎