Kept up with the big boys

[cuzzi25]

Me and 6 members of my club went to NH 2 weeks ago for the B.O.N.E. 19. Not much was found the first 2 days but Saturday a local guy got the 6 of us (one guy was sick & stayed at hotel) onto a field he had been trying to get in for a while. Well, it started slow but soon after I found what he said was a 1710 British copper, all hell broke lose. It was find after find for 2 hours straight. NOTHING modern, I found the most modern coin, 1907 V nic. In total we found 40 buttons, 10 buckles, 3 draped bust cents, 3 1/2 reales, a 2 reale, 1877 trade dollar, 4 British coppers, 2 cent piece and I'm sure I missed some stuff. It was crazy. Other than me running my GT & another guy using his M6 it was all e tracs & se pros. They know I like to check deep signals if I'm close by & since most of this was found in a 200 foot square I got to check a bunch. The GT did well but it just nulled on a few signals and sounded very iffy on a couple more. 2 that it only nulled on turned out to be 1/2 reales at 7 to 8". I tried every possible setting and could only get a null. These reales are very thin and may have been on edge slightly. I love my GT and will take it on wet salt beach over ANY machine on the market but after what I witnessed I have to give the edge to the exp/e tracs on land with their incredible IDing ability at depth and the e tracs faster swing. On the flip side there were a couple targets I said were def iron and they dug. Sure enough it was a deep nail. With the ctx3030 craze going on I was able to get a good deal on an e trac last night and cant wait to get back up to that field with both minelabs. Hopefully in a couple weeks. I only have pics from 3 of us, mine are the 2 on white paper. 1710 is a speculation, face was facing to the right and nose was pointy (I dont know much bout coins) date was clear on the 1747. I made the mistake of putting water on those old coppers and it made em much worse. You could barely make out one side of the "1710" but its toast now.......Oh well, live & learn.

HH

 

[cuzzi25]

I forgot to mention that the reale signals I couldnt get werent clear silver signals on the exp/ e trac. they came up much lower than silver

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Cuzzi,very nice finds and interesting hunt,Looks like the Sovereign did very well.I have used a lot of detectors and have noticed they all have strong and weak points.Like you I'll cross reference targets with others that I search with,and for the most part pleased with the results from my Sovereign.Great post,photos and interesting information,Thanks Ron

 

[Rick(ND)]

Those are some great finds you guy found. I love my Sovereign too and have the most confidence in it, but as I have said before the Explorers and E-Trac will do better that the Sovereign if the person that uses it knows it well. I like the E-Trac over the Explorer as for me it does better and easier to use, but for the Sovereign it is still easier to use in my opinion and though no detector could do what it can do, but have seen from experience what you just seen the the Explorer and E-Trac has a slight edge on depth and IDing.
Good to hear you had the chance to see this first hand and hope your new E-Trac will do well for you, but I feel you will still keep your Sovereign around.

 

[Ism]

Outstanding finds! Something you wrote caught my attention...
Can you explain to me how water ruined your coins?
As I see it, your coins were sitting in wet and exposed to earths chemistry for over 260yrs.
I would expect exposing them to oxygen would rapidly degrade the coins not the water.

 

[Md Epidemic]

Excellent hunt, Congrats

 

[cuzzi25]

I'm really not sure how the water hurt them either but when I pulled em out of ground I could make out some details. After running water over them it's like it washed away a layer. I'm thinking the dirt was kinda the last line of defense. I really don't know?? Most of the guys I was with said that there really isn't much you can do when those really old crusty coppers come out of the ground. Who knows how long they been in ground. I'm definitely keeping the GT for now. Who knows, I may hate the e trac? But if all goes well with it I'll probably have to sell either the Excal or GT. I prefer the GT a lot over the Excal but I spend most of my time in water so who knows. Thanks for looking guys

HH

 

[matthias]

WOW! Incredible finds! HH. Matt

 

[deepdiger60]

