In about 9 hours of hunting, I found a total of 23 buttons (brass and pewter) not counting the pewter 4-hole buttons. Some of the buttons are in pretty bad shape so I did not include them in the photo.

The buttons I found consist of 12 Rifleman, 5 Dragoons, 2 Infantry and a few other plain and pewter buttons. The best part of the trip was the Company F Heart Martingale (pictured above) which is quite a rare find.

All I can say is that the Shadow is one detector that has great depth and is able to see through the trash and make it possible to find the great relics that are still out there waiting to be found. This is going to be one hard machine to beat.....

DOOGIE

Story below by
Rechey Davidson

Way Down South in Dixie!
By Rechey Davidson

Doug Green and I were asked to give Troy's new custom-designed "SHADOWx2" detector a tryout on some of our "old" sites. Since Troy knew we had a few early 1800's sites we hunted occasionally in south Mississippi, he figured if there was any place where something should be "real" deep, it would be at one of these early sites. So off we went with his prototype.

We found several early 1800's military buttons including 1808 "US" pewter buttons and early Infantry and Rifleman buttons using the SHADOWx2. While we didn't actually measure the depth of any finds with a ruler, it was obvious that Troy's new detector had some definite advantages.

The things I noticed first was how light and well balanced it was with the new 7 inch coil and the extra loudness of signals even when the target was extra deep. Even when the targets found appeared to be at approximately the same depth, the SHADOWx2 response was much louder. In fact, many targets we thought were shallow based on the target volume often turned out to be fairly deep. We obviously found many buttons with the SHADOWx2 we had missed on previous trips.

The place we were hunting was in the woods, with briars hanging just about everywhere, on the side of a fairly steep hill. In some places, we actually hunted by holding the detector straight out in front of us sweeping the banks instead of having the detector pointed at our feet.

Doug was having a rough time getting through the bushes and briars because he always tries to hunt fast. I hunt slow, so I was doing fine. Every few minutes I would hear Doug yelling at some of the bushes that got in his way. He has quite a vocabulary! A time or two I even heard him reflect on some Plant's ancestry. Soon, he said he couldn't stand these briars and getting tangled up anymore and was going to take the SHADOWx2 and head for a clearing.

Things were going just fine for me on the side of the hill and, for once in a long while, I was way ahead of Doug on finding these old buttons. I had about 12 of the old buttons and Doug still only had 3. I think that was one of the reasons he wanted to get some place that he could hunt normal. He was gone only minutes.

Suddenly, I heard my name yelled excitedly. "Over here,"  I answered and then saw Doug come running down the steep slope through the trees and briars, not letting them bother him or slow him down at all this time. He was giggling like a school girl. He tried to slow down, but just "slid into home plate" in front of me, his fist clamped tight.

"I did it again! I did it again! A gold coin! I got a gold coin!"  He couldn't keep from laughing. He slowly, carefully opened his fist and there was a beautiful, shiny golden eagle. A two and a half dollar gold coin! I asked him what was the date and he had no idea. He had just seen the gold eagle, grabbed it and ran. He finally turned it over. It turned out to be an 1851-O. Then he was disappointed! At the age of the site we were hunting, he just knew it had to be a "Capped Bust" coin. But he was quickly excited again. After all, it was still a gold coin! "Troy's not going to believe this!" he laughed. Since soldiers were often known to camp around earlier fort and campsites, the coin was evidently lost by a later soldier. At $325, it was still a good find. It would have just been so much more exciting if the coin had been 40 or 50 years older.

Troy was almost, but not quite, as excited as Doug to learn what his new detector had found. Doug and I quickly placed our order for our own "SHADOWx2" as soon as we took Troy's prototype back.

Note: Doug Green and Rechey Davidson are well known relic hunters from Texas with a combined total of 48 years experience. Both have written many articles that have been published by Western & Eastern Treasure Magazine through the years. They are long time members of the Lone Star Treasure Club in Dallas.