Search the Community

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 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. 🍀

Got out water hunting yesterday, all the stars and moons aligned to give me a decent low tide at a local beach. Couldn't have better conditions for water hunting, the river was flat at low tide, but there were a million baby jellyfish so I was glad I wore waders and a rash guard shirt. I always wear Milwaukee gloves as I find glass and sharp metal objects now and again. It never got out of the 70s, and there was just enough breeze to keep me cool in the heavy waders. It was a 4 hour hunt in the water, I felt like I was on Venus as usual, slow motion all the way. In the first few minutes I got my first ring: It looks great but has no hallmarks, I'm thinking polished Titanium because it only weighs 3.8g. After I found that I was a bit worried that I would be a victim of the "30 minute skunk", but that didn't happen, thankfully. 😬 I was using the Manticore with the M9, and my Tube Tubb so I didn't have to get out of the water. I was going to bring the Deus 2 with the HF2, but decided against it until I can get a seal kit for the battery. 🤔 Here's the junk, there is a lot of parts and copper screws in the water here: One thing looks like a ring but it's some sort of old copper clamping device, it was an 89. Some of the stuff came from the dry later when I looked for an earring someone lost a couple months ago. I didn't find it but did get another ring! 😅 Here are the coins, oldest are a 1967 quarter and dime. I get a lot of nickels because detectorists skip them here, the Manticore gives a proper tone as opposed to junk, so they're like shooting fish in a barrel. 🙂 In total I got 4.5 rings, 3.5 are junk. Even the little cross is plain old pot metal. Cool find though was the WW1 tin soldier head! It's hollow. This place was heavy on military back then. The gold ring is another earlobe expander, a common find lately. As usual I saved the best for last: A massive silver ring from way back, probably about 100 years old. It features a large Moss Agate cabochon stone: Incredible. 🥳 I love this place for the old stuff I find. This ring is going to be my first electrolysis test, well maybe after an old silver coin that isn't worth much 🤔 🍀

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. 😎

Before I proceed to add any of my observations, I genuinely feel sorry for people who might be of a different point of view and possibly gets hurted by these words...but... Being a solo underwater hunter and just recently an occasional wetsand baby, while using since day one the Manticore in all metal/prospecting/Beach L.C. mode this is what I lately understood on my skin. In spite of any possible setting, the search for elusives broken, charm's separated and super thin gold chains in the wet/water depth/salt area it is not a real thing. Of the four beach programs, If I have to list on a scale of 1 to 4, the one well known for small gold sensitivity (not depth), the n°1 it is for sure L.C. . Following the "no falsing" correct setup mindset, on a medium contaminated ground, a sensitivity of 17-19 it is the real peace of mind level to avoid disgusting noise in the ears for hours. Be careful with the 8x5 cause this will multiply the depth loss and I'm not talking about excessive recovery speed involved here. If not for the object size and manageable layer to scan, physics still works on the planet and miracles don't happens. I wrote about mindset for a good reason and exactly, the reason it is : forget the damn chains and search for the weight/size that pays the effort first. I've heard like I hear all years, that Excalibur guys are already beating the hell around the coast and guess what, I'm tired to leave mine at home. Yeah, listening to salt signal I'm burned and producing way less than the intentional "threshold target". So closing, without even mentioning S.& S./General and Deep, I started to adopt a notch on 0-1-2 and still thinking how much time I lost far from rings that any other machine finds without particular difficulties. That's not for the real world, that common and overestimated setup we think as global. Not sharing finds recently and I'm sorry for this, but for good reasons. I can just tell You all, that I rarely write personally, something without a reason. And as usual, if some words can help someone struggling, the better. I wish You a prompt storm season to finally start with the real games...

