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What a nasty day, warmest it ever got was 45 degrees, and it rained on and off most of the morning. Manticore and M15 today, haven't used this combo here so I was hoping for some low conductors. I invited Chase down, we've been hoping to get back to this field for almost 2 years now. Too bad we had to have a day like today where everything came together, but we've done worse. I got there about 9, did recon on other permissions before going there, and made sure to check with the landowner to see if it was ok to return, he seemed almost happy to have us. Chase got stuck in Thanksgiving traffic so he didn't get there until about 11, so I stayed in the newer areas of the farm to give him an equal chance, and it worked out well for me as you'll see. Junk wasn't too bad today, no iron but all the usual stuff. The large deer slugs were 93! 🙄 Got this lovely 85 in my travels, and dug yet another of the bane of detectorists, the small bronze washer. 🫤 Hate these things. Overall I did fairly good! 3 Tombacs, a couple silvered buttons, bits of buckle, odd shaped broken stuff, some horse tack, a 1944 wheat and a clad quarter. 10 buttons total. This is my 9th straight hunt with a silver find: A Standing Liberty silver quarter with no date, it's extremely worn, even has no reeding on the side. I'm sure we will have better days to go here, all in all it wasn't bad despite the weather. 🍀

I wasn't thinking of going detecting today, but last night I noticed a negative low tide at a local beach, we had yet another big moon here this week. The predicted wind didn't look too great, we have had a lot of it. November is pretty much the same as March here, but this year a little warmer. Got up early and hit the beach, an hour drive from my house. Today I had my Manticore with the M9, my titanium scoop and Tube Tubb, and Thresher headphones. It was kinda cold this morning but expected to get in the mid 60s, and there was next to no wind. I thought I'd be pretty good to go. I was wearing waders (1500 Thinsulate), and used a beach finds pouch to hold the shoulder straps together, they don't cross, and I needed a pouch for junk and the good stuff. I wore two quick dry shirts for insulation, but the water is still pretty warm, about 60 degrees. The wind came up later but the waves only got to be about a foot as the tide came in. I hunted for 6 hours today, grid searching from just over waist height to the dry. I've used auto GB tracking since I got the Manticore, but today I decided to turn it off and ground balance. GB was a 1, and I left it there. It worked out fine! I use Beach Surf and Seawater with Dankowski "4 from the top only" Ferrous limit, and Neil Jones Freestyle tone settings so everything on land and in water sounds the same on my machine. The only other thing I noticed later on today was that I had turned Horseshoe iron off! It ended up being a good mistake, I didn't dig anything that wasn't a clear tone both ways and walking around it. I still got a lot of junk, but nothing out of the ordinary: A few bits of iron, some steel, and everything else you'd expect. 🤔 The M9 tends to false more on iron and is the same with aluminum as any coil on land. There are still a lot of coins in the water, I tried to skip some of them but here really good stuff falls in those ranges so I ended up with 22 coins: Oldest is somewhere in the 1970s, except for the 23d coin which I'll show ya in a bit. I also found some junk jewelry, sadly the little charm with the diamonds is only plated bling, the little heart may be silver because it has the Masonic logo on it: And now for the surprise, when I got home one of my quarters had 1941 on it! 🥳 Silver Streak unbroken. Totally miserable looking coin, but with electrolysis and some baking soda it came out ok. But you know me, that wasn't all. My best find of the day was this, early on: Got me some Vitamin 14k, white gold, size 9.5, I had to straighten it out a bit on a ring mandrel. 🍀

Time and tide were right today, went to to my big local beach early to get time before and after low tide. It was cold this morning, about 35 degrees, but the water is still 50 degrees so I thought I'd be ok. I have Raynaud's in my hands and feet, and 48 is about the cutoff before they hurt like hell warmed up after they get cold and all the blood gets squeezed out. 😵 7 hours in the water today, went to "The Spot" again to see if I could get out further and look for rings. Today I had the Manticore, my 1600 Thinsulate waders, and all my water gear. I try to keep it simple and only go in a bit more than waist deep, about where the detector box just goes under. It warmed up into the 50s so it wasn't bad. No wind and very little chop. Trash was all the same old same old, except for the biggest triangle sinker I've ever seen, 12 ounces! 🙄 Bet that snapped the line right away. Here's the clad, got over 30 coins but I threw out 5 crusty Zincolns: Some of the nickels are really old and thin but I think all are Jeffersons. I've pulled a lot of V and buffalo nickels out of here, but not today. Got 3 junk rings, two attached and one standalone, just stainless crap. A nice whole brass bracelet, at least I think it's brass. It weighs 16g. But on to the silver! Got one thin silver twist ring that had broken: I dug two silver coins, a 1941 Washington quarter, and a 1944 Mercury dime: All this stuff was black, I'm glad I have an electrolysis kit now. The best find of all was this 15g silver Pandora heart bracelet, apparently a retired piece. I'm going to do more work on it to get it shined up! The silver streak continues. 🥳 🍀

