deep silver with GTI 2500

[deepnails]

Hi, I've discovered a unique feature of the GTI pinpoint mode which allows silver coins to be detected as deep as thirty or so inches. This is my first post and I realize some peole will think I'm full of it, but it's true. I discovered this after a few years of heavy use with my 2500. At my local fairgrounds, which started around 1870, I began detecting by accepting seven and over and swung my coil repeatedly and carefully from different directions over small areas. I watched very carefully and if I recieved a very quick, tiny response, most not repeatable, I would dig a plug about ten inches deep. The first few times I did this I would go over the hole and nothing, no signal, even pinpoint gave no audio signal. Well about the forth time I said to myself I know I had a signal so I continued to dig and around fourteen inches up pops a silver dime. The next time I recieved this slight signal I dug my plug and again no audio response but now knowing there may be a coin I carefully brought the pinpoint over the hole, no audio but watching the meter it registered very accuratly, it would say nine and a half 14 ,16,14,16 inches but no audio. I've been detecting for almost forty years and never really paid any attention to the meters but now I thought WOW! I proceeded to perfect this technique and really cleaned up on my best day I recovered ten silvers and of course this fair grounds has been pounded for over forty years. Probably only one in say ten of these chirps were actually a coin and the only way I could find out was to dig about ten inches of soil then use pinpoint and you have to bring the coil in from a direction with no targets registering on the meter, this takes patience,. After mastering this technique The depth and accuracy was unbelievable, the meter would actually bounce from say 20,24,18,24 inches and so on. The condutiviy was always dead on even at twenty to thirty inches. My very deepest coin was about ten inches deeper than my W.P. Aldrich shovel from Lesche, the shovel was so far in the hole all I could do was flail, I was about to give up thinking nothing could be detected this deep when up pops a silver quarter and guess what, a Washington 1955. Now there is always the possibilty I had a positivly defective detector it was a year 2000 2500 but I also used this technique with my 2005 2500. I only use this technique when I know there is deep silver because it is so labor intensive. I ended up with hundreds of silvers from this beat up fairgrounds, I recommend this technique when you know there is deep silver. I tried this technique with my DFX, EXP. SE, CZ3d and others but no luck only the GTI pinpoint could do this. Thats enough typing for me tonite, I will try to answer any quetions, thank you for listening and good luck hunting, Darryl.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Hi Darryl and welcome to the forum.
The GTI's are remarkable detectors. I'm a big fan of the Scorcher coil as I find that the target information that you can get out of it, is unparalleled! 9I sure hope that Garrett's can make one for the Ace!)
I assume that you must have been in the all metal mode to get such a depth. I've never heard of a VLF machine going that deep on a coin but I have seen a Tracker4 detect another coil that was passed across it's field from around 4 feet away. From what I can gather, a lot of depth is lost on discriminating detectors because as soon as ant discrimination is introduced then a far amount of depth is lost! Unfortunately, I own the 1500 so I can't put your discovery to the test., but thanks for posting about it
Mick Evans.

 

[deepnails]

Hi Mich, Actually I use my 2500 in discrination mode sometimes on zero and other times with everything notched out up to seven, sweep speed is important it has to be a perfectly even speed and close to the ground and the signal will only be the tinyest blip although a high tone. You have to watch very carefully as usally this blip will not repeat that is why one in ten or so wholes will actually have a coin. I call this fishing, I fished with all my detectors at the old fairgrounds to test them out and have found hundreds of coins with the DFX, SE and CZ at 15 inches or so with slight signsals which dissapear once you remove your plug but only the 2500 will identify them in pinpoint but no audio only visual. Find a spot that has produced a lot of silver in the past, were you are allowed to use a small shovel and try this, if you have patience you will hit untouched layers of coins, thank you for listening, Darryl.

 

[deepnails]

Hi, This technique can be air tested just drop a coin on some clean ground sweep back and forth about 16 inches over the coin and pinpoint, you may never get an audio but pinpoint should register depth and conductivity, also all coils will do this but the twelve inch imaging was the deepest for me, Bye everyone, see you later, Darryl.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Have you ever used the "twitch" over these blips to see if it produces a signal? The 2500 is a tricky machine. Some years back I pulled up three Barber coins buried under a big tree root at a measured fourteen inches plus. Had to do some tricky digging to get those puppes out.


Bill

 

[Willee - Texas]

A dime at 30" ... is that as deep as that 2500 can detect?

My X-Terra 705 with the stock coil will easily detect that deep.
With the larger LF coil it will top 40" for a dime.

Willee

 

[cwilk]

The depth meter on my 2500 stops at 12 inches. I'm still trying to figure out how his model goes to 24 inches.

