How do you use a coin probe?

[Mona Lisa]

I see alot of posts on using screwdrivers and coin probes. How do you use these to remove coins? How can you tell if its a stone or a coin?

I guess I could see using them on the beach or something, but not in PA. I just don't understand how you can use a probe instead of digging a hole with a trowel.

Enlighten me!! Haupin

 

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[ol ploock]

The probe is used to pinpoint, not tor retrieve.
Roy

 

[michinkae]

Actually yes you can retrieve as well as pinpoint. DICK STOUT, a key writer for whites metal detectors has a good book called, COIN HUNTING IN DEPTH that gives a good step by step. First you pinpoint the area with your metal detector. Second you sink the Probe, NOT A SCREW DRIVER, a real honest coin probe that won't damage the coin. and when you make contact with the target, you LEAVE the probe in the ground while you cut into the grass with a trowel. DONT lift the grass, instead cut an X in the grass. The Probe is the center of the X. Third you move the probe under the target(coin) and shimmy the coin to the surface. When you have the coin you press the area back down. This technique is intended for WELL GROOMED LAWNS that an owner is picky about you the detectorist messing up. You need to practice before trying this style of retrieval. It takes practice to master this technique. The tools that you need are at http://www.whiteselectronics.com/miscaccw.php
I recommend that you get the bladed trowel that whites offers. Its all I ever use for coins that I can retrieve with a probe.

 

[spotz]

I haven't mastered this technique either. I still usually dig for the coin & often have trouble finding it after I dug it up. Guess I'm blind in one eye & can't see out of the other. Spotz

 

[gldhntr]

i like to dig mine with a trackhoe.

 

[Mona Lisa]

Thanks, Michinkae. Have you tried this? It sounds really difficult to do. It would seem like the dirt around here is too "stony" for doing this.

I guess I'll try it when all this snow melts. Any other suggestions?

 

[michinkae]

remember, the coinprobe is only for areas that are well kept, golf courses, very neat landscapes that people dont want you the detectorist to tear up, usually there wont be any rocks in these areas. if you r are diging and cant find the coin that you are looking for you should think about buying a whites BULLSEYE pinpointer. http://whiteselectronics.com/

 

[Paul T.]

<<I see alot of posts on using screwdrivers and coin probes>>

Hi. I used nothing but probes and screwdrivers for 10 years. Generally, they are for fairly shallow targets but the better you get with it, the deeper you can retrieve.

Back in the old days, I use to put some solder on the tip of a screwdriver. This made the tip softer than coin metal.

After awhile you get the feel of it and can almost always tell a coin from anything else like rocks, etc. Eventually, you can get so good at it, so as to tell the difference between a large or small coin.

You have to have good pinpointing skills too. That helps alot! I could usually hit the coin dead center with the first probe or two.

Here's the technique I used. Push probe into the ground until you feel it hit your target. There's often even a sweet sound associated with the tip of the probe tapping on a metallic disc (coin) that was distinquishable from all other targets.

Believe it or not, I could use my probe to ID many targets. I usually could tell if it was a coin, tinfoil, a rock, and many times, even if it was a ring that I was probing.

Anyway, I hit the target with my probe. Then I slowly tapped my way across the surface of the coin with the probe until I reached the edge. Once I found the edge, now my mind's radar has a perfect picture of the position of the coin. At that point I knew the excat spot in the turf that my coin would eventually emerge. Knowing that spot, I could take the probe, pull it up from the edge of the coin, and move the probe handle sideways, back and forth. This creates a fissure from the surface, down to the coin. It also makes the opening soft enough that you can slide a finger down into the hole if need be. Often, this was all I needed to do and could retrive the coin with my fingers from that point. Just have to be careful of the occasional glass, lol.

Then I would relocate the coin with the probe and usually tap my way across it's surface, but this time to the opposite side of the coin from the fissure. Usually, now your probe is on a slight angle.Where the probe enters the ground and fissure is above one edge of the coin, whereas the probe's tip is on the opposite edge of the coin. And then you have the earth in-between as a leverage point for your probe.

So then once the probe tip is on the opposite side of the coin from the slit, I pry the coin over to the slit. With practice, you can usually put the coin up on edge this way, and right in your slit/fissure.

With practice, you can often use the probe (a screwdriver is easier) alone to then coax it to the surface, by putting the tip all the way past the coin and under it and working it up. This isn't easy usually. Almost every single time, it is easier to slide a finger into the fissure and pinch the coin between the probe and your finger and then pull it up. Which makes for a nice recovery. It's almost as though you get a reading, locate and position it with your probe, and then merely reach down and insert your finger into mother earth and pull the coin up with exacting precision.