I had a strong feeling I needed to get back to a farm I dug a 1687 Spanish cob last week, so I braved the cold and high wind to visit that farm again, and wasn't disappointed. It started out in the 30s with no wind, but after about a half hour the wind came up and blew all day, about 20mph with gusts to 30. 😵 Not my favorite conditions, and the corn stalks made swinging the M15 difficult. Later in the day I had to turn all metal off, the constant pounding of iron even at low volume got to me. I never trusted turning off the horseshoe with my Equinox, but with the Manticore it's just fine, in my fields and even in the river, if something sounds good at multiple angles it's good. I may revisit the old 'Nox someday just for fun. 🤔 I heard gunshots nearby, and after a while saw this huge Buck crossing the field, the photo is crappy due to zoom, but this fella managed to escape today. 😬 I was downwind so he never saw me, I got to watch him for a while. Junk is all the usual stuff, digging buckshot and bullets is routine: Even a copper and aluminum nail. I prefer the M15 because it doesn't false as much on iron. The M9 would probably be easier to use in corn, but the field was fairly well turbo tilled. Got another star shaped button, and two more Tombac half domes, I wonder what they are for, one is engraved with a pattern. They are an 08-10 on the Manticore. Got buckle bits, a thimble, and some other small stuff. The buckle is unusual, but very strong old bronze. Most likely for horse tack. I may have the other half of the extremely fancy spectacle buckle, I'll have to look. On the way out I scored a 1906 IHP and a 1909 wheat, there is a spot a Victorian era house stood, there are a lot of old coins there I'll have to search for in the future! After I turned All Metal off I got this really sweet and consistent 53, the same ID as a lot of the lead but better sounding. It made my day despite the conditions. A Pentagon shaped silver Spanish Half Real. No date but enough marks to identify! I'll estimate it as late 1600s to early 1700s. Well worth the trip. 🍀

found on the 6 November 2025 https://www.brusselstimes.com/1827875/frenchman-discovers-a-hoard-of-gold-while-digging-in-his-garden

Today I went to a local farm on a mission - to see what I've missed there, I've ransacked it with the Deus 2, and got lots of stuff including finding a gold coin the landowner lost many years ago. The field is gloriously flat post beans, and it rained recently so digging was very easy. It started out cold and the high winds brought in warmer temperature, but it was so windy I had to change headphones. Today I brought the Manticore with the M15, and ended up swapping out the ML105 headphones for my Killer B's. For a while I even had to put my hood over my head so I could hear. I spent a total of 6 hours there today, 3 in the front field and 3 at a spot we call the Tavern, the county road was moved and there was some sort of structure pre-mapping along the old road. The landowner even changed the way his old plantation house faced when they moved the road! Today I tried something, I "forced" ground balance to 10 points below what the detector selected, kinda like "supertuning" an old Tesoro. 🤔 Well it didn't make any difference with ground noise, and worked out pretty well. I did dig one piece of iron today: But the rest was the usual junk, thankfully there aren't a lot of buck balls there but there sure is a lot of can slaw, and that is one thing I think the Manticore lacks - the ability to recognize at least some aluminum. Almost all of it shows up as a nice clean dot. 🫤 The bolt I found was probably forged, it really gave a clean tone. We have found a few barrel taps at the Tavern site, and I got part of one today, an almost a foot down 97. I only got a few buttons so we did well in the past: 3 brass and one Tombac. The bottom piece is fancy stamped brass. Ok on to the silver streak! I have searched the property line many times, found old nickels and IHPs and buttons and the like, but it appears "supertuning" the Manticore made stuff "pop". The GB was about 50, I turned it down to 38. This stuff was all really deep, my first coin (age before beauty) just 1 hour in was this, about 10" deep: Sorry it's a little fuzzy but there are no details to speak of on this half of a half real... ... But then I flipped it over and noticed that it's a whole half real folded in half! 🤯 I thought it was kinda thick. I don't think I'll try to unfold it. The big prize came a bit later in pretty much the same spot, and again these were really deep, 8-12": Good Lord, two SLQs, about 20 feet apart. I don't usually find these. They're in fair shape but no dates. 🫤 I'm really impressed with the Manticore and the M15, this makes the 4th detecting trip in a row I've found silver. Here's a kind of sad thing, I found this in the field (no ID 😝): I imagine this was a dog's favorite toy. I left it there in case the dog comes back. 🍀

Today I went to a farm I haven't been to in a while, We have pounded this place with Deus 2 detectors, and found a lot of cool stuff dating from the late 1600s on. My favorite find there until today was a 1694 William and Mary twopence, I don't have it on my phone anymore. It's a huge farm, you have to park on one end of it and walk to the other. There is a small hotspot near where we park, and much larger spots on the other end. With corn stalks everywhere it's brutal to walk on, and tough to detect. They planted cover crop so it was a good idea to go there before it gets too high. Digging today was so easy it should be illegal 😅 Today was the first day of Daylight Savings Time here, so I got there early. Today I brought the Manticore with the M15, I wanted to see if it would find anything I hadn't with the Deus 2. Knowing I'd be there a long time I brought my backup battery: I was there a total of 8 hours, and walked over 5 miles. For the first 4 hours I found nothing but junk, lead, and shotgun shells. I really thought the day wasn't going to be all that great but the last 4 hours got really good. I'm happy to not dig any more iron with the Manticore: Same old same old. Here are the brass and other finds: Got two halves of and odd metal sphere, one is empty, the other filled with iron. 🤷‍♂️ A couple pieces of Saddle decoration, including what the Hoover Boys call a "Throckmorton" 😏 I think it is a badge identifying a male horse as a stud horse. 🤔 I also got a couple of cool buttons, or maybe they are saddle decorations as well: Really old stuff. At one point I got a solid 55, and I thought "oh, more aluminum". Well it wasn't, and I was thrilled: It's a 1694 William and Mary Half Cent with pretty good detail. I was just able to make out the date at the bottom. This is what it looks like cleaned up: But that's not all! I ended up beating that find with this: A 1687 Spanish cob. Sidelighting brings out the date on the reverse of the coin. And this is what this cob would look like if minted in Bolivia. It's very difficult to read that side of the coin. Two coins over 330 years old! What a day. 🍀

