Find percentages ... junk VS keepers

[Gemini420]

Hi there,

Being new, I'm not really sure what is *expected* to be found (if anything is expected to be found) when hitting a beach.

I read somewhere that you can figure out if a beach is detected regularly by the percentages of your finds. i.e. If you are finding lots of coins, then it is a good sign that the beach is *not* detected very regularly. I'm reading into their advice that you should be finding 'lots of coins', but for me coins are not all that common.

So far, I have been finding about ...

1) 96% - Trash (bottle caps, pull tabs, bobby pins, tent stakes, flakes of iron etc.)
2) 2 % - Random stuff (metal smoking pipe, a wrench, etc.)
3) 1% - Coins (mostly small change like pennies and nickles)
4) 1% - Jewelry (some rings, and an earring)

I would say my finds are about 98% Trash, with 2% keepers (Coins & Jewelry.) Is that in the realm of what's expected?

Unfortunately, coins, jewelry and trash signals all sound the same to me, so I am digging up every signal I hear. I can tell when it's foil (or something really small), but part of me thinks it could be something bigger buried deeper, so I did them up anyways.

Assuming that avid detectors will take their trash finds with them, does a lot of signals (even buried bottle caps) indicate there is not a lot of digging going on? OR are avid detectors much better at skipping over the bottle caps, and I am the new guy digging up all of the trash?

In addition, I have been scanning over the water lines during low tide, but hardly ever get any signals in the hard wet sand, but I find that the dry sand is full of signals. Is this common?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Shane

 

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[DrJoePrime]

I'm a relative newbie too...doing the beach scene for just about 4 years now.

Experience will improve your percentages. You are doing good ... digging everything will get you familiar with your machine. Since I concentrate on the same location (with about 5 or 6 other regulars) I still pick up everything just to get it out of the way. No use finding the same junk tomorrow.

Reading your location will also improve your percentages. For example: my regular beach is very popular during summer (I can't wait for the 4th!) but it is poor during the off season. So...for the off season I have my so called "Erosion Beach" which delivers all sorts of goodies especially after high tides erode the sand and replenishment efforts (a losing battle for the city, I might add).

Eventually, upgrading machines will improve your percentages. No need to do this too early, get comfortable with your current new machine first. Remember you might be competing with some top of the line machines.

My stats? I don't really know..or care. Perhaps 50 - 50? sometimes much better...sometimes much worse. I've been lucky enough to be on the Banner twice..both times for Platinum and Diamonds. SWEET for sure! But coins are still fun...and you know what? I sometimes enjoy ridding a particularly bad stretch of beach of bottle caps (record is 23 in one spot!).

Main thing: Enjoy yourself and get ready for a wild addictive ride. It only took the one diamond ring 4 years ago to get me hooked.

HH Joe

 

[stpauli914]

Gemini,

It depends a LOT on your beach. Here are my finds for aprox. 12 hrs worth of detecting on a couple pretty popular(and well hunted) beaches. These were mostly found in wet sand to waist deep water with a Minelab Excalibur II.

HH,
Aaron

 

[DFW_THer]

So you dig 98 holes with trash, and 2 holes with coins? I'd consider hunting for a new beach!!

Yikes!

Hope your luck improves!

 

[biggmike]

98 pieces of trash to one coin is crazy. That sounds like more of a boating or fishing area then a swimming area. I'm guessing more like 50/50 and maybe less if you use no discrimination (no chance you have coins notched out?) What detector are you using? If this % keeps up I would do like DFW_THer said and consider hunting for a new beach!! Good luck.

 

[stpauli914]

I agree 50/50 should be about right on trash to coin/valuable ratio. That is unless you aren't discriminating iron then maybe more trash depending on your beach.

Aaron

 

[Gemini420]

Thanks for the replies!

These are all separate beaches. I've hit about 6 different beaches, some popular/public beaches and others are lesser known beaches.

They all seem to produce about the same percentages, I seem to find more interesting stuff on the lesser know beaches ...

Each day (a few hours digging) I seem to find lots of junk, a coin or two, but have also been lucky in finding a piece of jewelry each day.

I am not discriminating anything, I am digging all signals. Each level of discrimination appears to also exclude an item of value (i.e. gold rings can appear the same as pull tabs and bottle caps, etc.)

The catch here is that I am finding the occasional piece of jewelry, so I'm unclear whether ...

1) These percentages are expected on a beach (I do expect a lot of bottle caps on a public beach)
2) I'm digging all the junk others are skipping, and finding the few keepers they didn't find

Thanks again,
Shane

 

[DrJoePrime]

Hey Shane...You are getting the jewelery (I think) that others might be discrim'ing out. Digging it it all has it's virtues.

WHEN you get to the beach also has a bearing on finds (probably especially coins). I normally get a ton of clad...well..let's say about 2$ to 3$ per hour if I am first there..otherwise it's like maybe 50C per hour.

Also I've learned that most of the regulars do the blanket line ..so if you are there later and missed 1st chance...look for something different...like the outskirts of the beach..or the trash can line. Creativity might improve your odds.

HH Joe

 

[lookindown]

In freshwater if I dig 100 targets I get about 30 coins and 5 pieces of jewelry.

 

[Gemini420]

I went to a new stretch of beach today. I would assume it is heavily targeted by detectors, because it's a popular beach with nice (expensive) resorts.

My percentages were much better here, but there were way fewer signals.

I found 4 coins and a ring (ring is here http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,410339.0.html), and dug up about 4 bottle caps and a knife too.

In this trip out, my ration worked out to about 50/50, BUT I think this beach has it's trash cleared regularly.

In retrospect, I am thinking that my 98% trash trips are on somewhat undetected beaches and I am cleaning up months or years worth of trash from them. There are typically so many signals (mostly trash signals) that I barely get past the entrance that I came in from.

Today's trip was different, I made it far down the beach because there were so few signals to dig, BUT my find percentages were actually better!

Shane