That is some really good field finds those 1/2 reale,s that deep is about normal when the GT nulls, 90% of the time i hit iron but a few have been reale,s , from now on use a very soft dry tooth brush to clean lose dirt off coppers that old and that way at least you can keep the image,s on the coin or water will loosen up what is already just corrosion on the coins surface , that trade dollar is worth a few bucks for sure .Good hunt Jim

 

[JimmyCT]

Congrats! Fantastic hunt with some super great finds! Just curious what made the landowner change his / her mind? - Jim

Me and 6 members of my club went to NH 2 weeks ago for the B.O.N.E. 19. Not much was found the first 2 days but Saturday a local guy got the 6 of us (one guy was sick & stayed at hotel) onto a field he had been trying to get in for a while.

 

[Critterhunter]

Some awesome finds!

Can I ask...What coil were you using on your GT? Because with the 12x10 on my GT thus far I have been easily able to see any super deep or SEVERLY masked coins as well as ones on edge that my friend with his Etrac has had me check. And he's running very little iron rejection at the bottom of the screen and no further discrimination other than a tiny bit at the top which I think is for hot rot rejection.

The 12x10 not only gets me deeper and seperates better than the stock 10" Tornado, which I'm sure has helped the GT do just as well as his Etrac on these coins, but I also find it hits harder on coins on edge as well as smaller stuff than the stock 10" Tornado does. For instance, my silver 3 cent piece (which is VERY tiny) hits harder with the 12x10 than it does the stock 10" coil. The Pro Coil is an excellent coil and I'm sure probably has better ability to hit smaller items such as those 1/2 reales better than the old 10" Explorer coils as well as the 10" Tornado coil on the GT.

So far I've seen no advantage of his Etrac in all the targets we've checked from each other in the field. And I'm very picky about details so I pick his brain and ask just how the targets are hitting for him so I can compare notes to what the GT is doing for me. So far it's strange but he's given the exact same kind of target response description I have...Coins on edge that only hit good from one direction and warble the rest of the way around them. Badly masked coins that will only give a *somewhat* decent coin signal in one tight spot and either null or sound like junk from any other way. And so on...Detail by detail both machines have had the exact same response to these targets.

The only exception was one that nulled for me that he was getting a real iffy coin signal from and it turned out to be iron when he dug it. On the other hand, I also had one iffy coin signal I found that he couldn't get anything but a null out of. That one I couldn't dig due to roots in the way, but I suspect it was an iron false as I was running a very high unstable sensitivity which will make any machine false off and get tricked by iron more.

The 1/2 reales are 17mm in diameter while a silver 3 cent piece is 14mm. My 12x10 can get a good coin hit on the 3 cent piece in air testing deeper than the 10" Tornado can, and hits harder on it (easier to get a good signal out of it) at those further depths, so I do believe based on that and also the fact that I seem to dig a lot of tiny stuff at pretty incredible depths more so than the stock coil tells me the 12x10 is more sensitive to smaller items and at further depths. I remember reading a field test of the SEF that also noted it's better sensitivity to smaller silver coins than even the Pro Coil the guy had on his Etrac prior to that. I also talked to somebody who owns an S-12 and the 12x10 and they said a gold chain they tested hits much better on the 12x10 for some reason, so I suspect it's a better coil at hitting the small stuff like the Pro Coil is in that respect compared to the old 10" Explorer coils.

I really do feel that coils make all the difference on any of these BBS or FBS Minelabs in terms of depth or unmasking. After all, otherwise why would they have bothered with the expense and hassle to replace the old 10" coils on the Explorers with the 11" Pro Coil? I'll tell you why, better depth and separation for one thing. Many older Explorer guys say strapping a 12x10 or Pro Coil on their old XS or Explorer II was like getting a whole new machine.

 

[Critterhunter]

By the way, the 15x12 I found wasn't as sensitive to small stuff as the 12x10, but still seemed to be an improvement in that respect over the 10" Tornado. I also remember reading that in a SEF field test. The 12x10 hit smaller silver coins (smaller than a dime) at greater depths than the 15x12.

