AT Pro Pull Tab:Nickel:Gold Ratio Experiement

[Jeremy S]

Jeremy S's Pull Tab:Nickel:Gold Ratio Experiment Log

Just for fun I have decided to keep a running ratio of pull tabs to nickels to gold, which means digging just about everything in the 48 - 70 range besides good repeatable targets and coins. Some of the parks nearby that I hunt date back a century but are loaded with trash that is so thick in areas that even my 5x8 DD coil has trouble separating the targets. I am not counting finds from the beach/underwater, only on land and in parks.

These parks are still commonly used for concerts, events, and various sports so fresh items are dropped year round. I have pulled gold and various rings from them in the past so I know the potential is there.


I started this madness in late June.

Totals as of 10/6:

Pull Tabs: 560
Nickels: 127
Gold: 1

Gold found! 10/6

 

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[Hookedondetecting]

I think the odds get better every day you pull out for trash. No?

 

[RobRieman]

My ratio is at least 1000:1. I'm not by any beaches which are the gold magnets. Good luck in your quest and don't get discouraged!

 

[Kodiak43351]

I am on the hunt for that elusive gold also. I wish I got paid to dig pull tabs because I'd be a rich man. I see guys detecting at fairgrounds and park and moving pretty fast obviously passing up those signals and only looking for coins. I dig a lot and yes most are pull tabs and beaver tails. I also get clad and silver. I did find a 14k piece a week ago that I posted and it rang in about where a beaver tail does that isn't smashed into a ball. Good luck on your test and hope you find a big chunky gold ring.

 

[Chug And Red]

Good thing you didn't add anything Above 70 silver range And Those DARN Bottle caps

 

[John-Edmonton]

It's all about location, location and location. The ratios will be drastically changed when hunting in water vs. parks vs. sports fields and playgrounds. And, if you disc out where pulltabs generally read, you lose gold and nickels.

And thanks for putting all the time to show your ratios. Much appreciated.

 

[Jeremy S]

It's all about location, location and location. The ratios will be drastically changed when hunting in water vs. parks vs. sports fields and playgrounds. And, if you disc out where pulltabs generally read, you lose gold and nickels.

And thanks for putting all the time to show your ratios. Much appreciated.

Cool picture!

The parks that I hunt all contain sports fields and playgrounds. Some of the baseball fields have a higher concentration of pull tabs than the picnic areas. Judging by the number of tab signals and nickels that I find, I believe that a lot of other guys cherry pick for clad and move on meaning that they might have missed the gold. I'll still dig those high tones as well, don't want to miss silver!

This will be a fun reason to hit the parks more when I am in between 'good sites' to hunt

 

[Jeremy S]

Just added 50 more tabs to the count. Hunted an extremely trashy baseball field last night. I had previously hunted it and cherry picked for clad, but this time I went after just about everything for about 2 hours.

Still no gold!

 

[46Wheat]

So far my ratio is approximately 49,235/0 . No gold for me yet this summer . I have been hitting a couple of parks pretty hard the last couple of weeks and digging everything in the gold range . So far nada, zipp , zilch , no gold. But have figured out on my AT Pro if it is a solid constant 52-53 from two directions 99 times out of a 100 its a nickel . Btw I haven't dug quite that my tabs and junk but it sure feels like it.

 

[Jeremy S]

Hunted a construction site in an old part of town yesterday. Found a 1901 V nickel, 3 wheat pennies from the 1940s, a junk plated ring, and 17 more tabs.

Still no gold, but I feel that I am getting closer!

The ground was very rough and hard to detect, but my 5x8 coil did a great job of pulling out these finds from the many iron signals that the area was saturated with. In some areas if I just laid my Pro-Pointer on the ground it would go crazy due to the iron.

