Last week at a trashy park...

[trojdor]

It's been a while since I posted any pics, and the forum looks a little slow...so here we go:

While it seems everyone else is getting bad weather, where I'm at in Colorado, we set record high temps of 77 last week.
For the middle of winter, no less!

I got out to hunt last week with my hunting buddy CZconnoisseur...where we hit a couple of local parks.
These parks are old, trashy, heavily hunted, trashy, and more trashy. (With extra trash on the side.)

It's truly hard to comprehend what a century and a half of human litter in small parks really looks like, but if you want to find old coins, you've got to go where old coins are likely to be.
(Kind of like fishing. You don't go buy an expensive rod and reel, and truly expect to catch a fish in your bathtub.)

As well as the trash, you've got to deal with the fact that the older coins are frequently also the deeper coins.
So you're talking about coins hiding in trash, and also running silent and deep...like the old WWII submarine movies.
Add the rocky soil and mineralization of the Rocky Mountains, and it can test your dedication to the hobby.

I truly wish I had video of the screen and audio. Most of the signals could have been a seminar in advanced CTX hunting techniques.

My totals were: 1912d Barber dime, 1936 Merc, 1918 Merc, 1891 and 1897 Indian Heads, a no-date Buffalo, an eighteen someting seven 'V' nickel, 1930, 1937d, and 1942d wheats.
All in all, a great week...all way round.

CZconnoisseur (with his Deus) got about the same number of coins, including a Rosie that gave us a 'team trifecta' of silver dimes. He was churning out the wheats so fast, I lost count.

It was a good week...Great times!
mike

 

[myrtlebeach]

Very nice finds!

 

[tiftaaft]

Great finds trojdor!!!.

So, in absence of video... what can you tell us about the finds in words?? Inquiring minds want to know !! I am interested in your comment about silent and deep... so what depths were you digging for these? And silent? So no audio response from the ctx... ?? Great comment on going where the old coins are.. that is one of my focuses right now as well... trying to find those places is a challenge sometimes... looks like you found some old ground!

 

[ironman200081]

Nice coins man! I also love the submarine analogy. The CTX is a hell of a depth charge, isn't it?

 

[trojdor]

Thanks for the comments.

Before I go into technical details about settings and/or techniques, first a caveat; This is what works for me, in my ground. It might not work for you in your ground.
That's why there are several different settings instead of one big red 'easy' button.
(there are no perfect settings for everyone, and there are no magic programs)

Now, as far as the 'silent and deep' comment, I mean a couple of things...
One is that those deeper old coins are still there because they don't make a big 'dig here' signal.
They probably don't even give a signal every pass. They're (in effect) trying very hard to quietly hide from you. They've done very well hiding from everyone, so far.

These deep coins in my mineralized ground tend to be at the edge of detection at around 8-9 inches. Most detectorists can't get reliably past 6-7" here.
Occasionally, I'll get down to 11+ if the EMI is mild, the planets are all in alignment, and I grimace my face just right.

Anyway, you find these deep coins by listening for the detector to try to make something out of that weak signal.
It won't be a 'dig here, now' kind of signal. It probably won't be repeatable from different angles. TID will be jumpy or even blank at times.
It might be a short chirp, or a good signal on one or two passes out of three. It might even try to paint a random TT blob up near 12.40, say.

One key here is that you need to stop moving your coil any more than is necessary to zero in on the good signal.
If it's in trash, you don't want the other targets contaminating your signal.
Find the best angle for the signal. (make sure it's not an edge false off of adjacent iron.)

Once you know you 'might' have a signal, switch to Pinpoint Trace, and (while moving the coil carefully over the target), let the PT paint what it sees.
(Sube and I have posted numerous times about the best way to find deep/hidden coins using PT, so I won't go into specifics here.)

It can take a few seconds for deep targets to start showing up on the screen, so be patient.
Also the PT 'blob' will (eventually) be a very light yellowish tint instead of the nice dark red you see on shallow targets.

If the blob looks pretty round, and isolated in a good area on the screen (12.4x for instance), get out the digger and use the eyeball method of discrimination. (Dig it up and look at it.)
Don't scratch your new silver coin by rubbing the dirt off.

