94 yr old XLT User

Great pic and cool article from The Blue Mountain Eagle of John Day, OR...

"Stan Beck, of John Day, shows off about $460 worth of coins he's unearthed over the past few years with the help of his metal detector. According to his neighbor, Karen Chadwick, Beck, who turns 94 in May, gleaned the 'treasure' at such places as the Grant Union High School field, Seventh Street Complex and the fairgrounds, after ball games and other events."

Atlantic Shores, Hour Before the Storm

Tonight I really had to get out. It was that... or effin' Jon and Kate Plus 8. Guess what I chose!? I got outta the house at about 8:15p and drove the 500ft. over to my spot in the huge field at the corner of Kempsville and Centerville at Atlantic Shores. I figured my honey hole I hit last week would be a great place to return to with my XLT program that's been finding some sweet loot lately.

Pulling in to the parking lot I could already see dark clouds in the distance that didn't look to friendly. I don't remember rain in the forecast, but kept the view under advisement. With a few minutes I could hear thunder in the distance and see an occasional flash of lightning.

With a light drizzle coming down, and the XLT starting to give a reaction to the lightning I stuck it out for an hour, give or take a few minutes. I was happy to find the coins I did, glad the spot is still givin' up the dimes and quarters

It was pleasant to pull a '49 wheatie, the second I've wrangled from the field. I also pulled a just shy of quarter size metal disc that is very smooth on both sides, and one edge is rounded. In the pic you'll see that on the edge, it looks like it twisted off something, so it's probably a punchout.

27 coins total @ $2.10.

Made it home to count the loot and enjoy a BL Lime on the patio.

Father's Day Loot

What a great day for a hunt! Temperature in the 80's, nice cool breeze, overcast... perfect!

As many of you who read my blog know by now, on most holidays that I'm not on the boat, I spend at the g/f's parent's... today being no different. And every time I go over, the metal detector comes along. The last time out was two weeks ago to the day, I scored 9 wheats. I always find something neat here, be it rings, old coins, buttons... something.

Today, we arrive and the first thing I do before the cookout is crank up the XLT with my self made coin program and start working an area of the yard I've never touched. That was the smartest thing I did all day. Within the next thirty minutes I pulled a 10K ring and 2 rosies! My first of each The ring is marked UNCAS 10K G.F. which I know is "gold filled"... but still gold right? A little research hints to the makers mark as being a vintage jeweler from the 50's. So perhaps this ring has been buried for some time, as it was as deep as the length of the Lesche blade.

After eating the great food I grilled (burgers, dogs, and chicken), and the sweet pasta salad, I headed back out front just to go over all the area I've hit time and time again. And what do you know, I landed 9 more wheats and another rosie that I called from the signal. Our friend John had just come over when I got the signal and I told him, "I'm betting it's a silver dime." Sure enough, 5" down there she was glimmering back. He was pretty amazed at how I knew it before I dug it.

After pulling 20+ wheats from this yard over 4 or 5 hunts I knew there had to be some silver somewhere. Glad I finally tracked it down! Nearly all of the wheats and definitely all the rosies today were 5+" down.

Another great holiday spent digging. Ended up with 32 coins @ $1.34. The Rosie's are '50-D, '53-D, and a '56.

An hour behind 5721

With the family here and all the rain we've been having I've been slacking on getting out at night. Wayyyy too many early mornings lately. But anyhow, I was tinkering with my XLT earlier in the day, trying to make a "better" coin program that what is already factory preset. So, using the factory program as a template, I adjusted a few things and changed up the discrimination scales. I knew what I wanted by taking coins I have, from as small as half dimes, right up through dollars, and waiving them in front of the coil. I made myself a coin chart to see what VDI they all come up as. The ONLY coin that would not register with my new settings was a Flying Eagle Cent. I don't plan on finding any right around here so no big deal.

Anyhow, at about 9p, right after TrueBLOOD on HBO, I headed out behind my building, 5721 to see what I could find. My new settings were very stable and really seemed to lock on targets well... though none were any deeper than 3" by my estimate.

I did land a little trash, but with the signals twist caps, beer tops, and aluminum trash items give off, I was bound to.

So here's the haul, 42 coins @ $1.58, a set of very small keys, and an Imperial Play Money Quarter, which is plastic. Found it on top.

Back to the hunt, Tallwood Apartments

I last hunted Tuesday night. That being after being out pretty much every day for a week straight. My knees were swollen and I needed a break. Fast forward two days to now, and they are feeling much better.

I decided not to travel to hunt, and just pick here and there aroundmy apartments. I've never done a real thorough search here. Sure the big field yielded one wheat months ago, and I found about $4 in change in the sandy tot lot... but the grounds I never really took the time to hit.

