Second time out with the C$

[Sven]

This evening went across the street to the schoolyard to see if I could eek anything else out of it. This time with the Fisher Coinstrike. Found it is pretty is easy to use and wasn't to long before I started to find some coins.
Spend about 3 hours out there. Didn't expect to find too much in the way of coins, gone over the same areas 50 times. The school is convenient for me to test out detectors. Just about 30 feet away. More or less it was a short hunt to learn the way this detector operates.

I was pleasantly surprised to still find coins that were mostly between 3-5 inches deep. Did get some bottle caps and pulltabs down to about 6 or so. Some other junk a bit deeper. Not bad for using the 6" search coil.

Found pennies, dimes, nickel, quarters, Loonie ($1.00 coin) and a Mexican $1 coil that looks like a mini Twoonie (Canadian $2 coin). A broken watch, hot wheel car (was deep) and the usual trash.

The Coinstrike really likes Canadian claddage, with somewhat good ID numbers without bouncing too much and very repeatable coin sounding signals. Fairly easy to pinpoint in all metal mode.

Hopefully get out someplace different within the next few days, maybe find something good. Looks like I will enjoy using this detector and it gave me an excuse to sell my last Tesoro.

 

[jabbo]

Glad you're finding targets at that particular place. Sell you last Tesoro? Several months ago I traded my Golden uMax with 5 coils for another C$ to have as a backup. Having two of the same detector makes it easy for me to switch between the two. Also, the C$ meter ID's pulltabs, coins, etc more accurately than the 4 tones of the Golden.

 

[Sven]

Yes decided to let the Tesoro go, on the bay.
Just needed one good ID machine with some good capabilities such as the C$. Along with my PI, think I have all bases covered.

 

[jabbo]

A member wanted to trade his C$ with two 8" coils for a Tesoro. I offered the Golden with 5 coils and the deal was an even trade. He could use those coils on his Cortes, that helped clinch the deal. The Golden was OK, but with no meter I had to rely on 4 tones for all targets. Four tones is not good enough, the C$ has four tones, but the meter really fine tunes the target ID. When I get out there again I'm going to bury a dime at 7-8" deep and check the meter numbers. I did that several times last summer and if I remember correctly the ID numbers are jumpy and are much lower with an occasional correct ID number thrown in.

 

[jabbo]

a measured exact 8.5" deep in moist soil, low mineralization soil. Used the CoinStrike with the 8" coil, Sens 10, Threshold 0, ground balanced. In Disc mode the signal was a little better than a tiny blip and the ID numbers ranged from 19 - 23. Got a signal with every sweep but the coil had to be centered perfectly over the dime when sweeping in Disc mode. A clad dime ID usually is 28 up close. All Metal mode gave a little bigger and stronger signal with same ID numbers. A dime that deep could have been missed real easy in Disc mode. That was a deep dime, the C$ knew it was there, just barely but as I said, it was deep. When I changed the Threshold to minus 5, Disc mode did not pick it up. I'm lucky to have mild soil, I can run the detector at full sensitivity except when there is strong EMI present.

 

[Sven]

Nice but, now try it with a silver dime and see what you get.
Clad dimes are mostly copper. I would suspect it would be almost like finding a copper penny?
Finding a clad dime that deep is about as deep as I want to go on any given day at a school, park, picnic grounds......unless out in the woods or farmers field.
I would say most of my finds are usually down to about 6".

Was hoping to get out, work to do the past two days and started to rain this afternoon. Bad weather for the next few days.

 

[jabbo]

Sven, I bury clad because I don't dig them up after testing. Anyone who digs up that 2 year old dime at over 8" will never return again. As for me, I almost never dig those very deep signals, almost always its a rusty nail, sometimes a tiny rivet. I get 1700's British pennies not nearly that deep.

 

[MarkCZ]

I have more than once fresh buried coins and beyond the 5" deep range they DO NOT! test right at all! and after a week or so they will just disappear! Then in about 6 months the detector will start giving a sign that something is down there, but nothing you would dig.
Then after about a year or so the coins will start testing fine!
That's the way my 8" garden did, now it works just fine, Id's well with some jumping but the signal response kind-a faint you would for sure dig it.
Now, I'm at the 5 months or so on a 7" nickel garden and its starting into the bad signal level now, while my over one year old 4" 5" and 6" nickels are working great.