I'll end with couple of comments about the importance of philosophy/attitude in finding deep coins;
Firstly, you have to have the attitude that they are there. Not may be, but ARE. Hiding. On purpose. From YOU...specifically. Make it personal.
This affects how much effort and focus you put into finding them. Otherwise, if you hunt with a half-hearted / half-a$$ed approach, that's what your results will be.

Secondly, most detectorists (at one time or another) fall victim to the mindset of waiting for the perfect signal. We listen, and upon hearing/seeing some little thing we don't like, we pass and move on the the next target.
I call this, "Looking for reasons NOT to find old coins." Don't look for reasons not to dig.

Anyway, try this method out to see how it works for you.
Yes, you'll dig some trash using this method...but today, if you're not digging trash, you're not digging silver, either.

Hope this helps someone...
Good Luck, and HH

mike

 

[bootyhoundpa]

Nice pocket full from the abyss. ... great write up too....

 

[tiftaaft]

Thank you Mike, I very much appreciate your detailed response to my, and other's questions. I will respond in more detailed fashion later, but wanted to say a quick thank you in the meantime. Guys like you make this forum great. Tim

 

[tiftaaft]

Ok, so I understand there are no magic settings.... but.... what exactly does the magic grimace look like? haha.

Thanks for the disclaimer... I just find all the various settings and successes fascinating, and I'm not as much looking for a program to upload into my machine, as I look for tidbits of field knowledge in the posts when talking about the settings and programs used... and trojdor, your post above is chock full of those tidbits.

Things like looking for the faint blob in TT, and using the pinpoint trace to drill down to an iffy target... good stuff... really good stuff. But the best take away for me is the comment about philosophy and attitude. I have evolved my hunts to be in that mindset more, and I am being more successful in locating deeper, older coins... so thank you for reinforcing that in my mind. Though, my success has been MINOR compared to your success... I have a lot more work and learning to do, no question.

The one think I find myself doing (which is a little different than your description) is trying to make something out of nothing. Almost trying to "will" a target to be good. Only to convince myself that I have a silver dime at 7 inches (and pocketing yet another rusty bent nail). But that is just needing to get better at listening and seeing what the CTX is trying to tell me.

Here's to making it personal.

Tim.

 

[TrpnBils]

Mike,I like this, and of course now I have follow-up questions! This sounds like so many of the areas I hunt...

They probably don't even give a signal every pass.

How do you distinguish a good target not giving a signal every pass versus a false or iron blip every 3 or 4 passes, especially, as you say below, you might only get a signal in one direction anyway so you can't do the 90-degree turn method OR the "iron pinpoints off to the side" method because there's so much junk?

Anyway, you find these deep coins by listening for the detector to try to make something out of that weak signal.
It won't be a 'dig here, now' kind of signal. It probably won't be repeatable from different angles. TID will be jumpy or even blank at times.
It might be a short chirp, or a good signal on one or two passes out of three. It might even try to paint a random TT blob up near 12.40, say.

I seem to be the king of "if I want it to be something good I can turn any junk signal into something that sounds like a silver dollar if I try hard enough". Where's the line between "the detector trying to make something good out of a weak signal" and "your brain trying to make a junk signal into something it's not"?

Find the best angle for the signal. (make sure it's not an edge false off of adjacent iron.)

See question 1 above - if you only get a signal in one direction, it's erratic, and you can't pinpoint it because of nearby trash, how do you distinguish between falses/garbage and a good, weak signal?

It can take a few seconds for deep targets to start showing up on the screen, so be patient.
Also the PT 'blob' will (eventually) be a very light yellowish tint instead of the nice dark red you see on shallow targets.

Same as above - if it's a false I would expect it to take time to show up and probably not be as dark...I've had people tell me on this very forum that iron falses don't trace, but they sure as heck do because I have had MANY, MANY instances where the blob around 12-39 ends up being just nails and it traces just fine. How do you distinguish? I'm absolutely guilty of what you mentioned below with the "looking for the perfect signal" and/or passing ones up that sound just too iffy.

