Regarding the Lack of Finds on the Beach

[silvercoinboy]

OBN,

I was a member of MARS in the 1980's as a teenager. I remember Steve Noga very well. Big relic hunter and Nautilus dealer among other brands. Catonsville library basement. I lived in Ellicott City. Actually won the monthly silver contest once as I had 40+ silver from a scout camp in PA.


is MARS still around? I talked to someone there before COVID, but the website is now shut down.

 

[Sand Sifter]

OBN,

I was a member of MARS in the 1980's as a teenager. I remember Steve Noga very well. Big relic hunter and Nautilus dealer among other brands. Catonsville library basement. I lived in Ellicott City. Actually won the monthly silver contest once as I had 40+ silver from a scout camp in PA.


is MARS still around? I talked to someone there before COVID, but the website is now shut down.

Small world, I remember Steve Noga, yeah, he was always singing the praises of Nautilus detectors. I wasn't in MARS, I was a member of the MD Freestate Treasure Club, and he would frequently attend our meetings. Going way back here, but around 1967, my mom got me a Heathkit detector. We had a friend solder and assemble, but it wasn't very ergonomic or easy to swing for a 10-year-old, lol.

About a year or so later, she got me a White's Coinmaster IV that we bought from a local White's dealer, Claude "Pete" Peterson. Pete was the President of the MD Freestate Treasure Club at the time, so through him, we joined and started attending meetings & club hunts.

 

[silvercoinboy]

Small world, I remember Steve Noga, yeah, he was always singing the praises of Nautilus detectors. I wasn't in MARS, I was a member of the MD Freestate Treasure Club, and he would frequently attend our meetings. Going way back here, but around 1967, my mom got me a Heathkit detector. We had a friend solder and assemble, but it wasn't very ergonomic or easy to swing for a 10-year-old, lol.

About a year or so later, she got me a White's Coinmaster IV that we bought from a local White's dealer, Claude "Pete" Peterson. Pete was the President of the MD Freestate Treasure Club at the time, so through him, we joined and started attending meetings & club hunts.

My first detector was a Whites 4DB (Sears). worked great and when I got the discrimination down I found a lot. Can't imagine that I did not have a pinpointer back then.

 

[Sand Sifter]

My first detector was a Whites 4DB (Sears). worked great and when I got the discrimination down I found a lot. Can't imagine that I did not have a pinpointer back then.

We did have a pinpointer back then, it was a screwdriver or ice pick, lol. I used a small flat headed screwdriver as a probe and over time, the edges of the blade became rounded due to sticking it in the dirt over and over for a few years. Man, people who have never used a probe just don't know the extreme gratification of sticking that probe in the ground, hunting for the target, then all sudden, you'd hit something solid, usually a coin lying flat. You could feel the target and sometimes hear a faint "thud" when the blade hit the coin.

It was a great feeling to push the probe into the ground, and then it hits something solid and stops, but we had to be careful with probing, didn't want to scratch a coin or something potentially valuable. But having that probe stop when hitting the coin was pretty exciting. And, as a bonus. after I inserted the probe into the ground and hit the coin, I'd leave the probe in the ground then I'd place my thumb & index finger on the probe's shaft right where it entered the ground. Using my fingers to grab the probe, I could withdraw the probe and see EXACTLY how deep the coin or target was. IMHO, that was the most accurate VDI I've ever used, lol.

Of course, that was back in the day with the old BFO & TR detectors, so detection depth was a lot less than with today's digital SMF detectors with Double D coils. I never used a probe with my Sovereign because it just detects so deep, so I used a Garrett pinpointer, but now have a Minelab pinpointer. But back then, a probe is what we used, and it worked very well. And let's not forget the fixed angle of the coil. All detectors today and probably for the last 20 years have adjustable coil angles. But my Coinmaster IV had a small angled "platform" molded into the edge of the coil that mounted to the shaft, so that angle was fixed, and I had to hold and swing the detector at the same angle if I wanted to keep the coil parallel to the ground. Ahh, the good ole' days, lol. .