9/3/17 Report - Following Hurricane Irma. Comparative Corrosion of Silver Dimes. Metal Detector Repair Issues. A Few Items That Might Come In Handy When Metal Detecting

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

The main thing I'm paying attention to is Irma.  As you can see from the above surf predictions, a 14 to 22 foot surf is expected for next Sunday.  That is certainly the biggest surf we've seen on the Treasure Coast for quite some time.

I've been watching the National Hurricane Center web site as well as the Ventusky and Windyty.com weather sites.  From what I'm seeing on all of them, the projected path of Irma is creeping a little closer to the Florida Coast and the Treasure Coast.  A day or two ago, it looked like it was going just a little more to the east of the Bahamas.  Now it is over some of the Bahama islands.  But that is only an early look, and the cone of uncertainty is wide.  

There is another system following right behind Irma and one forming down in the Gulf of Mexico.  I'm hoping the one in the Gulf, which does look like it will head towards Texas, fizzles out without dumping any more rain on them.

We still have nearly a week to watch how Irma is going to go.  I'd really like to see it turn more to the north.

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Badly Corroded Roosevelt and Mercury Beach Dimes

Although both are badly corroded silver dimes, the Roosevelt dime, the youngest of the two, is the most corroded.

This is an illustration of how silver corrodes on a beach over time and the imperfect correlation of age and corrosion.  The specific circumstances have a lot to do with the amount of corrosion.

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GoldNugget of North Carolina sent his Exclibur 200 to KellyCo Detectors for repairs months ago. He said it has been there since June 15 of 2017.  After much frustration and delay, he contacted Minelab U S A, and they said they will contact Kellyco next week to see what the problem is.  That kind of delay is intolerable.  From my recent poll, I know that a large number of my readers use Minelab detectors. You don't want to be waiting for months to get your metal detector repaired.  I hope GoldNugget keeps me informed of any developments so I can let you know what is happening.

I had a similar problem with Kellyco a few years ago. It concerned a Minelab detector too.  As I recall it was a new detector.  After failing to get any kind of satisfactory response to my inquiries, I drove up to Orlando and got a replacement detector right away.  That should not have been necessary.

While I'm on the subject of metal detector repairs, my worst experience was with Tesoro.  I owned two Tesoro detectors.  My problem with Tesoro is that they advertise a lifetime warranty, yet when each of my two older detectors needed repairs, they wouldn't honor the warranty because they claimed the detectors were obsolete.  People with newer Tesoro detectors reportedly receive good service, but a lifetime warranty should be a lifetime warranty, not an advertising gimmick.

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I don't like to take unnecessary equipment when I detect. I like to travel light, so sometimes I don't have everything I need.  Sometimes you can return later with the right equipment, but that doesn't always work.  It surprises me how long some targets remain in place on heavily hunted beaches.

Here are a few extra things that can come in handy at the beach. I won't mention such obvious things as batteries or a spare detector.

I seldom take a shovel, but sometimes a shovel is needed for those deep difficult to dig targets. It is surprising how long deep targets will often stay on a beach. Some remain in place for years. I know of some right now that were just beyond what I'm typically willing to dig that have been in place for months. Eventually I'll go equipped for digging deeper targets and remove them.  I'll do that sort of thing when there aren't many people around. I removed one of those big deep targets on my last outing. It had been there for at least two months.

Binoculars can also be very helpful, although I usually don't take them. They can save a lot of walking. Binoculars will give you a good look at a distant part of the beach without having to walk there.

A back-pack or large heavy duty bag can come in handy too. Bigger finds won't fit in your pocket. There have been times when I found plastic bags on a beach to carry away unexpected finds like antique bottles or larger fossils. Plastic bags don't work well for heavy or sharp objects and a plastic bag will tear.  A heavy duty large canvas bag can be very handy.

There are also times when a screen or sifter will come in handy. Lets say you run into a broken necklace of gold beads. It can be quicker and easier to screen them than find them individually. I've wasted a lot of time trying to find a single small gold bead even after I threw it on my coil with a handful sand.

A good magnet can come in handy when you are working a beach that has a lot of iron.  A magnet on short pole or mounted in your scoop will pick up pieces of iron very quickly.

Those are a few things that come to mind.  For land hunting, there is another list of items that I might talk about some other time.