Got a chance to take the D2 with the HF2 to my small test beach this morning. Beautiful day here in VA, 68 degrees in August is pretty rare. Not supposed to go over 80 either. Got out there an hour before low tide, there was just a light wind so the Potomac was pretty flat. I was able to wade out knee deep without much from the waves. Apparently Erin trashed things a bit here too, sanded out the beach and sanded in the water. I'm hoping for that when I go to another beach around here very soon. I was using my beach program, Beach Sensitive with sensitivity at 95, full tones, no silencer, disc at 0, bottle caps 5, salt sensitivity at 4, and switched between 29kHz and 53kHz. I didn't bother with 89. I've found small stud earrings here before with the other coils, even the 13" elliptical. Even got a couple of gold rings a few years ago. This year it's been so hot that my expectations were low today, I haven't found much lately. At 53kHz the detector goes off a lot, switch back to 29 and it's quiet. I had the coil submerged to more than the middle cam lock, and had no issues with the battery. Here's what I got, mostly trash: The bottle caps sounded more like a good target at 53 than 29kHz. Oddly enough the tiny bits of aluminum shred sound like iron! 🤯 The fish hooks have a unique sound all their own. Got a lot of false positives on large iron, apparently the storm wrecked some of the jetties and tore some bolts out. I didn't bring those home with me. The thing I disliked the most was moving the coil through the water, it's as bad as another detectors' coil I use, like swinging a brick. Too much turbulence and silt stirred up. The next thing I didn't like was that 53kHz goes off on all kinds of stuff, even carbonized wood from beach fires. 29kHz is stable and usable. I did get two coins so it wasn't a total skunk: .26, a quarter in the dry and a crusty Zincoln in the water. Overall, after a week at another big beach, I'd say I would not want to use this coil for beach hunting until something major happens with V3. I'm glad my other D2 is on V2. I figured I'd submerge it, the worst that could happen is I'd have to return it under warranty. I wish XP could get the excellent EMI handling and stability of V3 into V2. Shame they didn't do that in the first place. I'll try using the black coils with V3 eventually. 🍀

Yesterday I went back to a park my kids go to often. It has a modest sized playground with sand. I've found different patches over the years of coins, cars and a little jewelry. It gets detected often by others as well. After the fires in January all of our park sand has been scrapped down as a fear that there was toxic smoke affecting them. This has taken the surface down quite a bit but there has also been some clean sand added back. When I started yesterday the detector and settings were pretty ratty. This is not normally the case but I know near one sand area there is a buried recycling tank. Several of our parks have this now. Everyone should know what is really under their park surface for EMI reasons. My normal settings I use at the beach (beach low conductors) just wasn't getting anything. No fresh drops and nothing in the hard, compacted sand. I tried All Terrain and didn't get much improvement. I came upon a spot and looked down and saw something shinny and it didn't detect. What? I picked it up. It wasn't plastic. Let me think ... I had just been talking with Reese about the Manti and Prospecting Mode (Goldfield) and his great nugget finds. I was on a thread about All Metal and we were talking about micro jewelry and this certainly qualified ... let me try PROSPECTING (GOLDFIELD) for JEWELRY. After a little bit of setting up and checking my settings I put that little earring down where I saw it and it SCREAMED at me (with Prospecting Audio)! Oh my ... I adjusted the threshold (because I was in Prospecting Audio) and sensitivity a bit and off I went over the remainder of the sand. It was surprising. Here is the little earring I found that I could adjust the sensitivity of the Prospecting mode (Goldfield) and detect pretty close to some larger metal objects. The ID of the target was still available but the sound was much better than the other beach or terrain choices. Soon I hear something else: It was the earring to the right of the Superman. I tried some other settings (modes) and it was almost soundless compared to prospecting (Goldfield). I would have skipped it. At this point I'm wondering how many other times I could have used PROSPECTING (GOLDFIELD) in a park and found more. I kept going around the scrapped and less scrapped areas and down deep I heard something. I was down about 6" now and it didn't sound big but it was lodged in the hole and would cause me to bend my sand scoop. I almost stopped digging with the thought it was just a piece of old pipe but it had kind of a copper ID. Out pops Superman! There is one more convincing find in this picture that will make sure I give Prospecting (GOLDFIELD) a try on nearly every park in the future. A bit after I found SM and I covered the hole I got a screamer sound. I scooped and detected and no target. This actually happens a lot in the other modes so I looked and hanging from my scoop is that fine chain. It had not been a grunt sound like my chains at the beach. This was a high tone. I looked at the chain and there are no large pieces for clasps or charms. It is pure chain, probably mostly copper. Still it was loud. I just haven't found anything like this in that park. What I was able to 'sense' through finding the other targets is prospecting (Goldfield) is the closest to all metal without target processing. The bobby pins sound different. Maybe this is why some beach PIs find more 'stuff' than the Manti or similar. In the evening I went out to my local beach spot and went back to beach modes and as you can see it produces ... even sometimes very small. This dog that has learned a new trick is going to try it on regular turf and grass one of these days and make a few plugs. I might even try PROSPECTING (Goldfield) at a coin hunt on low sensitivity and make it act like a GBII! (Footnote: While I was at another park this afternoon with the boys I realized I used some terminology that would be confusing. On the Manticore there is a Prospecting Audio. This can be used on all of the modes including Goldfield. I think Goldfield is called Prospecting on the 800 and I don't know about the others. I'm going to make it clear when I switch to Goldfield in the post above.)

