Charles reprint :
"Question for yea what is the lowest point on the screen that you have seen the cross hairs and it still be a silver coin? also the same question but how far left have you seen the cross hairs and it still be a silver coin?
Answer: Hey there's some silver!!! Boy there's nothing that compares with finding a silver coin, its addicting. Quick note, mercs often sound lower in pitch than say a barber dime or seated dime, I think its because they have a deep relief die, they are a tad higher and purer than a wheat, but lower than a barber. A barber in good shape, vf say will generally knock your headphones off they sound so strong.
Lowest point on the screen for a silver...I found many silvers that hit about 40% down from the top, not quite half way down and far right. These included a barber dime, several quarters, and one barber half, each were directly under a rusty bottlecap. The Explorer seems to average the objects together, be on the lookout for the target which hits way out in the middle of knowhere where nothing generally ever hits, its probably two targets averaged together. I once found a barber dime and a buffalo nickel stuck together, man that hit like dead center of the screen and sounded kind of odd yet I could hear the nickel and I could hear some silver screaming.
Also note that half dimes and 3 cent silvers hit quite low, can be as low as mid screen. Worn silvers hit quite a bit lower than normal, even lower than a wheat or IH, don't get sloppy like me and dig carelessly thinking its another corroded IH only to find out you gouged the crap out of an old worn seated dime.
Silver can also hit way left but never all the way top left. The thing about silver and iron mixed is that the cursor will jump back and forth left and right, thats why I say go to iron mask -16 to check those iffy signals.
I'll give you a more advanced tip I would not normally as this is the next zone of this machine. As deep coins approach the limits of detection they sound more and more like iron, many and I mean many coins I dig have lots of iron sound mixed in with the coin sound, telling the difference between a coin and iron when they both sound like iron is a bit of a black art.
I have dug coins which gave a good coin signal with my 15 inch coil that sounded exactly like iron to the stock coil. Or did they...rusty nails are distinctive, they do not behave like a coin. When you sweep a coin which is trying to sound like iron from two directions it does not move and you still get that wider robust signal, it just sounds mostly like iron. But when you sweep a rusty nail from two directions it moves, you think its at point A but when swept again at 90 degrees it moves way over to point B i.e. its behaving like iron.
I will often dig those 80% iron signals which behave like a coin. Note most often there is no iron in the hole...sound confusing? The reason is there is a point where the detector is passing through so much ground mineralization that iron which is the most common mineral clouds or fogs the coin signal, like trying to peer through a thick iron haze, thats why on some really deep ones they mostly sound like iron. There are plenty of coins that will only give you a signal from one direction or angle, but a rusty nail will do the same thing, the sound is close but with practice you can tell the difference between a coin half surounded by iron and a rusty nail.
Man I dug some nails in the early days though until I learned, thats why its best to stick with the two direction signals for now, the coin sound will become second nature, then you can really go find all the stuff everyone else missed. Here's another tip...want to find an 1860's fat indian head...I found one tonight, it hit about 1/4 inch from the bottom of the screen, about 1/2 inch from the right side, pull-tab beaver tale zone right...but it sounded like a coin, nice robust signal and the copper in it was screaming, no beaver tale sounds that good, let me repeat that, no beaver tale sounds that good, sometimes the quality of signal says dig. Plus it had the right depth.
Here's another tip, gawwwd my poor brain is packed with too much Explorer stuff, want to find some cool buttons, old toys, and such? Old military buttons tend to hit bottom right corner which stinks because if you notch out those rusty bottle caps you will miss them. Then it strickly a depth game, and somewhat a quality of signal game, no deep bottlecap will sound as good as an old button even though they might hit in the same place on the screen. Speaking of which, here's how I decide to dig or not dig, above all its the tone/sound of the target, while the screen will average two targets together you can hear each individually generally unless they are actually stuck together. So first tone, if the tone is great generally the screen will back that up. If the tone is iffy I'll go to the screen, if the screen says yeah it could be a coin or something cool and the depth is close to or deeper than my set old coin depth, then I'll take a chance and dig. So I use tone, screen, and depth." by Charles
