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. 🍀

I was out with my Vortex this morning and found what appears to be an ear ring or something, pretty odd design as it would stick straight out from your ear, it's in pretty rough shape. I'm not too familiar with ID's on the Vortex yet so I swung it past my Equinox and it gets a very solid 5 on the Target ID, 5 seems too high to me to be gold for the size/shape of it. I can't see any hallmarks on it. I suspect it to be a junker however it isn't magnetic.

This summer, it was very difficult to get anything done on the beaches. Too much competition with the number of videos on online platforms, and that also means that those who go swimming don't wear jewelry either. But this Friday, I finally found something worth showing off. I got it at 14 solid the Equinox 600. 10.5 grams of 18k gold.

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

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

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

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. 🤬 🍀

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. 🍀

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. 🍀

Well here ya go, took the Manticore to my local big beach, it started out a bit cold and windy but ended up at 65 degrees. The beach is thawed out, but the water is 35 degrees. I got there about an hour before low tide. I wore insulated boots and didn't go out very far. I wanted to hunt a certain spot on this beach to see if the Manticore could pull any more coins out of it. When I got there a crew was in that spot digging and grading the beach. As I headed out to hunt somewhere else, the gentleman in the digger drove up to me and said, "we're all done, you should go over there, we really dug stuff up!" Wow. Guess luck was with me today, but I also knew I wasn't going to be able to compare whether the Manticore would do better or even as well as the Deus 2, with all the sand moved around I would never know. 😥 The river was calm, I went almost boot deep in the water, and then searched the upper beach. There were targets everywhere. I stayed there about 5 hours, here's what I got for coins and relics: 33 coins, 4 really old unidentifiable pennies, 4 copper memorials, a quarter, 4 dimes, 13 nickels including 3 buffaloes. An odd knob for something, a key, a bag seal and some links of gold plated brass chain. The Manticore loves nickels, and the other detectorists seem to skip a lot of them. It was really nice to get some old coins still, but the Manticore didn't find any more silver. Back in the fall I got about 10 silver Barbers in this spot, guess I cleaned it out. Got lots of trash, but not a lot of iron or aluminum. The settings did well, I'm sure I'll get better with that. I used Beach Surf and Seawater most of the time, but I changed back to normal audio. I also used Beach Low Conductors. Here's the trash: Some sinkers, a couple of bottle caps, and lots of small junk. So why was it a Golden Day? Heh. 😎 I was out in the water digging nickel after nickel, and one of those nickels turned out to be an 18k signet ring! It's broken, but is the second signet I've found in this spot. I'd say it is very old. It was only a few inches down, but there are lots of small rocks in the water here. A little later while searching the dry sand after the tide came in, I was digging more nickels and got a very insistent 20. I scooped and scooped, probably down about 10" to a foot, and discovered this: A 10k pave white and yellow gold ring with 20 diamonds. 🤯 I wish I could say that the Manticore did better, but I really can't after finding all those silvers and a gold signet ring here back in the fall. One thing for damn sure is that the settings impressed me, to hit a gold and diamond ring at almost a foot is insane, this detector is a keeper for sure. 😎 My wife is ecstatic with her new ring. 🥳 🍀

Made a 4th trip to the beach today, the tide was supposed to be the lowest for a while, and a pretty strong southwest wind. It was 63 when I got there, got cloudy and rained a little, but the sun came out and it went up to 77, so it was a perfect day. I spent most of my time in "the spot", the small area of this beach I've got so much from. Today I started with the 9" coil, and right away dug a Buffalo nickel. After about an hour of using the 9" which I had intended to go in the water with, I realized it was falsing way too much on iron, so I switched to the 11x13" coil and turned up Reactivity. The 9" is great in the water but not so much above the waterline. The 11x13 has unbelievable separation capability, and it did not disappoint. It found this Barber dime in this iron accretion: And this 1893 Barber quarter under this massive ball of iron rust. In both cases I heard the iron and the high tone as it should have been. Wow. I guess I have this detector dialed in! Here's the haul today: Barber quarter, dime, a bunch of small targets that were jewelry, 4 buffalo nickels, one V nickel and 4 wheats. I had to break the iron and mineral ball the dime was in to get it out, I did it very carefully but still have some crud on the front and can't see the date. If anyone knows how to remove the iron crud I would be happy. 🤔 After about 4 hours of searching this spot, I decided to walk the beach at the level of the ring I found which I'll show ya in a bit. I found some modern coins and a few bits of jewelry, but it was a long walk. When I was back near the truck I got my "thank you for coming" prize, just at the waterline: A nice silver ring. The trash was pretty heavy today: One huge antique sinker and bits of all kinds of metal. Got some modern coins: But the best thing all day came from the higher beach near the top of the sluice in the first photo, I got a 47 and dug this: A sadly broken but really old signet ring in 10k. It has to be somewhere around 100 years old. I was thrilled. Never got in the water, didn't need to!