Last week I hunted this farm with Chase, and he asked me if the landowner owned the field all the way to an old abandoned service station. He had gone into it while I was in another place, and found some pretty good stuff. That field had an old Victorian era house on it, it is long gone. The last time I hunted there I used my Equinox 600, and found a lot of stuff. Maybe someone cherry picked the silver, but they sure left everything else. 😏 Last weekend this field was very easy to dig, but that sure changed. A week of wind and dry weather, along with the fact that the farmers planted barley using a planting machine really turned this field into concrete. I thought I'd bring my new Root Slayer shovel, I bought it last spring but too late to use. I was thinking the ground would be like last weekend, and instead of digging an 11" plug, I'd be able to dig a 13" plug. I was wrong. 😵 The Root Slayer is a really nice shovel, but it's very heavy, and is almost useless on hard pan Blue Marl ground. The point may be great for roots, but in my farms there are no roots or rocks. It's topsoil, marl, clay, and then beach sand. The marl comes to the surface a lot, and when it hardens it's brutal. Well I soldiered on, used the shovel all day, wishing I had brought my Predator Ranger. 🙄 I walked a total of 5 miles, digging mostly lead buckshot, bullets, musket balls, and shotgun shells, it took almost 2 hours to locate my first find, a 1913 wheat penny. At least the coin is over 100 years old. 🥳 Here's all the trash, if you're not digging this stuff, you're not going to find what I found. I used the Manticore with the M15 again, I'm able to skip iron almost completely with my settings, and definitely find lots of deep low conductors, I'm finding it very reliable and accurate: I finally found a small hotspot and dug 18 buttons, from a large octagonal to 12 very small ones. There are two tiny ball buttons, one General Service cuff button, and even an old 4 hole. Two of the smaller buttons are heavily silvered, at first I thought each was a small silver coin. The big chunk of copper on the left with what appears to be a hexagonal stamp in it on both sides was a 97, really shocked me. It may have lettering or symbols but it's obliterated. I'm thinking some sort of assay weight. It's very heavy. I got a box plate, and pieces of a very old shoe buckle. Next all the coins: A 1934 Buffalo Nickel, the 1913 wheat, and a 1916 wheat. The bottom coin is aluminum with a large number 3 on it. I wasn't thinking jewelry at all, but I even found that! 😅 Got a brass ring, and a small piece of silver jewelry with stones in it. I hoped to find the rest of it but didn't. The ring was my last find on the way back to my truck. 🍀 I really hope this winter isn't too cold.

Post #2 from my big camping trip, a most disappointing 6 days of hunting, but hopefully no one thinks detecting is easy. Each day I searched about 15 miles of East Coast Central Beach, walked an average of 5 miles each day. The reason I titled this post like I did was that Eagles tune was in my head all week. 🤪 Some background: About 3 weeks ago a massive hurricane (Erin) was off shore, they tell me there were 12 foot plus waves, and the surf washed over the dunes protecting the Barrier Islands in many places. In some cases the beach was reduced at high tide to nothing, even the beach crews and lifeguards had trouble getting around. Then when I went there a tropical system sent 70mph winds, torrential rains, and again huge waves. The wind didn't subside until I left. I drove through it with my RV, but the "Camping Gods" were with us, on the trip the storm parted and we drove in high winds and heavy rain for only about 15 minutes or so. 🙏 I got out there about 7AM each day, and hunted until noon. The first day there was a surf competition that was postponed because of the second storm, the "Hurricane that Couldn't" as I called it. This time I just used the Manticore with M15 and M9, and the Deus 2 with V2 and the 13". The beach from one end to the other was wiped out, literally. I searched high and low, in some places there was no towel line. I hunted the wet and the surf when it was safe to do so, the tides were extreme high and extreme low, lots of rip and longshore current. Most of the time there were red flags up, the first couple of days there were two. It wasn't like the last time I was there about 2 months ago for sure. I got lots of stuff then and even an old Spanish coin. This time I could walk hundreds of feet and heard absolutely nothing. I guess skill and advice from my friends was the only thing that saved me: Here is a typical days' junk, I gave away lots of sinkers and a couple of Hot Wheel cars, and people were very nice at least. Here are the "keeper" finds, about the most valuable is the Yeti Molle Bottle opener at $10. Got only one ring, a kids' Mood Ring. To its credit it works. 🙄 The Hot Wheel car is an older one from 1993, I found it deep in the surf. I got a steel Canadian dime and the most worn out nickel I've ever found. In 6 days all I got were 66 coins. 🤬: A buddy I hunted with in Florida said he goes in the wet and surf with the sensitivity jacked up and most filters off on the D2, and listens for "whispers". I did that a lot, and got my best find of the trip: A silver ankle bracelet with some CZs in it. This was my last camping trip of the year. At least I got a shot at the "older" beach, as much of the replenishment sand was washed away. There just wasn't much to find. No Guarantees... 🍀