If the blob looks pretty round, and isolated in a good area on the screen (12.4x for instance), get out the digger and use the eyeball method of discrimination. (Dig it up and look at it.)
Don't scratch your new silver coin by rubbing the dirt off.

Wouldn't nearby trash skew the blob into something not round?

This affects how much effort and focus you put into finding them. Otherwise, if you hunt with a half-hearted / half-a$$ed approach, that's what your results will be. Secondly, most detectorists (at one time or another) fall victim to the mindset of waiting for the perfect signal. We listen, and upon hearing/seeing some little thing we don't like, we pass and move on the the next target. I call this, "Looking for reasons NOT to find old coins." Don't look for reasons not to dig.

No question for you here, just this comment: GUILTY!

Also, is there any way you could get a video next time you go to a place like this? I'd love to see your explanations here in action.

 

[flysar]

I've owned the CTX for almost 3 yrs now and still get fooled and dig my share of bent nails and other trash. I've reserved myself to digging some trash is better than missing silver or other non-ferrous relic.
I almost didn't dig a 43' Walking Liberty Half because it was an iffy target near roofing nails and was only 3-4" deep.
Here's another thought, many times it's quicker to dig an iffy rather than analyze and it's the only way to know for sure what it is.

 

[tiftaaft]

Here's another thought, many times it's quicker to dig an iffy rather than analyze and it's the only way to know for sure what it is.

+1

 

[trojdor]

1. How do you distinguish a good target not giving a signal every pass versus a false or iron blip every 3 or 4 passes, especially, as you say below, you might only get a signal in one direction anyway so you can't do the 90-degree turn method OR the "iron pinpoints off to the side" method because there's so much junk?

2. Where's the line between "the detector trying to make something good out of a weak signal" and "your brain trying to make a junk signal into something it's not"?

3. See question 1 above - if you only get a signal in one direction, it's erratic, and you can't pinpoint it because of nearby trash, how do you distinguish between falses/garbage and a good, weak signal?

4. Same as above - if it's a false I would expect it to take time to show up and probably not be as dark...I've had people tell me on this very forum that iron falses don't trace, but they sure as heck do because I have had MANY, MANY instances where the blob around 12-39 ends up being just nails and it traces just fine. How do you distinguish? I'm absolutely guilty of what you mentioned below with the "looking for the perfect signal" and/or passing ones up that sound just too iffy.

5. Wouldn't nearby trash skew the blob into something not round?

TrpnBils,
Thanks for taking the time to read the long-winded 'tome' above.
I started to answer these question one at a time, but I think I see a 'theme/pattern' forming. So, if I may paraphrase your questions into this one question (for brevity);

"How can I for sure identify iron and/or other iffy signals before I dig the target?"

The short answer is: You can't. That is the definition of 'iffy'. If you hunt in trash, you're going to dig trash...and lot's of it.

The long answer:
Well, while it's still true you can't, you can stack the odds in your favor by relying on the basics: investigate the signal in the all-metal pinpoint mode. Here you'll listen to the size, shape, and signal quality.
Never underestimate the importance of this. An all-metal non-motion pinpoint mode is a very powerful, but often underused tool.

Look to see if you've got an adjacent nail shape that may be pointing directly to your 'good' signal and inch or two away. That's a good indication it might simply be an iron false. (Especially if you get an identical good signal off both ends of the nail.)
Pinpoint the target as best you can in detect mode before switching to pinpoint mode. See if the targets pinpoint location shifts from the center you got in motion mode. Another red flag.
While in pinpoint, the screen will be painting the targets it sees, and will help you correlate what you're hearing with what's in the ground.

You get better at this with experience...and with every target you dig.
But as always..."When in doubt...dig it out."

Definition of Iron Falsing:
This might be a good place to talk about the different definitions of 'iron falsing'.
One definition has to do with the overload signal you can get from big iron that will cause iron to "wrap around" from the bottom of the screen to the top.
It give the 'appearance' of having extremely low FE numbers.
This is fairly easy to handle on the CTX, and isn't what I typically refer to as 'falsing'.

The other common definition has to do with the nature of rusty iron (of any size...including/expecially small nails) and the way VLF detectors compute the targets.
That is the 'tip', 'edge', or as sube sometimes calls it a 'thrown' false. (And they most certain do show up in target trace...looking just like a coin.)
That's what I call 'falsing'.

