Canadian Coin VDI Numbers
It turns out my foreign coins are tucked away in my storage unit and I can't find my big jar of Canadian change, so I made due with what was in my 'extras' bin, waiting to go in the collection. Boy, Canada has changed their coins a lot more than us over the last century.
I used my X-terra 705 with the 15" Coiltek All-Terrain (WOT) coil @ 3kHz for the test. The machine was set to a sensitivity of 15 and automatically ground balanced to 40 over a clean patch of ground, then the coin placed on the surface for detection.
Observations:
(1) All of the pennies tested came in strongly, even the steels.
(2) Nickels are a big problem for 705/3khz combo. Generally weak signals (and very unstable for the chrome-steel coins) and registered as iron trash. The exception was the 1982-1999 run, which were mostly copper and hit solidly on the 12/14 line.
(3) Dimes were quite solid, but the modern 2000-present coins had a very weak signal and came it as iron again, -8.
(4) I only had two quarters on had. The silver one was a monster of a solid hit at 42, as expected, while the nickel quarter from 1986 came in strongly at 48. Now, I often overlook targets at 48 because of the VDI wraparound; I find such targets are iron trash most of the time.
(5) The loonie was a pretty strong 46 that warbled to 48 when swept a bit off-angle.
Thoughts: If you're primarily after the older coins, you'll have absolutely no problems with the 705. If you want to find all the modern steel coins, you're probably better off looking elsewhere. If it were me, I'd be happy because the detector practically ignores the modern coins and seeks out the old ones, but your mileage may vary
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