A slick SLQ from the "sidewalk" field, and an Equinox vs. Deus compare

[brianc053]

Hi everyone. Yesterday I spent the afternoon at that same field where I found http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...alf-other-silvers-sidewalk-nowhere-field.html. It was hot and I only brought a small bottle of water (mistake).
I was joined by a friend Alex and his 8 year old son; they detect together using a Minelab Vanquish, and his son is great because he knows all about old coins (years minted, which ones are "key dates", etc.). I'll show their finds at the end.

Alex, his son and I headed to an area we had not detected before, but one that I knew had an old camp building (probably a bunk house) from the 1960 era. I knew this from reviewing old aerial photography (historicaerials.com is so great!).
I was using my Equinox 800 for most of the day, but I didn't find much in that field other than a spill of memorial pennies (about 8 or so) and a few other pennies. Alex and his son found a Buffalo Nickel pretty quickly, so I was digging mid-tones (12 VDI on the Equinox +/- 1) and I did find one nickel (modern) but dug a lot of beaver tails.
I decided to make my way back toward the car after about 2 hours of searching, without much to show for my efforts honestly.

There is a baseball diamond at the field, and earlier this year one of the first great finds from this location was discovered in the outfield along the first-base line: Alex and his son found a Peace Dollar there back in April! As I walked past it to get to the car I was swinging my detector along the way. The first good target was a double: two aluminum tokens in the same hole. The tokens are from the 1968-69 Shell Oil promotional game "Famous Faces and Facts". I know they are from 1969 because one still had some of the original white packaging with it.

As I continued toward the car and with the Equinox in hand I got an interesting coin signal, so before I recovered it I decided to grab my Deus with the elliptical HF coil and do some comparison videos. The compilation of those comparisons will be included at the end of this post as a video.

Spoiler alert: I'm going to tell you what I find in the video. Watch the video now if you like suspense....
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Ready for the finds?

1. The first target seemed like it could be a silver dime but ended up being just a modern dime, but the weird part was that the Deus did not like it and if I'd been using the Deus I would have skipped the signal.
2. The second target was awesome though, and both detectors loved it. The reason: it was a Standing Libery Quarter, and although it's way too slick to see a date it's still a beautiful coin - and it made the trip (and the dehydration) well worth it!
3. Right next to the SLQ was another coin signal that turned out to be a penny, and not too far from that was another penny and the fourth coin that I captured comparison video of.

If you like to see how the Equinox compares to the Deus identifying coins in a park situation, you may enjoy my video. (NOTE: I'm not a YouTuber and I'm not looking for views or subscriptions; I'm just trying to share my experience and little bit of knowledge.)

Overall it was a great day despite the heat, and I'm very appreciative that I managed to find this field! (And I'm happy I've shared it with my friend and his son too - see his finds below, they're better than mine!)

- Brian

My finds from the day (with a few notes):
- It was a penny-filled day. I was digging them because they kept coming up 23-24 VDI on the Equinox. 3 wheat pennies vs. 22 memorial means I was in the "newer" part of the field.
- the cross is aluminum; the button is the 3rd of that type I've found, and says "Spectemur Agendo" or "let us be judged by our actions."


Alex and his son's finds (pretty good with a Vanquish!):
- the heart pendant is silver and is from Tiffany & Co.
- he got two Buffalo Nickels, and one has a clear date (1936).
- the other pendant and chain are steel or aluminum


The comparison video:

 

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[CRUSADER]

It's fun to compare & I'm sure the nox800 gets better depth over the Deus, but the most important part is the person with the tool. Never rely on what the machine is stating, why skip any signal that isn't clearly an iron nail. Dig it all get better results, pretty simple. Although I'm comparing apples and pears as I field hunt & your grass hunting.

 

[RichsEquinox]

Congrats to you, Alex, and his son nice finds.

 

[ArfieBoy]

Thanks for posting. Congratulations to all of you on your cool finds!

 

[Digger RJ]

Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[cudamark]

Using the high frequency coil is not the best for high conductive targets, that's probably why you were getting some iffy signals with the Deus. That's the advantage of a true multifrequency detector like the Equinox. Much more signal sampling and analysis translates into a better guess in target I.D. On a side note, around here, you would get kicked out of a park cutting full circle plugs with a big digger like that. Those of us locals who have been detecting for decades, and want to continue detecting, only use small hand diggers and cut 3 sided plugs so the grass doesn't die, plug turn brown, and end up coming out and leaving a hole.

 

[brianc053]

Using the high frequency coil is not the best for high conductive targets, that's probably why you were getting some iffy signals with the Deus. That's the advantage of a true multifrequency detector like the Equinox. Much more signal sampling and analysis translates into a better guess in target I.D. On a side note, around here, you would get kicked out of a park cutting full circle plugs with a big digger like that. Those of us locals who have been detecting for decades, and want to continue detecting, only use small hand diggers and cut 3 sided plugs so the grass doesn't die, plug turn brown, and end up coming out and leaving a hole.