So, I really like the Makro Gold Racer. I keep finding more things about it. Recently, I found a really tiny 14k gold chain visually, just lying on the ground. I had my compadre and it couldnt pick it up. I took the chain home and tried it on my GR. I had the factory settings, 10 on disc, using Disc 2 the deeper one, and tone break at 30. Nothing, I couldn't get it to detect it. So, while I was waving this chain in front of the 10" DD coil I started lowering the disc, I realized the ID number was about 3. So, I experimented with going one number at a time all the way to 0. At 1 I could get a somewhat clear signal. At zero it was a nice signal. Even the big coil coild pick it up at about an inch. I have been trying to find micro jewelery with no luck. Maybe this is why. I have not used the disc mode in all metal. You see, I really like the clear signal the disc modes give. I have a hard time "reading" the all metal mode. I can really hear the signals in the disc modes. Why is the all metal mode so hard to understand? So very faint target sounds compared to the really obvious ones in disc. So, am I searching in all metal when disc is at 0? It sure seems as deep and sensitive as all metal. I get much more audible info than all metal in my opinion. However, I have to state here, I'm not an expert. I know the all metal has a way of indicating a target with thresh hold sounds too, or, the silence of the thresh hold sometimes on tiny targets. But, it's not as easy as this method. I really could hear this tiny chain this way. Can I hunt just as effectively like this or should I keep trying to learn the all metal mode? What's your opinions? And, please, lets keep this discussion to the Gold racer and those who have one. I'm actually really glad to have discovered this. I'm fortunate to have this chain to test.

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. 😅 🍀

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! 🍀

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! 🍀

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. 🤬 🍀

I decided to get more familiar w/ the new 2 me Deus2, and I planned to work a park that has been used for soccer in the past and continues to have an active little league diamond. I generally run my programs wide open with no notching and a minimal disc threshold to knock out nails. Today I decided to employ notches to focus on gold signals, while allowing dimes and quarters. Didn't want to bother with the zinc pennies and was ok w/ possibly missing a silver ring or a huge gold ring (which I might not do on a high school field for where a big class ring might hide). In 3 shorts hours, I dug about $4 in clad (and a surprising 14 nickels at 5-6 inches which out paced all other denominations). This let me know I was dialed in for gold, and I it was likely previous detectors and notched out lower signals. First out of the ground was a nice 925 pandora bracelet that was ready to wear. Daughter decided that was hers. Next was a stainless men's wedding band...then a pair of junk rings (one a stainless spoon ring), soon after another junk ring.....and finally a 1g 10k little ring with a tiny diamond. Not often I find that many rings in a days hunt, and to get both gold and silver was a nice bonus. Definitely was impressed w/ the 9" coil and ability to go deep on low conductors. I like the high square tones, and the full tones option really helps me separate junk from rings. I had also been unimpressed w/ the volume level when pinpointing. I've seen several threads where people were complaining about this. It may have been posted elsewhere already, but I realized today that as you turn up the audio modulation, the pinpoint audio is inversely impacted. I verified this by tuning the audio response to a 1, and getting a much louder pinpoint audio. Not sure if this was an intended design behavior by XP, but not very helpful when you have deep targets, you are running a 5,6 or 7 audio modulation, and you can't hear the pinpoint. Curious if anyone else has insight on this. Anywhooo, good day overall. Said I'd try to post more....so here it is!

