Goldpick's 2020 Deus & Equinox 600 finds

[numpty]

Pocket watch case came up very nice :Y: gold plated ?

 

[Goldpick]

The last picture is just an example of what it would have originally looked like. Not sure whether it will clean up any better, maybe a project for down the track.

 

[Goldpick]

Some great weather yesterday was good incentive to hit the ground for a detect - an early 1900's house site was chosen due to easy private access and dream digging conditions (damp soil, flat grassed field). Although I have been here many times previously, there are always good targets still to be found with some patience - even the first penny (1922) came from where I usually park my car.

Most of next few coins were sitting vertical in the ground, hence why they might have been overlooked on other outings, the roo penny was actually wedged down the side of a buried limestone block. Finally some silver was found after a bit of a drought here, a double beeper indicating a shallow on edge 1940 threepence. The 1907 British penny was in top condition bar a few spots of corrosion, they do come out of the ground with a very nice patina on this site.

Also of interest was a 1926-27 SA dog tag, and a 5AD radio station Kangaroo Club pin from the mid 1930's - 1950's (radio charity). I did locate come pocket watch innards, though seems I missed my finds bag and it is still out in the field. :|

5AD Kangaroo Club link
https://adelaideaz.com/articles/5ad...iver-chocolate-frogs-all-over-south-australia

 

[Danny13]

Great hunt , nice looking Brit penny !

 

[Goldpick]

Last hunt my Deus headphone remote at long last has exhausted its lithium battery, only lasted about 2 hours before shutting down and wouldn't restart after nearly 5 years of service. Luckily I purchased a spare a year or two ago, and replacement is a reasonably simple 5-10 minute job. The hardest part is trying to get the ribbon connectors back in their ports once the new battery was replaced (homer simpson hands).

I also utilised the old double sided tape to mount the new battery on the circuit board, also note one of the philips head screws is hidden under the serial number lable.

Back onto charge with the Deteknix headphones, should be good for another 5 years now! :Y:

 

[Goldpick]

Went out with a workmate today to help him out learning the Fisher F75 (which I am selling him), probably wasn't really an ideal site being a quite junky early 1900's homesite - baptism of fire I guess. ] I wasn't expecting to find too much, though my mate got two spoons right off the bat - one a more modern locally themed spoon, and the other looking to be a christening spoon (jesus on the handle). We got a bit bored dealing with the junk so I suggested we go and practice on the endless numbers of Martini Henry projectiles up the hill.

On the way back to the car I found the "18 ct" ring which is more likely to be brass unfortnately (reading 18 Ct Gold Pat on the inside), and also picked up the 1927 penny and the Brick Tile and Pottery Union medallion (now called the CFMMEU). Still worth going back for another sniff, I think someone got addicted to chasing the MH projectiles.

 

[happyenough]

Can you tell us more about that ring,it looks unusual,and imagine getting hit with one of those slugs :argh:

Good haul.

Thanks :Y:

 

[Goldpick]

With a break day coinciding with some decent weather, it was back out to the same site again to see what more I could locate with the Deus. Picking out decent targets from the symphony of iron and other irregular shaped junk was very slow and methodic, though did pay off with some half decent items.

First coin was the 1955 threepence, the first silver for a long time from here, followed by the 1924 penny and a few BB's. The small button shaped item is a South Australian Junior Red Cross Section pin from the 1930's - in original condition would have been gold gilt. The ornate screw may have been either off an oil lamp or possibly even a gun oil tube - not too sure on that one. Another nice item was a section from either a Lucas " King of the road" automobile lamp, or maybe a bicycle lamp - got the best part with the medallion on it.

Rain eventually put an end to the day, though not sure how much my legs would have lasted. :argh:

 

[Goldpick]

Was time to get serious and take the Equinox 600 out for a change to get some experience under the belt, preferring a well trodden mid 1800's house site to test it out on. One thing for sure it gets great depth in the sandy soils here, super impressed with that, and definitely likes mid/low conductor targets with .22 casings sounding off very loud at depth. As expected I dug a few large rusty nails, can't be helped here with so many mixed targets under the surface. I ran field 1 on multi to start off with and with recovery speed maxed out - I didn't mess around with the iron bias too much at this stage.

What was interesting was finding the 1863 Vic penny, fob watch winder and large rusty nail from the same hole - question is whether I dug the high tone falsing of the nail and accidently jagged the coin, or the other way around -- I hoping the latter.

The button is a very interesting item, has the name J.Horrocks on it and possibly belonged to an SA Explorer John Ainsworth Horrocks who died in 1846 when his camel caused him to accidently shoot half his face and and off - the age of the site matched to the same period so who knows.

Had a bit of a laugh when I dug a leg with a lions paw on it, found the second one a foot from the first. The Equinox loves those lead targets, probably could have spent all day digging lead musket/pistol balls.

The only thing that soured the day out was snakes, and lots of them. Saw the first one sitting right in front of me looking rather agitated, I let him go on his way then turned around to find another one sunning itself a metre or two behind me. Needless to say I was very wary on where I stepped from then on, preferring to detect the open areas to avoid any confrontation.

