rhedden
Sr. Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2003
- Messages
- 378
- Reaction score
- 627
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Eastern NY
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Manticore & Nokta Makro Simplex
Last week, my 2021 vintage Simplex+ developed a problem with the battery discharging, leading me to put a new Minelab Manticore on order, which arrived Friday night, just in time for the start of 3 inches of rain on Saturday. 
I don't want to turn this thread into a detector review, since it's about Today's Finds, but I can make some comments about the Manticore vs. Simplex+ as I go along.
The plan was to take the new machine to a site that I had pounded with the Simplex+ in the past (about 8 hunts of 4-5 hours each). It's a cellar hole that was occupied from about 1800 to perhaps the 1850s. As cellars go, its a very easy one to hunt due to a near total lack of modern trash, though it does have the standard iron footprint right around it. The site is very large, and many of the finds were made out in the former fields where rusty nails are scattered, yet there is an iron-infested area near the cellar hole that could not be penetrated by the Simplex+.
Based on a quick backyard test on Friday night, I decided to search in ATG mode with sensitivity in the 20-23 range and Recovery Speed at 2 (for depth in quiet areas) or 5 (for separation in iron-infested areas). I have the stock 11-inch coil for now. I did not mess with the Stabilizer (1) or ferrous limits (4 & 9); I need to learn the machine better before I mix everything up.
I spent the first hour or two digging iffy signals intentionally, as I had pulled most of the easy targets from the area in past years. I also wanted to learn what a bent, rusty nail sounds like while falsing. I dug a few of those, learned their sounds and target traces, and got the rusty nail issue out of the way. The first non-ferrous target I dug was a solid 25 that was lying in a moderately iron-infested patch. The target trace on the Manticore was nice and round. Thinking it could be a button, I popped up this small (dime sized, white metal?) button with four holes from 4 or 5 inches down. Recovering a marginal target like this from a tough spot with rusty nails was very encouraging. I definitely missed it with the Simplex+ after hitting this area many times.
I walked about 100 feet uphill from the cellar near the edge of an embankment that drops off to a beautiful mountainside brook - a perfect place to sit down and watch the cascading creek as coins fall out of your 1840s pockets. I got a sweet-sounding signal that ranged from 84 to 87, and I knew instantly it was a deep coin. I spent the next 20 minutes carefully extracting it from a hole that was criss-crossed by brutal tree roots. I was able to clean it off with my fingertip without disturbing its position and take pictures in-situ. It was a full 9" down, making it the 2nd deepest coin I've ever recovered at a cellar. Impressively, scanning the (huge) hole revealed three ferrous targets within a foot of the coin. Give the Manticore full credit for this find, as it was a deep target with iron interference. I have been over that spot many times with the Simplex+. The coin is in excellent shape for this site thanks to landing in a spot with somewhat dry soil. It helped that it was lying completely flat at the bottom of the hole.
The next target was a "treble gilt" button from Ives Kendrick & Company (1837-1840) that was out in one of the fields near a location where I previously dug my deepest coin ever with the Simplex+ (toasted Draped Bust cent at 10"). The button rang up a solid 64 with round target trace. It was only two inches down in an iron-free area, so I think I would have found it easily with the Simplex+. I just missed this spot in the previous hunts. It has so much gold plate on the back and edge that my heart skipped a beat when I popped open the plug; it looked like a gold dollar momentarily!
Moving down to the area near the cellar, I hunted the area behind the house that was not so infested with iron, popping this beautiful floral button at 5 inches. The button dates from 1838-1846 and was produced by Wadhams & Webster Co. in Wolcotville, CT (now Torrington). I got the button ID from this previous Treasurenet thread, so thanks to @TheCannonballGuy for identifying it (11 years ago)! Button ID thread from 2014
I hunted this area with the Simplex+ many times due to its closeness to the cellar, and I have to assume the Simplex+ discriminated it out due to nearby rust. Credit goes to the Manticore for identifying it as non-ferrous with a bangin' 60 signal.
The last find seems insignificant, but it's impressive to me. It's a tiny flat button that I recovered in the heart of the impenetrable rusty nail bed downhill from the cellar. It's just continuous ferrous targets that overlap each other. The button was 4 to 5 inches deep in black soil that suggests the house burned down and fell in that spot. The hole filled with water as I dug it. What a nasty target location. It gave a solid 48 signal on the Manticore, in the same range as the rusty nails at the site, which consistently came in between 45 and 55. By this point, I had 6 hours of Manticore experience, and I knew it was non-ferrous, but I have to say that I'm very impressed with the target separation this time, especially considering I'm using the 11" stock coil.
I guess I'll close with a few comments on the two detectors and what they found at this site. The Simplex+ did great over the past 8 hunts, popping out a Draped Bust cent at 10 inches, a Matron Head at 2 inches, and a well-detailed 1824 Matron Head at 4.5 inches, plus approximately 12 buttons and a Conestoga bell. It struggled with the iron-infested areas. It's not really fair to compare it to a detector that has nearly 5 times the price tag, but let's do it anyway. I give the Manticore credit for 4 of the 5 finds today, which were in areas I hit multiple times with the Simplex+. Give it 7 more hunts so that it's on equal footing with the Simplex+, and I think the results are going to be incredible. It's a new machine to me, and I had zero hours of field experience with it when I started swinging at 5:30 AM this morning. Somewhere in that rusty nail bed is a Capped Bust half dime that is still thumbing its nose at me, so I'd better learn how to fine-tune the Manticore and get to work.