Just got back from a 13 day camping trip, I'll break it into 2 posts because one place was "as usual", and the next was probably one of the worst beach trips I've been on despite beautiful weather. 🙄 I had a great time, but really didn't find much the second place we went. The first 4 days we went to a local campground, a huge place we have gone to for years, we thought it would be fun but summer is over and there were few people there. There wasn't much going on at all. That's my 40' Toy Hauler. 🙂 It's a palace on wheels. We got a great space there, and I spent quite a bit of time detecting. The campground has 3 tot lots, volleyball court, lots of Cornhole courts, a lake with a beach, and a huge entertainment field. I've been detecting there for the last 4 years, and I believe I have found over 1,000 coins there, in the beginning I got wheats and a couple Indian Heads, even a silver coin or two. I generally average about 200 coins per trip. I brought the Deus 2 with 13" coil on V2, another Deus 2 with V3 and the HF2 coil, and my Manticore with the M15 and the M9. It never ceases to astound me just how many coins and other things I find at this place, there are about 1,000 campsites and a huge water park as well. When people ask me what I find when I'm detecting, I usually answer "money, toys, jewelry, and junk". A typical day's junk looks like this: I usually dig iron there if it's close to the surface, I'm grateful to have permission to detect, and remove all the trash from the tot lots in particular. I've probably saved a few people from getting Tetanus. 🤔 I find lots of toys on the beach and in the tot lots: Missing is a monster truck I dug a foot down on the beach. The little opossum appears to be cleverly 3D printed, the head, legs and tail all move. I got near my average in coins: 189 of them, oldest was a 1960 penny, and sadly a 1965 quarter. 🙄 I even dug a pair of binoculars buried deep in the beach! Here's the "jewelry", all cheap bling, too bad the huge diamond is a CZ: And now the best find: While searching a "Gaga Ball" pit, I got my best find of the trip on the first evening: An extremely thin and small 14k chain with a 14k elephant charm attached, I found it with the Manticore and M9. It was an 04. Later I tried to find the chain alone with the Manticore and the D2 with V2, but neither could "see" it no matter what I did. Gold modes, high sensitivity, nothing. 😵 The D2 with V3 at 89kHz can "see" it, but only about an inch or two above it bunched up. At 53kHz, it sounds as iron with "00". What a great testing tool! If the charm wasn't on the chain I would not have found it. I'll do another post on the following beach trip. Would I say any detector performed better than another? No. All 3 worked well. The HF2 is going to take more getting used to. 🍀

It's been a while, we've been moving my wife's 99 year old dad to assisted living, but he's still free to walk around which he does. Got him out of the city and brought him to what is literally a hotel with medical staff here in Rural America. There are restaurants nearby, and a shopping plaza. 👍 Spent a week at the beach, just got back. Got a nail in one of my RV tires, that was fun. 😵 Forgot my classifier tray for cleaning coins, so I bought this high tech device after searching all the stores for one, usually I find one on the beach but this one is fancier 😏 Day 1 the beach was pretty flat, and Hurricane Erin was off to the southeast. I hunted for about 5 hours and ended up in the hospital with severe cramps from dehydration, but it was a great day. I took a break on Wednesday and went shopping with my wife and hydrated the heck out of myself with sports drinks. About Saturday a nice cut developed, a lot of sand got pulled out by the wind and turbulent sea. That's when things got interesting, as you'll see. On great advice from some of my veteran beach hunter friends, I did well at this point, even got a $40 stainless onyx ring with rhinestones: Huge honker. It was a 20 on the Manticore. Here's a typical day's trash: I used my D2 with the 11x13 coil, and the Manticore mostly with the M15 and then the M9 on the last day. I ended up with 198 coins, $22.15 altogether. Oldest coin is a 1958 D wheat. Got lots o' bling and a couple hot wheels: But the best find of the trip was a 10k white gold ring with 27 real diamonds: 9 on each side, and 9 in the middle. My wife is thrilled. It was a 42 on the D2 with V2. The gold continues. 😎

Just got back from a beach camping trip, probably the hottest week I've ever been camping, but it was my wife's birthday "week", so we went. Daytime temps were in the high 90s every day, only one day was there not an offshore wind, and never more than a few miles an hour. 🥵 I usually couldn't take it for much more than 5 hours at a time, starting at 6 am and quitting at 11 when the beach filled up. I got out detecting for 5 days of the 6 I was there, a few people said I was the only detectorist they saw, but near the end of my trip I saw a few. Atlantic Ghost Crabs were everywhere, actually nicked this one with my coil. A lot of Lions' Mane jellyfish started washing up, so I didn't go fully in the water. I saw one with what looked exactly like a Spanish cross on it, which ironically was a portent of things to come 🤔 This is a typical day's trash, just the usual junk. I switched between the Manticore with the 9 and 15 and the Deus 2 with the 13 all week, both great detectors, however the Deus on V2 is much better at junk rejection. I've been using the Mcore a lot now, but still think the D2 my "go 2". 😅 Here's the stuff: Hot Wheels, a working dog training collar that vibrates when a dog barks, a JBL earbud, junk bracelets and earrings, some rings and 94 coins. Missing from this photo are 2 ERTL John Deere tractor toys: And two rings, one a Pandora gold plated silver ring: And a chrome plated dolphin ring that I gave to the grandkids when they visited, they were camping at another campground not too far away. My wife took the silver moonstone ring: And the really big gold one is a plated stainless earlobe expander ring 😬 Whatever. Now for the F350 grand finale, I got a 67 on the Deus in the dry and I thought, "oh, a really nice pull tab! Nope. This little beauty is a 1662-64 (date didn't get stamped) King Philip IV 2 Maravedis copper. I cannot believe it lasted 360+ years, probably was dredged up onto the beach during a replenishment. Perhaps the dry saved it, who knows? https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces112777.html This is a better example from Numista: It has a rarity index of 95. To me, this coin is more interesting than anything, and believe me I searched that area two more times, thought maybe a tiny escudo got missed 😅 Fun trip, but way too hot, we didn't get to do a lot of stuff, but my wife had a great birthday week. 🍀