I found a silver dime at 10 inches yesterday that was barely a whisper. It is one of the most satisfying silver coins I've found with my 2500 because I actually set out to find something silver and deep.

I was trying to stay off this thread, maybe because I didn't understand what deepnails was trying to write. Maybe he'll explain.

Chris

 

[deepnails]

Hi, Well let me say I almost didn't post as I new there would be plenty of non-believers. As for depth reading my 2500 goes into a second row, the first row for the first twelve inches the second row for next twelve inches. For the record my deepest coin was a silver quarter around thirty inches but on average my deeper dimes were up to about eighteen inches, quarters and halfs up to about two feet and one 1884S morgan at about two feet. Of course this area has light mineralization. My old , year 2000 model, was best at this. My new 2500 was sent to the factory were they tuned it to probably about as senitive as it can be without being useless, now over anything copper or silver it reads silver dollar. With this unit I easily get repeatable signals on a silver dime at twelve to fourteen inches and large cents at around eighteen inches. As far as soil conditions go I have some corn fields that are high in pyrite, the soil is actually black and all the vlf's i've tried will only goe about three inches unless the target is Iron then they will detect a small nail at over a foot. Another condition which has a great effect on the depth a target can be detected is the Halo effect. I read on these posts many times that this has no effect, well that is plain wrong and could't be further from the truth. For starters we have acid rain here in upstate NY, now I'm no chemist but I'm quite sure when you mix an acid with almost any alloy you will get an electrical charge then throw in the actual corrosion halo and your target appears much larger to the detector than it actually is. A perfect example of this is a walker half I recently found. At first I got a reading of half dollar at eight to ten inches, after removing about twelve inches of soil the reading became can size silver dollar, now many people might quit digging beleiving they have a big piece of junk, well at about fifteen inches in a layer of coal ashe was a walker half, Why did this read so big and hot? Halo effect or the battery effect if you choose. Now I will say the only reason I made this post was so that the couple of hard core hunters can practice and use this technique to get the most from thier 2500, remember only one quick tiny audio will be heard, this must be in the middle of a perfect swing, not a blip from bumping some grass or going over a depression and the such. To Cwilk really there is nothing to understand its simple if you want super depth you have to dig all ever so slight signals and many of these signals will dissapear after you remove a plug then use pinpoint to determine if the blip was a target or a missreading, remeber a super deep coin will not produce an audio signal in pinpoint but will still ID correctly on the meter. Thanks for listening, Darryl.

 

[deepnails]

Hi, Uncle Willy I'm not sure I know how to do the twitch but I would love to know, If you would please explain this technique to me, thank you, Darryl.

 

[deepnails]

Hi Cwilk, the depth readings I'm talking about are in the gta section or small blocks not in the sizing section. Bye, Darryl.

 

[cwilk]

I still don't know exactly how to respond. I have dug some deep stuff with my Garretts but nothing deeper than a foot and only a few coins down in that area. You are right, though. Those one way or even one time signals can be very interesting items and are usually deep. I frequently ignore them but have been digging them recently and have been rewarded for it.

On my 2500, in pinpoint mode, the top row contains 24 black squares representing signal strength, then the is a row of 24 black squares representing depth in half inch increments, then there is a row of numbers 1-12. There are no more rows of black dots there for the depth indication to spill over onto. Can you post a photo of your display? I'd love to see a video of you digging something 18 inches deep.

Interesting posts. I look forward to seeing photos of some of your finds using this technique, but, I remain a little skeptical.

Chris

 

[Uncle Willy]

Since the 2500 is a motion detector, the faster you move the coil over the target the better it discriminates and the deeper it goes. To "twitch" just center the coil over any questionable target and whip it side to side rapidly about two inches each way. If there is a good target there this will generate a signal as such. I find a lot of corroded coins that way, especially dimes - that would ordinarily signal as junk. I have described this in the past but I keep forgetting we have new folks on here who probably never saw the posts.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

This goes back to what I've stated many times in the past that many detectors will pick up targets deeper than they can pinpoint I've dug many targets with the 250 where it would signal but go silent as soon as I hit pinpoint. As for the halo effect that is a given. Anyone who doesn't believe that is living in fantasy land or has never dug up a rust pocket. All metals produce a halo, even moreso in acidic soil. Gold produces very little of a halo effect. I think I'll take this trick of yours up with the engineers. Does your 2500 have the mineral chip installed?

Bill

 

[roy c.]

Inever heard of a coin being 30 inches deep before.

