It does quite well on the full range of conductivities for US coins, as well as gold and silver jewelry, and I especially found it very versatile when working a couple of older parks where I knew 'nickels' used to be more commonly found. The biggest problems for all Coin & Jewelry Hunters here in the US is that there were vast numbers of long-lost coins found during the hey-day of the metal detecting hobby, especially through the 1970's and most of the '80s. Select places are still doing okay, but not with the coin loss activity that preceded for decades. Some sites were getting outdoor activity into the early '90s, but most places just are not used much, and that means limited coin loss for resupply.
So, thanks to those of us who got an early start in this great sport, a lot of the lost coins were found long ago.
The other problem is modern coin loss. It takes a lot of people recreating and playing to generate coin loss, and I mean a lot. And it also take ample time. A long duration of a lot of people being active is what it took to leave behind the vast numbers of coins that were discovered by us early on. From 1993 until now,
a quarter of a century, we have seen a rapid decline in the use of parks and playgrounds and sports fields. Those
potentially very productive areas just are not seeing the replenishing of coins, mainly because nobody's there.
Most of the coins carried and then lost are pennies. Quite a few people even discard them because they don't like a penny that seems worthless today. Also, as mentioned below, most of the pocket change, nickels, dimes and quarters, are shinier or bigger and that makes them easier to spot so people eyeball a lost coin and pick it up. Of course a good number of eye-ballers won't put out the effort for a lowly penny so their numbers will be greater.
For example, here is the Penny Percentage I recoded over a 15 years [size=small]
(minus the two missing years)[/size]. This is just to give you a 'warning' of how many stinking pennies are out there. If an average Coin Hunter works modest to larger-sized cities and hunts a lot of tot-lots, playgrounds and parks, recovering all potential coins, to include the modern Zinc Cent, I believe the 1¢ Coin Percentages will be close to these over a one year period of hunting.
1995 = 63.92%
1996 = 56.03%
1997 = 51.56%
1998 = 60.56% [size=small]
(I recovered 7,557 pennies that year of the 12,479 total coins found.)[/size]
2001 = 59.69%
2002 = 59.79%
2003 = 57.75%
2004 = 59.95%
2005 = 56.83%
2006= 59.52%
2007 = 50.12%
2008 = 55.63%
2009 = 55.99%
2010 = 55.73%
2011 = 54.78%
57.19% pennies-per-year over those 15 years.
I like to Relic Hunt older sites more often, but due to an on-the-job back injury at Compass combined with continued back and shoulder problems and being more tied to work in the large urban environment, I set out to Coin Hunt more often after back surgery in mid-1995. In those documented 15 years I recovered coins that broke down to these denomination percentages:
$ = 00.[size=small]21[/size]%
H = 00.[size=small]063[/size]%
Q = 12.[size=small]146[/size]%
D = 18.[size=small]418[/size]%
N = 11.[size=small]47[/size]%
P = 57.[size=small]69[/size]%
That was also based on what I was finding each year six to twenty-two years ago. I don't find nearly as much these days because I put in more time working older sites, but less time overall simply due to impaired health and mobility. I was doing more Coin Hunting than I was Relic Hunting older sites back then, so my total counts were higher and it was also reflected in the denominations. Here are the percentages of what I managed to find in 2017:
$ = 00.[size=small]197[/size]%
H = 00.[size=small]033[/size]%
Q = 12.[size=small]26[/size]%
D = 16.[size=small]46[/size]%
N = 9.[size=small]23[/size]%
P = 61.[size=small]8[/size]%
That's last year's results for only 3043 coins found with 281 of them being the 5¢ variety and diminished percentage. I like finding more nickels, and thoroughly enjoyed finding far more coins back in the better early years, but it is what it is, and it varies by location. All we can do is enjoy finding anything of value, and my CoRe devices definitely do their share to achieve my goals.
As for the numeric VDI response, I've found that in relatively clean areas, without any nearby offending targets to mask the Nickels, I usually get a numeric response of '56' or '57.' However, different search coils can have an effect, and so can the coin's depth and orientation, not to forget the ground mineral make-up we might deal with. For coins in the surface to about ±4" honest depth where the majority of coins are found, I have also had Nickels respond down to '54' and as high as '58' with decent lock-on or maybe flickering toward/to '56' but repeatable.
Monte
Thanks for a great post Monte. I think it's the first time I see actual find statistics compiled through so many years. I don't like finding pennies (unless it's the large cent variety) but they seem to be a necessary evil when hunting for old coins or smaller silver jewelry. In my hunting grounds the penny (and their relative oxidation levels) can make their target ID vary quite a lot.