Search the Community

Just got back from a week at Emerald Isle, it was really hot and humid but I managed to get out twice almost every day. I've done much better with the amount of coins and other stuff I've dug there, but not as good as this time with rings. I went out early and again in the early evening most days, it's my wife's annual "birthday week", so I hoped I'd find her something nice. I cover about a mile or two of beach, both the dry and the wet, and one day I attempted a water hunt at low tide in these troughs that appear, they're about 3-4 feet deep and have a current. There were signals but everything turned out to be sinkers that I gave to the fishermen. My first find was a pretty big one, a Diamond stud earring that pegged my diamond tester: It looks to be about 3/4 carat but because the setting is 925 it might be a Moissanite. I'll probably take it to the jeweler for appraisal. Overall I've found way more here, here's a few pics from last year: Got my wife a nice pair of silver earrings. This year, well, meh. Not as many coins and only one Matchbox car 😏 I wonder if things have changed a bit. 🤔 The campground is way more expensive for sure. One day I decided to go to another beach entirely, and did rather well. Here's the jewelry haul, 3 of the rings came from that beach, one a foot deep, and the big bling nameplate was 2' down: The nameplate is kinda bendy so it might be silver backed, it's really heavy but I'll have to test it. It cost me $4 an hour to go to that beach, but the return was worth it: First is a silver Pandora ring. Second is a wave ring, also 925. This one is a cheap ring but it has a nice stone and appears to be rhodium plated, but it has no hallmarks. My wife was pleased that the two silver rings out of 3 fit her, the third is too small. The only other ring barely worth mentioning was this one, it has what might be an opal but it's only silver plated, again no hallmarks. This place is so expensive now and hard to get my monster toy hauler into, so we probably won't go back there. At least I got her two nice finds and a possible diamond for her future use.

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.

We've had a spell of hot weather here on the East Coast, but if you get up early enough it's not bad, and you can get off the beach before it fills up. Hit my local (ha, an hour drive one way) beach yesterday hoping to do a water hunt, as yet the jellyfish have not appeared, or are very few. I got there at 7am and decided to hunt the dry first, there had to be a lot of activity because it's the day after the 4th of July weekend. The river was flat and I had a few hours to low tide. For the dry hunt I used the 13" coil. I can sort of get away with dunking it a little deeper than the 9" or 11", in about 5 inches of water I'll lose the signal. Did pretty good there, all the usual toys and coins. A guy came rushing out on the beach with his detector while I was out there, said something about how much it sucked that I was there, threw his stuff back in the car and went to another place 🤷‍♂️. Cool, all the more for me I guess. 🙄 At about 10 it started to get hot, but a breeze came up, so I got my other D2 with the 9" and antenna, and the new float sifter I wanted to test. I bought this one not even thinking that the mesh was stainless, my bad, as the coins and other stuff come up pretty much the same color as the rocks, so they are hard to see, and you can't pinpoint because stainless. 🤔😏 I'm going to either try and get some plastic mesh for it, or return it and get the fabulous Tube Tubb that costs about twice as much. 🤬 Here's the crap, keeping it real for y'all. I did find a big VW Microbus toy that I gave to a little kid, his parents were thrilled, and I got some space in my bag. I like doing that. It was a great karma day, a woman offered me a cold bottle of water while taking to her about detecting. Came away with enough to justify the $3 an hour parking I guess: A couple of toy cars, the Mercedes was over a foot deep in the wash and kept banging 95+. A few of the coins were deep too, I must not have a lot of minerals or salt in the water at the edge because they were 3 scoops or more to get to them and I had my big stainless scoop this trip. I don't see that shift in ID - ever, particularly with dimes and quarters. Jewelry was sparse but not bad, I scored a 4g silver band, and some unidentified metal ring that my wife likes. It's beat up but should polish nicely. Cool looking but no hallmarks. The earring was disappointing, turned out to be 14k over brass, it has a stone in it but it's probably CZ. It finally rained a bit, so I got a nice rainbow photo, an end to a pretty good day.

Keeping the summertime rolling, got out early this morning to my small beach. We had some rough storms yesterday so I hoped some stuff got stirred up. Normally I'd chicken out if there are waves, but some light training with 2' waves seemed ok to me because I'm going to a very big beach soon, and may water hunt. I saw a few small jellyfish today so the season is starting here soon. Detecting will be dry only because it's too hot to wear waders. I was wearing the 5mm neoprene socks in my water shoes again, the silt here is much finer, so I wanted to see if they would keep the fine stuff out and they did. 👍 I was only there for about 4 hours, people started showing up before I was done. I grid searched the water between the fingers in the photo, there are 4 similar sections. The water is a little more than waist deep at the end of the fingers. I was using the D2 with the 9" coil and the BH-01 bone phones, there isn't a lot of aluminum there so I didn't mind being forced to full tones. That way I could fully dunk the detector. Ended up with a small amount of trash: Typical beach junk, I try to get the bottle caps out and any sharp junk aluminum. Visitors don't know how good they have it! 😎 Got a few coins out there, at first I thought one of the quarters might be silver but it's a 1979. Oh well. Just at the wash I got a solid 50, and thought "please don't be aluminum!" It wasn't. A recently dropped silver chain (925) with a silver decorated Islamic sword, called a "Zulfiqar" sword. Not sure what the text says. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfiqar Another good water hunt! 🥳 I'm curious, going to air test each piece and see which dragged the other down. 50 is odd for silver, but the chain could have done that. 🤔