 

[cuzzi25]

I picked up a 12x10 just before we went and that's what I used the whole weekend. One of the reales I couldn't get was found with the 12x10 on the e trac and other was the pro coil on an se pro. I prefer the gt with 12x10 on land but in wet salt sand the 10" tornado is better for me. I have 2 shafts and have compared the 2 on deep iffy targets and the 10 always hit better in salt. I never ever thought I'd want an e trac but after seeing that I was sold. Especially now that I have an open invite to go back up there. As far as why we were able to get on the field, I'm not sure. We made a nice donation to a charity in the guys name after he lost his nephew. This guy was great. First place he took us wasn't producing so he was on phone for 20 min with owner of field and got us on. Funny thing was that he never grabbed his detector, even after we begged him to. He seemed more excited than us running back n forth every time someone found something. Then the next day he called me as I was packing car and said "you gotta get your butt back over here". He found a 2 reale and more copper. I went back over and got another British copper, 1890 seated dime and a bunch more buttons. It's the field of dreams. He has since called a couple times saying he found 2 more fields that are producing and we need to get up before the black flies are out of control. If it weren't for these fields I probably wouldn't have got an e trac as I LOVE the gt. It being a lil better on silver and faster may be worth it.


HH

 

[Critterhunter]

Were you using Iron Mask On and did you have sensitivity maxed out to the edge of stability? Disc and notch at zero? If you did I can't understand why you couldn't hit those 1/2 reales otherwise, as said I could hit the silver 3 cent piece I had at very good depth with the 12x10, and it's a smaller coin. Did you work your way all the way around them, because often coins on edge will only give their strongest response in one particular tight spot from a certain angle.

I've also been able to hit several silver dimes and a quarter or two that ranged from 5 to 8+ inches that my friend hit with his Etrac/Pro Coil and had me check and ended up being on edge when he dug them. These coins responded the exact same way on both machines. We kind'a figured they were going to be on edge because for both of us they were giving a warbly low/high tone all the way around except for being good in one spot, so we were careful when digging to see just how they were sitting and they were.

As for the Etrac being able to swing faster, never heard that before. You can in fact swing any Minelab faster (the GT in silent search allows a somewhat faster sweep according to I think reading that in the manual). My friend swings just as slow if not slower than me. Our other Etrac friend tends to sweep fast but we've been trying to wear him down on doing that with remarks here and there. Any of the Minelabs can be swung faster, it's just that they lose separation and depth when doing that. The only time I'll swing fast is when scouting the woods for any signal at all, and then I'll slow down in areas of activity...Or when I'm clad hunting I'll let myself swing fast and turn on Silent Search since depth or unmasking isn't an issue there either. According to one Etrac/SE Pro expert, he keeps his swings down to 4 seconds per sweep. He says that's the only way to not miss the really deep stuff. That's a good bit slower than even I sweep so I've been trying that here and there to see if it makes a difference in any way.

 

[Critterhunter]

It might be though that the higher frequencies on the FBS machines give them a bit better ability to hit on real tiny coins like that at depth and on edge where they present the smallest of surfaces that higher frequencies than even the 25khz on the BBS units do better at hitting, because I have read that some say their FBS units hit a bit harder than their BBS machines on things like tiny gold earings. On the other hand, I've also read from even some of the same people say that their BBS machines seem to hit better on even thin gold rings at depth than their FBS machines. Probably due to the more pronounced and longer drawn out audio that the BBS units have, I would guess. Still yet, there is a potential drawback to the higher frequencies, as I found my FBS machines didn't seem to get as much depth than even the same sized 10" coils I used on both machine, or to handle my soil as well as my GT and were harder to ride the edge of stability on in that respect. While I've also read from some people that their FBS units aren't as smooth and tended to false more in beach conditions as well as some rare soil situations. The only thing I can figure about that is perhaps a high frequency issue with certain ground minerals.

 

[cuzzi25]

I dunno. It is what it is I guess. I never run any disc or notch and I tried every other setting on those signals. There were a couple others I couldn't get as well The e trac is a great machine. It's not a huge deal to not get everything it can, I'm ok with it. I know it can't hit gold in salt like the gt