I don't want to turn this thread into a detector review, since it's about Today's Finds, but I can make some comments about the Manticore vs. Simplex+ as I go along.The plan was to take the new machine to a site that I had pounded with the Simplex+ in the past (about 8 hunts of 4-5 hours each). It's a cellar hole that was occupied from about 1800 to perhaps the 1850s. As cellars go, its a very easy one to hunt due to a near total lack of modern trash, though it does have the standard iron footprint right around it. The site is very large, and many of the finds were made out in the former fields where rusty nails are scattered, yet there is an iron-infested area near the cellar hole that could not be penetrated by the Simplex+.
Based on a quick backyard test on Friday night, I decided to search in ATG mode with sensitivity in the 20-23 range and Recovery Speed at 2 (for depth in quiet areas) or 5 (for separation in iron-infested areas). I have the stock 11-inch coil for now. I did not mess with the Stabilizer (1) or ferrous limits (4 & 9); I need to learn the machine better before I mix everything up.
I spent the first hour or two digging iffy signals intentionally, as I had pulled most of the easy targets from the area in past years. I also wanted to learn what a bent, rusty nail sounds like while falsing. I dug a few of those, learned their sounds and target traces, and got the rusty nail issue out of the way. The first non-ferrous target I dug was a solid 25 that was lying in a moderately iron-infested patch. The target trace on the Manticore was nice and round. Thinking it could be a button, I popped up this small (dime sized, white metal?) button with four holes from 4 or 5 inches down. Recovering a marginal target like this from a tough spot with rusty nails was very encouraging. I definitely missed it with the Simplex+ after hitting this area many times.
I walked about 100 feet uphill from the cellar near the edge of an embankment that drops off to a beautiful mountainside brook - a perfect place to sit down and watch the cascading creek as coins fall out of your 1840s pockets. I got a sweet-sounding signal that ranged from 84 to 87, and I knew instantly it was a deep coin. I spent the next 20 minutes carefully extracting it from a hole that was criss-crossed by brutal tree roots. I was able to clean it off with my fingertip without disturbing its position and take pictures in-situ. It was a full 9" down, making it the 2nd deepest coin I've ever recovered at a cellar. Impressively, scanning the (huge) hole revealed three ferrous targets within a foot of the coin. Give the Manticore full credit for this find, as it was a deep target with iron interference. I have been over that spot many times with the Simplex+. The coin is in excellent shape for this site thanks to landing in a spot with somewhat dry soil. It helped that it was lying completely flat at the bottom of the hole.
The next target was a "treble gilt" button from Ives Kendrick & Company (1837-1840) that was out in one of the fields near a location where I previously dug my deepest coin ever with the Simplex+ (toasted Draped Bust cent at 10"). The button rang up a solid 64 with round target trace. It was only two inches down in an iron-free area, so I think I would have found it easily with the Simplex+. I just missed this spot in the previous hunts. It has so much gold plate on the back and edge that my heart skipped a beat when I popped open the plug; it looked like a gold dollar momentarily!
Moving down to the area near the cellar, I hunted the area behind the house that was not so infested with iron, popping this beautiful floral button at 5 inches. The button dates from 1838-1846 and was produced by Wadhams & Webster Co. in Wolcotville, CT (now Torrington). I got the button ID from this previous Treasurenet thread, so thanks to @TheCannonballGuy for identifying it (11 years ago)! Button ID thread from 2014
I hunted this area with the Simplex+ many times due to its closeness to the cellar, and I have to assume the Simplex+ discriminated it out due to nearby rust. Credit goes to the Manticore for identifying it as non-ferrous with a bangin' 60 signal.
The last find seems insignificant, but it's impressive to me. It's a tiny flat button that I recovered in the heart of the impenetrable rusty nail bed downhill from the cellar. It's just continuous ferrous targets that overlap each other. The button was 4 to 5 inches deep in black soil that suggests the house burned down and fell in that spot. The hole filled with water as I dug it. What a nasty target location. It gave a solid 48 signal on the Manticore, in the same range as the rusty nails at the site, which consistently came in between 45 and 55. By this point, I had 6 hours of Manticore experience, and I knew it was non-ferrous, but I have to say that I'm very impressed with the target separation this time, especially considering I'm using the 11" stock coil.
I guess I'll close with a few comments on the two detectors and what they found at this site. The Simplex+ did great over the past 8 hunts, popping out a Draped Bust cent at 10 inches, a Matron Head at 2 inches, and a well-detailed 1824 Matron Head at 4.5 inches, plus approximately 12 buttons and a Conestoga bell. It struggled with the iron-infested areas. It's not really fair to compare it to a detector that has nearly 5 times the price tag, but let's do it anyway. I give the Manticore credit for 4 of the 5 finds today, which were in areas I hit multiple times with the Simplex+. Give it 7 more hunts so that it's on equal footing with the Simplex+, and I think the results are going to be incredible. It's a new machine to me, and I had zero hours of field experience with it when I started swinging at 5:30 AM this morning. Somewhere in that rusty nail bed is a Capped Bust half dime that is still thumbing its nose at me, so I'd better learn how to fine-tune the Manticore and get to work.
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