Before the advent of real coin probes, and before I invented the practice of putting soft solder on the tip of a screwdriver, every single coin would come up marred though. So it's a better practice for looking for clad and zinc coins, than for older copper and silver.

A word of caution...you can do some nasty damage in the lawn with a probe too, since the nature of targets and the ground is that it can sometimes be tough to find, let alone retrieve your target. You sometimes wind up needing to make a hole anyway. But if all you have is your probe, you're hole isn't very pretty.

In the olden days my father made a probe with a 10 inch long skewer on it and he fashioned...and get this...a brass doorknob on the end of it. He did this because we use to detect in some bad areas in Chicago and one time he did have to threaten to bury the skewer into a hoodlum when he demanded my dad hand over his detector. Another time he turned it around and used the brass knob upside the head of a doberman pincher that was attempting to bite him while he was detecting.

Hope this info helps,
Paul T.

 

[spotz]

Whew!! I knew I was doing something wrong! Spotz

 

[Colorado2]

Yeah Spotz, that's why you got a doberman hangin' off your backside! ~CO2

 

[Mona Lisa]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Paul T. You really provided a lot of information in your answer. I'll have to try everything you mentioned.....everything but the doorknob.

 

[Carl in CO]

Great Info! Do they come with a Darringer attached?

 

[alabamadan]

This must be one of those things that must be shown rather than told.

 

[rvbvetter]

I've used a long screwdriver to probe and retrieve for years. I've gotten so proficient with it that even on the deepest ones i can have it probed and retrieved before some can have their plug cut. While they're still digging, i have time to sit back and admire my new old coin. And wonder why i always find the ones with scratches on them.
Actually, for me this is more true than not. Some times i wish my head wasn't harder than the coins i find, and start cutting plugs instead. I have tried it but have never became comfortable with folding back a large mound of earth in a nice park. For the world and park caretakers to see.
So i guess i'm destined to fill up my second safety deposit box with those uniquely scared coins that i always seem to find. HH

 

[MUD(S.W.A.T)]

I can dig a plug with three hits from the spade and pull it in 3 sec. or so. Also use my plug digger not for big plugs. Its basically like a cookie cutter but for dirt. That makes small 2 " wide plugs in a sec. or two up to 5 " deep... or so. What takes the time is searching the plug, but you end up with a scratch free coin.

 

[Colorado2]

? ? ?I've used a long screwdriver to probe and retrieve for years. I've gotten so proficient with it that even on the deepest ones i can have it probed and retrieved before some can have their plug cut. While they're still digging, i have time to sit back and admire my new old coin. And wonder why i always find the ones with scratches on them.
? ?Actually, for me this is more true than not. Some times i wish my head wasn't harder than the coins i find, and start cutting plugs instead. I have tried it but have never became comfortable with folding back a large mound of earth in a nice park. For the world and park caretakers to see.
? ?So i guess i'm destined to fill up my second safety deposit box with those uniquely scared coins that i always seem to find.? ? ? ?HH

I'm with you RV! Looking back at this old post, Paul T's entry was my intro to coin retrieval. It really stuck and I've become really good at it. My MXT is dead on for pinpointing and depth so I can tap the coin without any damage most of the time. Most of my coinshooting happens in schools and parks so I'm really conscientious about leaving no sign of a dig and "probe and pop" is the ticket for me...Nothing better than seeing a nice ring pop out of the hole when you're expecting a coin too! As good as I think I am though, I find a few of those uniquely scarred coins as well ~CO2

 

[Sweettoothbear]

I use the "Probe and Pop" method... I have been very satisfied with this method of removal. But... without being comfortable with your pinpointing skills, a person can get easily frustrated. It is very satisfying... knowing that you have not made a big mess in a park removing a penny.

Nothing gives this hobby more of a black eye... than a nice park that looks like someone has used a track-hoe to remove their coins. And always take your trash finds with you... so that my children?s kids will be able to still enjoy this great hobby.

 

[miester]

Very good info, it gave me an idea, I have a fish hook remover for getting the hooks out of muskies and northerns, together with the probe idea and the hook remover, my wife might not complain so much about the bomb craters in our yard.

 

[Monty]

I remember seeing a "coin Popper" adertised several years ago. It was shaped like a probe with a small flat on the end with two "ears" and a slight bend. It was supposed to "pop" the coin to the surface once located. Haven't seen one advertised recently and wondered if that tool ever was ever very popular? JIM

 

[PrizmIV]

Hey Dan, I dont think we can do this down here with our soil lol! Also haupin, how much better is the DFX than the Prizm with 9.5in coil?