After reading about my buddy Dave Wise finding some neat stuff just eyeballing around his place, I figured I'd hunt mine and see what I could find. As soon as I got out there was an eletrical storm, but far enough off in the distance to not cause too much havok on the XLT. I was picking up the lightning strikes, but it wasn't bad enough to ruin the hunt.

I meandered around pulling over $2 in clad over 34 coins, a few pull tabs, the front loader section of a toy loader, and a peculiar red painted nickel sized disc. Probly a punch out of some sort, it rang up nice, about as thick as a dime, but I could bend it in half.

I also caught a hint that someone lost a gold chain behind my building. I'm gonna search it with my X30, as I have no idea to really tell gold specifically yet with the XLT. For example... on my X30 a nickel rings up as a +12, pulltab +16, gold usually lower, like +4 or +8. On the XLT, the VDI range for gold is like +10 through +30, give or take... too many options to dig.

Rainy Night Out, Hunt Cut Short

So I went out tonight will full intention of putting the new Blue Max Shooter Coil to a good test. It had been raining off and on all day, so I knew it was gonna be hit or miss.

On the drive over to the church playground I had in mind, having never hit it before, the rain all but stopped... I was happy.

The first 15 minutes or so weren't bad. A few misquitos were out, and it was lightly drizzling. Having never used a small coil like this, it just felt awkward. But I got used to it and starting picking up a few coins here and there. And by a few, I mean only a few. Either this lot has been hit before, or kids just don't drop stuff here. The coil had no problem finding lots of trashy items in the +20 - +40 range though.

Pinpointing with the small coil was spot on, I was surprised at that. Not being concentric I though I'd have a hard time with that, but it was a breeze. However, the depth readings it gave while pinpointing were FAR off. A lot of 4-6" deep targets that were really 1-3" deep. No big deal, but something to take note of.

Sadly, maybe half an hour in, with only maybe $0.30 to speak of, the rain really started coming down. I had prepared the machine at home with plastic wrap and duct tape to keep water out, but even I wasn't gonna stand for the downpour.

XLT Trial 2

I took the XLT out again, this time for my typical night hunt. I drove out to my mom's old elementary school off of Great Neck, a place where I've found a bunch of coins, none older than '65, and some silver jewelry pieces.

I still have a lot of ground to cover at this school, but I figure to really measure up, I'd go over some previously hunted territory to see what might come up. It was a warm night out, the ground was hard... not the best veriables to be dealing with.

I was able to squeak out $1.31 over 14 coins, but I KNOW there has got to at least be some older dimes and some wheat pennies in this place. I have yet to dig one from this area, which is just dumbfounding.

I was able to get some more use outta the XLT which is what the trip was really all about. The signals are much harder to read than they are on the X-Terra 30. For example, on the X30, when I get a +16, I know almost without a doubt that it's gonna be a pull-tab. Or if I get a solid +32 with 3 depth bars, I can almost bet on a wheat penny every time. But with the XLT, items hit within a "range" of numbers, so it's much harder to determine. Getting the depth while pinpointing helps a bit, but when a pull tab is hitting over a 10-20 VDI range, it's really tough to pick out the nickels.

First time out with XLT, not bad!

I stayed home from the gym today in hopes that my used White's XLT would show up, and what do you know, it did! It was packaged nicely from the dealer I got it from down in Florida, Myers Metal Detectors. Check out their website, http://www.myersdepot.com.

Anyway, So I got it put together, did a brief air test, and then waited for a chance to get out after dinner. Thankfully I have a school in my back yard, the perfect place to test a new machine.

This school is the one I've written about many times before about having this system of drains, and in between them are areas that are lower than everywhere else, so coins and stuff just tend to end up here. I've fished out 100+ coins easily from this section.

I through the XLT into a pre-set Coin/Jewelry mode, ground balanced and off I went. Low and behold, there were still a few coins I had failed to grab with the X-Terra 30 here. About 20 in all, not totalling much, but it was fun finding them.

The star charm you see in the image was my most interesting find of the day. Why you ask? Well it's because of "how" I found it. While scanning with the XLT I got a pretty solid hit, but nothing came up on the VDI. Back and forth, good signals, no VDI. I had read online a nice writeup about the Signograph on the higher end White's models. Reading it really clued me in on something... though no VDI was displaying, a tight grouping of + hits were building... and that hints at a half decent target. So I dug, and about 3" down was that star.

So the fact that I was able to land a bunch of "missed" chances from before really made me happy. Max depth was at about 7".