Aluminum and gold jewelry: What's the trick?

[b3y0nd3r]

I remember being in a nice little shop run by George in Edwardsville PA. A women was asking about the secrets of metal detectors finding gold jewelry. At that point, George asked her for her gold ring and waived it over the coli of a metered machine. He said, "This is tin." The look on her face was priceless as she responded with utter shock and said, "This ring is 14 karat gold!" She missed the point.

Well truthfully, there isn't any secrets and if anyone says they have one, I would be very skeptical. There are however some pointers that you can use as a guide to help increase your chances of find gold jewelry.

Good solid two way hit with stable TID(Target ID). I haven't dug much gold jewelry, but all the ones I did, had a stable TID from all angles. However, there are some accounts I read, where there were other factors and the target was a jumpy garbage sounding target.

Go where the gold is! If you are at a public park, you may find a few pieces of gold jewelry. However, at the beach or swimming area is where your best chance is. That is because of the skin shrinking making lose fitting jewelry fall off.

Focus and dig. if you are trying to find everything under the sun, it takes your focus away from jewelry. Try it just one time. Block out everything but the gold range and dig those targets.

Get used to what your machine is telling you. I have a ctx 3030 and I can tell "beaver tails" by the strength, depth and TID. Anyone one of those factors singularly will not give you the whole story.

I hope this helps!

Good luck and HH!

 

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[Deft Tones]

The "trick" is not in polar thinking.

A good machine for the task, combined with experience how that machine responds to aluminum of all types.....you can learn to avoid much of it and greatly increase the odds for gold rings and such in parks. If you get greedy and desire all the gold then you're stuck digging everything. Iron and up everything!

The problem is that many find gold so rarely they have little experience, or baseline to begin with. It's hard to locate something when you only know what it is your intended target doesn't sound like, or is it?

 

[xr7ator]

Good solid two way hits only apply to an item that is round or has a "good target" shape and is not being irregulated (yes, I made up a word!) by nearby trash, depth or bad ground. Gold chains, unique shaped items and broken/bent rings will not give the same ID.
I think I can tell when the item below my coil is a pulltab as well but I'm often wrong. Also, there are many many variations of "pulltabs".

I do find it interesting to dig just gold/aluminum signals at a spot I feel I have worked out. It has panned out for me at times and many others gave me a pouch full of trash.

I am in Denver so not much area to work at the beach for me.

Finally, If in doubt, dig it out.

HH and HH all!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Until the day comes, where technological advances invent a machine that can tell aluminum apart from gold, there will be very few tricks. Oh sure, you can do "notching" (to eliminate the most commonly recurring objects like full round tabs, beaver tails, etc....), but rest assured, you will miss gold rings this way, and you will still dig junk. And notching sort of "goes out the window" if you hunt a place where lawnmowers have tangled with aluminum cans , making can slaw all over.

And if anyone ever tries to tell you that "gold rings sound different than aluminum" (by virtue of "tones", "sounds", "stable TID", "softness", etc....) , then here's how you put an immediate end to such claims: Simply take that person out to the nearest blighted junky inner city park, and turn them loose. See how many gold items they find, and how much aluminum they can leave behind. You will notice their claims go silent, and you hear nothing but chirping crickets then.

The only reason why it's easy to convince ourselves that "gold sounds different", is simply the trick of "selective memory". When you FINALLY dig a gold ring, it's easy to think to yourself "that sounded different". And then to believe that if you just hone in on whatever different sound it had, that you can un-lock the secrets to the sounds of gold vs aluminum.

But it is only the trick of memory bias/selective memory. Because EVERY time we all go to dig a target, we are subconsciously saying to ourselves: "This sounds different". But as soon as it's a foil wad, or aluminum shrapnel or tab, we say to ourselves "yeah, now that I think of it, it *did* sound kind of junky". And we promptly forget our premonitions. But if it turned out to be gold, only THEN do we remember our premonitions and think "aha! I'm psychic" !

 

[Deft Tones]

Hi Tom! Good to see you around.

I value your extensive experience. I'd like to both agree and disagree with your post, if I may. This is not the first time I've enjoyed your argument on this subject. It's my hope that I can learn from our disagreement.

