Jay- oldcoins
New member
Hi out there in Minelabland. Have been reading posts for months secretly and putting your new ideas to use, especially Cody's. Finally signed up, and thought this post might be of interest. Incidentally, I am currently north of Chicago, soon moving to Elkhart, Indiana with winters in Florida. Eat your heart out!
Went out Monday when rain stopped, probably last day to hunt before ground freezes solid this week. Hit an old park I (and others) have worked to death. It gave me a chance to comparison-check the SunRay baby 5" coil on my ExII. I hunted in ferrous, sensitivity from 23-28 (some interference in areas), gain 6, deep and fast off, used digital (thanks, Cody!!!). I do hunt mainly by ear- and ignore shallow loud coin sounds. I hunted sometimes with a simple discrimination screen with left third blacked out, and bottom half blocked out leaving a fair sized upper-right open area. I was after copper-silver coins only. Sometimes I hunted in IM 15 until it drove me nuts even with small coil- that did not help find things. I did cross-check iffy signals in IM-15. I worked areas known to be frustratingly junky when attacked with normal coils (along sidewalks, near WWI monument etc). Soils was recently soaked, it is deep black sand. Spent maybe 1 1/2 hours going S>L>O>W>. These areas had produced many coins in the past- Indians, Barbers, Wheaties. Total finds with 5"- one Wheatie, several deeper-than-they-should-be Memorials, a few similar clad dimes. Phoo. I dug far too many marginal signals that were apparently iron giving some reasonable coin numbers and sounds. Once a hole was opened and checked with the x-1 probe it no longer sounded "coin" or any high signals- often just nulled or gave a few pitiful bleats. Put on the stock coil and redid some of same areas. Redid one strip along sidewalk- one swing (maybe 5') wide and about 150' long. On about 4th swing got decent signal at end of sweep- yeh, maybe it was just beyond the swing when using small coil- and it was an 1877 Seated quarter!! Worn, but very real. Now I was really fired up- and by the end of the row I had found an additional.... nothing. I did NOT hear these same marginal signals that wasted time with the 5". Nor were there any other decent signals. I spent another 2 1/2 hours in other, less junky areas of the park with stock coil and found 3 old INdians, half a dozen Wheaties, a 1920 Merc, some modern deep clad and memorials (I usually do not dig anything unless it is in the bottom half of the depth indicator). Most coins were 7-10" deep. This is much better than usual when visiting this park, so conditions must have been optimal. So, no advantage to small coil here.
The day before I tried the 5" in a Wisconsin parklike area around a public building. It has produced wonderful old coins, including seated, some Bust, 3c silver, half-dimes, Indians etc. But now worked to death, few finds made. Aha- the small coil, again in junky areas, will shine! Not to be. Total result in 2 hours- one 1945 Wheatie,a and a few modern coins. Again, many false relatively good-sounding signals. Only those solid 4-way, high-number signals produced coins.
The only fairly good result I have had with the small coil was in Lincoln Park, Chicago- also heavily worked out but a producer of great coins in the past. I spent 4 or 5 hours, dry summer soil, hitting junky areas that had produced old coins in the past. Not as much real trouble here with false signals, but coin signals sparse. I did find ten or so wheaties- mostly 1940s, no silver, and of course some deeper modern junk coins. I had worked these same areas with stock coil a few weeks earlier, not finding much, but found older Wheaties, a few Indians but no silver. My conclusion- the coins I found with 5" were not too deep- 4-5", and I may have had a signal on them with stock coil in the past and didn't dig them as they seemed too shallow (the lower half of depth gauge rule). They did hit in the lower half of depth gauge using the 5" coil. I have used this small coil other times with similar results.
So... my conclusion on using the small 5" coil is that it helps very little and seems to produce more iffy signals that are bum. I know many of you love it. I thought it would find and discriminate moderately deep coins next to junk. It seems to get reasonable depth, and on shallow coins you can still get a signal raising coil well above ground level. My theory- the stock coil, if worked slowly and carefully with overlapping swings, is capable of finding most coins that are going to be found, even in quite junky areas. If you work a new untouched junky area you are going to find pretty much the same coins with either one of them- but the stock coil will add those much deeper, fainter coins.
A final sobering observation. Our club had a planted hunt a few years ago (in pre-Minelab days). Unfortunately the site selected for a multiple lane hunt was in an incredibly junk-infested area (pull-tabs, crowns, everything) from thousands of large picnics. (moral- check before planting coins!!) Each lane was maybe 6' x 20' long and had a number of painted pennies buried just under the surface, only 1-2" deep max. Each lane team sent out a member to hunt until he found one coin, then the next guy and so on. Soon all the lanes just stopped- and the hunt was a bust because so few coins could be found. Less than half those buried were found! I, and some others, slowly reworked one of these lanes later with every machine we had, and came up with one or two more painted pennies, but almost half those buried so shallow "DISAPPEARED". I still find it hard to believe that you can mask a very shallow coin so effectively with junk underneath it. I'm sure a Minelab would have found some more of these vanishing coins, but just imagine how much stuff does lie undetectable in junky areas- until they bulldoze a layer off the top and hundreds of old coins are just lying there- we have all seen and heard of these bonanzas.
