Picked up a few Nickels w/3D

Hunted an older park and got a 35' quarter and wheat penny in same hole. Showed lrg coin w/high tone. 6 clad nickels and everyone id correctly. Picked up a few nails and bottle tops too! Also 25P, 5Q, 7Dimes. Beltmounted w/8" coil



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2010 12:28AM by ShovelNose.

Not a bad ratio of nickels vs all other coins.

I'd say that was a great ratio, considering mine is right maybe 75% of the time. The other times when it says nickel (in salt) it will tend to be a beaver tail.
Now...when I'm using my 70 Pro, that beast is a nickel KILLER! Its usually right 90% of the time.

I've discovered that the CZ3D does NOT do a very good job at ID'ng Canadian nickels at all. This feature of the CZ3D is basically useless in Canada. No fault of the machine at all. It's all to do with the composition of Cdn. nickels. There was only one year in which the composition of Cdn. nickels matched the 75% copper/25% nickel composition while the US nickel for the most part has been consistent for a very long time.

Depending on the year, Cdn. Nickels will ring up as round tab, square tab, or nickel. They really are all over the place.

That being said, I didn't purchase the CZ3D for it's nickel ID'ng abilities but was more interested in the 4th foil tone, ability to run with little to no EMI and it's great depth abilities.

I bet the CZ3D could be re-tuned to handle Cdn. nickels much better and is something I may ask Tom if he's able/willing to do for me in the off season. The post 2000 nickels are a waste of time as they're steel core but would be cool to have it tuned to identify some of the more commonly composed nickels. I'll have to get a chart showing composition history and decide which years I'm more interested in retrieving.

Correct. And I deliberately selected the 'foil' range to have a independent tone...............and.................with proper 'ear' training............you will EASILY see why. ESPECIALLY if jewelry hunting.

True, I did not design the nickel window for Canadian nickels; rather, old U.S. nickels. And in your 'down-season'; yes, I could probably tweak/play with your 3D nickel window......provided you provide a few nickels that you would like to detect/find. If the 'conductive span' of the nickels is too large, it would take a major R&D effort to ascertain your intent. Nickel 'prioritization' would then become significant.

Tom...not sure if you caught my post regarding my first gold ring....I found this ring primarily because of the 4th tone for foil along with your observation that MOST gold rings fall in the foil range. I owe you thanks. Your professional and detailed posts are very much appreciated and have contributed greatly to the overall enjoyment of the hobby.

I was just at the coin shop and purchased an assortment of US nickels to play with. If they ID properly according to your specs then I'll probably leave the CZ3D as it is...if however the window appears to off a bit I'll probaby send it down to you during the winter months.

As for tweaking/playing with the nickel window...I'm not sure Cdn. nickels were ever consistent enough in their composition to warrant any sort of adjustment. More research with regards to composition required on my part. Like any other machine it's simply going to be a matter of learning the tones...so many nuances within each of the four tones...and I did notice a significant between how the gold ring I found sounded versus actual foil...small but very noticeable. It won't be easy to train my ears to always recognize this nuance but not alot of machines would provide that opportunity.

Thanks again

Jeff,

You are astute......and exactly on track.