I went back to my big beach yesterday to see if I could turn up any more rings in the water. The tide was going out when I got there, so the water was pretty flat. It was a windy day but very dry. You might see that I was using the BH-01 headphones on the Deus 2. I only used them for a little while because they have a drawback - they only use square audio and don't allow High Square, which for me is a big issue because of the amount of aluminum I can ignore. I ended up switching to the WSA-II headphones, which then limited me to detecting with the remote at the top of the water. Thanks to all the people that recommended stuff to get to keep the sand and rocks out of my footwear, I didn't have much time before this hunt so I managed to get some 5mm neoprene dive socks that I could wear inside some old Columbia water shoes I have. The shoes will let sand in, but the socks didn't allow it to get to my feet. Not exactly the height of fashion, but I just looked like an old geezer with compression socks 🤣 I didn't care, and was able to stay in the water most of the day, until I found a washed out section of the beach that some old finds turned up. One thing I noticed yesterday was that for some reason targets were difficult to retrieve, especially when the waves started later. A few days ago here most of my targets came up within 4 scoops, this time it was taking 20 minutes just to get them sometimes , and sometimes it took so long I gave up. Perhaps you dedicated scoopers can shed some light on this? 🤔 Got a pretty decent haul and something new, and something unexpected, but that is typical for this place, it's always got something odd going on. Got the usual pile o' clad, ended up with 3 old coins too. A wheat penny, a 1945 Mercury dime, and a 1950D 50 Pfennig coin from Germany. The Merc was in pretty good shape but black from years under the sand, I have dug a few Mercury dimes here, some from sand replenishment, and others from the shoreline after storms. The 50P coin came out of the water. I also got two rings, an old beater with a big CZ or rhinestone, and a new one for me, a Black Zirconium ring with a Koa inlay, which was easy to find: https://www.happylaulea.com/products/black-zirconium-ring-with-hawaiian-koa-wood-offset-inlay-6mm-flat-shape-comfort-fitment?_pos=1&_sid=11af8d3d3&_ss=r Not gold or silver, but unique. Never seen one like that before. The metal bird is old but I have no idea what it would have come off of, and the ring with raised bumps is my whatzit for the day. The silver band with the moon and stars might be a bird band. Got next to no trash, when I started using the WSA-II phones I could skip a lot more crap, and yet again I noticed someone has been skipping pull tabs because I dug 7 nickels. A good portion of the clad and nickels came from the shoreline where a lot of erosion occurred. I didn't bring my "flip float", mistake I won't be making again. Here you get a huge pile of stones in every scoop, so you end up having to go to the beach to dump it, making it difficult to find the spot you were in that might have additional targets. Thanks to the socks I was able to stay out there for 7 hours, even though it was hot (91), the wind was off the water and it was very comfortable.

Results from a nice (but steamy) park hunt this evening are pictured below. I took a break from the Legend this time and ran the F75 with the stock coil at 65 sensitivity, 25 discrimination, 4H tones, and DE mode. For me, the F75 is a pleasure to swing -- easy to set up even after some time away, and pinpoints like a dream. Detecting time has suffered in the recent heat (I'm more comfortable at 40F than I am at 85+) and I also felt like changing things up a bit. Minimal trash at the location...although granted I discriminated out the low conductors and was ignoring signals in the 33-58 range. Other than the good stuff, I only dug a couple pull tabs and a bit of can slaw. The .925 ring came in at 83/84 and was 3-4" down. Quarters were coming in at 79-81, so I thought initially I had a half dollar or maybe a couple quarters stuck together. The gleam of silver, however, was a welcome surprise since I've been skunked on the silver front for nearly two months. $3.17 in clad, too, which means enough to order off the expensive side of the Taco Bell menu!

