First day with the X-Terra 50

[Treasure Nut]

Finally a nice day to go out. Chose to go to a local park today for a couple hours. I was a little slow today trying to get myself familiar with my new toy. Managed $3.82 Canadian in finds. In the mix I found a 1962 silver dime at a nice clear depth of 6 inches. Whoopee! Favorite find was a twoony on edge down about 3-4 inches. ID was a little jumpy around 30, but cleary indicated it could be a coin. Average depth of all coins around 3 to 5 inches.

I'm very impressed with the pinpointing feature of the X-Terra. I use a screwdriver to retrieve all my finds and was able to locate almost all targets with screwdriver on first try, including the silver dime.

Tomorrow is another nice day. Hopefully I can squeeze in another hunt.

 

[BarnacleBill]

Sunday I'm going to head over and hit a beach infested in the summer with Qu

 

[John(Tx)]

n/t

 

[Digger]

Reading your post got me curious about the readings of the Canadian coins. I have a a bunch of them left over from past travels, and ran them under the 7.5 coil on the X-70. I tried using preset Pattern 1 initially, but found the ferrous content of the higher denominations caused them to be paritally rejected. So, I ran in all metal to get tones and readings. As expected, the pennies and nickels read similar to US coins. mid to upper 30's on the pennies and 12's on the nickels. The dimes, quarters, Looneys and Tooneys are difficult to decipher. When wiggling each of them directly under the center of the coil, they register with high end numbers similar to our dimes, quarters and halves. CDN dimes read 32 -38; Quarters read 32 - 40; Looneys read 32 - 42; Tooneys read 36, 38. The numbers have a hard time locking on, because once the coin nears the edge of the detector coil, it must be picking up on the ferrous content. Readings at the edge of the coil were -4 and -6 for each of the dimes, quarters, Looneys and Tooneys. Digging up one and two dollar coins sounds inviting. But, after hearing those tones fluctuate and watching those numbers bounce around, it makes me glad I don't live in an area that has steel cored coins. I suppose I could eventually get the hang of it. But it would sure take some getting use to! HH Randy

 

[BarnacleBill]

Hi Randy,

Yes they are a challenge. On a saltwater beach laced with black sand it really gets interesting. I have found, and you might try this, is varying the coil to coin distance has an effect. And when they lay at angles, and at different depths, it really gets complex. I have recovered them at the above mentioned beach, but how many have I passed over? They kind of act like steel flat washers, where dead center over the top they give a high coin reaction, but towards the edges iron.

Now I have not found any with X-machines, simply because I have not been able to put in the time this winter. But most of my experience has been with CZ-20's, and the distance effect may be a function of the dual freqs.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Treasure Nut]

Hi Digger,

I find that my X-Terra 50 shows Canadian coins almost the same as my Prizm IV. Canadian coins (other than pennies & most nickles) lying flat on the ground show up as zinc cent (or 30 to 36) on the display. Put an angle of varying degrees on these coins and they will show up anywhere from zinc cent (30 - 36) on the display all the way down to iron (or -6) until the coin is on edge. I've learned to dig everything in my path that sounds like good solid hits. 85% of what I find is junk when I go out looking for clad. But on the upside, I have a good chance of finding gold jewelry. When detecting in the U.S. I don't have this problem with American coins and they show up as they should no matter what angle they are in.

The twoony ($2 Can. coin) that I found today surprised me. I knew it may be a coin. It registered (jump from 24,27, 30, 33) one way, and turning 45 degrees gave me a -6 response. It was the only coin I had trouble finding with my screwdriver. I cut a plug and pulled it over to find the twoony directly on edge stuck in the partially frozen plug.

Here is some info I had saved up from another post last year (it made me realize I had to dig everything, my clad count jumped imediately after):

COMPOSITION OF CANADIAN COINS
The following information, available from the Canadian Mint, is invaluable for teachers
wishing to make up a lab involving the analysis of currency. Thank you to Gordon Gore
for referring me to this web site.
Reference: http://www.mint.ca/royalcanadianmintpublic/index.aspx?RequestedPath=/en-CA/Home/default.htm
Value Years Mass (g) Composition
____ ______ _______ ____________________________
1

 

[Gadget]

Well then... I've got a Twooney around here some place from my Al-Can trip. Will have to run it under the coil and see what to expect. I'm sure there's a chance of finding one of those up here in AK. I know it's made of two different metals, so would probably be a unique signal.

 

[BarnacleBill]

Before:
[attachment 22199 nice.jpg]
After:
Found last winter, about this time.
[attachment 22200 ocean.jpg]

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Monte]

US coin might be. That's because our coins are made of copper (the good old coins) or silver (the better older coins) or of zinc. Our US 5

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Have to do some air testing to see where the coins fall as most detectors are basically ID's for U.S. coins....Actually found two Loonies and two twonies here in Pa. which surprises me...

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

This sure makes me glad I live in Oz.Sounds like a real challenge to detect.Our $1 coins are 92% copper, 6% aluminium and 2% nickel.$2 coins are similar.They usually come in at 32(on the X30), but sometimes read as a 28. They're easy to detect and their's heaps of them in the ground. Especially the $2 coins, because they're half the size and roll out of pockets quite easily.
HH
Mick Evans.

 

[BOB VALDEZ]

They get very dirty, too, in a very short time...

BOB VALDEZ, Belgium

 

[BOB VALDEZ]

I think, what you describe, is about what I am having with the 1 and 2 Euro coins ! I am sure I missed a few (?)... Sometimes I dig NOT CONVINCED and it turns out to be 2 Euro. So, how many times did I, NOT CONVINCED, NOT dig ????

Thank you very much for your explanation, Monte !

BOB VALDEZ, Belgium

 

[Treasure Nut]

I don't find that Canadian coins are difficult to detect if you have the patience to dig it all. They give a solid fluctuating sound response on the X-Terra 50 and target ID is very unreliable. A single tone detector will do just fine. That's why I kept my Prizm IV. Being a Canadian coin shooter you have the benefit of also finding more jewelry while looking for Canadian coins. I have also found a few Canadian & foreign coins that show up only as iron. But there is a limit to how much iron I will dig.

Had a short hunt today finding more Canadian coins. I found only 75cents with a 1940 penny in the mix. Almost forgot: I also found a Speedpark token - no cash value.

Gotta love the X-Terra

 

[Gadget]

Thanks for the explanation Monte. I'll play around with the coins I have to see what happens. Also interested in testing these coins out on my MXT and X-Terra 50 head to head to see which one fares better.

 

[BobH]

<center>[attachment 22565 yearadd.JPG]</center>

 

[BOB VALDEZ]

BobH,

Those coins are terrible and so are OUR Euros, over here.

But I am surprised that your coins ID much higher on the X-Terra 50. For me a 2 Euro coin = 30-33 and a 1 Euro coin = 27-30, 50 cent = 33, 20 cent = 30, 10 cent = 27. And I think you could say that the 2 and 1 Euros are also a bit sputtery.

Thank you for showing this !

BOB VALDEZ, Belgium

 

[BobH]

<center>[attachment 22564 belgium.JPG]</center>