Just passing it along for all of you gold jewelry hunters.....

[bigscoop]

Dimes, nickels, quarters, pull tabs, clad or silver, etc., all of these items are consistent in their makeup, which is why VDI can be so effective and efficient when attempting to identify them. But gold jewelry has few consistencies, about the only thing that’s consistent is the existence of some quantity of gold, 8,9,10,12,14,16,18,22,24K, etc., and then there’s even gold plated in various quantity.

Coins, pull tabs, etc., they also have consistent size and shape, another reason why VDI can be so efficient and effective on them, but here again, gold jewelry holds to no industry standard when it comes to size and shape, another reason why trusting VDI readings when hunting gold jewelry is big mistake. And last, but not least, gold jewelry is most often mixed with a variety of other alloys and in various amounts, the vast majority of it containing more of these other alloys then gold. In other words, pass up that penny and you might have just as easily passed up a 10K class ring. Pass up that pull tab and might have just as easily passed up a 14k white gold wedding band. Pass up those broken and scratchy faint returns and you might have just as easily passed up a small gold chain, etc., etc. It’s just the nature of the beast, nothing consistent about gold jewelry and because of this gold jewelry can show up anywhere above iron on the VDI scale.

And then there’s the depth factor, and the multitude of factory presets that are employed to offer the detectorist things like faster recovery speeds. The fainter these returns are the less accurate they become, many of today’s user friendly machines simply filtering out these fainter and questionable and/or unidentifiable returns out in order to maintain that faster data processing.

Better target separation, well, as long as there’s actually some type of existing separation between targets. However, place this inconsistent piece of gold jewelry in direct contact with an item of different alloy or a matrix that is highly mineralized with a different dominate mineral, say like a rust halo, and it can, and generally does, cause false returns and inaccurate target identification because the entire effected area around the actual target is seen as one individual target and processed as such. This is something you can easy test for yourself, and something you should do. Simply take a gold item, gather a VDI reading, now place that gold item in direct contact with a dime or penny or quarter, etc., and gather another VDI reading. Most likely that VDI reading will have changed.

So here’s the deal when conducting dedicated gold jewelry outings, “dig anything and everything until you have it in your hand or until you have a good, solid, strong, repeatable target identification.” Yes, you’re going to dig more holes and chase more junk but you’ll also start recovering more gold. Just the nature of the beast and the reality of the pursuit. There are no shortcuts and no super gold jewelry processing machines. Why? Because the science prevents it, because there is no consistency in the prey being pursued.

 

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[Indian Steve]

The first gold ring that I found with a detector was in a local park that had been hunted the day before by a local who didn't dig pull tabs or nickels. I saw his refilled holes all over around the swingset and started swinging a Tesoro Compadre in the same area. I got one penny, one dime, 12 nickels and a gold ring 4 inches away from one of my competitors holes. Always dig pulltabs & nickels if you want gold.

 

[U.B.]

Very well said. I swing the ATPro, and have found gold from 42 to 80, on the VDI. I’ve learned to accept that digging it all, is the only way to increase my gold finds. I carry out a lot of foil, pull tabs, and zinc pennies, but I find more gold than I used to pass up.

 

[Kray Gelder]

That's very useful information. You mention many things that hadn't occurred to me. Thanks.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

Yep I dug a scratchy signal today, because whenever I have had scratchy signals that didn't have an iron grunt, they have been chains, (17.42 gram 14k beauty.)

 

[billb]

bigscoop,hi thanks for your advice,I also need to slow down and stop passing on chirps that I don’t hear to often thinking it’s not worthy,well said,,,

 

[dewcon4414]

BS..... you are always informative. What my take was..... targets have some consistency shallow... but deep you best take off a little sand. We have gotten a little spoiled having better TID.... including screens. Learn to size a target helps as well. I have days i rarely dig coins... or iron. I certainly dont dig everything..... but i rule targets out ... its called acceptable loss. Much like the machines we use..... each have their strong point ... thus acceptable loss mostly in the small gold range.

 

[bigscoop]

True, shallower targets are easier to assess because it's easier to achieve stronger and more accurate target signatures, but gold is very dense and it seldom stays shallow for very long, especially on those soft sandy beaches where the sand is being constantly shifted and stirred with every wave and every changing of the tide. So sure, recent drops make for easier hunting and easier target identification, but once those targets sink beyond that first 10-12" of sand, which can happen with just a few waves depending on the sand buildup, the target identification reliability of even the very best machines starts to quickly diminish. I'd say better then 50% of the gold items I've recovered in recent years have been recovered from beyond that 12" range, so yes, an acceptable loss to some but an unacceptable loss to others. My best day in recent years was on a freshwater lake here in Indiana, 10 gold items on just ten returns in a half day of hunting, all of these recovered from that 15-17" range on a very heavily hunted beach. This included chains, pendants, and rings, one of those rings being a 14k white gold with two trillion cut Aquamarines. On this day I was hunting in silent disc mode and just about every return began as nothing more then a very faint tick, wasn't until a few "big" scoops later that I was able to stick the stock 8" in the bottom of the hole so I could get the coil close enough to the target for more solid and repeatable returns. I learned a lot from guys like OBN and a few other hunters who routinely collect all of that old gold that other hunters cruise right over. "A mine field" that's what the bottom of the lake looks like after I've passed through......lol

 

[flgliderpilot]

Good post. It's true, many deep targets start out sounding like broken weak iron tone until you can get the coil close enough for a more accurate reading.

 

[BallsDeep]

great info bigscoop! I work mainly the beaches and dig everything anyway but awesome tips for sure! thanks!

 

[bigscoop]

The problem with "any" machine employing discrimination is that its reliability continues to diminish as the target gets further and further from the coil. A simple chirp or broken tic could just as easily become a solid gold ring return once the coil is close enough, this same effect also reflected in any machine's VDI/Tone target ID. And the biggest problem with many of these newer machines is that all of those factory presets are actually robbing Peter to pay Paul. Take the Equinox, per example, set it up to hit deep on gold jewelry items and it absolutely sucks on deeper silver. I've also been saying for years that faster recovery speeds come at the cost of depth, which is now also being echoed by the manufacturers of these machines in their user manuals like that of the Equinox. Notch, disc, faster recovery speeds, etc., they all come at a cost that most detectorist never realize. Notch out pennies, per example, not only will some gold rings register in the penny range but a lot of deeper gold will initially be ID'd as a penny, only to change once the coil is close enough, so it then becomes a piece of gold that the user applying the notch will never even know existed. Not to mention all of those deeper/weaker returns that will simply get filtered out do to misidentification because of these various preset functions. This is why I stay with the Excal, because I want to be able to hear everything I can hear, get all of the potential target information that I can, then I'll decide what's worth my attention, not the machine.