I thought it was going to be a nice day today, sunny and in the 60s with a bit of wind, but not what it ended up being. There was no wind at all when I got there, it was cloudy and kinda cold, in the 40s. My goal was to check out the last spot Chase and I didn't get to, about an 8 acre spot. I found nothing there. ? Nothing. But, in 7 hours and 7 miles of walking, I managed to get a few things, random stuff here and there: 7 more buttons, two of which may not be, the octagon and the misshapen one 3d from the left. A few buckle bits and a whole buckle. Only 4 came from the button hotspot. What really stands out is the smallest thing in the button row, I've found plenty of buttons with no shanks, but never a shank with no button! It was about 4" deep, a solid 51. The Deus hit it like it was on the surface. Also dug a 1945 wheat. I don't get much trash using relic with the 13", and today was no exception. By the end of they day the wind was blowing 20mph with gusts to 35, I really couldn't hear targets through the WSA II headphones, so I called it early.

This one is for the button fan, I dug a 1926 wheat in another field but that was it for the coins. Invited Chase up for one of the last hunts here, a new 100 acre permission that I didn't find much in before, we set out to scout the other half of it that I didn't get to. It's a huge field that had beans on it last year, usually I prefer to hunt in bean stalks but this one is tough, the stalks are too tall. We ran into a farmer friend who told us this is because when they are rushing to get the beans before a rain, they lift the combine collector and don't cut them short. The stalks become really stiff by spring and are very hard to walk on, they chip at your shoes and can go through your hand or foot if you're not careful. ? We set out heading to the other side of the field, Chase went ahead and hunted around the old barn, I think he got a couple of wheats there. I walked up the center of the field not expecting anything, I had crisscrossed this field before and found literally nothing. Got a 47 and dug this rolled copper "tinkler" that was traded with the Indians: https://www.nativetech.org/metal/tinkle/tinkle.html It would be a "point" or arrowhead if it had a point, these were hung on their clothing and they jingle. I immediately went into circle mode, making a spiral around the place I found the first object, and hit 3 buttons. By this time Chase was way across the field, so I noted where I found this stuff and joined him to scout the rest of the place. We found next to nothing, I got just a few buckle bits. We decided to go back to this "hotspot" and the buttons just kept coming, I think between us we found well over 20. Small cuff buttons, medium buttons, a couple large, both brass and Tombac. They were everywhere in about an acre or so. What I thought might be a pretty bad day turned out to be a great one, I got all this: 16 buttons and a bunch of other brass stuff. Chase did as well. When things wound down we quit for the day, but there are certainly more there. Here's the trash, only a handful but I got fooled by a few bits of big iron today: I was using Relic exclusively, with the 13" coil on the Deus 2, with reactivity at 1 and Audio response 7. Some of the buttons were over 10" deep! We found other artifacts that deep too. Sadly we found no coins in that spot. We think it was an area where people got together and traded stuff in the 1600s and 1700s, and possibly with the Indians as well. This is a great example of how you really have to search a farm to find the hotspots, it takes a lot of determination and some really good guesses. You just can't give up! There may be another hotspot here, there is a part of the field we didn't go to, but we'll get there. ?

Got a new permission yesterday, a nice older gentleman approached me while I was digging in a small field I call the Jewelry Box. After talking to him for an hour (really more listening), I asked if I could detect his farm and he said that would be fine. It's a big place, 100 acres but only about half that is field. The coolest thing is that there is an old blacksmith shop sort of on the property, but the landowner doesn't own it. There were also two older houses far back on the farm, now gone. There is a much newer one there now where the owner lives. I went there today to scout it and see if there are any hotspots. I managed to find about 3 things, but man that place is clean. It was probably detected in the past. I walked for 3 hours and other than a buckle, a clad dime and a small pin on watch, all I find there was buck shot and shotgun shell ends. ? I only searched half of it today, it was warm but the wind was blowing about 20mph with gusts to 35. It was absolutely brutal, walking on bean stalks and getting blown all over the place. I finally gave up and went back to the small field next door hoping to save the day. I had both the 9" and 13" coils with me, and ran Relic most of the day but switched to the new Tekkna program when the trash got dense. This also prompted me to switch to the 9" coil. While the 13" has pretty good separation, the 9" really sees so much less ground it can pick targets a bit better. Ended up with some pretty good stuff, the last 3 hours I searched my small field and scratched a few more good finds. Here's what I dug: Some sort of famous person spoon, a large brass buckle used to hold a strap on the pin, a General Service button. Got a 1937 wheat and the small gold plated watch near the shop, the brass buckle in the back of the field. The 1943 war nickel, the incredibly detailed buckle among other things came from the small field, it was a tough but decent day. Trash in the small field was horrendous: Got a little toy cap gun, sadly broken in half near the barn.