I pretty much agree overall with your post. It's true, no machine made today can tell gold from aluminum. It's true, one can not dig gold without digging some aluminum and some foil. It's true one can not cherry pick gold in an aluminum infested modern day park like the pioneers of the hobby snatching up silver coins on those epic park hunts of yesteryear. It's true that all humans exhibit cognitive bias.

Before I disagree, have you, or anyone else, have you ever used a machine that can tone on an un-dug corroded zinc penny differently from an un-dug copper IHP by audio with regular accuracy, for example?

Perhaps you can see where I am headed.

Respectfully,

Deft Tones

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.....Perhaps you can see where I am headed....

No, I'm sorry, don't know where you're headed.

An "un-dug corroded zinc penny" and an "un-dug IHP" , for air-test purposes, has an ambiguous "gotcha" involved. Because while an un-dug IHP is going to be pretty consistent (like where the cross-hairs hit on an explorer graph, or where it falls on an XLT graph, etc...), yet....... "corroded zinc" can be all over the scale. Because IT DEPENDS ON HOW CORRODED you're talking about. A few zits? a lot of zits ? Or a total beach mess zinc toast ?

I bet that if you tested enough corroded zincs, you could probably find one that exactly mimicked a IHP TID. Hence, no, I don't know what you're driving at.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.....Perhaps you can see where I am headed....

No, I'm sorry, don't know where you're headed.

An "un-dug corroded zinc penny" and an "un-dug IHP" , for air-test purposes, has an ambiguous "gotcha" involved. Because while an un-dug IHP is going to be pretty consistent (like where the cross-hairs hit on an explorer graph, or where it falls on an XLT graph, etc...), yet....... "corroded zinc" can be all over the scale. Because IT DEPENDS ON HOW CORRODED you're talking about. A few zits? a lot of zits ? Or a total beach mess zinc toast ?

I bet that if you tested enough corroded zincs, you could probably find one that exactly mimicked a IHP TID. Hence, no, I don't know what you're driving at.

Also, whenever the discussion of telling objects apart comes up, be careful not to get pulled into the trap of thinking of how coins can be "told apart". The problem with trying to think it these terms (as if, .... so-TOO can jewelry and/or gold be "told apart") is that coins are coming off the assembly line, all day long, EXACTLY ALIKE (assuming no corrosion). So for example, a nickel will always have the exact same TID signature, all day long. However gold jewelry has a million variations. Endless shapes, sizes, weights, karots, etc...... Hence whereas coins can be 2nd-guessed pretty good, yet gold jewelry and aluminum slaw, will have infinite variations.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Always a fun topic. If you are hunting gold nuggets, you will dig lead bullets, barbed wire, tin can pieces, boot tacks, and old iron. If you are hunting gold jewelry you will dig canslaw, pull tabs and screwtops.

With all due respect to those of you that honestly believe they can now tell the difference between a pull tab and a gold ring, boulderdash. There are no secrets, or magic settings. Experience will make you correct 55-percent of the time, but you won't REALLY know if you were right until you dig it.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Half of my perfect, solid response "nickle" signals are beaver tails and pull rings. It all comes down to position, condition and soil. If you want to dig gold, you HAVE to dig aluminum trash and there are hundreds if not thousands of more pieces of aluminum than gold. It's the nature of the game.

 

[Deft Tones]

Hi Tom.
I had thought about editing my question because on reflection shortly after posting I realized I could have made a better example. I wished I might have put more thought into it before hastily posting, but seeing your reply, it might not have mattered. Cool. It was the first “decent” comparison that had come to mind.

I did come up with a better example though.

But my first response to a skeptic, and I very much consider myself a skeptic, a cynic, and a bit of a critic, is always to ask, “What would it take to convince you of “X”? I ask this question of myself often in life. If the answer to that question is ever an impossible request, or something along the lines of, “nothing could convince me”, debate over. I walk awaaaaaayyy…. Life’s too short.

