Old houses/foundations beside railroad tracks..

[grogmug]

I have several pictures I have taken the last few months of old houses/foundations I found thanks to my dad who is a train conductor. I've found several old mason jars, bottles, and junk with the detector but NO COINS or anything worth while. I KNOW these places are promising but I do skip around a lot is that my problem? Do you all cover every square inch when your detecting? I have an ACE 250, and usually use the coin mode or relic, but usually leave it on coins with the discrimation turned halfway up. How do I stop digging trash and start finding coins, relics, etc?!?!?!?! Are there certain spots I should be looking on these foundations? I WILL post pictures, as soon as I figure out how to do it!!!

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[West Jersey Detecting]

treasuretales/mainedigger, way to hit it on the head. I spent 6+ hours out today, I finally turned up a 1974 penny at a spot that used to house several 100+ year-old cabins. Man those stupid shotgun cases sound like gold !!!! In short, today was pretty much poo(unless you cosider 30-40 shotshell ends good).

Here's a TN find for ya, Call it today's find(I saved it when I saw it a few months ago)

Shotgun shells sound pretty jumpy on my machine. They will bounce from penny to junk. Gold rings tend to stay more to the pulltab & junk range. Hangi in there!

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[Ramapirate]

I use an Ace 250 and what turned me around with my technique was a 93 year old md'er that told me I looked like I was swinging a slingblade. I slowed down and started swinging the detector like an inch off the ground and started finding WAY more coins going over an area that I thought I'd done to death. Think of a freshly mowed yard, and you want to swing so you are touching the grass all the way across end to end. Watch out swinging so that the nearest you get to the ground is the middle of the swing right in front of you. You'll never find anything that way. Get use to extending your arm on the sides to keep the coil close to the ground all the way across your swing. The Ace will find the coins, you just got to listen to it. And I can't stress enough, keep the sensitivity cracked back to about 4 notches, especially in coin mode. Otherwise, you'll be digging trash galore. I hope this helps, this is a great hobby and it sounds like you've found some potentially good spots.

HH,
Ramapirate

 

[funkman]

Grog,

I have had the Ace250 since May or June and can tell you what I do. I keep the machine in Jewelry mode and the sensitivity at 4 bars. Now I am still learning my machine and I know what I do is probably not perfect but I am starting to understand what the machine is telling me. When I get those signals that jump all over the place and even the depth indicator goes flukey, I pass those targets up. I will have to go back and get them I'm sure, but I want to get the good signals (coins) first and get them outta the way and then go back and find maybe some relics.
Do you understand pinpointing yet? When pinpointing with the 250 I found that shallow objects will always have the pinpoint sound drop off immediately and deeper targets will be a more subtle drop. Try this out with a coin on the ground and you will see that when pinpointing it the sound will drop off as soon as the coil goes away from the coin. I you bury the coin about 4 inches down, you will see that it is a more subtle drop in sound. I know most people say don't look at the display, but how can you not when there is those lovely lines to keep your interest! I notice that the bars will be full when the coil is over the target and when they suddenly disappear, that means that it is a shallow object. When they disappear gradually, it is deeper.
Now another thing about pinpointing is when it is a shallow object, as soon as it drops of, move back in the direction you came from until you have the spot where the bars appear/disappear/appear. Just move the coil forward and back and side to side. When it drops off it is under the front/center of the inner section of coil. When it is a deeper object, it is usually more near that notch cut out of the coil (near the stem).
Sorry about lingering on pinpointing so much, just want you to understand how I perceive it.
Now with different targets I find that shotgun shells seem to be giving me a good nickel id. Now I have found some nickels that obviously show up as nickels, just letting you know that you have to dig it as long as it gives you a good signal.

I have found aluminum cans that show up as dimes on the target id and of course, I have found dimes also. Now I have found a little trick that sometimes works for me. When I get one of these signals that show as a coin, I slowly raise the coil of the ground as I am swinging and see how high it is when I lose the signal. If I get this coil off the ground over a foot and still get a signal, then more than likely the object is big (can, sheet metal, pole, etc) depending on the location ( you are searching old foundations and properties) you may still want to dig it up, but if you are looking strictly for coins, then it's not a coin.

Now I have not found as much as most people on this forum have found, but I have found quite a bit of good items. It all take practice and patience and as the others have said, you need to take a spot and hit it from all directions (which I should practice what I am preaching). When you get a good signal while swinging normally turn your body and swing from other direction to see if you get same signal and that it reads constant on your display or the sound stays the same (for all of you who don't look at the display). WHen you have agood signal like that, start shortening your swings and also strat swinging slowly towards you. This can also help determine where the object is and how big it is.

