Happy holidays to all my treasure hunting friends

Platinum, gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds and rubies, none of these treasures we look for are as important as family and friends. 

Take care of the treasures you already have at home and you will always walk out the door with a smile on your face knowing even if you do not find what you are searching for you will return home to treasures.

Now you know why I am always a happy treasure hunter, happy holidays my fellow treasure hunters! 

Another treasure hunting year comes to an end

As another treasure hunting year comes to an end you will be pleased to know I have decided to change the format on my beach treasure hunting blog and get with the times, I hear the collective sigh of relief from long time readers of this blog lol 

From January 1st 2021 I will be starting a new Vlog style concept to help people interested in searching for old coins, artifacts and modern jewelry, it will be heavily coastal related but it will include inland searching too.

How best to use your metal detector and "Twin optical scanners" to locate and recover what you are searching for in the areas you intend to search, you will of course see a lot of video content.

My work related travels have allowed me to explore amazing locations and search for a wide variety of things at those locations, from 350 million year old fossils, ancient artifacts to relatively modern but significantly important or valuable recoveries.

Important aspects of treasure hunting I preach about in my treasure hunt guides are searching and learning, meaning trying different search areas and learning from those searches.

This blog was never about searching local beaches and wasting time waiting for good beach conditions, it is about grinding and finding instead of following others to the same sites fighting for scraps. 

I still prefer to be known for my recovered treasures instead of blog hits, days old eroded beach photos and cheesy copy & pasted treasure related articles.  

Being on site living the moment recovering what you are searching for is so much better than being a day late and a dollar short all the time.

My new Vlog style content will put you out there in front in the thick of the action, leave the fluffy stuff to the local hunters still living in Groundhog Day mode. 

This year has been a heck of a ride, between the thousand pound gorilla in the room called Covid and my work schedule, but I made the most of my down time by saving plenty of history.

I hate to say it and I am certainly not taking the subject lightly but I was kind of pandemic ready having always been a loner searching for different types of treasures off the beaten track. 

The more I found myself avoiding crowds the more cool sites I visited and the cooler the things I recovered so I ran with it lol 

There really are many advantages to trying new treasure hunting sites and of course searching for a wide variety of treasures, also not just relying on your metal detector.

 "Twin optical scanners" are just as important to a treasure hunter as a metal detector, you eyeball sites, scan site conditions and spot exposed treasures when you keep your eyes open and you are aware of your surroundings.

I would say some of my best finds were seen before they were picked up this year.

Some people may say that is just good fortune, but is it really luck when you research sites and work hard to put yourself in the right place at the right time? 

One very important lesson 2020 has taught me is to never overlook anywhere as a treasure hunter, as readers of this blog will see as the year comes to an end. 

 

Minelab Equinox and CTX 3030 target ID numbers explained

If you are a beach hunter, the photo below represents everything you need to know about target ID numbers.  

These 300 and 400 year old Spanish shipwreck emeralds, blood red garnets and pieces of amethyst were recovered this year on beaches I was metal detecting at and as they are non metallic they have no target ID numbers. 

The gems in this photo represent just a fraction of the eyeballed finds I have recovered this year while searching beaches using a metal detector.

That is exactly the point of todays blog, stop obsessing over target IDs on your favorite Minelab metal detectors because the numbers mean nothing if you are searching for old coins and artifacts. 

One of my pet peeves is answering questions connected to target ID numbers on the Minelab Equinox and CTX 3030, especially from beach hunters searching areas with a little history like the Treasure Coast of Florida with its three and four hundred year old Spanish shipwreck beaches.

I still hunt by ear and dig almost all metal targets when searching beaches for Spanish treasure, I know my metal detectors are quite capable of identifying small iron targets and fish hooks so I take care of the rest of the digging decisions.

If you waste time farting around looking at target ID numbers on your metal detector screen and sweep until you enhance the numbers accuracy you are wasting valuable search time.

You also do not see finds like the gems in the photo washed up begging to be picked up, not when you are fixated on potential ferrous and conductive property guestimates on your metal detector screen. 

The more you rely on your ears for target identification and have your eyes trained on the sand, the more you will find when searching for old coins and artifacts at the beach.

Site reading skills are very important to a beach hunter, they are wasted by beach hunters obsessed with checking and double or even triple checking target ID numbers.

Two of the biggest and most common mistakes a beach hunter can make is searching in a full all metal search mode and fully trusting in target ID numbers. 

If you follow anyone telling you that you have to dig it all you are not going to find what you are really searching for in your allotted search time, because you wasted time digging easily identifiable junk targets like small iron nails or fish hooks. 

On the flip side if you dig enough commonly found coins on beaches using your Equinox or CTX 3030 and you are now an "Expert" because you know your target ID numbers you better have good hearing. 

I can tell the difference by ear between a penny and a half ounce 10K gold class ring, a modern dime and a 300 year old Spanish silver treasure coin, an aluminum pull tab and a gold wedding band.  

Heres the kicker, the target ID numbers on your Equinox or CTX 3030 screen are exactly the same between each two examples mentioned, rely on those target ID numbers and you may leave the good stuff behind.

You will also miss valuable items because didn't pay enough attention to the search site and surroundings, especially the sand you are walking over.

Your treasure hunting number is always up when you rely on metal detecting by numbers.