Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com
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| Recent Find Vintage Button. |
I don't know what the stone is - probably glass, paste or rhinestone.
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| Back of Same Button. |
Several weeks ago I said I was going to do some metal detector tests. I didn't do that, but today I took out an Equinox for a test run and spent maybe 20 minutes. Using just the factory default settings, I found two pennies (1969 and 1989) in an area that I had covered several times before with three or four other detectors - both high end and basic.
I used the default factory settings. I made NO adjustments. The area I was working has a lot of underground and overhead cables in the area. In short, there is a lot of ambient electrical interference as well as rebar and fences The coin finds in the previously worked ground, I believe, were due to the quieter operation of the Equinox in this particular environment. Of course with all the rain, and this area is home to a lot of moles and critters, so there is also the possibility that the found coins were moved some since the last time the area was detected.
While promising, I can not say how performance will compare on a quiet salty beach, but it was impressive in the particular environment I worked today.
I've always said, though, that it is good to work a promising area with more than one metal detector. The different operating characteristics, as slight as they might be, will often result in different finds. And we can't forget the extensive experiment that one reader did on a city lot that was completely sifted. Repeated metal detecting by different detectorists only found a small percentage of coins that were found by sifting. (See link below.) Noise, junk, and other factors play a roll.
One thing I liked about the Equinox during this first test, is how it responds to targets. Being a person that has relied heavily on sound for target ID, the auditory signal produced by the Equinox provides a lot of information. It seems like you can tell a lot about the target just by listening to the auditory signal. One thing I found was an old shot gun shell casing that was bent. I believe I could tell it was bent from how the signal varied as I swept at different angles.
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| Bent Sears Sportload Shotgun Shell. |
The casing is bent at about 90 degrees even thought it doesn't look like that much in the photo. "Sears" shells were not made after 1980. Maybe someone can give me more on the date of the shell.
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| Back of Same Shell |
As I said, I did not vary any settings this time, so my test was not really much of a test of what the detector can do, but if you simply use the default settings, it seems like it would work quite well in a park or yard
It is light, easy to assemble and use right away. The only think I didn't like so far was the ear phone cups that came with the Equinox 600. They were not made to keep out much ambient noise. The earphones were light and folded up conveniently, which are pluses.
You can find the post in which sifted coin finds were compared to metal detected finds on a city lot by using the following link.
https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2018/03/82618-report-first-investigation-ever.html
See also the 3/30/18 post for concluding remarks on that.
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Yesterday I posted a lapel pin from a hospital. Duane C. found a similar lapel pin from another hospital in North Carolina.
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Lapel Pin Find.
Find and photo by Duane C.
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Thanks Duane!
What I've learned is that they are service pins. They might give a silver pin for 10 years of service and a gold pin for 20 years, for example. I don't know what actually goes with the different years, those are just random examples.
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The surf is still calm. The salvage guys have had a lot of good days to search this year. I'm sure they are finding more.
There is nothing of interest on the National Hurricane Center map.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