It appears as a separate, good signal... just off the tip(s) of a rusty nail, for instance...and looks exactly like a good signal. Exactly.
The only way to spot (or suspect) these, is to look nearby (again in the all-metal pinpoint mode) to see if your 'good' signal blends into the iron.
(Sometimes there will be a slight difference to the tone 'shape' when swinging left to right vs. right to left. Sometimes there's that 'double blip'.)

With some experience, it can be obvious in some cases...but in others, it's another case of 'dig it out'. (And then just expect the possibility the pinpointer will steer you to the side of the hole for that rusty iron.)
There are iron targets that defy any technique...nails that sit straight up and down, tip up...for instance. "No can defense." Probably dug thousands of those.
Same with irregular shaped iron, such as bent nails...either 'L' or 'U' shaped. Hate'em!

Weather Caveat: If you've had recent rain, or your ground is naturally damp...it lights up the iron like crazy! (In other words, falsing will be much worse.)

In closing/recap:
I feel it necessary to point out something that those of us who have hunted for a long time simply take for granted...
And that is, if you metal detect in trashy areas, you're going to dig trash...and lots of it. That's true whether it's iron or aluminum or brass, etc.
(You can only spend so much time guessing what's making that signal. Sometimes the eyeball discriminator does a faster job.)

It's terribly unfair for me to post my nice images of IH pennies/Barbers/Seated/V-nickels/wheats, etc, without posting the images of all the trash in the finds bag!
It implies that I don't dig any trash, and that couldn't be further from the truth. I should start showing both.

Here's the bottom line for hunting in trash. There are no means to 100% positively determine if iffy targets are good or bad...regardless of detector brand. That's the definition of 'iffy'.
You can 'stack the odds in your favor' but it still means that if you want to hunt in heavy iron/trash, your finds pouch is going to be pretty heavy with iron/trash by the end of the day.
HH

mike

 

[trojdor]

Ok, so I understand there are no magic settings.... but.... what exactly does the magic grimace look like? haha.
Tim.

Tim,
I've been told it's pretty scary...
(Just kidding.)

Thanks for the kind words and comments,

Good Luck, and HH,

mike

 

[TrpnBils]

...all that stuff that Mike said...

Great response - I know there's no magical setting that will eliminate digging trash, but I also know that I'm not fantastic at interpreting iffy signals either so I have a tendency to ignore stuff that isn't a DIG HERE NOW kind of a signal. Always aiming to stack the deck in my favor!

 

[sube]

Great coins Trojdor and well earned nice explanation on how you hunt .

One thing to remember when sweeping side to side if your moving more than a inch a time as you sweep in heavy trash your going to miss things Let me explain you all know that some coins well hit on a left to right sweep and the other way you get no hit because it's masked this way . but if moving a inch at a time you well hit this coin . If you sweep 3 inches ahead at a time you well not hear that coin because you got on trash again there's a small window to hear that coin .

Now if your sweeping one inch at a time you may go over that sweet spot one or two times giving the machine time to build a trace or giving you two times to hear that coin audibly . As you know on deeper coins one sweep may not give target trace but two well give more than one same for audio

It's a great tool for trash pinpoint sizing . This is not something you use for ground coverage this is for trash and the only way to get the coins from (TRASH) .

The problem with bent nails is that they have the same report both ways that's why we dig them nails standing on end the detector is looking at the round report from them I only find nails on end in disturbed soil most nails in a natural setting well be laying on there side .

Trojdor keep mining want to see what comes next you earned them coins sube

 

[TrpnBils]

One thing to remember when sweeping side to side if your moving more than a inch a time as you sweep in heavy trash your going to miss things

Sube are you saying that in heavy iron or trash you ONLY sweep an inch or two at a time ALL the time, or do you only switch to doing this when you hear the blip of a possible good target?

 

[sube]

When working in very trashy places I will only move a inch at a time . Other places with targets farther a part would not benefit you because the machine well pick up targets easier with less co-located targets . But you have to use a differant approach in heavy trash to get what's hiding there . sube