This will probably be the last post from me about Tekkna for the Deus 2, I might mention it in passing but I want to show y'all a typical day out using it. Brutal start today, when I got to this field I've named The Jewelry Box, one that Chase and I found a good amount of silver jewelry in it was 38 degrees, it never got warmer than 50 and the wind was strong. I've come back a couple of times, but today I really wanted to use Tekkna the whole day with both the 13" and the 9" coil, after seeing how well @NCtoad did with his 13". Sadly it didn't really work out as well as I hoped, this field is so loaded with non-ferrous junk and iron it became apparent that I had to switch to the 9" coil for about half of it. Tekkna really does a nice job of finding small stuff in iron, I can imagine if I had a spot with nothing but iron I'd be able to find a few more things there. But that's about where it ends, I can use my heavily modified Relic program too with the same end result, just varying Reactivity where necessary. I try to be very honest about the trash I end up with, here's a photo of everything I dug today that I will not be keeping: Only one piece of iron fooled every program on my machine, everything else is Non-Ferrous. Clock and Pocket watch parts, flatware, pocket knife bits, knobs, shotgun shells and bullets, along with foil and other annoying aluminum are everywhere in a portion of this field. I rue the day the Concertina was invented, I think we have found just about every reed now. ? Chase and I hit it really hard, almost all the silver stuff is gone, but I still managed to squeak a few more things out of it today: Got a brooch that is really shot through with bronze disease but it's one of the more unique things I've ever found: Even the back of it is interesting. There are multiple ages of activity in this small field, probably from the 1700s to the 1890s, and then from about the 1920s to the 60s, there are things representing both eras. It was probably cherry picked long ago because no large coins have been found here and there should be some. Regardless, the Tekkna program is great for a spot like this, but I still think the 9" coil is preferable to use with it. Bottom line is if there is a lot of non-ferrous junk, you are going to dig a lot of non-ferrous junk if there is the possibility of finding jewelry. That, it did quite well. I'll be keeping it on my machine, with the 9" coil handy. There was another bright spot, a gentleman almost in his 90s approached me in this field today, and after an hour or so of talking with him he gave me permission to his 100 acre farm next door ?

It's been rainy the last few days, yesterday was so windy it wasn't worth going out. Today was supposed to be warm, it got up to 65 but was 42 in the morning. I loaded up my WS6 Master with the 9" coil and my Deus 2 with the 13", and went to the field about a half mile away. I haven't been to this spot in a couple of years, an old house stood here, and I got lots of coins and other late 19th century stuff. I really didn't think I'd get much today, but I did. I walked around where the house was for a while, really behind it. I found a couple of things , and decided to head out to a small corner that I only searched for a short time but found some buttons and a couple of IHPs long ago. Little did I know the spot was a small hotspot, I kept finding coins and buttons in there until there was nothing left. The area was only about 50x50 feet, maybe less. There was evidence of cooking pits there and chunks of sandstone indicating a much older structure. Each pit had large iron in the bottom, I assume a kettle long rusted away, and lots of oyster shells. That is always a good sign. I dug 3 IHPs, the only one I could read was an 1888. The other two are toasted, one slick and the other very encrusted. When the spot dried up I went back to the house area. A big surprise was digging my first Flying Eagle cent! It wasn't until I cleaned everything up that I found I had a second one. They're pretty toasted but I can make out enough of the 8's to know they aren't all that rare, but that's about it. It was kind of a thrill to know I got two today. That wasn't all though. Here's the stuff I probably can't fit in a display box, Looks like I dug a broken and bent musket trigger guard: Got some sort of tap or plug, some recent dog tags from 2006, a lock slide, a parasol slide, and a D Buckle full of the iron pin. Here's the trash, looks like a lot but it fits in my hand: It's all just buckshot, bits of lead and aluminum. I think there's a mangled spoon bowl in there. Ok, now for the finds: I got a Buffalo and a V Nickel at the house site, no date on the Buffalo but the V is probably 1893. At first I thought it said 1882 but that would not be my luck. ? Got a skeleton key, a Yankee minié ball, a small brass salamander with enameled toes, and 3 buttons, a fantastic ball button, a small thick Gilt button with some gold left, and my favorite: It says "Colombia Libertad". I looked it up and while there are many celebrating the liberation of Colombia from Spain in 1810, I cannot find this one anywhere. The back has "Colour" on it, so I assume it was made in England or an English territory. I don't know where the nicks came from. ? It's definitely the 1810-1850 style that is single piece. I also dug this interesting lead coin, it has lettering on it. If anyone has any information about the Colombian button I would appreciate it!

I don't pay much attention to US wheat pennies except to let me know that similar date silver coins may be in the area. So this ugly looking, corroded wheat penny did not even raise my blood pressure until I got home and took a close look at it. I had forgotten about the 1909 S VDB "Unicorn" status as the number 1 wheat penny key date aside from the unobtainable 1943 Bronze pennies. It's got great detail and a nice patina but those corrosion bubbles........ Anyway, Manticore may have paid for itself with this find plus several other nice silver coin and gold jewelry finds. Very impressed with the Manticore (compared to the Equinox 900). Thanks Gerry's Detectors @Gerry In Idaho for making my day with a super fair trade for this Manticore a few months ago!!!

