Question for all those non-relic hunters that do not dig iron targets.

Iron targets on most detectors come in as a broken siginal. Pennies even the 43s and tokens have a clear sound to them. I hope someone else jumps in on this as I don't recall any tokens being made of steel or iron. HH and good luck

Desertfox
 

I mainly hunt the water now and the beaches with an Excalibur. It will not respond postively to iron as bobby pins and nails are the bane of water hunters even more than pull tabs. Like the Desert Fox said, most tokens are not made out of steel, but brass or copper.
 

Cannon balls,. aren't they iron?

I mean unless you know where your digging, I guess ignoring Iron is ok.

I had nothing but iron beeps yesterday, and it was always barbed wire, or rusted metal cans.
 

Uh, yeah, sure. I've probably passed a few (hundreds?) of 1943 steel cents. What're they worth? .15? The one time I dug one, it was only because it was fused together with a copper penny. The steel penny was nothing but a rusted penny size glob (worth how much?). The fact is, yes, I/we pass steel pennies. The compromise? Not digging 10000000000000000 nails. Sounds like a good trade-off to me :o
 

I have found mercury dimes that were broken signals,but i dug them just to check.
If the signal sounds more good than bad and is jumping around i will dig it.Yo would be surprised how many turn out to be good targets......but that just me.....
 

I agree the steel pennies would probably only be a rusted blob
and most tokens are made of brass or copper but I have to side
with Teverly as many have turned out to be good finds. old
tootsie toy cars and some game pieces or charms.
I dig everything. Why? I don't know. Maybe for the fear of
missing that big find, maybe not. I have no idea. It is just me.

Joe
 

I was at a 1700's hotel turned into apartments one day and was digging pull tab after pull tab. I finally stopped digging pull tab readings. After taking a break I went to the front of the house and had a 1" pull tab reading and decided to dig it. It was the 1875 indian I have by my name on this forum. It was my first indian. The next pull tab reading was a 1898. I also find a lot of old buckles as pull tab too. I dig all pull tab readings now. As for iron, I ignore them all. There is probably a 1/500 chance of finding something I would keep if I dug all iron. Now if I was at a place from the 1700's that nobody dwelled at since the late 1800's, I would dig everything. Same as old civil war camps that are found in the wood were people are not living, I would dig everything.
 

The 1943 cents were minted 64 years ago. The zinc plating was so thin they started to corrode almost immediately. I have some very good condition 43 cents kept in a cool dry place and even they have decay problems. Any steel cent that were lost and not found soon afterward would soon turn to a rusty disc which with any length of time would just rust away into nothing. Has any one dug one recently?
 

Yeah I keep thinking of an old coffee can or ammo box filled with silver or gold coins. Only thing the detector would see is iron. Now the damned and cursed pull tabs... they're another story altogether :-X
 

I dig enough pulltabs and bottle caps that adding iron to the mix, I wouldnt have time to find anything good.
But like others say...I dig pulltabs because it aint always a pulltab.
Today I got a distinct pulltab crackle signal, but, being me, dug anyhow.

Now let me tell you, this is a heavily hunted park by mder's.

That pulltab was also a clad quarter and 2 memorials in a circle of about 5 inches. Obviously passed over by someone else tired of digging pulltabs. Oh, and yes...there was a pulltab in the group.

I cant swing my detector without discriminating out the iron....way, way, way too much!
Al
 

I just put a post in new finds --Found on a magnet-- It was a
2003 nickel. I have to try and see what this shows up as on the
detector. I cannot say how it was stuck to the magnet but there it
was. My point is exactly what joya_dorado and deepskyal are
saying. The good can be hiding behind the bad.

Joe
 

Mtntrekr2,


Your right about "the good can be hiding behind the bad ", pending what detector
you have: 2 or 3 targets should come up broken. Last week, I had an Iron ship's spike, 10inch's deep then after that, brass spike, 4inch's. then a quarter: all targets where on top of each other, about 18 inch's down: the odds of that, Yes, I played the Lottery. won a free ticket!
Either way, Dig everything! and check your hole more then once!! just an idea:
Dig up your prime Targets first, then when you have time go back for the rest.

Sapper
 

i dont bother with iron targets. most of miami is less than 80 years old and we are a litter bug haven. i'd be digging trash all day.
 

Iron is important, even if you are not a relic detector, and I will tell you why.

When you find iron, it usually means human activity. When I detect in wooded areas, I always start in All Metal mode. Once I find where the iron concentration is, I switch to discrimination mode (usually relic or Jewelry mode).

You are more likely to find old coins near iron than you will where there is no iron.

ONE MORE THING: Never use coin mode. In coin mode you will miss out on mid-range signals that can be deep Indian Heads and even small silver such as half dimes. Use either Jewelry Mode, or Relic Mode to hit those mid-range signals.
 

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