Man, I’ve really thought long and hard about what to post. How much of the show to give away. I question the value of information, and then reflect how I dig more than a badger to get proficient enough to convince myself first! (ha, look at my coming cynicism!)How might I benefit from this exchange exactly, if at all? I could just be detecting away in my own world, in my own trashy parks, chipping away silently digging the refined precious metals when I walk over them. Why even share?

We don’t have any appreciable quantities of natural gold in my state. We don’t have many beaches here, and any salt water beaches here were last present in the Mesozoic era. We have concrete water parks mostly surrounded by concrete. We don’t have any historical battle sites from the Civil War, or colonial sites, but we do have plenty of blighted trashy inner city parks! More parks per sq. mile than most cities of similar size. This is where I spend most of my time, and where I have detected 90% of the hours I’ve ever detected - honing my skills. Being in modern trash or old parks with iron and modern trash, it’s normal to me and where I feel most at home.

I’ve never once yet metal detected on a saltwater beach, or battlefield. I am a public park jewelry hunter through and through. I don’t have much choice if I want valuable precious metals. I have been mixing things up far more this year. Recently I’ve been exploring the iron spectrum of a few machines trying to round out my education a bit more. I tend to hunt as a student, most days.

How can I accept your challenge 1500 miles apart? An unedited video on you tube? A live-stream video hunt? I’m not flying to California for this, I have a family. You are welcome to come here, but because I don’t know you, you’d need a hotel. I’m sure you understand.

But somehow, if I were to take you to a junky blighted inner city park infested with aluminum, or you were to take me (exactly the kind of typical locations where I learned to jewelry hunt with success), and if I pulled some gold out of the park right there in front of you, you might be impressed, but you’d likely still not be convinced. I doubt you’d be convinced if I called all the shots, trash, aluminum slaw, ring pull, tab, zinc, dime, trash, coin spill. Even if I were to just vote every target prior to digging – good/trash, thumb up or down, I don’t know you’d be convinced. So I wonder what it would really take to convince you it can and is done more often than luck or chance would have it?

Don’t take that the wrong way. I fully admit to digging my share of trash. I admit I do not find gold every hunt, or even every other week. I will confess that I expect to find at least one nice gold item about once a month on average. I am fully confident that given at least three days, or roughly 20 hours field time actually swinging, to get a feel for a new site and its trash, I could recognize the gold (ring for example) if my coil was over it in any park at typical jewelry depths. I’m not going to say I would call “GOLD!”, but I usually can tell with very high accuracy everything it’s not, and that it’s going to have a great chance to be something nice. More often than not I am correct doing this. I know this because I still have not completely let go of the fears instilled by those “DIG IT ALL TO GET ALL THE GOLD!” proponents who need more experience digging it all IMHO. I still tend to dig most questionable targets. Almost always my questionable targets turn up junk, rarely junk jewelry, just like I thought prior to digging, junk….but you never really know, eh?

So, with that in mind I decided to cut the subjective BS out for now, like hearing ability, and attempt to re-verify visually what it is I must hear when I disagree with you on the tones id. I now have the perfect targets.

 

[Deft Tones]

I used first a free program available to anyone called Audacity. It’s a typical program of its type, and I can see the tone forms while air testing. More detail while zoomed in. Good for recording/editing clips and watching the signals.


A better more sophisticated program is another free one called Visual Analyzer. It is not a replacement for true scientific equipment, but it can level the playing field in our differences in hearing ability. It does an excellent job of illustrating visually the difference between two closely related, yet different items.

I used these programs by connecting my Deus, V3i, and Sovereign GT directly to the laptop running the software. I would have done the ATPro but I don’t own that stupid adaptor. All three machines show similar results in my unscientific test. I don’t claim to have much time with either of these programs, perhaps 10 hours, and mostly last winter, but it doesn’t take long to get the feel for them.


It took a bit of digging (ha ha) but here are two recently dug additional ideal test subjects for a second comparison.




Two 2012 D zinc pennies. One penny is shiny with very light wear being lightly circulated, the other penny being slightly corroded a bit on the edge and a bit on the surface.

With the Deus at the park I can call these two coins with almost 90% accuracy - simply by tone; I’ve dug so many of them. The audio characteristic is the difference even though the tone pitch may be the same. Everything sounds near identical except for a slight, subtle difference.


