Ok, so myself and my little brother headed off to Yorkshire for a week to see an old friend who has not been too well due to chemo and other illness related things. He has not really detected for approx 6 years or so.
We went down with the CTX 3030 and E-TRAC and brought my mate a pro coil to keep for his Explorer II.
We detected as and when we could and he felt upto it, the results pretty much speak for themselves...
With the CTX 3030 I got a Roman Denarius from AD 159, a broken Eddy (I think) groat, a half cut Henry III and many other items such as a pilgrims ampula, silver buttons, medieval buckles, pewter buckles, lead tokens, other roman copper grot coins and loads of the usual junk finds such as tiny bits of lead, bullets etc...
Each day the CTX 3030 seemed to pull out more than the EXP II or E-TRAC did... however, I did have a battery charger issue which seems to have fixed itself. The Roman site we were on is hunted to death by a local club but they managed to miss my denarius phew!!
Managed to turn 4 other detectorists into CTX 3030 owners. They have all ordered one, and my mate is going to order one now too so there you go Minelab, 1 week away and 5 CTX 3030s sold :P
Set my little brother on a mission too with my E-TRAC and SEF coil. He is a noOb detectorist. Had it maxed out and told him go slow as you can and put up with the noise and learn the machine. 2 hours later he is running his little legs off up the field to us with his very first hammered a Henry VII half groat. Next day he finds a farthing and the day after a half cut Alexander. He managed plenty other finds too, and was finding the machine great to use after he eventually managed to get his head round it lol.
Have been taking people out local with the CTX 3030 also to gain interest and views as I am interested in what other people think also. So far, all were impressed and it seems many now have the CTX 3030 on their xmas list ;)
Before I left for Yorkshire, Neil Oliver and Tony Pollard were doing a dig on one of my sites at Cambuskenneth Abbey in Stirling. They had a local club I don't much like on with them and few archaeologists. They did most the fields looking for stuff and pulled up only lead and one hammered of Edward the first.
I spoke to one of the people on the dig and took them out the following week for a few hours. The 3 other detectorists didn't find much, but I did manage to pull out a cut half of John, a medieval sword hanger, bar mount and some other small bits and pieces that have been claimed as treasure trove so was pretty happy ;)
I did take an HD Video of the whole thing but my memory stick got corrupted :(
Full report will be on my own Scottish Detecting site when I get round to it, and after I get a wisdom tooth out today - Halloween (Scared? yes I am, hate dentists lol)
Take care and happy hunting all
Rob - Clackmannanshire, UK