Some reflections on the current state of silver coin hunting

[Capreo]

I started hunting with my Dad back in 1976 when i was 10 years old with our trusty Whites detecter. So have been at it for near (Yikes!!) 50 years. Currently I'm swinging a Manticore after retiring the CTX after many many great years. I hate to tell people how much silver we found back in the early days because it feels so defeating compared to today.
Just going to the local park would yield on average, about 2 to 3 dollars in silver .....almost every time we went out!!! And about 6 bucks in clad, which is worth around $30 in todays dollars. As a kid I was able to buy 4 or 5 comic books with each outing .... and still have money left over to buy 2 hamburgers and fries from Mcdonalds. . So even todays clad is hardly worth digging considering its purchasing power.
Presently even with the best detecter I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 dollars in silver for the entire year. And I no longer hunt park or schools but do research to find those rarely hit areas. Except we are all doing research now and hard to be the first ones there. As somone said in an earlier post " its the law of diminishing returns". Unlike a lake thats fished out, we dont have the DNR "replenishing the fields with Silver" like they will replenish fish in a lake thats been depleted, and bringing it back to life. Theres a point like that fished out lake, where all the silver will be taken, yet sadly no one to re-stock it.
I hate to say it but unless theres some radical new technology that will find masked silver under junk much better than the Manticore currently can, or get us to depths that are limited by the current technology, I see the hobby slowly fading away for those land hunters looking for silver.
I bought the CTX back in 2012 and it really was the future and a game changer !! It brought pounded and hunted out parks back to life like nobody’s business. So much missed Silver was being found. The Equinox and Manticore,(great detecters) are not bringing back previously pounded and hunted out areas like the CTX did. Dealer and manufacterer hype will say its so.....but its not. Believe me!!
Sure todays detecters may find a coin here or there that the CTX may have missed because they are faster, but they are NOT the game changer the CTX was. And this is coming from somone that swung the ctx for 9 years, and the Manticore for 3 years . I am by no means a novice to the hobby and would consider myself a seasoned veteran with loads of experience under my belt, who was a master with the CTX. Not many coins findable would escape my grasp.
And thats why I really wish somone out there would come out with a detecter that is as advanced today, as the CTX was in 2012. And any seasoned CTX hunters who purchased one back in 2012 and mastered that machine will know what I'm talking about .
Happy hunting and good luck......we all need it

 

[laplander]

I agree the CTX was "the" beast in its day. There are place I hunt where the Manticore outshines the rest of the pack hands down. That being said I rarely hunt Parks.
JMO HH

 

[jmaclen]

Capreo, I never had your experience using a CTX 3030 here in Colorado. The ground is just too full of magnetite for the CTX to be as effective as what you experienced. All deeper non ferrous targets had too many ferrous indications or just weren't detected by me anyway. This happened in the older public parks here in the Denver area.

The silver that is reachable in these same older parks with a VLF is now being found by many here with the Equinox, Manticore, Deus 2 and the Nokta Legend. Their simultaneous multi frequency technology has made the GAME CHANGING difference here and made those deep silver targets detectable as non-ferrous. Same for deep older nickel targets and deep precious metal jewelry. No hype, no BS, just fact.

I have detected these parks for years with CTX, Etrac, V3i and many single frequency VLFs. Deep silver coin, silver ring and gold ring totals for the year could be counted on the fingers of both hands.

Now, with me using these latest SMF detectors, deep silver coin, silver ring and gold ring totals for the year fill up both hands and more.

I am certainly not finding silver at the levels you were when you were younger but breaking the 100+ deep silver coin and jewelry mark is becoming a habit here just in public parks that everyone thought were hunted out. Third year in a row.

So, your experience is what I hear from many people on these forums. It just isn't my experience at all. These new SMFs have made detecting fun and very rewarding for me and others here and the money spent on them has been recouped easily.

 

[still looking 52]

I posted several years ago on a method to uncover more silver, it's called the "CIRCLE" method.
Simply put a marker flag down in the center of your hunting area and start going in circles around the flag with small circles at first and getting larger each lap.
What this does is give you "ANGLES' that you never get by hunting in a straight line.
Also ignore swallow targets, the silver is going to be at least 3" down by now probably even deeper than that.

 

[Monkeys Uncle]

Can't hunt anymore...knees won't allow it. I agree the former "hot spots" are more/less gone and numerous Ag finds every hunt is pretty much a thing of the past. I think those of you who still swing a detector are going to have to hunt the "boundries" of the old hot spots...park entry points, edge of parking lots, pre-clad neighborhood yards, sidewalk tear outs (when located) and dig deeper than usual. Wish I could join ya. GL and HH!!!

 

[ironman200081]

I agree with you on the CTX. I, too, got mine during the first shipment in 2012 and it remained my only machine until May of this year when my Manticore arrived. The CTX was revolutionary and game-changing, and I was blown away by the technology. I have spent the past 6 months with my Manticore only hunting public places that I have previously beat to death with the CTX and the E-Trac before that, and only the super high trash spots. These are spots with numerous bad targets like iron and pull tabs in each sweep. I have found in this short time that the Manticore can really unmask the older stuff and silver still out there in these trashy areas. I have uncovered more silver and other old coins (cents, nickles) in these 6 months with the Manticore than I have with the CTX in the last 2 years.