 

[Willee - Texas]

This goes back to what I've stated many times in the past that many detectors will pick up targets deeper than they can pinpoint I've dug many targets with the 250 where it would signal but go silent as soon as I hit pinpoint. As for the halo effect that is a given. Anyone who doesn't believe that is living in fantasy land or has never dug up a rust pocket. All metals produce a halo, even moreso in acidic soil. Gold produces very little of a halo effect. I think I'll take this trick of yours up with the engineers. Does your 2500 have the mineral chip installed?

Bill

I agree Bill ... some have said just the opposite ... but in practice I have found my Excalibur II will detect a target deeper in Disc mode than it will in Pinpoint mode.
Most of the time. There are exceptions.

I don't know about a silver halo ... to make a halo some of the metal must break down and leach out enough to make the ground somewhat conductive.
The way most silver comes out of the ground ... it don't look like much corrosion has taken place ... even less with gold.
Copper and Clad pennies show obvious signs of deterioration and mineral breakdown.
Two coins buried almost touching will set up an electrical field that will accelerate the breakdown of the minerals and that corrosion can be readily seen when they are recovered.

Willee

 

[deepnails]

Hi, Uncle Willy I'm glad to here you say that, my friends and I were perplexed as to why the Garrett factory dosen't develop a system which runs in the pinpint mode only. My old {2000 or1999} 2500 would give a perfect conductivity reading on a twenty or so inch coin although there was no audio. My new 2500{2005 model} was sent to the factory by my dealer and he explained to them that I was an expert with this unit and he wanted it tuned to the maximum. I love it , at the moment my friend is using it and he hates it because it miss reads constantly for him because he does't have perfect loop movement, although the other day with the 10 X14 he recovered a seated liberty dime around sixteen inches. Willy thank you for explaining the twitch again I can't wait to try it. I don't believe my old unit had the minerazation chip. At the moment I'm using a minelab sovereign because I'm hunting in corn fields with heavy concentrations of pyrite, these are French and Indian and revolutionary war areas. So far this year I have used the CZ3D, EXterra 70, DFX and last but not least an ID excel and so far none seem to be quite as good as the 2500 at raw depth. Hi Cwilk, so far this year I have recovered five revolutionary war buttons, appx. fifteen or so bust cents the oldest was a 1798 many musket balls a couple of bat wings, many indian head pennies including an1872 in VF witch I sold on ebay for $81. I've only found about five silvers, one seated liberty dime and a couple of Reale's. I've just recently moved from Otsego county NY to Herkimer county NY so my hunting has changed from old fairgrounds and cellar holes to revolutionary war and cellar hole hunting. I have two very unique finds from the other day which I have not sold yet and can post If I can figure out how to post a picture, One is a 1824 large cent made out of PEWTER! and what appears to be a die for a large cent also made out of pewter.; I will get some pictures before they are sold. I am a seller not a collector type, I don't consider it treasure until the money is in my pocket. Thanks everyone for listening, Good luck hunting, Darryl.

 

[marcomo]

An interesting thread, to say the least.

Darryl, your posts seem intelligent and sound sincere. My first inclination is to believe what you're saying.

On the other hand, the skeptic in me isn't completely sure.

I don't want to insult you, but I don't know you to know if you're honest. And I can't check your posts prior to this because you have none.

It's not impossible that you could have an ulterior motive for starting this thread.

The obvious one that comes to mind is that you have a 2500 to sell. Or maybe multiple 2500's.

I guarantee that there are people on this forum who never dreamed about getting a 2500 that are thinking about it now, and I'll bet used units will now go for noticably more on the auction sites. The lure of finding coins at 14-16" deep or even deeper is a strong one.

I know there are a lot of other people on here that use the GTI 2500, I'd be interested to hear from any of them who try this technique and get their thoughts.

Darryl, if you don't mind me asking, what dealer sent your unit in to Garrett for you and what did they do to "tune it to the maximum?"

Please don't let my skepticism, or anybody else's, stop you from posting here. If this is a valid technique, you've made an extremely valuable contribution to this forum.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah some metals will leach more than others. We've all seen tarnished silver. That is slow oxidation and what occurs in the ground and leaches off into the soil. The type of soil a coin is in and the acidity and oxygen content of same has a lot to do with the halo effect.


Bill

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Marcomo.
I think that he may have just misunderstood the depth reading, from what I've read in a couple of his posts. he commented about the depth metre having 2 rows and made another comment about the square notches. Either way, even if the depths aren't quite as deep as he thought, they are still very good results and I appreciate his passing on his knowledge on getting those deepies.
Deepnails. I look forward to seeing your pics when you get around to it.
All the best,
Mick Evans.

 

[ohio fred]

n/t