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This was declared to be a National Day of Prayer to pray for those affected by Harvey.

Wasn't it nice to see people helping people with very little looting.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

10/17/14 Report - U.S. One Dollar Gold Coin Find. Pulse Induction Metal Detector Discrimination. Bump In Surf Predicted.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.

Nicely Mounted One Dollar US Gold Coin Metal Detector Find

I heard some guys discussing discrimination.  That is one of two big obsessions in the metal detecting community.  The other is depth.

Anyhow, the discussion centered on the hope for some type of effective discrimination for pulse induction detectors. 

Pulse induction detectors do have a type of discrimination.  You can discriminate with a pulse induction detector, but the results might not be exactly what you wanted.

What people really want is for the detector to tell them exactly what they are detecting before they dig it up.

One way you can get a type of discrimination with a pulse induction detector is to use "pulse delay." 

If you use the Whites Dual Field PI, for example, you'll find that you can discriminate out beer bottle caps and some other junk by using the pulse delay setting.

Just as an example, if you turn the Whites PI pulse delay setting up about half way, most beer bottle caps will be discriminated out.  As you increase the delay from 0 the signal from the bottle cap will decrease until you get no signal, which happens just before the straight up position.  A dime or other coin will still cause a good strong signal well after the setting which causes the bottle cap to be discriminated.

There you have it.  Discrimination with a PI - at least for some items.

But here is the bad news.  A thin gold ring will normally quit causing a signal at a much lower pulse delay setting.  You only have to turn the delay up about one eight of the way for a thin gold ring to be discriminated out.  And increasing the pulse delay will cause depth to be decreased for the same gold ring even before it is discriminated out.

(In a previous post I told you how important the threshold level is when using a pulse induction detector to detect gold and other items.)

It is easy to tell the difference between the signal from items such as a thin gold ring and a beer bottle cap  with a pulse induction metal detector such as the Whites Dual Field.  To produce a signal like a thin gold ring, the typical bottle cap would have to be buried deeply, and that is seldom the case.

The problem with discrimination with any metal detector, not just pulse induction detectors, is that there is risk involved.  You risk missing good stuff when you use discrimination.  Some detectors reduce that risk more than others, but there is risk.

If you must discriminate, there are things that will help you reduce that risk.  One of those things is knowledge of how your detector responds to different items.  Another is knowledge of how things are distributed in the type of area you are hunting.  For me that is by far the most important and effective.

If you want to find coins with a pulse induction detector and want to avoid the bottle caps, turning the pulse delay up is fine (to a point) but be aware that you will lose depth on the coins too.  For me, I'd rather find the gold rings.

Some other day I'll try to explain why I don't care as much about either discrimination or depth as  much as a lot of people.   That will take a number of posts, and I'd have to write a entire book to explain it well.

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Above is another example of a mounted gold coin.  The mounting on this one is very nice.  It has six little diamonds on the pendant. 

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Here is a video showing the town that is under Lake Meade.  It makes for some nice diving.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/Nevadas-Secret-Underwater-World/343605827604/Comcast/StrangeVideos/?cid=hero_sf_TIV

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Prehistoric camps have been found in the High Tetons.  I really like Jackson Hole and the Tetons and highly recommend visiting if you get a chance.  Saw my first grizzly bear live in the wilds there.  I was glad he paid me no attention and went on his way.   It is a beautiful place.

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/high-tetons-surrender-clues-about-prehistoric-residents/article_f2ba9672-b097-501e-a046-c74d8a099d24.html

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Back to the Treasure Coast, I looked at a number of different beaches today.  I didn't see any that looked promising at all.  All those that I visited really looked poor.  I didn't bother to take my detector out until the last one.

I could see some dips in front of the beaches in shallow water.  The waves were hitting hard right at the bottom of the beach on most of the beaches.

Gonzalo is headed towards Bermuda as a strong hurricane.   There is nothing much else out there to watch, however if you look at the surfing web sites you'll see that about a week out they are predicting up to a seven foot surf for the Treasure Coast.  In the past when the predicted a higher surf a week or more in advance, a good percentage of the time it never really happened.  There is a chance though.  It is worth watching.

At least the seasons have changed.  Now we just have to wait a little more.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net