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'm back from the beach! We originally booked 7 days (with 5 days of detecting) but the weather on the day we were supposed to leave was so nasty we decided to extend for 4 more nights. It's off season, so I had low expectations. It was a nice week except for the first day, and one other. Most times I managed to get out on the beach twice a day, early morning and late afternoon. A couple days the wind was brutal so not many people came out. I had the Deus 2 and the Manticore with me, the Deus was reliable as usual, and I used the Manticore mostly in the water and wet sand, as I didn't want to use the antenna. Both detectors are really capable, I still lean toward the Deus because I dug much less trash, but it seems after some tweaks the Manticore is catching up a bit. I used only the 11x13" coil on the Deus 2, and the M15 and M9 on the Mcore. I had a few negative low tides, on one day I got out pretty far with the M9, but only found coins and sinkers. I give the sinkers to fishermen when they are out there. The sand here is pretty mineralized, it fills the mineral bar on the Deus, so I talked to a forum member who helped out with that for the Manticore, some good advice. I also later experimented with Enhanced Audio, a suggestion from another member, which helped me find more nickels and less pull tabs. While I didn't get anything gold or silver, I got way more than the other detectorists that thinned out to none by the last 4 days or so. Here's my haul, 173 coins, a little over $14. I got 3 toy cars, some junk jewelry, and a cool flashlight/UV/laser combo flashlight. Most people said all they got was pull tabs and maybe a coin or two. 😎 I got 30 coins, the key and the carabiner on the last day. A lot of the coins were extremely deep, some up to a foot. Both detectors hit them deep. Here's a typical trash pic from the Manticore: And this with the Deus 2: By the last day I was doing better with the Manticore: So I'm getting closer to "dialed in" with it. This was my best coin day. Now for a cute story, meet Rollo, the coin digging Dog. He and his owner came up while I was digging one target, and he immediately set to digging next to me while we were talking. When the owner left I checked the pile he dug up, and there was a dime in it! The owner got a kick out of it. 😅 Good Boy 🐶 I'm sad I didn't hit any precious metal, but I had a great time detecting and honing the capability of the Manticore. 🍀

If you talk with a gold prospector, saying about a gold chain as the hardest item to uncover, it is a joke. In my still modest 20+ years experience, I found no more than 12 or so. Every time cause of a pendant still there in the same hole, or at least an eye visible piece. Long story short, I found at some depth (2" more or less) one little pendant with a weight of only 0.32 gram. I know, the shape can do miracles in terms of response to the coil, but hey...With the M9 this opened my eyes and that's the reason for the title. There will be no more progress on a Vlf to avoid salt and listen to chains. I'm sure now. Still today, smaller items barely covered in sand can be reached but forget about decent depth perception of it, not underwater. The low conductors program performs to a limit where I can barely realize if I'm running way hot at 22 or something reacts for real to the coil. Wrong program underwater, wrong approach to the usual work, I know. Using different settings and programs will only get You a blind machine like many others on micro targets. Steve explained long ago the "salt against chains ratio" and now, again I crashed my nose on it. For peace of mind, I'm considering to stay for some time with a pulse machine and forget micro targets for a while... I think that I've been lucky enough to push the Manticore to the limit underwater in salt. Skull

