Great job. The Sovereign is killer on IDing nickles that other machines just don't have the resolution in that range to ID them separate from things like pull tabs and other junk.
I got out today to a spot that has been producing silver for three of us (I've only dug one silver this year) and was all into the mood of digging ANY signal that sounded deeper than say 5" in the hopes of a gold ring, other good find, or the odd silver coin that read low for some unknown reason. The tabs end at about 5" here so that was going to be my strategy...To "time travel" back further than the invention of round tabs.
Unfortunately a cop showed up and was watching me from the parking lot, so I piddled around scratching at the grass with my hand and not digging so he'd assume I was only looking for stuff on the surface. This lasted about 30 minutes until I got sick of waiting for him to leave so I left. Didn't want to leave right away as then he'd assume I was up to no good. What kills me is I came across to killer sweet deep coin signals that sounded 7 or 8" deep. Luckily there are two white lines painted on the grass for a sport activity so it should be fairly easy for me to cover that area and find those signals again.
One thing I'm really keying in on after numerous wheats and silvers my friend and I have hit at this place that were either on edge or masked, and thus would only give a warbly low tone or a high/low tone if your lucky from all directions except one spot where they gave a good coin signal...Now I pay attention to any targets that sound warbly or sick like this, especially if they sound deep, and then instead of assuming it's a small piece of oddly shaped junk such as can slaw (which can mimic this...but still coins on edge usually have a very distinct high/low tone to them)...But as I was saying...Instead of assuming it's some odd small piece of junk that won't lock onto an ID #, I now circle those all the way around looking for one spot where they give a good coin signal. If they do then it's time to get excited and dig.
The coins on edge usually go coin/mid tone up and down like that until you hit that one spot around them where they lock on to "COIN". It's a VERY unique sound unlike any junk I've ever heard, so I get excited when I hit those and eagerly work all the way around them looking for it to finally lock onto COIN in one spot.
Coins masked by iron or other junk might only null all the way around except in one spot where they say "COIN", or at least will give a junky low or mid trash signal until you get to the right spot to get the coin signal. The key is that if a deep target or one you think is masked locks onto one VDI # then it's going to be junk, but if it keeps changing VDI and tone then it's either an odd shaped small piece of junk, or it's a coin on edge or in trash...So make sure you work all the way around those deepies or even say 4 or 5" deep ones that do this and see if they'll speak "COIN" to you in one spot. I'm more excited about these types of signals than a "classic" coin signal at say 5" or deeper, because the chances of finding a good clean deep coin signal are aren't that good anymore unless you are hunting a spot where the coins can easily sink real deep...A place where there is potential for deeper coins that are out of the range of other detectors but not the Sovereign. Most machines can hit silver dimes at 7 to maybe 8" under ideal conditions, but if the soil is allowing them to sink into say the 9 to 14" range then that's what I call Sovereign city, as that is out of the range of all but a very few handful of detectors...Which are usually Minelabs...
And even I would wager most guys using a Minelab aren't setting it up properly or working slowly like they should to be able to hear those kinds of deep ones. Everything has to be perfect to find those on any Minelab...The sensitivity needs to be maxed out as much as possible. The discrimination has to be at zero or very little. The guy has to be working the coil very slow. And he has to be overlapping his sweeps even with these DD coils as they still have a tendency like a concentric to reach furthers at the very center, though not nearly as badly as a concentric does. Then there's the fact that the guy has to be willing to circle the deep target from all directions, as I've found in my tests that even a silver dime with no masking and laying perfectly flat CAN give a coin signal from one direction, but completely disappear and not even null from all other directions. That is, at depth this can happen.
It's all about your strategy. If you are working a spot where targets can only sink no more than say 7 or 8" due to the soil, then you are wasting your time looking for deep silver signals as just about any machine that has worked that spot has dug all those. Time to change your strategy and start looking for the badly masked ones or ones on edge, and that means working your way around every bad signal you find to see if it will finally say "Hey, I am a coin."