Just last weekend, my digging buddy and I hit a public place that I have hunted for 15 years and he several more. I pulled 5 silvers, including 2 quarters, in the trashy ground. The speed and unmasking ability of the Manticore has made me a believer of its performance in heavy iron or trash. However, in clean ground, I am still going to grab my CTX as the first-out as I have more confidence in its depth and accurate target identification at depth than the Manticore. Plus, that 17" coil is a stone-cold killer.

I have yet to take my Manticore to a new-to-me spot because I am still so busy re-sweeping super trashy places that I had "hunted out" with the CTX. I would probably take both machines to a new spot, start with the CTX and then pivot to the Manticore if/when I encounter heavy ground trash. I also prefer my CTX for hunting in the woods because I have grown to rely on the mapping and GPS feature (all the dang trees and brush look alike!). I am quite fond of those old bells-n-whistles.

 

[Capreo]

I agree with you on the CTX. I, too, got mine during the first shipment in 2012 and it remained my only machine until May of this year when my Manticore arrived. The CTX was revolutionary and game-changing, and I was blown away by the technology. I have spent the past 6 months with my Manticore only hunting public places that I have previously beat to death with the CTX and the E-Trac before that, and only the super high trash spots. These are spots with numerous bad targets like iron and pull tabs in each sweep. I have found in this short time that the Manticore can really unmask the older stuff and silver still out there in these trashy areas. I have uncovered more silver and other old coins (cents, nickles) in these 6 months with the Manticore than I have with the CTX in the last 2 years.

Just last weekend, my digging buddy and I hit a public place that I have hunted for 15 years and he several more. I pulled 5 silvers, including 2 quarters, in the trashy ground. The speed and unmasking ability of the Manticore has made me a believer of its performance in heavy iron or trash. However, in clean ground, I am still going to grab my CTX as the first-out as I have more confidence in its depth and accurate target identification at depth than the Manticore. Plus, that 17" coil is a stone-cold killer.

I have yet to take my Manticore to a new-to-me spot because I am still so busy re-sweeping super trashy places that I had "hunted out" with the CTX. I would probably take both machines to a new spot, start with the CTX and then pivot to the Manticore if/when I encounter heavy ground trash. I also prefer my CTX for hunting in the woods because I have grown to rely on the mapping and GPS feature (all the dang trees and brush look alike!). I am quite fond of those old bells-n-whistles.

I've had decent luck with the Manticore but nothing like youre describing . Are you using all-terrain general or high conducter. And typically what recovery speed ?

 

[Rick(ND)]

Many people still finding a lot of silver, but not easy in these work to death parks, the secret is knowing your detector and learn what each control does as many use to much disc, sensitivity set too high or not high enough. Research and thinking the whole layout and where thing may have been as many of us seen. One old ballfield at a school in MN a couple of my buddies hit, not much but some new coins, but the one guy looked it over and away from the main ballfield and could see what may have been old ball field pole and was real grassy and when over there just try it. One guy got 45 silver and the other guy got 55, the guy with the 55 went back the next day and got 45 more. No one had seen this spot before and worked the main ballfield. Another one in SD the guys research found where it had been, but was4-5 inch of water on it that was a old park ballfield and they decide to try it anyway to see if their research was correct and 3 guys tried it in the water and didn't want to spend a lot of time and wanted to see what was there, in a hour and a half they got 12 half dollars all silver and I wanted to go next time, but was told the property was private and the lady that own it didnt want anyone of it incase they got hurt.

Anyway Myself I been detecting since 1974 and run a non disc detector and went to one of the oldest parks around and did my detecting, got lot of silver coins and a few gold ring as there was no disc and learned how to tell the rusty bottle caps from anything good. Went though many different disc detectors after that and like my Technetix Mark 1 once I learned it, then got my first Minelab Sovereign XS and added a 180 meter and thought I made a mistake, but after I learned it was the best, but took a while. Went to the Explorers series, but the tone were too fast and with my bad hearing miss many. Got the E-Trac and had the tone pitch hold like my Sovereign did and it was very good and I should have kept it. I did the complete Sovereign series and still have a XS and the GT. Had the CTX for a while, but first one was bad and think it was a broken wire in the cable , Minelab sent me a new GTX and it was much better, but never got a lot of detecting with it. Been staying with my Sovereigns as I have dug deeper coins, silver coins with some right up top of big rusty bolt as by going slow you can hear both the signals. I am not a spring chicken anymore and it is hard to use my Sovereign, but myself I dug more good items than trash and I like my Minelab and those around I worked with like them too, with one has a Explorer 2 and the other a E-Trac
I see too many buy the most expensive detector and cant run them and sell them as they can not run them. The more bell and whistle it seem harder to use because of all the controls, and those that learn them well do very good.

 

[ironman200081]

I've had decent luck with the Manticore but nothing like youre describing . Are you using all-terrain general or high conducter. And typically what recovery speed ?

I have it tuned for high iron environments, and based on the recommendations of the NASA guy who worked for ML on the Manticore. Yes, ATHC and I run a recovery speed of 4 (!). No stabilizer unless ground conditions get bad, and I will bump it to 2 or 3. 1 region all tones. I have some posts on here from back in May and June when I first started, in the first place I took the Manticore was a spot I hunted with the CTX just a week prior. Pulled one silver with the CTX, but 5 with the Manticore on its maiden voyage in the same spot. The really thick iron was masking stuff.