A gold ring and a ring pull w/tail bent under. Both of these were dug within 15 minutes of one another. They had the same tone pitch. They sounded completely different in characteristics and based upon my experience with Deus audio, I thought mistakenly I was about to dig a coin. Almost no experience with the Sov and I could clearly discern, by tone, something was better about this one. (I posted about it a week or two ago, first park hunt with the Sov.)


On the Deus the two rings air test exactly VDI 74 in 18khz. In 8 khz the ring 54 and ring-pull 55.
The pennies ring in undamaged/damaged at both VDI 86 in 18khz, but in 4khz the additional resolution expansion at the bottom end caused a 61/60. The lower number was the damaged coin.

On the V3i in 3 freq. the gold ring consistently hits at 36 while the ring-pull 37.
The pennies hit at 55, sometimes 54 if I don’t sweep it perfect, but both numbers are solid. The corroded coin would hit at VDI 55/56 mostly 56. If the coin to coil sweep angle wasn’t pretty much flat it would always bounce up to 58.

On the Sov GT I have no meter. They sound different. They sound different in the ground and they sound different in the air. What can I say? The Deus audio in 18khz performs somewhat similar from first impressions.

I could not find a piece of canslaw in my bucket of trash that would come in with a close enough tone or VDI. I just don’t happen to have one right now, but rest assured I have been fooled by them.


Testing these items inside and observing the signal in real time and in a variety of ways, even with the occasional EMI signal blipping in the background – THERE IS A DIFFERENCE! (I always loved those ‘spot the difference’ cartoons) It takes some time playing and observing and it’s not apparent at first, but if you try it out and study the signals you’ll see what I mean. There is an inbuilt way to take screen shots that I have not used, but it’s best to watch in real time, real time 3d, or even record it and play back within the program. I’ll bet taking stills and doing an overlay in an image editor would be best for comparison.


The difference is very subtle visually as much as auditory, but I am convinced by my own repeated experience that in the ground, on un-dug targets, this subtle difference is more pronounced than what is seen while air testing. It was especially noticeable with a virgin ear on the GT having just dug many near identical ring pulls for the first time. Same pitch, different characteristics. Obviously I have no way to prove that here except for this ring I dug. I only dug this “one last” signal because it definitely sounded different from all the other ring-pulls I had just dug and I was fed up with those tones for the day. Even though the tone pitch was nearly identical I had to dig it due to a “better” characteristic that no previous ring-pull had.

The reader can believe it or not. I’m not one to care what one believes until it affects me. I always say believe what you want, it doesn’t make it true.

Skeptical? I would be also, but I spent all my time honing my skills learning to hunt jewelry in the crap places most fear to tread, those blighted junky inner city parks. You should be skeptical, you’ve seen nothing like it, apparently. I’m sorry I don’t have my evidence prepared at the moment. I had not intended to present any publicly, or even debate, but I’ll figure out how to get video with stills from the two signals overlaid with transparency if that could convince you. For me there is more down time in the winter for such things.


Perhaps this winter others can experiment and test the software too. Perhaps you’ll learn something to help find more gold, and perhaps we'll all find more gold. I hope so.

 

[Deft Tones]

Who has used a deus and dug an iron ring? Probably everyone who owns a deus, that's who.

That "forced", tinny sound they sometimes give off....yep, strikes my eardrum almost the same way when passing over many kinds and shapes of aluminum. I never, ever had a gold anything sound off like most aluminum does on the deus. Even foil responds mostly like aluminum on the deus. I've dug plenty of broken rings, toe rings, chains, charms, buttons, pins, etc...very, very few sound like the majority of the aluminum I dig.

The Sovereign seems to be similar excellent full tone audio. I just don't have enough experience with it yet.

The V3i ... the tones are more processed, less raw sounding, more digital, but packed with enough information to do the job well. It could be improved with audio style more like the Sov or Deus, IMO. But keep mixed mode and stereo mixed mode!