Sorry to ramble on like this but just wanted to give you my feel on the 250 and how I operate it and understand what it tells me. NATURALLY, as time goes on, I will better understand it and will find other methods that will help me find treasures or interesting artifacts, and know what is junk. You will start to understand also. Just take it slow and you will start getting better.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of great things from you.

HH

Funkman

 

[LJ]

Try breaking down the area your hunting into grids. I find it works for me. Just a thought. Good luck.

LeJeuene

 

[grogmug]

You all are great. I'm 22, work full time, and take college classes full time, and play basketball. So any time I get in between all my craziness I go detecting all my friends think I'm crazy but I usually end up DRAGGING them with me. I appreciate your insight to the ACE 250 FUNKMAN, and the rest of your replies as well. I have the next two days off, so I'm going crazy with my detector and going back to the foundation I was talking about. I WILL be back with pics...thanks
Justin

 

[gold fish]

Here's luck to ya. I'm headed to a potential "good" spot tomorrow. Remember, if you're not having fun, there's no point in going.

 

[cheese]

Lots of good advice has been given here already. Like you, when I first started, I began to get frustrated at times. I thought about giving up the hobby more than once. I'm glad I didn't. My hunting buddy was a lot like you at first. He wandered a lot, had to dig every signal just in case it was good (usually wasn't), and almost never made any good finds. While we hunted, he watched me skip targets, pick and choose what to dig and what not to dig, and eventually got over the feeling that he had to dig every little beep. Now, he is finding about as much good stuff as I am, and I'm sure we both could do better still with more experience under our belts. I'm not new to the hobby, but only been doing it about 2 or 3 years...so I'm not a vet either. I have hunted lots of sites that "should be good", but didn't pan out. I hunted an old school--early 1900s yesterday, and didn't find one single old coin. Lots of pennies and dimes from the 60's and 70's though. Sometimes it's not in the cards.

Some folks say dig every target. In truth, that's the way you'll pick an area clean, and in very trashy areas, it may be the only way you'll ever find the older deeper stuff. My problem is that I don't have much time to detect, my area is extremely trashy, and I sure don't want to spend my time digging up garbage. So, although I'm sure I miss lots of good targets, I generally discriminate the trash, turn the sensitivity down a bit to keep the false signals down, and try to find repeatable signals. On the ace, and most other detectors I've used, a good coin signal is repeatable 75-80% or more of the time from side to side and front to back across the target. The deeper ones don't always repeat 100% of the time. The deeper ones might switch ID on you every once in a while, but the ID should stay the same for the majority of the time. Signals that jump around a lot on the ID bar are usually junk. There are exceptions, but if you spend your time digging those, you'll be hauling up junk way more often than not.

My buddy also had trouble with aluminum cans. Someone already mentioned trying to determine the size of the object before digging. A coin will usually ring up in a circle around 4" across or less if it's deeper...or a bit larger if it's on the surface. A can will ring up in a much larger area, usually 10" across or so, depending on depth and how the can is situated/crushed. If you get a dime signal that covers the ground in an area of a dinner plate, it's probably not a dime. a deep dime might only register on the detector in a 1" spot on the ground. I dug a couple mrecury dimes about 9 1/2" deep earlier this week, and the singal could only be heard in one small spot over the ground.

Pay close attention to the ID meter. When you get a target, note how it behaves. Different targets will behave differently. After some hours under your belt, you'll begin to see patterns and eventually these patterns will help you skip the junk, and pick up the good stuff.

This should get you finding some good stuff eventually, so that you don't lose interest. Then, when you get your detecting legs, you can go back to the places you hunted in this style and increase sensitivity and drop discrimination and learn to better discern good targets from bad. If you happen upon a hot spot, go ahead and dig it all. Tokens and gold jump around on the ID bar, and also targets in the ground can interfere with or mask other targets. Once you clear the more obvious targets, the deeper, less obvious targets will begin to appear.

Sorry so long-winded...but I know the frustration you feel 'cause I've been there too. This is my advice, and maybe some of it will help you find enough stuff to keep you interested. You'll get good in time.

 

[Nashoba]

I have only been out with my Ace 250 twice. I heard from someone that they are very sensitive and tend to false if the sens is too high so I notched it down one from the factory setting in jewelry mode. I found a sweet little sterling ring with (an unknown as of yet) stone, a gold plated box chain, and more clad than I could imagine for my first time out with it. I purposely hunted an area I had hit before I got the Ace. I mean I was literally walking the same path! I not only found far more than I had my first time in the same spot, but much deeper targets. I purposely turned up the sensitivity and it was falsing all over the place. I turned it down again and began finding coins immediately...then there are the pulltabs..It just so happens that gold comes up in the pulltab range. I say if you are after coins and jewelry, dig everything between the nickle display and the top end of the scale. You're going to dig up a lot of pulltabs, but if you want to find rings, well, ya best dig those signals!
~Nash~