Got a chance to hit a local beach today before low tide, I'm still recovering from surgery, but I can go in the water about waist deep. It started out at 73 degrees at 6am with no wind, but got brutal really fast, when I came home it was 97. Today I brought the Manticore with the M9 coil, and the Deus 2 with the HF2 coil and V3.04. I started out with the Manticore, knocked out about 2 hours in the water, and got some great stuff. I used the Deus with the new coil and antenna and the latest update for an hour. I wish I had the fortitude to go over where I used the Deus with the Mcore, I got nothing. I did hear some targets but very few, even with sensitivity at 95. Almost all of them sounded like junk. The last 2 hours I went back to the Manticore, and it did well again. That's all the trash I got in 5 hours, lots of .22 short which is abundant on this beach, it was probably from a sand dig used as a range. I think I'm getting the hang of the Manticore on bottle caps, I never dig them with the D2. This was a water hunt, I never searched the dry, but this is most of what I got with the Manticore. Typical change, a cool little brass dangle thing with a stone, and a 1970s DC Metro/Metrobus token. But yeah, you're right - there's more. 😎 Got 2 rings, one a very well made sizable ring with a purple stone that I think is quite old: And an 18k gold plated silver ring: But the most interesting thing was the coin, it's a Swiss 1/2 Franc coin from 1943. .835 silver. 🥳 Here's what it looks like: They minted 4 million of these so it's not particularly rare, but this beach always surprises me somehow. 😅 🍀

Tried a water hunt yesterday, I didn't get a photo of the place I went because I locked all my stuff in the truck. It's a small beach, less than 100 yards. I brought the Manticore with the M9, should have brought my Thresher headphones but instead I had the ML105s, so I couldn't immerse the box. I'm under restriction for immersion above the waist anyway, so I just get what I get. I was only there 3 hours, it was low tide so I could get out pretty far, at one point I got a great signal and dug a coin that at first I thought was old silver but it ended up a disappointment. First, I got a lot of trash out of there, still need to learn the Manticore better: The bottle caps I'm good at, all were sight picks but for one which I knew was a cap but dug it to get it out. Lots of sinkers, if there was a ring I should have got it. Finds were few, .28 and a fishing lure, the penny on the right was totally gray when I dug it, so I thought it might be silver 🤬: The lure turned out to be interesting and very old. It has an old US patent number on it, it's from a company in Maine that still makes them, Al's Lures. Patent numbers are in the millions now, so one this low is a cool find. It was very deep under the sand, took a long time to dig. I looked it up and got this: I can't find any pictures of the specific lure I dug, so it is a more rare variant I guess. 🤷‍♂️ This one had two treble hooks. I'm just glad to be healthy enough to water hunt. It's the pinnacle of detecting. Difficult, tedious, but rewarding. Also got a new permission after visiting an eye doctor, he's going to contact me in the fall to detect his 200 acres that had some old buildings on it. 🥳 🍀

Hi. I found this Russian 3 ruble 1843 platinum coin about 4 weeks ago in Finland. I've been to the same place many times before. Now I'm hooked on a Deus1 and 9"hf reel. As far as I understand, it's a rare coin😀

I managed to get out to a small local beach today with the HF2 coil. I didn't use the antenna, I've read and heard it can be dunked a little deeper than the black coils, but it's only a few more inches. It was hot, stagnant and about an hour after low tide. Like the black coils, the HF2 might be ok for using in 4-6 inch water but only marginally better. Use the antenna. The first thing I noticed was a lot of high signals when I got it in the water, so I turned Salt Sensitivity down to 2 from 7. This is brackish water anyway, but with the black coils I can run it a bit higher, like 5. I was using Beach Sensitive, I don't have a Beach General program that I've ever used so I only had 29, 53, and 89kHz max. In the water the detector was a bit noisy, but turning sensitivity and audio response down quieted it immediately. I get spurious chirps here, but no EMI. On the beach it was so quiet I had to check it now and again, with Sensitivity turned back up to 95, and Audio Response at 7. If its there I want to hear it. Depth was great, I hit piece of crab pot wire at about 10". Here's the trash, not much to find here but sometimes it's awesome. I have to say this version (3.03) really needs work for the beach. At 53 and 89kHz, coins were 99, and so were buried aluminum cans, and I didn't get the brassy tone with the aluminum that I've always relied on to skip it. 🫤 Only at 29kHz did the coins get sorted, but it was nothing I'm used to, the dime was a 91, the nickel a 74, and the pennies 88. 🙄 The Jeep keyfob was a 93. I was able to stick this coil in places I couldn't go with the 9" round, so that great, it's light weight is terrific, and it's separation is phenomenal, even at 2 reactivity. In the parking lot it was much better than any of my other coils, and pulled a penny out of a bunch of trash. I know I'm really going to like this coil like I did the Coiltek 10x5, so I can't wait until they finalize the software. That's my 17¢ for today! 🍀