Got out today despite the threat of rain to see if I could tease any more jewelry out of the site where I found the big silver ring. The day started out nice and warm, about 55, so not bad. Ended up with rain late in the day, Today I used Tekkna and Relic, Tekkna where it was really trashy. I want to mention that while Tekkna is a great program, you only dig when you get a consistent signal, it's probably not the best when the place is loaded with aluminum and brass, and molten bits of metal. Since I was using it to find any more jewelry items, I ended up digging a horrific amount of junk: However, no iron at all. ? Finds were still pretty cool, and I kept my silver streak going. Ended up with an assortment of the really old and new, especially the 1906 IHP and the 1946 Roosevelt dime. Got some wheats, some interesting tags, and a couple of thimbles. I did get one piece of jewelry, this Sterling collar stud, this is the front: And this is the back.

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

Got this small permission last year, I've hunted it a few times and while I've found quite a few 1900s relics in it, I have only found one silver coin, I think it was a mangled and melted Mercury dime. There should be more, it's never been hunted. I've found lots of wheats and one or two IHPs, maybe a few nickels. It's an incredibly trashy spot where a house was a long time ago. Historic Aerials has recently put up some new sharp aerial photos of the area dating back to 1961, today I had a pretty good idea of exactly where the house stood and faced, and where the driveway was. It was a cold start, but ended up being a great detecting day. I randomly walked around, found a few wheats, and dug some other interesting stuff. I used the D2 with 9" coil and Tekkna, I wanted to try it yet again in a tough place. The afternoon picked up, all of a sudden I got a 91 and dug my first great coin. I stayed in that spot for a long time, it reminded me of my last hunt where I found a lot of stuff in a 5 foot circle. Tekkna has really opened up my difficult hunting places, I have many. The only downside is that I end up digging a lot of non ferrous junk too, but very little aluminum and nearly no iron. Here's the trash, really bad today. Lots of bits and weird brass stuff, wire and shredded things. Here are my finds, I think I found the clothesline, because I kept finding wheats and nickels, ended up with quite a few, and a lot of other cool stuff like bits of jewelry: And I didn't expect to, but came home with 3 silver coins: Using Tekkna really paid off today! ? Nickel, dime, and quarter, all silver. I "juiced" the USMC 6-point coat button, and got another surprise: There's still quite a bit of gold on it, it's a nice two piece.

We've had some cold weather and wind and rain since I last posted finds, hope ya haven't missed me ? Last couple hunts I went on didn't produce much, I hunted some really tough spots with the 9" coil on my Deus 2, and did ok for where I was: Got a nice 1909 V Nickel, a few odd buttons, and a little compact that was gold plated on the side. Nothing in it. Today was a little different, I wasn't expecting anything really, especially after my last 2 hunts. I went to a field near my house where last year I dug a Draped Bust Half Cent, but really didn't find much else. This field is the "outback" of the place, it's a huge local farm. I'm so glad I have an off road golf cart. ? I'd hate to walk an extra mile or so just to get there, and back. Today's hunt was all about the 13", I was going to test a new program but switched quickly to my Relic program, it just wasn't the right place. I found one button in the first two hours, because I didn't find much the last times I came to this area I decided to grid search it. Ended up glad I did: I finished with 12 old buttons, a mix of Tombac, Brass, and ball buttons, almost all of the brass ones have "Colour" and "London" on them so they're almost as old as the Tombacs. I guess the ball buttons are a bit newer, one of them is squashed. I was hoping I would find an old coin, but nothing could have prepared me for what I found. I got a solid 85 in all directions, and thought I found an IHP or something, then this popped up: I thought, "oh, cool! Got a Half Reale!" I flipped it over after spraying this side with my water bottle and my jaw dropped. I expected to see good ol' King Charles of Spain, but then i noticed something, it was a Female? Never saw anything like that before. I saw the date, and the "IBE" and knew I had something special and pretty rare. It's an 1803 Draped Bust Silver Half dime. This is what it looked like originally, only 37,000 of them were minted: I think mine is the "Large 8" variation. It's a shame the reverse was completely worn down, these bring a commanding price. ? Holes also devalue. I couldn't believe it, yet again I've found something that tops most of the stuff I've found before, so this year is going very well. ? It wasn't just a surprise! Trash wasn't more than a small handful, if you want buttons like the ones above, you gotta dig every buck ball. ?

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.