After all your comments and advice, I decided to go back to "the spot" to see what else I could find, today as a water hunter. I brought my water ready D2, my tougher and heavier CooB scoop, and the Tube Tubb today. The water is not all that cold and it went up to almost 80. It wasn't 5 minutes before I found my first coin, and they just kept coming. Today I came home with 38 coins, one more than yesterday, and not one Zincoln. It was fairly evenly split between the old and the new. I finally came to the conclusion that the North wind took 50 to 100 years off this particular spot, and almost all of the finds were coming from about 15 feet past low tide, and 15 feet above it. It seems to me that if a beach gets heavily sanded out, whatever is in the water past the wave action and current gets sanded in. When I went out in the deeper water the targets were very faint or non existent. Got a couple of rings out there, one may be silver but the rest are pretty much junk. Here's the trash today, only a small handful. I dug a lot of copper screws today, a live blank .22 long, and a live .22 short. Dug next to no iron. Got a lot of clad but most of it has been there a long time, a nice tungsten ring, a broken one, and some small bling. 6 copper memorials, and 6 wheats. Here's the fun stuff, 2 old keys, another Barber Dime, 3 IHPs, 4 V nickels and 2 Buffalo nickels. On the right is a piece of typeset that says something about Chicago, a small broken buckle and I think 2 silver items, a ring and a small pendant. Both are brown, so I'll have to find a way to clean them without damage, I might just tumble them along with some of the coins to see what the dates are. One of the V nickels is a 1912. Here's the pendant, almost looks like gold under the brown but there are no hallmarks. I cannot find a similar one: Here is the reverse, it just says "OUT". I was trying to get out of there and go home, but I kept finding coins about every 5 feet. Another great day, and possibly my last beach hunt this year.

Got a strong feeling this morning that I should go to my local big beach. The festivals and big events are over for the year, and finally parking is free 🥳 I really didn't expect much, and for the first two hours that was the case. The tide was very low today, I think that's part of what made me go, the high beach was pretty barren of finds but I noticed the shoreline had quite a few cuts in it. The North wind has been pounding the shoreline for quite a while. Got there around 9AM, it was still 46 degrees but the water is still warm and the sun was up, so I never felt the cold. I searched this beach for 2 hours and got quite a few coins near the edge of the water. My count was 37 coins for the day. I ended up with a small amount of clad, a few old things, a silver earring, and a jeweled cross on a tiny chain. I found it on Amazon for $5.99 🤬 At first I thought it might be gold due to the low ID, but it's not. After 2 hours of finding pretty much the same old same old, I decided to hunt a stretch of beach I call "the spot", it is about 50 yards long. The tide by then was really low, lower than it has been in a while. It was then that I almost felt like I went back in time, I started finding coin after coin that was over 100 years old. 🤯 I couldn't leave that spot despite being tired, and I'm glad I didn't: I got 4 silver coins! 2 Barber Quarters, a Barber dime, and a Mercury dime. Under those are 4 "V" nickels, and a Buffalo nickel. Two Indian heads and 5 wheats. The most interesting thing that occurred today was finding the Merc, it was sitting on top of a huge piece of iron, yet the D2 sniffed it out. 😎 The iron chunk literally fills the frame. Trash was bits of everything, about 2 handfuls of lead, copper screws and bullet shells, and the usual junk.

Took a short 6 day camping trip to a local campground for a Halloween weekend, I've hunted this campground for the last 3 years and found hundreds of coins, even a gold ring. It's a big place with 1100 sites, and only about an hour from my home. I only hunted 3 of the 6 days, about 5 hours a day so in 15 hours I did pretty good, I'm all about getting the most stuff in the least amount of time: 172 coins - $16.15, even two wheat pennies, a 1944 and a 1958. Got a couple of toy cars, the monster truck was a foot deep and the loader is a 70's Matchbox made in England. I put this in jewelry because I got plenty of that, 4 earrings, 3 rings, 3 charms and a big steel pendant. The watch is a child's "Gizmo" watch, I ordered a charger so I could identify the owner. Here's my worst trash haul, often less than the finds, but I removed all the iron from the tot lots in order to pay back the campground and maybe prevent some injuries. It's was an incredible week, mostly warm and totally dry. We gave out candy one day, and had a blast. Shame camping season is over, but relic season will be in full swing soon. Happy Halloween y'all! 🍀 Update: I got a charger for 8 bucks on Amazon, charged it up and got in touch with "Mommy", and it will be on its way to her tomorrow 😎