Sorry for the flurry of posts, but I keep finding interesting stuff, and I'm getting close to what might be a month long hiatus from detecting 😅 Got out today to finish up the grid search, again using the Manticore and the M15. I think the secret to my success is that I'm using high sensitivity and recovery speed at 6. I didn't have much left of the front field to do, I still need to grid the back one. Along the way I had a 4 foot visitor: Beautiful Black Snake, we let them live here. Black Snakes = no mice. This one let me get pretty close, but kept on its way to the woods. Last night there was a 5 foot one on my front porch! In 6 hours of hunting I dug a lot of really small trash, this stuff doesn't even amount to a handful. My friend thinks the pull tab is Viking explorer age. 🤣 A few pieces of iron got me today, it rained again last night and everything was wet. Mostly Buck balls, aluminum shards and tacks of all sizes. I've found hundreds of them in this field, there was probably a saddlery here and a lot of horse activity. They decorated saddles with them, not furniture. I did good today, mostly tombacs: Pieces of a large one, possibly from 2 different buttons, a nice concave one, two with shanks, and 2 more broken. 3 brass buttons, a fancy buckle bit and a couple pieces of pewter. The bottom thing escapes me but I saw one on here recently. 🤔 And what F350 post would be without a happy ending 😅 I got a 61, the highest signal I got all day, and it changed to a 72 when it was out. Yep, you guessed it, a cut Spanish Cob. A "Cobstareen" 🤣 It doesn't have a lot of detail but I think cobs stopped about 1750 in favor of milled coins. So yet another piece of Spanish silver in my display boxes! 🥳 🍀

Last hunt for a while! 🥲 Today I decided to finish up the grid search of about a 4 acre lot in the farm out front that has been sold, the new owner gave me permission to save as much history from there as I could. The last acre or so is the first place I dug Spanish silver around 5 years ago, I've gridded the heck out of it since but I guess there's always something else not only after farming, but as experience increases and different detectors are used. I've done well this time around, more buttons, coins, and even more Spanish silver. I got out early this morning and spent 7 hours out there, moving my markers and searching. I've most heavily searched this part of the field so I didn't expect much, but was happy with what I got. I think there was a saddlery here, I've found hundreds of saddle tacks, and today was no exception. Here's the trash for today: I've mentioned before that V3.03 on the Deus 2 has a bit of an iron falsing issue, I almost never get this much. Some of the pieces were a solid 82 so of course I dug them, but some I verified with my beach program and was able to skip them. Otherwise the new version runs very quietly. I was able to turn sensitivity up to 98 today! The higher sensitivity seemed to pick up on smaller objects as you'll see. Overall the new version is better, I'm glad they didn't change it so the 00-00 notch in relic doesn't work, that helps a lot with the silence. Iron lower than that or higher still sounds off, otherwise it becomes staccato or cuts out completely. Very helpful! I still don't recommend changing to it as yet, and I see other complaints. One YouTuber even verified my assertion that they need to do something about iron falsing, it just seems to be more prevalent than with V2. Aluminum could be better as well. Here are the finds: Got some interesting stuff today, but no silver. One big button that looks like a sombrero, a concave drilled shank tombac, and one of the tiniest buttons with a complete shank I've ever found. I can only wonder what that was used for. 🤔 Got more buckle bits, a round thing, a modern nickel, a square lead block with a circle "H", some kind of fancy miniature rein guide, and possibly a piece of a pewter spoon. Saved the best for last as usual: A completely unidentifiable but solid copper coin that is slightly larger than a nickel, it was a 96 with iron all around it, something told me to dig it (probably the 96 😁) and I'm glad I did, I just wish there was some detail. It could be a half cent or farthing. I did find an 1805 half cent in this field about 4 years ago, one of the first old US coins I found. The tiny square is an apothecary weight, it weighs .8 grams. I've found a few of these. Well that's it. 🤗 I probably won't be posting for a while. 🍀

Got out for a few hours yesterday afternoon, I went to the field out front to finish up a grid search. I used the Manticore with the 15" coil, not only does it find deep low conductors, it's incredibly good with small items. It rained 2.5" the day before yesterday, so targets and the ground were hot. For some reason it took me a while to get the Manticore to settle down, the D2 runs quiet here. 🤔 Oh well. I was running ATG with Neil Jones' Freestyle, 29 sensitivity. I tried lowering sensitivity to 23, but lost deeper stuff. I must have gridded this part of this field fairly well long ago, got way more trash than finds, but only one small piece of iron fooled the detector. At one point I got a squeaky 90s signal, and dug a huge hole about 1.5 feet down to get a 1917 wheat! Got a large round object with a hole in it that I think is just a saddle tack, a piece of extremely old buckle, a poorly made brass/tombac, the wheat, and the smallest decorated silver cufflink or button I've ever found. It was a 45 that wouldn't go away. 😅 A tiny bit broken but beautiful! It still has the shank. Here it is next to the wheat: I still have a bit of this field to grid before it gets planted with new grass and may be off limits. 🍀