'Nother day here in sunny VA, got up to 47 anyway with no wind and no clouds. I did pretty well with my trusty old Equinox 600 last time I was out, so I put it and the Deus 2 with the 13" in my golf cart, and drove out to a local field, the same place I dug the 1 Reale half, but a different spot. I've found a lot of buttons and horse tack there, but not any coin that I can remember. This spot is machine gun iron, so I hoped the 10x5 would squeeze something out. I had recovery speed at 3 in Park 1, GB was 25 in this area, and I was using Park 1 in 50 tones. I love these true APTX-LL air/bone conduction headphones I got over Christmas, i think I paid 25 bucks for them. They have a microphone but you can swing it out of the way. They have a large power button, a voice tells you status, and they connect with the Equinox faster than any I've used. The only drawback they have is they are not very loud, but in a quiet field they're great. No brain beating. Here are the finds, most of which were found by the Equinox, it doesn't "unmask", but it sure does separate. Recovery speed 3 is the same as 6 on the 800. I got one of the buckle bits and the brass knob later with the Deus 2, I wish the curved piece of metal was another coin but it's just a bit of something, maybe a button. About 40 minutes in and a bunch of buck balls later, I was near the edge of the ravine and got a solid 21 in all directions, I thought "what is a penny doing here?" Well it wasn't a penny. Yet another cut Pistareen, an early 1700s Philip V, Madrid mint. These things were cut so sharp they probably made holes in pockets, or they stuck to something and were dropped. #4 Spanish silver for the year! Trash was literally nothing, just lots of buckshot and lead. I did get an Indian Wars pull tab. Next time I'll visit this spot with my old Tesoro Vaquero, and I'll put it to task.

Thought I'd post yesterday's hunt, got out for a brisk 5.5 mile hike in about 5.5 hours. ? The title came to me from a country song, for the first 3 hours or so I found literally nothing but buckshot and other junk, I had to laugh. While I'm never tired of being skunked, I do appreciate a few finds especially if I'm covering a lot of ground. ? Anyway, it ended up well: First thing I dug was the odd link thing on the top left, it still has wood in it. It's very old but I have no idea what it could be. In the last two hours I got a bunch of buttons and some weird bits, what I think is a bowl from a small pewter spoon, and a 1965 dime. ? Coolest button I've ever found, I thought it was a pin at first but it only has one attachment in the center that was probably a shank: Man lemon juice works wonders. And the star of the hunt, an incredibly toasted large cent that I dinged with my shovel: Sadly no date or obverse detail but enough on the back to at least know what I trashed ? I was using the 11" D2 coil all day, I think my centering was off because I usually use the 13x11. ? Speaking of trash: Yeah, lots of buck, and a couple of large brass whatzits I dug just before I actually started finding stuff.

Cold and cloudy day today, but I wanted to continue looking around where I was last post. Today I brought both my Deus 2's with me, one with the 13x11" and one with the 9" coil. I was using a slightly modified Relic program on both. In one spot I used the 9" for a while, I've been over it with the 13" but it's very trashy, I wanted to see if I could find anything else with the smaller coil. I managed to get a small button and a piece of decorative horse tack amongst the iron, very impressive. I got the 13" rig and walked other places with less trash for a while, and headed over to a spot I've been over before. It had lots of iron as well, so I retrieved the 9" again. While I was searching this spot I noticed a lot of oyster shells, and when I dug more came up. Seems to me there was a lot of activity here many years ago. Oyster shells are a really good indicator of gatherings in a farm here. It was a pretty good day, got some really old tombacs, one broken brass button, and what I think is the blade of an old oyster knife that came up from a hole that was nearly all shells. Looking around this area, carefully analyzing every signal finally produced an 81 ID in the midst of other iron, and I got my find of the day: Half of a 1728 King Philip V silver 1 Reale with excellent detail. It was almost on the surface. This is what the whole coin would look like: The "S" is Seville mint I believe. Always a thrill to get the old stuff, and the coin pretty much dates everything else. Here's the trash, some bits of copper pot, some nails and the ever present lead. Also found a 6,000 year old pull tab.