The point is, you can identify the iron, you can identify the crown caps, you can identify the ring pulls, you can identify zinc, you can identify dimes, quarters, silver coins, but you can't identify the processed valuable jewelry sitting mostly between those signals?

 

[ivan salis]

well -- here's the deal ...once a while back ...I had several folks ask me how to find a machine that could effectively sort gold items from aluminum ( I was the president of the club at the time and a somewhat respected person when it came to "detector knowledge" since I have been using a detector since 1979 )..I told them that at the next meeting --I would show them --the "wonder machine" that they were asking about ..at the packed meeting --I whipped out a old bounty hunter tracker IV .. folks looked at me oddly --that piece of junk? yep I said watch and learn ..I took off my wedding band and used a pull tab.. I set the machine in disc mode --using the 3 setting switch --then I set it at ""0" disc and waved the pull tab --bing bing -- I slowly raised it until the tab dropped out from being detected ..then I put the gold ring --under he coil --a sharp ping ..I said no tabs , yes gold ..then I backed it off just until the tab started to come in again ..the sound was clearly different when the tab hit it was crackly and fuzzy --but the gold rang up sharp and clear ... as I showed folks this their jaws dropped a $100 EL cheapo machine able to do what they struggle to try to do with much higher cost machines....hum its not always the machine ..sometimes its the operators skills..

that said ... no machine is "aluminum proof" .... metal detecting machines use electrical conductivity to sort what kinds of metal they think they have found ..and due to the varying electrical conductivity of metals and the varying sizes of targets --some items over lap ..a nickel lets say and aluminum pull tab are close as are some gold items and pull tabs --some machines are just better sorters than others --a fine exsample would be say a ace 250 with 12 "blocks" vs say a delta 4000 with a 0 to 99 numbers display ..since the delta has 8 times the amount of slots to sort its find into it can be more precise and sort to a finer degree

 

[b3y0nd3r]

Wow. I didn't think this would generate this type of feedback. Good discussion though. The point was that there are no tricks, just tips that increase your percentages taken in whole not parts. In other words, a solid two tone doesn't guarantee gold, but, combined with the other tips, it increases your chances.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Deft-Tones, thanx for the taking the time to read my post, and to type out all your response. All good pro & con discussion ! Ok, here's my thoughts on your comments:

a) Various interspersed comments like this one : ".... Something was better about this one ....". Yes: I addressed that in my initial comments. That whenever we md'rs dig a gold ring, we will immediately think that exact thing: "That one sounded different" (mellower, softer, bolder, had a better TID cross-hairs or graph spread, etc....). And thus we will think "I KNEW IT". And then we try like the dickens to isolate what it was that sounded different, so that we can up our Las Vegas odds in junky parks. Right ?

But as I previously said: This is nothing more than the trick of selective memory bias. If the item had turned out to be junk, you'd have thought to yourself: "Yeah, come to think of it, ... it *did* sound sort of junky...". And you'd immediately forget your premonitions. But when an item finally turns out to be a gold ring, only THEN do we remember our premonitions and think " Aha ! I'm psychic".

The same trick is at play when we think our dreams come true at night. Like: You wake up to your radio alarm clock playing the exact song you were just dreaming about. But the truth is: We dreams 1000's of dreams a night. All of which don't come true, & we promptly forget within 20 seconds of waking up. But when/if one coincidentally DID com true , only THEN do you remember the dream. Thus it's the same trick at play with md'ing: We're digging 1000's of signals over time. And when we evaluate each one, we think "this one sounds different". I know you'll probably deny this is at play, but bear in mind, I'm saying this is all going on at the subconscious level. So when you look back to evaluate "was I or was I not victim to this?", of COURSE you'll have no recollection, and feel you were psychic.

b) various statements on air tests, ground tests, etc... to the effect of : "... there is a difference....". Well sure: There's a difference between a tab you test, and a gold ring you test. And sure, there's a difference between 2 different coins you test, etc.... BUT SO TOO is there a difference between every single gold ring vs every other gold ring. And SO TOO is there a difference between every item of can slaw vs another item of can slaw.