Went out Monday when rain stopped, probably last day to hunt before ground freezes solid this week. Hit an old park I (and others) have worked to death. It gave me a chance to comparison-check the SunRay baby 5" coil on my ExII. I hunted in ferrous, sensitivity from 23-28 (some interference in areas), gain 6, deep and fast off, used digital (thanks, Cody!!!). I do hunt mainly by ear- and ignore shallow loud coin sounds. I hunted sometimes with a simple discrimination screen with left third blacked out, and bottom half blocked out leaving a fair sized upper-right open area. I was after copper-silver coins only. Sometimes I hunted in IM 15 until it drove me nuts even with small coil- that did not help find things. I did cross-check iffy signals in IM-15. I worked areas known to be frustratingly junky when attacked with normal coils (along sidewalks, near WWI monument etc). Soils was recently soaked, it is deep black sand. Spent maybe 1 1/2 hours going S>L>O>W>. These areas had produced many coins in the past- Indians, Barbers, Wheaties. Total finds with 5"- one Wheatie, several deeper-than-they-should-be Memorials, a few similar clad dimes. Phoo. I dug far too many marginal signals that were apparently iron giving some reasonable coin numbers and sounds. Once a hole was opened and checked with the x-1 probe it no longer sounded "coin" or any high signals- often just nulled or gave a few pitiful bleats. Put on the stock coil and redid some of same areas. Redid one strip along sidewalk- one swing (maybe 5') wide and about 150' long. On about 4th swing got decent signal at end of sweep- yeh, maybe it was just beyond the swing when using small coil- and it was an 1877 Seated quarter!! Worn, but very real. Now I was really fired up- and by the end of the row I had found an additional.... nothing. I did NOT hear these same marginal signals that wasted time with the 5". Nor were there any other decent signals. I spent another 2 1/2 hours in other, less junky areas of the park with stock coil and found 3 old INdians, half a dozen Wheaties, a 1920 Merc, some modern deep clad and memorials (I usually do not dig anything unless it is in the bottom half of the depth indicator). Most coins were 7-10" deep. This is much better than usual when visiting this park, so conditions must have been optimal. So, no advantage to small coil here.
The day before I tried the 5" in a Wisconsin parklike area around a public building. It has produced wonderful old coins, including seated, some Bust, 3c silver, half-dimes, Indians etc. But now worked to death, few finds made. Aha- the small coil, again in junky areas, will shine! Not to be. Total result in 2 hours- one 1945 Wheatie,a and a few modern coins. Again, many false relatively good-sounding signals. Only those solid 4-way, high-number signals produced coins.
The only fairly good result I have had with the small coil was in Lincoln Park, Chicago- also heavily worked out but a producer of great coins in the past. I spent 4 or 5 hours, dry summer soil, hitting junky areas that had produced old coins in the past. Not as much real trouble here with false signals, but coin signals sparse. I did find ten or so wheaties- mostly 1940s, no silver, and of course some deeper modern junk coins. I had worked these same areas with stock coil a few weeks earlier, not finding much, but found older Wheaties, a few Indians but no silver. My conclusion- the coins I found with 5" were not too deep- 4-5", and I may have had a signal on them with stock coil in the past and didn't dig them as they seemed too shallow (the lower half of depth gauge rule). They did hit in the lower half of depth gauge using the 5" coil. I have used this small coil other times with similar results.
So... my conclusion on using the small 5" coil is that it helps very little and seems to produce more iffy signals that are bum. I know many of you love it. I thought it would find and discriminate moderately deep coins next to junk. It seems to get reasonable depth, and on shallow coins you can still get a signal raising coil well above ground level. My theory- the stock coil, if worked slowly and carefully with overlapping swings, is capable of finding most coins that are going to be found, even in quite junky areas. If you work a new untouched junky area you are going to find pretty much the same coins with either one of them- but the stock coil will add those much deeper, fainter coins.
A final sobering observation. Our club had a planted hunt a few years ago (in pre-Minelab days). Unfortunately the site selected for a multiple lane hunt was in an incredibly junk-infested area (pull-tabs, crowns, everything) from thousands of large picnics. (moral- check before planting coins!!) Each lane was maybe 6' x 20' long and had a number of painted pennies buried just under the surface, only 1-2" deep max. Each lane team sent out a member to hunt until he found one coin, then the next guy and so on. Soon all the lanes just stopped- and the hunt was a bust because so few coins could be found. Less than half those buried were found! I, and some others, slowly reworked one of these lanes later with every machine we had, and came up with one or two more painted pennies, but almost half those buried so shallow "DISAPPEARED". I still find it hard to believe that you can mask a very shallow coin so effectively with junk underneath it. I'm sure a Minelab would have found some more of these vanishing coins, but just imagine how much stuff does lie undetectable in junky areas- until they bulldoze a layer off the top and hundreds of old coins are just lying there- we have all seen and heard of these bonanzas.