Beautiful day today, went from 30 to the low 50s. When it's sunny, the black nitrile Milwaukee gloves I use keep my hands warm enough. I invited Chase to pick a spot and he picked a place that we have found some really old relics, and today was yet another banner day. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm using the Deus 2, it's been nearly 2 years now. On a Culpeper outing Chase suggested I use Relic relatively unmodified, the main thing is to set one notch at 00-00, which essentially will make iron blank out. You cannot set discrimination in Relic, but you can crank Disc IAR to 5 which forces most iron to blank. I used it successfully and I've seen him use it with great success and moreso now with V2, XP really got things tight with that release. Granted my soil is ridiculously mild, so anything goes here. Instead of an iron brain beating, you get "blips". When you get a good target it sounds like a cat attacking a mouse, that's about the best way I can describe it. It's using the D2 to do what it does best. All along I've been modifying various Deus 2 programs in an effort to have it act like a more accurate Equinox, and that was sort of my mistake. While I am still using my modified General program to verify some iron targets, the last 2 hunts have been exclusively using Relic, and with great results. Chase uses PWM audio, I still prefer High Square but am grateful to have a choice. The tonal nuances are still very similar. Using Relic gives me an idea of depth even with Audio Response cranked to 7. Iron still is a small problem, when it's huge or forged it seems to fool the detector sometimes, but switching to another mode helps. Relic has no full tones option. I guess tone breaks can be set, but why bother, it's either iron or it isn't, and where we are digging there isn't much trash. It's all really old stuff. No pull tabs, little can slaw (unless it is an ancient copper container), and very few modern tractor parts in this field. Today I only had the 13" with me, but it still did well in iron trashy spots as long as I cranked Reactivity up from .5 to 2. I covered almost 6 miles today in 6 hours, so the 13" was my friend there. Got quite a few interesting things, a turtle shaped boss of some kind, a bunch of buttons, a thimble, a small and large ancient buckle, and an odd "washer" of some sort that has decoration on it. Got an almost round flat piece of lead that interested me too. This stuff is mostly late 1600s to mid 1700s. I thought I may have found one of these turtle shell looking objects before and I did, about a year ago in another field: Of course, no one expects the Spanish to show up (old joke ?), but indeed they did: A 1724 "pillars and waves" cob minted in Potosi, you can just make out the entire 2, and "pillars and waves" ended in 1737, I think. I do not know the denomination, but suspect it to be a 1 or 2 Reale, as it weighs almost a gram. The "P" is the mintmark from Bolivia. The reverse isn't very detailed. It was poorly clipped or snapped, maybe I'll find more. Here's what it might have looked like originally: I found this at the end of the hunt, in one of those "I think I'll go up there" scenarios. ? This is the third Spanish coin I've found this year, and now my fourth oldest coin. Getting to really know the detector I have, and being lucky enough to have a place to find this old stuff is why I do so well. ? It's good to spend a lot of time learning your machine, should I have used another I am less familiar with, I don't think my results lately would be as good. I'll be sticking with the Deus 2. Forgot the trash again, merely a handful.

We had two really nice days here, yesterday and today. Yesterday it got up to 75 which often happens in January, and today it got up to about 60. Yesterday I only had a couple hours out, I took advantage of the warm weather to get some stuff done, but I got out in the afternoon. Just a quick random walk around the field in front of my house, got a few interesting finds: An unusual chrome plated tire valve cover that says "Schrader" with a patent number, an interesting milk glass button, probably one of the oldest 4 hole buttons I've ever found that says "special order" on it, a typical brass button with backmarks, a cufflink with some of the link and some blue enamel on it, and a wing bolt with the manufacturer name on it. Here's a closer look at the cufflink: Pretty cool that the enamel was still there. Today it was a bit cooler, I went to a nearby huge field where I've found lots of really old relics, and today was no exception. This farm is over 150 acres of open field with a road through the center. I've posted lots of hunts from this place, I always seem to find something interesting here. Here's today's finds: A large brass object I've found quite a few of in different sizes, I forget what it is. Another ladder buckle piece, below it a brass screw with a drilled out ball head, an ancient buckle half, a pistol ball and interesting bullet, 5 buttons, 3 of which are tombacs, a small half circle with chain attached, a shoe buckle fork, and a 1940 Jefferson nickel. The stars of this hunt were the old buckle, this nice cast design Tombac button: And this button that scares me, it might be a George Washington button but it's pretty far gone: Looks like it could say "Long Live The President" in the second circle from the center, it's not this one but it gives you the idea. I'm really glad my wife didn't mind me getting out there, warm days are a bonus! Edit: forgot the trash. Day 1 Today:

Got some unexpected good weather this week, yesterday it was almost 50 and today it went over 60. Yesterday I just went out in front of my house for a short while, the ground was still kind of frozen, I only stayed out about 2 hours. Some places it was easy to dig, others the shovel just bounced. Got a few things and quit when the mail came, I received @steveg's new mount for his brilliant CF Deus 2 shaft. Today I invited Chase down, I figured the ground would be mostly defrosted, overnight the temperature didn't go below 40 so it did not refreeze. Today we went to the new field I scouted a while back, and took our time looking in the hotspots I found. I had my Deus 2 with the new right-hand tilted RCDIGS mount, I wanted to see if there was anything different about it. It was much easier to see the screen, I didn't spend any time at all tilting the unit to see the IDs and the XY screen. That was very cool. ? Today's hunt was about 7 hours and almost 7 miles of walking, it's a big place that apparently hasn't been hunted by anyone else before but me. ? Chase did much better than me, but I managed to find some cool stuff and keep my precious metal streak alive. First the trash, quite a bit today. ? Lots of buck balls, lead, and some iron. I was switching back and forth between my relic program based on General and an only slightly modified Relic program. Every now and again I had to switch to Deus Mono at 17kHz because of the power lines, but never missed a beat. Now for the good stuff, both days combined: From the day before a whatzit, a 1929 wheat, and probably the coolest gold plated cufflink I've ever found: Bizarre decoration but whatever. ? Got a weird "chicken leg" finial that I thought was a candle snuffer at first but it turns out the inside is threaded. A bunch of buckles, an odd ring that was a 92, a 1904 IHP, one Tombac and one brass button, a bit of brass horse tack that is heart-shaped, a Civil War minié ball, and a plated thingy that looks like it may have had a watch hanging from it. Most modern was a 1978 memorial penny. The oval with the holes might be a plate from an old rifle but the square holes are odd. ? Pulled a Hail Mary in the 4th quarter with this silver find: It's a spoon handle, solid "900 coin silver", made by this silversmith: https://www.americansilversmiths.org/makers/silversmiths/117961.htm Fun day out, seemed like Spring. Glad it's not. ?