The only "sameness" we can isolate, is recurring items that all came off the assembly line exactly alike: Round tabs, coins, square tabs, etc... And then .... by knowing our environment, can guage the "skew" of those items, by corrosion, depth, etc... But can slaw, foil wads, and gold jewelry come off the assembly line in infinite varieties of TID's. Thus the same comparison can not be said about those.

c) You say: ".... I fully admit to digging my share of trash. I admit I do not find gold every hunt, or even every other week. I will confess that I expect to find at least one nice gold item about once a month on average....."

Hmmm, ok. But at what point does it become "random chance"? Versus "I can tell the difference" ? I had this same conversation with a guy in CA (a respected dealer) who was telling his customers that they could, if they tried hard enough, tell aluminum from gold by sounds/tones. And, like you, would say it's not 100% perfect. But when pressed to venture an accuracy (1 to 10 ? 1 to 50 ? 1 to 100 ?), you could not pin him down. In the end, after hunting with this fellow several times, it became clear that it was nothing more than random chance.

BARRING if a person was doing "ring enhancement notching". Which is an entirely different subject that "telling aluminum apart from gold".

 

[Tom_in_CA]

... --I whipped out a old bounty hunter tracker IV .. folks looked at me oddly --that piece of junk? yep I said watch and learn ..I took off my wedding band and used a pull tab.. I set the machine in disc mode --using the 3 setting switch --then I set it at ""0" disc and waved the pull tab --bing bing -- I slowly raised it until the tab dropped out from being detected ..then I put the gold ring --under he coil --a sharp ping ..I said no tabs , yes gold .....

Ivan, you realize this is nothing more than having a gold ring big enough to have a higher TID than a round tab. Right ? It's not a function of "telling aluminum apart from gold".

Humorously, I remember another similar club demonstration that went off same as yours: Remember when Teknetics came out with their 1st TID machines ? (circa 1984-ish). This was in an era when all of us where accustomed to progressive dial discrimination. Such that .... if you knocked out foil, you'd loose all gold rings that came in @ those ranges. If you knocked out tabs, you'd lose nickels plus any gold rings that came in those zones. And so forth.

The Teknetics dealer came and spoke to our club. He propped up their latest TID machine, and had 4 or 5 items for air testing to the audience. A nickel, a foil wad, a gold ring, a round tab, and so forth. He tested the foil wad, and it gave a certain audio tone. Hmmm, ok. Then he tested the round tab, and it gave an entirely different tone. Hmm, ok. Then he tested the nickel, and it gave a 3rd distinct tone. Hmmm, ok. Then he tested the gold ring, and it gave a 4th distinct tone, different than the 1st three ! The audience was awestruck, just like in your story !

I still remember that a few of our club members promptly rushed out and bought that Teknetics, thinking they were going to get rich going to junky parks, and digging only gold, while effortlessly leaving the aluminum and pesky nickels behind.

Imagine their surprise, when they came to discover that a heck of a lot of aluminum reads exactly like gold rings. Doh!

 

[Terry Soloman]

I always enjoy reading long posts telling me the sky is only blue if you look at it with the right pair of glasses.

 

[Deft Tones]

I always enjoy reading long posts telling me the sky is only blue if you look at it with the right pair of glasses.

Come on out. I have rose colored, or 3d...pick your poison.

 

[ivan salis]

but the crackly noise vs clear noise .. when I lowered the disc level back down again until the tab came in again (..is a huge audio difference) .. that can folks help to sort "normal tabs" from gold rings ..which is exactly what folk want to do --dig less trash and find more treasure..is it perfect no of course not but you can better your odds even with a " el cheapo machine" thru skilled use of it

my point is that folks are mentally lazy and want a machine that will "think" for them and make it so simple any dolt could do it ..metal detecting requires that you think ..its a thinking persons hobby for the most part ..most detectorist are into their local areas history --as having such knowledge helps their odds of finding good finds -- a high dollar machine doesn't make you " mr / mrs super detectorist " anymore than buying a "race car" makes you a skilled race car driver ..it takes time and effort and skill to master your machine in either case..

 

[Deft Tones]

Tom, I will reply when I have the time to do so in greater length, and at a keyboard. And it is date night tonight, so please be patient.