All up I was very impressed considering the very short time I've had on the Nox so far, both in depth, separation and ease of use. I have ordered the Detect-ed carbon shaft to shave a little more weight off the Nox, every bit helps.

Draw knob

I hate snakes!

Lion's feet

Masked penny??

Seriously - from the same hole??

Rare sight - intact thimble

Lots of targets - trying real hard for that gold coin

Cleaned up nicely

This side too

Lead targets

 

[Sandta]

There is obviously still plenty to be found at that spot
Ye ... snakes ...
Plenty spotted out around this way too

 

[silver]

Got told years ago by an old bloke.. he killed a brown snake and all of a sudden they were everywhere around him.... must of killed the mother snake.... he was off.... I'd never thought of cluthches of snakes livin together like that before then(they were all full grown too he said).
Nice finding going on for you still mate !
ower: :Y:

 

[Goldpick]

In an effort to shed a little weight off the Nox 600 to bring it a little closer to the Deus, I purchased a Detect Ed carbon shaft and aluminium arm cuff to replace the stock parts. I alway thought that Minelab should have gone down the road of a carbon shaft, though this option is relatively inexpensive and I must add of very impressive quality. The arm cuff was a little fiddly to put together though mostly straight forward for the rest of fitment to the control box. :Y:

 

[Eldorado]

Looks great Goldpick,but I would have thought that the weight you saved by changing to the carbon shaft (116 grams)would be replaced by the alloy arm cuff.Surely the plastic arm cuff would be lighter than the alloy.I am looking at getting the Carbon shaft but was going to forego the arm cuff for this reason.

 

[clintonb]

I've been looking at those shafts, they look the goods, if only they made them in a gooseneck, I find a gooseneck shaft much more to my liking when swinging.

 

[Goldpick]

Looks great Goldpick,but I would have thought that the weight you saved by changing to the carbon shaft (116 grams)would be replaced by the alloy arm cuff.Surely the plastic arm cuff would be lighter than the alloy.I am looking at getting the Carbon shaft but was going to forego the arm cuff for this reason.

It's more about reducing the weight sitting out in front of the control box (tends to drag your hand up the grip), if anything the alloy cuff acts as a bit of a counterweight, though the weight differences on the two cuffs are very little in the scheme of things. Personally I would have preferred an s-bend shaft option as on the Deus or Vanquish, but unfortunately being an underwater detector it is probably better served with a straight shaft.

 

[Jaros]

Good move mate.

 

[Eldorado]

Thanks Goldpick that makes sense,I never thought of it acting as a counterweight. :Y:

 

[Goldpick]

Funny how fate comes in to play on whether it is going to be a productive or crap day when selecting a spot to have a detect - as was the case today when my chosen spot was undetectable due to stupidly high grass. The Deus stayed home and the Equinox 600 came out to play on a very old inn site that I had done to death in the past, was it going to find targets the Deus missed, I guess I was going to find out with what turned out to be a few historic finds for the area.

I ran the Equinox in field 1, multi-freq, all-metal and 50 tones with the sensitivity cranked up initially. There were two types of targets that could still exist, and that is either very deep targets away from the main inn site, or masked targets amongst all the iron, nails and roofing junk on the actual inn location. Call it just dumb luck or the Equinox being just a very capable detector, I had a high conductor literally 5 mins after stepping on to the site - thinking yeah probably another falsing nail at depth, out popped a shilling sized coin to my delight. Amazing, an 1816-1820 KG3 Bullhead shilling, pre-dating South Australian and South East settlement by a good 15 years.

Moving a little further on, a deep target presented itself, possibly mixed in with a couple of iron targets going by the audio. Now this target was deep, I measured it at two pinpointer lengths deep which comes to a good 20 inches in depth - turned out to be my first ever keg tap for this site and a great item of history from the long forgotten inn.

The Equinox does a fine job on low/mid conductors like buttons as well, much like the Deus, though I was surprised to still be picking them up across the site. There were also plenty of lead targets, mostly the form of thin lead sheeting. There is also plenty of old pottery, glass and ceramics pieces mixed through the soil, managed to find a Lea & Perrins glass stopper from a Worcestshire bottle amongst various other items of interest.

One of the most interesting finds was the partial copper tag which should read Tarpena & Gambierton. These were the names given to two local towns up to the 1860/70's before they were renamed Tarpeena and Mount Gambier - pretty chuffed with another find of local historic relevance.

Looking forward to getting back out for another go, though will have to be quick as it looks like the area is slated to be forested soon!

Nox 600 raring to go!

You're kidding me - an overlooked silver?

What could it be?

Wow, that's old - KG3

Nox 600 likes buttons

Where there is an inn, there should be keg taps.

Roughly 20" down!

Cool keg tap

Two piece broach, missing front.

Significant local history!

Worcestshire sauce anyone?

 

[Clodmaster]

Great spot Goldpick.

Is that a KGIII shilling? If so that makes it 1816-1820. Wow!

 

[Clodmaster]

Oops. Should have read your write-up more closely (went straight to the pics). So it is a shilling. Are you going to try and clean it up or will you leave it as is?

When you find a really old coin like that, really makes you wonder who dropped it and what they were doing.