Conditions were optimal for a hunt today, despite another big storm coming I managed to get Chase to come down. Rain wasn't expected until the evening. High winds after the last storm quickly dried out the field surface, but the targets were hot. We've been to this place in the past and didn't think some of the stuff we found would be there, it turned out to be a really good day. We both ended up with quite good finds! I had the D2 and 13". Today I was experimenting with Silencer settings, since V1 it was changed dramatically. I was using my modified General program, but incrementally increased Silencer to eliminate iron falsing, there is iron everywhere in patches. Ended up at 6, thought reactivity was too low at 0, so I bumped it to 2. The day went well. I would hear the iron in the same pass, but the target stood out. Happened again and again, no loss of depth either. Many of the targets were co-located with iron up to 10" deep. I'll run this backward, here's the trash: A crazy mix of stuff, a bit more than a handful. Next are the things too big for a display box: Some kind of drain thingy, a brass leg, and other bits of brass. The shell I believe is a .45/70. Big round. Here's everything going to the Riker case: 3 buckles, one really old huge brass cast one. It was at least a foot deep. Got a silver plated thimble, sadly crushed, but I got all the parts. 7 buttons, 3 Tombac , one with gold plating still on it, 8 if this green stone thing is actually a button: And one with a very delicate design in gold: Use water to rinse those buttons! Don't thumb or brush them. ? Got a watch key, various bits of unknown metal, and one of the strangest things I have ever found: It has a threaded casting in the back for a bolt. Here's my killer find, it was an 83 and at first I thought it was junk or a pull tab, but then I saw the Spanish cross: Here it is with a penny, it's really small. I'm thinking Half Reale Cob from the late 1600s. Only walked a little over 4 miles and it took 7 hours. What a day. ?

Got a snowstorm and cold snap coming today, it started yesterday afternoon but for most of the day it was in the 50s, perfect detecting weather. It's a farm I've had in my back pocket for a while. I've detected a small portion of it but not the big part. Yesterday I had multiple things to test, the RCDIGS mount, my new WSA II XL headphones, and I wanted to try the Silencer thing in a machine gun metal spot. Got about halfway there and realized I forgot my headphones, so I got a late start. ? Still managed to walk 6 miles in 5 hours, most of the day was fairly nice but the wind picked up and a cold front came through in the last hour or so, it dropped the temperature 10 degrees in about an hour. ? Because I knew I was going to cover a lot of area fast, I wasn't expecting to find much but came away pleased, got some pretty good stuff. The RCDIGS mount was solid and worked well as expected, I put a review up in the XP Deus 2 forum. The XL headphones kept my ears warm in the wind, I was a little concerned about situational awareness after I saw what I think was a black bear running away from me down in a ravine. ? I like the WSA II headphones much better, the XL's just don't have the dynamic response with full tones that the smaller ones do. ? They're ok at best, but useful. If I wear a beanie or headband over the WSA II backphones, the sound is phenomenal with the same equalizer settings. I ended up getting some pretty cool stuff: What I think are 3 bit bosses or large hollow back buttons, one is very fancy with a little gilt still on it: A D buckle, a General Service coat button, a couple collar studs or rivets, and this odd broken doodad with a tab on it: A nice skeleton key and a tiny lead washer. Near where I found the key I got a nice 83, and dug the find that made the day worth it more than I expected: An 1854 silver half dime! It was taco'ed when I dug it, but it straightened itself out later ? Odd that the coin could have got bent, being the second smallest US coin. At least it didn't get broken. ? I'm sure there is more there, but I wanted to get an idea of where to go the next time. ? Here's the trash, the largest copper circle I've ever found, about 4 or 5 inches in diameter: 6 miles is a lot for a geezer like me, but was well worth it. ? The spot with all the iron produced nothing and the soil was black, probably an empty building burned there.