I almost didn't go on this trip, a potential tropical storm was forecast, but the storm hit far south so it wasn't all that bad, got there safely, and the rain stayed south of us for the most part. It never got really windy, but because of the heavy surf and King Tide, the beach was pretty eroded and in some places very small. The tide only got to low in the afternoon, but it never got all that low and the surf was dangerous. I ended up going out twice later in the day as the beach was really packed by then. I got out early every day, went to different parts of the 11 mile strip, one thing I love about this place is that there are lots of free parking lots, and most of them have either bathrooms or portable facilities and shower stations so I can clean up my gear before going back. Best place to hunt I've ever been. Here's my worst trash day, just an example of what I threw out: The good finds almost always outnumbered the trash. I ended up with a fair amount of bits: Here's all the junk jewelry and odd stuff. The tiny chain is silver. Wish I could have found the rest of it. I dug 121 coins over the 5 days: Nothing spectacular but I'm always shocked at how many dimes I find, the Deus loves them, some were probably near or over a foot deep. I did get a nice silver ring but it was pretty mangled: https://alohajewelryco.com/collections/925-sterling-silver/products/copy-of-925-sterling-silver-6mm-hawaiian-plumeria-flower-scroll-stackable-ring-gold?variant=32542193680484 I straightened it out as best as I could. I did get gold but it was an obligation. I waved my detector over the sand in front of a sign, and got a really loud 96, generally the ID of a toy car, but I dug this small container that contained a ring. It was a nice 10k gold ring, pretty large. There was also a laminated tag with the name of a person, and two years on either side. The container appeared to have sand in it, but I realized immediately it was a funerary urn. 😬 I dug a much deeper hole, put everything back in the container, and re-buried it so that the Deus could not detect it at full power. Luckily no one saw me do it. It's not the strangest thing I've ever found, but certainly the most sad. 😥 Overall not a spectacular hunt but a good one.

Here are a few pictures of some finds for June. I found other loads of junk rings, coins, etc. and other silver not pictured. These are the nicer ones. The solid chain is .925 and weighs 36.8 grams. A heavily worn signet ring, 14k, 6 grams... A tiny 10k with 3 stones, not diamonds and a hefty 11.8 gram platinum. All found in the water at various depths.

3 in the same hole! Who knew treasure hunting could get so... intimate. Joke aside, I'm very happy with these results. Value-wise, just over $1000 AUD in scrap from maybe 4 hours of detecting. Day 1, I met my friend down at one of our good spots. Very cold. 13 degrees in the water at the moment (55F). Spent a few hours in pretty bad visibility water and I managed to score 1 gold 14ct ring as well as a few other odds. Day 2 (a couple days later though), just as cold, but we knew the tides and swell were going to be PERFECT. For comparison, it's never what I would call 'perfect'. It was flat, calm, no wind, no waves, nothing..for the first hour anyway. I haven't seen it so flat since last week, and before that, years. To line up the tides, visibility and weather is very hard at this spot. We ended up getting in the water before daybreak and I was equip with my Blu3 Nomad and only the light from my Manticore. It's the first time I've used it at this spot as the waves are always too big. I ventured out a bit deeper and didn't find a lot, so came back to the shallower end, about 2 meters deep where most people swim. Boom, started getting coins and bangles and other bits and pieces. One thing I noticed when using such a thick dive hood with the nomad is that it's very hard to hear targets even with the "sound boost" feature, so I found myself mostly looking at the screen and kind of switching between the Nomad and my snorkel. After about 20 minutes, got a nice signal and found a cool ring. I can't remember which one came first but I got 3 rings and a coin! 2 were gold and 1 was a cool little silver snake. I cleared that patch and went over to another rocky section and scored another nice 18ct ring as well as more coins. Great fun! One might ask, "aren't you afraid of sharks???". I'd reply, "Nah, never seen any, it'll be fine". Imagine my surprise when friend messaged me the following day with a video of a shark he spotted around the corner, LOL. Not sure what type it is, but he said it looked harmless. Have tons of videos to edit for Youtube but not enough time unfortunately. I'll get around to it eventually.

Well I didn't do as well as some other person that posted today 😅 but it was another fine day at the beach, I brought the D2 with the 13" for the dry, and hunted until the tide got low. I really didn't expect much, but last week I saw a lot of people come out on Monday, so I thought I'd find something anyway. Did pretty good in the dry, and the last two hours were spent in the water using my second D2 with the 9". I don't have any pics from that because I have to leave a lot of stuff behind in the truck, I can only bring my valet key. In 7 hours out there I managed to get 42 coins, unfortunately nothing older than 1965. This is pretty average for me there. I got two hot wheels (thank God 😏), a little silver key pendant, and the misshapen band in the center is some kind of bracelet or earring dripping with CZ's. The small ring is silver plated and has a couple of stones. I guess someone intended to make earrings out of the shells, they are attached by two stainless keyrings. Oops. My favorite find of the day wasn't stellar, but it is gold plated: A nice ring with CZs that my wife snagged for herself. I found a huge knife in the water along with a few coins but it's been hit a lot lately, probably because I've been posting some pretty good stuff out of there. 🤔 Next week a week long hunt back in the Outer Banks! 😎