Hey y'all, A few weeks back I had this "great idea", to drive down to Cocoa Beach Florida and not only detect but to meet up with some forum members I've been conversing with for years. It was my 65th "Medicare" birthday last week, so we packed up the Bronco Sport and drove to Cocoa Beach, over 800 miles away. My wife was up for it, we booked a Hilton and brought my little dog. She was fine relaxing at the hotel while I went out on the mornings. It's my first "Birthday Week", I usually take her camping and do that for her. ❤️ Originally it was supposed to be @Joe D., @PI-Man, and @dogodog, but Jamie (Dogodog) had life get in the way so he had to drop out, he was sorely missed. 🥲 I've hunted with him before, it was a blast. It ended up being the 3 Musketeers. That's me on the right, Rich in the center, and Gary on the left. While there I also met up with the legendary @ColonelDan too! It was awesome to meet him. 🫡 Got there on Thursday the 6th, and originally was going to leave on the 11th, but a winter storm was forecast here that ended up being pretty rough, so we stayed until the 13th. Well that worked out. 😅 It was a perfect week , no rain, a bit warmer than usual, off season but lots of people on the beach. Even got to see a SpaceX rocket launch while I was there! Thought Elon might be at the hotel, but it wasn't him 😅. I have to say, I wondered when talking to Gary and Rich, why they never really find all that much when they go out detecting. I found out why the hard way! These guys have to deal with tons of competition, beach renewal that buries everything, storms that shift sand all over the place, not to mention the sticky, heavy gray sand itself. 😖 It's somewhat the same as the sand at Myrtle Beach , but heavier. Absolutely brutal. I can't imagine summer detecting there, you'd have to be a camel. In that heat you dehydrate fast. If you're not ready to go on a moment's notice or if you work, you can't get out there enough to get the good stuff. Stuff sinks really fast and it's really hard to dig. Rich and Gary are seasoned detectorists, no doubt about it. 🏆 They search mostly the wet and the surf, in the water too. Hardcore... Gary said one day he could see sharks swimming around him. 😬 While I deal with jellyfish back home, another hazard here is the "Bluebottle", or Portuguese Man of War, a nasty little bugger that makes you think twice about going in the shark infested water: A sting from one of these can ruin your day. 😬 The only tougher thing I can think of is scuba. We all got out early every morning, Rich showed up at the hotel Friday, Saturday and Sunday early, and we hit the beaches up and down the coast there, they took me to some of their best spots. Monday and Tuesday I was on my own, and Rich picked me up Wednesday morning for the finale. One day we went to the Treasure Coast, and I got skunked but for some iron bits and "space poop" as Gary called it: The blue thing I thought was old china was a broken bit of sunglasses. 🤣 I switched back and forth with my trusty Deus 2 and 13" and my new Manticore with the M9. Gary had his Deus 2, used a PI one day, and Rich had his new Manticore. One of the days we were all pretty skunked, I was heading up to meet the guys on the higher beach, and I got a coin signal. Then I found another and another, and Gary jumped in, we ended up with about 15 or so coins between us, the place looked like it had been carpet bombed when we were done . I did ok over the week: 54 coins, a couple of Hot Wheels (I gave one away to a little kid for jewelry karma), a Disney Star Wars pin, lots of chain but not precious metal, 4 NCV tokens, and bling jewelry. My best find was a silver Pandora earring. The Deus was my find-all machine, and the Manticore was a spear both in and out of the water. I was very impressed but dug less trash with the Deus. Sorry no trash photos, but got some every day. While not the most spectacular detecting I've ever done, none of us got a ring, the camaraderie was incredible. It was off-season, go figure. Like hunting with dogodog (Jamie) it was a total blast, laughing and joking all day. These guys are the best of the best, and it was an honor to hunt with them. I may make this an annual event, but we might meet up elsewhere to trash the place! I hunt with @Chase Goldman, have since I joined here, it's always fun with him too. 🙂 I've met 5 people on this forum so far, and have the best memories and great friends. 🍀

