Hey Bill,
I have been checking out your posts and the replies and thought I would give you my opinion on the Vaquero.
I tried to PM you, but since you have not been registered long, you are not able to receive PMs yet.
First of all, this is not the only detector I have, but for hunting very old house sites that are littered with iron, This is my go to detector for two reasons.. one is that it is light allowing me to hike for long distances and swing for many hours once I get there without getting tired and two, it is probably the quietest detector I have for these types of sites.
It will sound off on large iron like horseshoes and axes and such, but that is OK for me since these are considered nice finds especially around very old sites.
On nails it is very quiet and even if it sounds off on one, the signal is not very good.
I have the high tone model and for me, I can tell alot about the signals.
Iron has a snappy quality to it while copper, brass, silver, and lead has a more smooth beginning and end to it.
I think this is more evident with the high tone than the low.
As far as coils go, I have the stock coil, the 5. 75" concentric coil and the 5.75" widescan coil and like them all, but do not have alot of time with the widescan yet.
It is slighty heavier than the small concentric coil, even though it is the same size, but not much heavier.
Most claim that the concentric discriminates better than the widescan and detects deeper also unless you are in highly mineralized ground which the widescan is better suited since it does not "see" as much ground as the concetric coil.
I would highly recommend getting a small coil and you may find that you will keep that coil on the detector most of the time.
I see there was some mention about headphones. I use a set of killer Bees and they work great on my detector... I highly recommend them.
A good set of headphones can make up for not having visual or tone ID and allows you to hear the subtle differences of signal quaility.
I have also searched school yards and around older home with it and have to admit it is a challenge sometimes especially being used to a VID machine.
Still I don't have any problem using it at these sites.. you just have to remember it is a beep and dig machine.
I don't understand why you did not have better luck at those sites you mentioned, but perhaps someone has hit this area before.
I have to admit I have done the same thing with other machines and couldn't understand why I couldn't find some old coins.
My buddy and I searched around an old house that was built in 1905 and after about six hours of searching, we found much clad, but only one silver coin... a 1917 mercury dime.. no wheat pennies at all!!! Sound familiar??
I did find a ring lost by the owner and returned it to her and also found 6 civil war era bullets which were not very deep.
Now I can't figure this out.. there should have been some wheaties, IH cents, Barber coins and other types of silver coins, but we couldn't find them.
I don't believe it had anything to do with the detector.. I was using a Minelab X-Terra 50 with a 10.5" widescan coil which has located some nice coins for me over the last few years.
Maybe someone has detected this yard before.. I don't know.
Don't give up on the little Vaquero just yet.. it is a very good detector and I would not like to be without mine.
Good luck,
Felix