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Help Me Design a Test Garden! :thumbup:

E

Erik in NJ

New member
Hi,

After ten years of detecting and resisting the need to make a test garden, the prior thread on Semi-Auto vs. Manual sensitivty has convinced me that it might be a valuabl asset especially when testing various settings on a single machine or comparing multiple machines. I stopped by a small local (read: not cheap) coin store and picked up the following assortment of coins:

o 1886 O Morgan silver dollar (worn)
o Walking Liberty half dollar
o 1943 Washington quarter (worn)
o 1960 Washington quarter
o 1935 Winged Liberty dime (note: I hate the term Mercury dime -- it's not Mercury on the obverse)
o 1935 Winged Liberty dime
o 1937 Winged Liberty dime
o 1941 Winged Liberty dime
o 1945 Winged Liberty dime
o 1906 V Nickel (worn)
o 1907 V Nickel (worn)
o 1920 Buffalo Nickel
o 1943 S Jefferson War Nickel

I would like to get as many opinions as possible on things that I should be including in a test garden. I might not be able to implement all of them, but lets try to put together a definitive list of targets that should be artificially created. Thanks in advance for your input! :thumbup:


An aside (the sad reality): This would be a dream outing for me to find these coins in a day -- I've seen some great finds here, but you must admit an array like this in one day would really stand out. I paid $27 for the lot and probably could have gotten these coins for less than $20 on the internet. Makes you think doesn't it. :yikes: I don't do it for the money and never have, but a trip to the coin shop can be disillusioning. Maybe we should all focus more on gold jewelery and old relics.
 
I've added to it several times over 23 years but here goes;
Silver dime-6 in
Silver dime tilted 45 degrees-8 in
Silver quarter-10 in
Wheat penny-8 in
Buffalo-7 in
Worn injun-8 in
Large penny-12 in
Silver dime w/ square nail 1 in beside at 8 in
Silver dime w/ 2 square nails 1 in each side at 8 in
Silver quarter -12 in
Silver dime and buffalo 1 in apart at 8 in (this one fools them all)
Silver dime on edge-6 in

Over the years I and many others have tried many different machines here and the two that did the best were the F75 and Exp XS w/ pro and SEF coils. The F75 gets them all but has poor ID and depth indication. The XS with Pro or SEF gets them all with better ID and depth indication. Moisture has a big part in the signal strength and ID.
 
Hi Jim, Thanks for being the first to respond.....do you think it's best to put the coins at the limits of the machine's ability to detect? I bought the TargetBuddy years ago and I can dig a nice clean round hole with a diameter of 6".....I'm curious if those coins move with the freeze and thaw....how long have they been buried? Do you think epoxying them to rocks or slate would help? Would it change the equation?
 
I don't think epoxying to rocks or slate would be good as freezing and thawing would have more effect on vertical movement. I buried some of my shallow coins in 1986 and just added to it over the years. I would assume that grass clippings, leaves and mowing debris would build up over them just like in the parks. I mainly hunt old house sites in crop fields in the fall through spring and most of the coins we find are fairly shallow, sometimes lying on top in sight. I've found large cents lying on the surface and also dug them at 12 inches at the same site so would assume that farming is the reason. This time of the year the hammered parks are the only options and the only coins I've found tend to be deep or next to trash, mostly nails.
 
At that same site I compare two Fisher coils on a "complex" target, that is, a coin near a nail. I describe the setup here:

http://www.d-a-n-k-o-w-s-k-i-d-e-t-e-c-t-o-r-s-.-c-o-m/discussions/read.php?2,3321,3685#msg-3685

You know what to do with the dashes.

I find these two complex targets very valuable when comparing different machines.

I was surprised to see that my EXII was able to give an inconsistent silver signal at the simple nail+silver target where my F75 upaveraged the nail into the 7-8 range, which is usually still too low a conductivity for me to read. Both machines had the stock coil. The EXII was set at a high manual sensitivity.

In really trashy areas the F75 performs better with its stock coil compared to the EXII because of the constant nulling.

HOWEVER, the proper manual sensitivity will allow the EXII to recover almost as fast as the F75. If the EXII is left in Auto-Sens, the recovery speed is very slow.

Try this test using a small amount of iron mask. I was surprised!
 
One thing you will need to do is clean the area of all metal a pi detector would be good if you have one to use.
The plugger to make holes like you were talking should be the best way.

Jason
 
Hi Jason, I don't have a PI unit, but was thinking about running the SE in AM. Yes I was planning on using the TargetBuddy as it cuts such a nice clean hole...butwe have a heck of a lot of rocks here in the soil in NJ! I've never used my MD in my yard yet so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Thanks for the reply. Regards, Erik
 
The garden will be a useful tool... after a couple of years. Some older coins contain different metal and do give different readings. Cull coins from a coin shop are cheap and great for this use. Take a look at a good coin book and get a wide veriaty. I found a couple of V nickels deep this weekend and might have passed over them if i had just been looking for nickels. Found objects in the field are good, but ones you barried are certain targets you know are reliable for testing new equipment. Cleaning an area takes time, space, upkeep, and patience for the ground to properly reseatle... but its invalualbe once complete if reasearced and done properly.

Dew
 
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