I'm up for some surgery soon, so I'm getting as much "trigger time" as I can on both the Manticore and the Deus 2 with the new version V3.03. Shame I probably won't have the HF2 coil in my hands before I'm on restriction. 🙄 Went back to the beach at which I was with Chase on Sunday to see what folks left behind on the Memorial Day weekend. First up was the Manticore, today I used the fabulous M9 coil. Last Sunday I used the M8, and expressed my dissatisfaction with it, the coil felt like a brick in the water, falsed on lots of iron, and it was difficult to locate targets. 🫤 Today was wholly different, I nailed every target I came across. I hunted with it knee deep in the water for 5 hours, before low tide and until the wind came up and raised the waves to 1-2'. I would have gone longer if I used my waders today but I wanted to do some dry hunting too so I just wore sandals and shorts. There was another detectorist hunting the dry, so we stayed out of each other's way. I did a little better than he did. Lots of low conductor trash today, even some of the pull tabs were 10-20! 🤯 I've got a gold ring in the past that was an 11, so I run it wide open with no discrimination or notch, just Dankowski settings. Even the bottle caps were off. 🙄 Some were in the 20s. Still, I did well, it was really easy to swing the coil in the water, and man did I have to dig deep for some of this stuff. 3 rings, a tungsten carbide with "Adrienne ❤️ Felipe" on it, a Jostens "Lustrium" high school football ring (Lustrium is chromium and nickel, essentially worthless), and a "Bomb Party Luxe" ring that may be rose gold plated silver according to the BP literature, but has cheap stones. Of interest and to my surprise I dug a 1959 1 Deutsche Mark coin, and a 1950 D 10 Pfennig coin nearby. Got a small piece of bling broken off a ring probably, and 3 small religious beads. The rest is modern coinage. I got the BP ring in the dry, apparently it's a thing where people host parties and sell this stuff. 🤷‍♂️ It's not bad looking but a lot of the plating is worn off exposing the metal underneath, it looks like silver but there's no hallmark for it. It's also too big. Other than a Zincoln or two that's all I got there. I used the D2 with V3.03 but was kinda disappointed by how much it falsed on iron, I only used it for an hour so that's not long enough to evaluate beach performance. It did fairly well in the field, but not so well on the beach. I may have to come up with some new tricks or get used to a new paradigm. 🤔 Good day though, a ring is a ring! 🍀

There was some rain blowing around this morning, enough to keep me from mowing the lawn. I updated my spare Deus 2 with version 3.03 (still Beta) last night, so I got all my stuff together and went outside. I set up a grid search using two fiberglass poles with ribbons, the landowner told me recently he's going to disc it and plant grass, so I'm on a mission to get as much history out of there as possible. I might ask him if I can detect it once more before he puts down the seed, this spot he bought, about 7 acres, is full of relics dating back to the late 1600s. It's the first field outside my house I detected. It's literally right out front! I searched for 6 hours today, back and forth slowly, while they say V3.03 was just some stuff for the Xtrem Hunter, I'm pretty sure they fixed other stuff as well, because they said "bug fixes". 😏 I'm amazed at the new programming, it takes the D2 to a higher level of precision. It's quiet until it is over something when properly ground balanced, even up to sensitivity 95. This update also did not erase my saved programs! 🥳 I imagine though that if they make changes to finalize it, they probably will erase them. Here's the trash for today, this field is also loaded with buck balls and can slaw, and I'll have to get used to forged iron all over again: There were some pieces of iron that were "iffy", but gave enough good signal on analysis that I dug them. I'll show you why in a bit, I'm glad I did. Got a small bunch of buttons, brass and tombac, a thimble tip, and a small spectacle half. The thing in the center was a 71 solid, and appears to be either a coin or button encased in some iron. I'll have to try to chip some of the iron away to find out. I also got a very small piece of silver, apparently from a silver thimble, I hope I can find the rest of it: But of course I'm not done yet, 😅 I got an iron signal interspersed with 80s and 90s, thought it was just falsing big iron, and dug this: An 1827 large cent, a Coronet Head. I was happy to get as much date as I did! The loop in the "2" is what identified it for me. There was some iron close to the cent, so I'm not surprised I missed it when I was less experienced. I'm pretty sure this new programming helped as well, so I'll be going over more of this field this fall. I like my other detectors, but the Deus 2 is getting very refined, and I can't wait for the HF2 coil! It should be here soon. 🙏 🍀