At the same time I buried the 7" nickels I put in a new 6" coin garden,
6" quarter,
Penny,
Nickel,
This garden is just like the 7" nickel garden in that at this point there just scratchy at best. I'm figuring by this fall they will be at useable state, nest spring they will be at a natural lost response.

Mark

 

[jabbo]

Mark, Your test garden might be giving you correct info in your soil. I don't have a test garden, my back yard is too full of small rusty nails. I think the biggest and strongest halo is from rusty iron. The soil in my area is mild, silver coins never show signs of corrosion, looks like they never were in the ground at all. To me, no hint of corrosion on silver coins means they do not produce any halo here in my soil. So I think, if a silver dime is newly buried at 8" or sank to that depth over time makes no difference since the metal does not corrode away over time, at least in my soil. But, at the ocean, silver coins are sometimes hard to ID, the salt really eats away a lot of the metal. Silver coins in mineralized soil might leave a halo because from what I see here on these forums some of those silver coins from mineralized soil look pretty bad. In my area the soil loves to eat away zinc pennies, nickles turn red and are not smooth any more. My observations are based strictly on soil in my area. Beware, my observations and conclusions are not carved in stone.

 

[MarkCZ]

Mark, Your test garden might be giving you correct info in your soil. I don't have a test garden, my back yard is too full of small rusty nails. I think the biggest and strongest halo is from rusty iron. The soil in my area is mild, silver coins never show signs of corrosion, looks like they never were in the ground at all. To me, no hint of corrosion on silver coins means they do not produce any halo here in my soil. So I think, if a silver dime is newly buried at 8" or sank to that depth over time makes no difference since the metal does not corrode away over time, at least in my soil. But, at the ocean, silver coins are sometimes hard to ID, the salt really eats away a lot of the metal. Silver coins in mineralized soil might leave a halo because from what I see here on these forums some of those silver coins from mineralized soil look pretty bad. In my area the soil loves to eat away zinc pennies, nickles turn red and are not smooth any more. My observations are based strictly on soil in my area. Beware, my observations and conclusions are not carved in stone.

I agree with you about "Halo" and silver here usually comes out pristine as well,
I will say that my soil is "Average" in that every detector I've owned that had a ground balance preset point when I actually ground balanced them it always ends up very CLOSE to the preset point.

My test garden test isn't halo and I have even buried silver coins (I have sense dug those up) my 8" garden I even rapped the large penny tightly in a section of a plastic baggie. Its not "Halo" its got something to do with the coin not being naturally part of the buildup of the soil. Whites refers to it as the "Ground Matrix" and it being disturbed. My brother Ron had the same thing happen with a 7" test garden and his high powered F75, he planted the coins and to the F75 the coins just weren't there, but the Tejon hit on them, then in a couple of weeks the Tejon started having trouble hitting on them.

Yea, my yard has a BUNCH of small iron, foil, tabs, sparkplugs, BB's, shell casings, washers, nuts, screws, wire, etc.... What I had to do was clean each area where I planted a coin, I just used all metal and went to digging. (my 1266 worked the best for this)
I had one 6" garden that never did test right?? I had to dig it up. I think what I did on it was I had this idea that would make it better. I dug the plug out as close as I could to 6",
then I poured in a little water in the hole to make the hole a tad muddy,
then I placed the coin in the mud "Flat" then I placed the plugs back in and use my foot to press them down really good.
That garden NEVER worked! even after two years.
So, the mud was a bad IDEA!

Now down to only 3 to 4" fresh test gardens seem to be okay, much deeper than that and fresh just doesn't work right., now in sand I don't think its a problem.

Mark

 

[jabbo]

Mark, thanks for the info on all the variables that affect a detectors performance, we never know what we are up against when we go out . Almost all my digs are good solid signals down to maybe 7". And yet in that medium depth range I find British 1700's pennies that were in the ground nearly 300 years. I ignore all those millions of iffy signals because I hate digging iron and yet I make great finds. I think nobody is 100% good at this hobby, maybe 50% good is the best we can do.