 

[DANGLANGLEY]

I just wanted to let you know that I am very interested in your results. I have often wondered what the ratio is. I sold a detector to a guy a long time ago and the first place he headed to was a park that was loaded with pull tabs. I warned him about how tough it would be there and he came back with a gold wedding band. He came by the very next day and said he was going back there. I had to warn him again to not get discouraged because it was very unusual to find a gold ring the first trip out for anybody. He came back a little while later with another gold band and I just about died. I had hunted that park lots of times and got frustrated with all the pull tabs and tuned them out. Keep up the good work and don't give up like I did.
DANGLANGLEY

 

[RobRieman]

I just wanted to let you know that I am very interested in your results. I have often wondered what the ratio is. I sold a detector to a guy a long time ago and the first place he headed to was a park that was loaded with pull tabs. I warned him about how tough it would be there and he came back with a gold wedding band. He came by the very next day and said he was going back there. I had to warn him again to not get discouraged because it was very unusual to find a gold ring the first trip out for anybody. He came back a little while later with another gold band and I just about died. I had hunted that park lots of times and got frustrated with all the pull tabs and tuned them out. Keep up the good work and don't give up like I did. DANGLANGLEY

Unfortunately no two people will ever have the same ratio so you will never know what the ratio is! But you will know his ratio. It's all about location, the water gets the bulk of the gold.

 

[DANGLANGLEY]

Unfortunately no two people will ever have the same ratio so you will never know what the ratio is! But you will know his ratio. It's all about location, the water gets the bulk of the gold.

That's very true but it will be fun to watch.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

As Mentioned about...Location is Key....I used to have a awesome spot that I my ratio was more Gold and Nickels than Pulltabs, it was a public pool in a good part of town....Keep at it!

 

[goldnrelics]

I Like! now that's a true treasure hunt!

 

[Jeremy S]

I went on a sweltering two hour hunt today that yielded a lot of clad change, including a 1961 Canadian Nickel, a 1967 German 2 Pfenning, a small data plate from something, and some other junk metal trinkets. The Canadian 5c piece came up as a high tone, I actually thought that it was silver the way it sounded at first. Reading online shows it at 99% nickel.

I added 13 tabs and 5 nickels to the count, still no gold!

 

[garviso8]

found my first gold ring by mistake, mostly a silver coin hunter at first but one day i thought I was digging an easy nickel and out popped a 14k white gold ring at 7.2 grams and I was hooked since than I cant pass up a low tone but the junk to treasure ratio is ridiculous in the local parks and its turning my outings into a chore, sometimes you have to stick to your objective

 

[Jeremy S]

found my first gold ring by mistake, mostly a silver coin hunter at first but one day i thought I was digging an easy nickel and out popped a 14k white gold ring at 7.2 grams and I was hooked since than I cant pass up a low tone but the junk to treasure ratio is ridiculous in the local parks and its turning my outings into a chore, sometimes you have to stick to your objective

I have previously found two gold rings at the park I hunted on Sunday. I have another honey hole park that I have pulled gold and silver from last year that I plan to hunt later this week. Since school is starting back up there are less people hanging around the parks which makes hunting nicer.

 

[Jeremy S]

I stopped by the construction site in an old part of town again today for two hours. I re-hunted some of the ground that I covered last time and some new areas that had been just graded with the top 6 or so inches of top soil scraped off. The grading stirred up all kind of new finds. I found some clad and memorial pennies that I missed last time but also found some cool things that include a horseshoe, a very nice 1906 Indian Head Penny, a 1965 German 2 Pfenning, and a metal shark (in honor of shark week). Also found a couple of lead seals from an electric meter tag.

I have never found a German Pfenning coin, and in the last three days I have found two at least 10 miles apart. I also dug 26 more pull tabs to bring my total to 332. I would have expected that this construction site would have produces some silver coins but those may have been cherry pick many years ago.

 

[algeus]

Hi,

Reading through this thread I have a newbie question.
Having a BH Quick Silver with VERY limited discrimination abilities I was sure some "middle range" more advance machines, like your AT Pro, are able to successfully discriminate metals bringing the tabs rate close to 0...Can't you just set AT Pro to "react" only to gold/silver?

Thank you.