I promised another forum here that I was going to go out and test a new Beta version of the Deus 2 software, so I loaded up the D2 with the 13", my scoop and other gear and went to the beach. I got there early, and pretty much knew it would be a dry sand hunt today, the tide was near high. In total I hunted 3 beaches today, it's all technically one beach but it's in 3 sections, and I have to move and park at each. Parking is $3 an hour now. I got a typical day's worth of stuff there, here's the trash: A bit more than usual but I won't bore you with the details of testing new detector programming. 🤔 These are my finds, missing a Barbie and a Hot Wheels truck I gave away: It's definitely Hot Wheel season! 🤣 $1.93 in change, 24 coins, one might be an IHP but it's too worn. Tiny smiley face charm. 🙂 So why the hell did I name this post the way I did? I was finishing up the second beach, digging all the usual suspects, and got this very strong tone and an ID of 82 that just wouldn't change, like some of the coins I found. I thought "Oh, another Zincoln" 🙄 This is why you should dig Zincolns: A 10k Texas A&M University ring. It's for a person in the Military, apparently a Cadet. This ring is just plain enormous, it fits me perfectly but it is very heavy and solid. Solid 10k, no stone. A ring like this would cost you over 2,000 dollars right now. It has Hallmarks, and an engraved name. I couldn't believe my eyes when I put it on my scale: Almost 33 grams, 5g more than an ounce! Its melt value alone is over $1500 right now. Be all this as it may, it's going to be returned to the owner, @ColonelDan is helping me locate the soldier. Here is a cool website about these rings: https://www.aggienetwork.com/traditionsthroughtime/strengthaggiering/ This is now the biggest gold ring I have ever found, it was 6-8" down in the dry sand. I can't imagine how the person who lost it must have felt. I think I'll change my middle name to "Lucky". 🍀

Finally got a chance to meet up with Chase at a local beach, I was going to water hunt hoping for more rings, brought the Manticore with the M8. I wore waders to get out further in the water, low tide was soon after we got there. It was 46 degrees when I got there, but 46 in the spring is not the same as 46 in the winter. 🤔 The water temperature is 68 now so it's just comfortable enough to go in and lose some jewelry! Chase did a little better than me, the river was sanded back in from a replenishment, most of my old spot was heavily sanded over the rocks and pebbles. 🥲 Guess it's fresh drops for the summer. Using the M8 coil was no treat, personally I really don't like it. It's too small and does not have the same water dynamic as the fabulous M9, it falses more easily on iron, and feels like I'm pushing a brick around in the water. As I recall I didn't like it very much at a trashy iron site either. I find the M15 much easier to work with! With sensitivity at 29, I was able to find very deep stuff, but always had difficulty locating it despite bringing my bigger and heavier Stainless scoop. 😵 Pinpointing is great on the M9 and M15, but the M8 seemed to have issues, probably because it was harder to find with the scoop in the murky water. Here's the trash, I don't take too many prisoners in the water, and threw out about 4 bottle caps: And now the finds: 15 coins, $1.83, a possibly silver earring with stones in it, a small butterfly pendant, and a Samsung Galaxy S24 cell phone. 🤯 Waterlogged unfortunately, it will take some time to dry out. No rings were found by me, but it was a good time other than all the people that showed up during the day, and the people with Jet Skis that created a constant wave action. 🤬 🍀

Headed out to a local beach to get some more time in on the Manticore, especially using Dankowski settings with both 5 Region All Tones and One Tone. Next week I'll be at yet another beach, all my relic permissions are planted. 🥲 It was a little cold in the morning (45) but it warmed up to the mid 70s quickly. The water is 53 degrees. Today I had the Manticore and the M9 coil. Got there early, the place was deserted, but it cost me $12 to park for four hours. 😵 That starts 1 April. I brought the Tube Tubb with me, I didn't feel like wearing waders, so I just went in knee deep at low tide. I hate having to get out of the water all the time. I speared a bunch of coins and ended up switching to full tones after a while and noticed no real difference in depth. I wanted to hear the variations in tones with all the stuff that is in this area. I can run Beach Surf and Seawater at 29 sensitivity here anyway. Here's the coin and other stuff haul, 35 of them, lots of nickels! All water coins so quite a few are mangled: Got a dog tag and a gold plated plate that says "Sexy". 😏 Nothing is particularly old, I wiped out all the old silver last fall, and this winter before I got the Manticore. After I got it I've found gold in a few places! 🤯 it hits the really low conductors. 🤔 Not a bad pile of trash: All the usual suspects and nasty stuff. But y'all know me, that isn't all: Got 2 14k gold rings, one a baby ring (wife identified) with a sapphire, the other a plain wedding band with an inscription and a wedding date in 1973. I'm pretty sure the plain band was there for a really long time. It was a 10 on the Manticore, and the baby ring was a 17. The stainless spinner ring on the right was a 10 as well. It's really nice but way too small for my wife. She says it's size 2. It looks broken but it isn't. Ended up with almost 5 grams of gold anyway! I hunted the beach after the tide came in, but not much. 🍀

I wasn't planning on doing any detecting this weekend, but for the last couple of days the field behind my house was cleared for construction, so after everyone left (I have permission), I grabbed my Manticore with the M15 and went back there to see if there was anything in the cleared area. It's pretty small but it took 3 hours to hunt it. I've found some extremely old stuff back here, it's right behind my house. Got a minimum of trash, just some lead and a tack: And I scored a few finds: A Type 2 collar badge circa 1919-1937, an IHP and a wheat with no dates, what looks like a watch key, and a "Paris" buckle. Probably post WW1, it was buried about a foot down. The collar badge is really nice and was a surprise. US Army 1st Regiment, the Big Red One. I was part of that when I was in the Army. I'll go back, there is probably more there, but I imagine the topmost items were pushed into the ravine. 🍀