I'll keep your comment about plugs in mind if I ever visit the West Coast with my detector.
(That may actually happen over the coming month or two; I may get to visit the Bay Area and detect a friend's historic house out there. I'd love to bring my Lesche - I wonder if you can put that in a carry on? I can't imagine you could - it looks wicked. I may have to check a bag....)

Here in NJ - the Garden State - I haven't seen my plugs turn brown (I've been detecting this specific park all year and have been able to observe it over time), probably because of all the rain we get.
And depending on the location I'm more - or less - careful. This specific park looks nicer than it really is; as I've mentioned (and shown in pictures) there are sidewalks to nowhere (because the bushes are super overgrown; this used to be a school and camp but our town bought it as "open space" about 10 years ago), it has old foundations of old buildings - and some buildings that have collapsed in on themselves - and dirt patches all over the place, etc. I try to take good care of it, but a few plugs here and there aren't hurting the park/open space.
Overall I believe I leave these parks in NJ in better shape than I find them. I don't believe I do any damage that a little rain (forecast for tomorrow) won't fix.

- Brian

 

[cudamark]

Yup, I'm sure you get more rain than we do. Dead plugs are a real problem here unless you leave the roots on one side connected. The trouble with the big diggers is perception. An old lady walking her dog is going to complain, thinking you're digging up the park, Just a fact of life in most of our neighborhoods.

 

[brianc053]

Yup, I'm sure you get more rain than we do. Dead plugs are a real problem here unless you leave the roots on one side connected. The trouble with the big diggers is perception. An old lady walking her dog is going to complain, thinking you're digging up the park, Just a fact of life in most of our neighborhoods.

Yeah I've gotten the passing, "Are you going to fix that hole?" once or twice.
But the good news here in my town is that people now know me as "that metal detector" (because no one says "detectorist"), and it's much more common that people want to know what I'm finding. Our town has a private Facebook page, and last year I started posting stories about what I'd find - their history, interesting facts about the items, history about the town's various locations - and the reception was really positive. It led to a bunch of new permissions.
I've been very careful to protect all of that, and at some locations I'm super careful about plugs (bringing a bandana to put the dirt on, cutting the half-moon flap, etc.).

- Brian

 

[JeffInMass]

Nice hunt and vid! SLQ's are always a fav of mine, in any condition- Congrats!

 

[CRUSADER]

Using the high frequency coil is not the best for high conductive targets, that's probably why you were getting some iffy signals with the Deus. That's the advantage of a true multifrequency detector like the Equinox. Much more signal sampling and analysis translates into a better guess in target I.D. On a side note, around here, you would get kicked out of a park cutting full circle plugs with a big digger like that. Those of us locals who have been detecting for decades, and want to continue detecting, only use small hand diggers and cut 3 sided plugs so the grass doesn't die, plug turn brown, and end up coming out and leaving a hole.

I once commented on plug digging because I always use a spade & cut a 3 sided flap, folding back, so that the grass grows back. I was amazed to hear that many park rules don't allow that. Makes no sense to me to destroy the grass.

 

[cudamark]

I once commented on plug digging because I always use a spade & cut a 3 sided flap, folding back, so that the grass grows back. I was amazed to hear that many park rules don't allow that. Makes no sense to me to destroy the grass.

Some of our local parks are more sensitive to detecting than others. It mostly has to do with how nice the park is maintained and who the groundskeeper or manager is. Without getting into the politics as to why we don't have more power and water in this state, let me just say that they're not providing much irrigation to park grass. Most of the year, the ground is pretty hard. If you were to wait until a rainy patch of weather, you may be waiting a long time. We only average a tad over 10" (26cm) of rain a year on average. In a drought year maybe just over half that. Cutting a 3 sided plug is the only way to go if you want to continue hunting our parks. Full circle plugs are guaranteed to die, period. When they do, they usually end up out of the hole for one reason or another, leaving a crater there. The groundskeepers don't like that at all. Add some busybodies that see you with a full size spade digging, their resulting complaints to Park and Rec, and you can see the s**t storm that's about to happen. Some schools are totally off limits now. Some parks will roust you too, even though there are no hard and fast rules against detecting. They usually just use the century old prohibitions against digging up the flora to keep people from taking home things to landscape their own property. These rules weren't meant for us, but, they stretch the definition to suit their purpose. It doesn't matter that you can argue that the ball players using that same section of grass can wear it down to bare dirt, and that's fine, but, somehow detectorists are vandals. Your arguments usually fall on deaf ears. The only way to keep these places open is to keep in good stead with the groundskeepers and others who run that park/school/public area. By being conscientious about cutting small plugs with hand tools, and returning the ground to where you can't tell it was done, is about the only way. In talking with these people, I always show them the trash I remove too. It helps show them that you care about the park/school and that you aren't the problem.

 

[scruggs]

Very nice finds!