Metaldetectorguydiggindeep said:
[size=medium]I might have asked this before but got myself all confused again reading about high end detectors and if the t2 can compete.[/size]
The Teknetics T2, any version to include the 'Classic' which is my favorite, used to sell for a much higher dollar amount which, in 'buyer's speak,' made them a "high end" detector. I enjoyed using my T2's, having owned 4 or 5 of them, a good deal where I hunted the most. Those would be older period sites with a lot of nails and other debris, especially iron and rusty tin. I mean dense, good-target masking trash, and the T2's served me quite well using the 5" Double-D search coil.
Personally, I don't care which manufacturer makes coils in the 7X11 to 8X11 DD sizes, I just never cared for them. I have a preference for a rounder-shaped search coil when covering an open, sparse-target site where I might be able to achieve depth-of-detection, and there's something about the looks and feel and balance of most 7X11 to 8X11 elliptical coils that, for various reasons, just do not appeal
to me.
Metaldetectorguydiggindeep said:
[size=medium]You guys with a t2 classic what is the deepest coin you have dug with the stock 11" coil?[/size]
In a few locations where I used my T2 w/11" BiAxial coil, I have managed to get a reasonably good hit on some coins in the 7" to perhaps 11" depth range, but it varied based upon the target size and shape, alloy make-up, and other factors. Most coins and coin-sized targets I have found over the past 53½ years have been positioned between surface/sub-surface and about 4" deep. When I do chance on an area with honest, measured-depth coins that are 'deep' they tend to fall in the 5" to 9" depth range. Rarely, very rarely, in over five decades of very avid metal detecting, have I found a coin-sized target deeper than 9". I would best guess that the total number of 10" or grater depth coins I have ever found a coin might number as high as twenty (20) ....
might, if I am counting the very honest depth measurements. I can 'air test' to better coil-to-target distances, but I can do this by a brisker wave of a sample target than what can be used as a sweep speed in my very mineralized ground.
Metaldetectorguydiggindeep said:
[size=medium]The reason i ask is because i spent three days for a total of about 12 hours and not one old coin. The location was an old school about 120 years old. I believe i am the only one to ever detect it.[/size]
1st: I have been Relic Hunting ghost towns, homesteads, farm and ranch sites and other older period places since May of '69, and Coin Hunting urban locations going back to March of '65. I do not always find early era coins at every site, but most of the time I do. Most of the older sites I hunt date back to a start of activity between 1845 and 1867, so they can be 173 year old locations, while the bulk of them have history between 130 and 150 years ago.
2nd: While there might be a time or two when I haven't found a coin in 12 hours of hunting, I would guess that 95% or the time, or more, I have recovered one to multiple old coins. One excellent example I can give is my all-time favorite ghost town I named 'Twin Flats' that is located in Utah. Life in that railroad town began in 1869 and it was a very active town through the 1800's, started to dwindle from 1900 to about the mid-1939's then soon died off to oblivion. I hunted 'Twin Flats' a lot, long hours and very often, and was only skunked once. It produced hundreds of coins for me, filling four binders of 2X2 carded specimens plus many that didn't make it into a full binder. My Seated Liberty silver coins out-numbered Barber silvers about 30-35 to 1. Nickels were an average split of 4 Shield for every 5 'V' variety, and the denominations included my oldest silver being an 1836 Capped Bust Half-Dime, my oldest One Cent coins
from that town were an 1851 Large Cent and 1857 Flying Eagle, I also recovered almost a half-dozen 2¢ and 3¢ pieces.
Of all those hundreds of coins, no more than 6 of them were deeper than 5", and perhaps no more than 20 were recovered in the 4" to 5" depth range. The bulk of the older coins were located from surface / sub-surface down to the 3" to 4" depth range. Unless there is some deliberate act that can alter the ground surface or disturb the conditions at a site, coins and other naturally-lost artifacts have no reason to be positioned very deep. Erosion can cover targets with material or it can remove some surface material even to the point of exposing an object. Wind, rain and snow can do this, or other things that might effect an area such as runoff, the heavy weight of cattle and horses troding over an area or feeding, perhaps around water troughs, barns, outbuildings, corrals and so forth. The deposition and build-up of leaves from trees and other 'common' contributing factors, as are heavily used travel routes by cattle, walking paths for people or wagon roads.
And even those places do not always have coins positioned deeper than 3"-4". And as for a 120 year old school site that you believe hasn't been hunted before you worked it? Well, I can't tell you how many times over many, many years I have heard people tell me or e-mail me that they felt they were to first to hunt a particular location that had never been hunted before. I shut up and stayed quiet as quite a few times I knew that I had been there, often numerous times, as well as friends or others who had gone before or after us.
Metaldetectorguydiggindeep said:
[size=medium]My machine will air test a quarter at 14". Hope this all made sense. Thank you for any thoughts.[/size]
So obviously my 'thoughts' are going to be a bit biased based upon my use and familiarity of the Tek. T2 series and an ample number of decades working older sites that might have old coin potential. I seldom use 'standard' or larger search coils unless I am well away from all the discarded debris, and in those places I favor a smaller-size search coil most of the time and if it is not too littered then a mid-size search coil might get called into action.
On my T2's I did quite well working the 5" DD coil in and around the iron debris, and I have faith in the T2's capability, given the right search coil, most functional settings, and working a site with a slow and methodical sweep to cover it well.
Monte