Last time I posted the weekly wrap up, I mentioned the scarcity of decent variations to the layers and what happened in only one day it was like a personal blessing, a gift. This happened in the first days of December and now, again, I found myself to feel low expectations cause since those days, nothing but few deep coins were appearing. I always say that wetsand work and seabed work are different games and more or less it is a reliable cycle to keep in mind some of the sand movements. Actually other variables causes this "workable window" or a total waste of time from day to day, from tide to tide, so hours between a nice almost uncovered ground, to a deep buried hell to dig insanely. Structures, primarily, can make a good spot where the least You hope for it and this happened days ago. No matter how many times I've been searching in this spot, with or without dive buddy, the continuously different shape on the seabed still makes for an educational chart made of environment and its historical nature. Before to claim a magic formula, something I will never aim for, I just think to have been on a vortex influenced area. No other explanation cause the nuisance picture behind me to the shore it was "something". Tons of soft sand, plastic, wood and seaweeds on a previously rocky boulders ground days before. Not that far, a relatively small stretch, insanely productive of old greenies and some gold share. Well, before to make it longer than what it should be, I found among tons of coins two rings, one of them being ss with a fake stone, a small, thin white gold band, a bangle bracelet and a wedding band alone in another spot, cause I was still tired by the long walk to reach the magic hole... I Wish You a Merry Christmas with peace and blessings for your houses. Skull

Since November 21th, the day I pulled out the last wedding band and by the way the last gold piece too, till yesterday, the finds were poors and scattered randomly among spots.. Nothing more than coins and usual garbage to record. No real good energy to move some sand somewhere out of sight, but a decent opening on a small stretch after a long waiting week. And I've been blessed to be the first to check it. God gave me these pieces all at once without any particular effort and almost 99% of these beauties were surprisingly exposed in plain sight laying on the rockbed ready to be pulled up. An insane amount of steel rings, plated rings and coins were just there in front of me, behind, to the left, to the right.... Everywhere... I don't even used the scuba tank to dig as I was next to the low tide time and with only a dry snorkel I searched the area with an hard to explain joyful mood. I was like drunk, with big eyes, smiling and screaming at every ring being it fake or real. I haven't had a day like this since years. In the picture with coins and the Ss bracelet, some more steel rings are out of sight and if I'm correct, in total I found 15 of them and a plastic one. In the other picture, a wedding band, a navy chain bracelet and a rope bracelet, a little charm and a fake ear ring with ss stamp. Still tbt with acid, but it doesn't matter, I'm Happy like I wasn't since ages...

After a long period of observation only, due to the insistent swell and lack of suitable diving conditions, this week, of the only three days available for research, only yesterday morning I was able to pull out a piece. Lately I have found myself having to perform various maintenance on the surface compressor, and just yesterday, as soon as I found a promising pit, the air line tube exploded right at the moment to start the dive. A new set of fittings that were really effective against pressure loss, however, injured part of the pipe and a failure occurred at the absolute worst time. To complete the disaster, the brand new drysuit was creating some more float than prevented and the ballast I had on me, well, too light apparently. I had to get back to the base to leave the compressor and arm myself with an air tank and more lead ballast in a hurry, because just an hour later the storm would again raise waves to the point where it was no longer safe on the seabed. Returning again to the same spot, I finally managed to find some decent signals, and one among them was a wedding ring standing perfectly upright in a hole between the rocks. 3.22grams of 18K to close three days of nothing but aluminium and a few exposed rocks among tons of sand. Hard to describe the releaf I felt yesterday...I'm seriously meditating for a return to scuba harness and a floating platform with spare air to change as needed. Have a great weekend You all !