Pulltab or Gold Ring?

[Dan Hughes]

Skip pulltabs, skip gold rings. It's as simple as that.

I found more gold in one year with my primitive, non-discriminating metal detector than I've found in the past 30 years.

How should you set your detector if you want a shot at those gold rings?

I explain my method in my latest podcast, show #116 at In the Corner with Dan Hughes.

 

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[CityDigger]

Just listened to it. Well done. Very informative.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I started with the 66TR too in the mid '70s

Dan, the addage that if someone wants more gold rings, to "lower your disc and dig aluminum junk" is only a small part of the recipe for "finding gold rings". Because Dan, it's already a "given" that gold and aluminum share the same conductivity ranges. Thus pity the poor person who goes on this advice alone, lowers his disc, goes out to a junky blighted park, and digs aluminum till his arms fall off. Oh sure, he'll "eventually" find a gold ring. But this is folly for a lot of junky blighted parks, where the ratio can be 500+ to 1 for the aluminum to gold ratio. Thus the BIGGER part of the advice of "how to up your gold ring count" is NOT simply "lower your disc, and dig junk till your arms fall off". RATHER, the bigger recipe is: WHERE YOU HUNT. There are places where gold ring ratios are higher. Namely swimming beaches. And even within various types of turf, some are going to be better than others: If a person is hunting at turf zones where historically picnicking has gone on (eating, drinking, and with BBQ pits there), that is a certain recipe for junk and poor ring ratios. Because if this is where people sat while eating and drinking (next to picnic tables and BBQ pits), then go figure: they have their sodas, aluminum wrap for their food, etc... And the BBQ pits are prone to have molten nuggets around them (d/t people thowing their cans in the fire, or heating aluminum foil wrapped items, etc...). Contrast to OTHER forms of turf, like soccer and athletics (where it's more athletic frolicking, rather than eating and drinking), then your ring ratio is going to go up, vs the aluminum.

So ........ maybe you want to go put a post-script there on your podcast, that since the ultimate goal of such advice is to up one's gold ring count, then the advice to "lower the disc" is only one part of the recipe. The bigger part of the recipe is WHERE you hunt.

I had the unique opportunity, in 2006, to hunt in "relic mindset" (ie.: dig everything conductive) in a junky blighted park that was being torn up for installation of astroturf. So we "dug all", since the place was torn up, and thus, no fear of holes, etc.... And we got hundreds of silver coins, scores of Vs, buffalos, etc... and yes, some gold rings. But I can tell you for a fact, that the ratio of aluminum to gold (d/t I saved all my dug targets over a 2-week period for a careful study) was easily 500+ to 1. Simply would not have been worth it for anyone to "be a hero" and try to farm this junky blighted ghetto park thinking he was going to angle for gold rings, if it had not been for the tractor work going on.

 

[Dan Hughes]

Hey, Tom, what are you trying to do? You're giving away some sacred secrets there! See, the idea is to make other treasure hunters get discouraged with pulltabs and give up the hobby, leaving all the good stuff for us!

Well. Actually, I do have several podcasts on how to find good places to hunt. Shows #6 and #48 are about how to hunt parks, for example. This one on pulltabs is just one tiny facet of the hobby. (With well over a hundred shows now, it's getting harder and harder to come up with new topics. Check out my index here: IN THE TREASURE CORNER).

I will say this: Most of the gold rings I've found have come from parks full of pulltabs, and to me they were worth the trouble. My secret is that I tend to avoid the obvious tab-laden areas in the park, like around the picnic tables and grills. In the open playing areas there are fewer tabs, and that's where I find the jewelry.

 

[DJWEHAGE]

In all my years of detecting, I have never found a gold ring hunting on dry land. After moving to the beach, and hunting in all metal mode, I have found many- along with hundreds of pull tabs (why people pull the newer oval ones off of cans, I'll never understand). I was always one that didn't want to bother digging all the trash so I would discriminate out anything under a penny. Now, realizing how many gold rings that I have probably passed over, I will change my strategy. Recently moving back inland, I will hit all my old spots, lower my disc., slow down and dig most everything. I agree, lowering disc. and picking locations that have higher potential are keys to successfully finding more gold. Thank you both for your threads. HH Big Dave

 

[Davers]

It's like da ja vu

Funny I came home and saw this thread:icon_scratch Today I used the [dig all pull tab strategy] at a park built in the 1950s .I have hunted this park a few times over the past 10yrs and believe me its been hunted HARD being in the city of Atlanta GA not far from the C.W. Battle of Peachtree Creek . Its given me an old sterling silver ring & a lot of clad in the past .Anyway today I dug close to 100 pull tabs with about 30% being the newer style also I dug 3 quarters 1 dime 3 brass cents 7or8 zinc cents ,a few alumnium bottle caps 1 brass pendant on a stainless chain & 1 nice sterling friendship ring. Needless to say the place had been "coin hunted" hard but I could not walk 5ft before getting another pull tab signal with a ratio of 500PT-1 Gold ring [wich I would agree with] Id say I have alot more digging to do .ps I just knew that next signal was a ring ;it just didnt come today oh well got some exercise and like they say "put in the time and you will find" Davers