Someone beating me to it.

[Murph]

After several beach hunts I am yet to hit my first piece of jewelry; however tons of loose change have been found. I have been told more than a few times where the beach is concerned that where there is clad there is jewelry.

To date I have noticed a few other hunters. One in hip deep water and another that judging by his technique could only be considered a casual or new hunter (or maybe he just knows something I don't).

Is it possible that someone with more experience and a better detector is able to snatch up the jewelry and disregard the clad for me to find? I am beginning to think this may be the case when I take into consideration that my ace 250 IDs all precious metal as a nickel.

When I review my clad count nickels are strangely absent, probably less than one to every ten penny dime quarter. As easy as it is to dig targets at the beach I hunt I cant imagine disregarding any type of good single but it appears this may be the case with others hunting this beach; increasing their coverage and snatching up the good stuff before I get there or am spending time digging loose change.

Maybe just bad luck or maybe I am lucky they are at least leaving the change behind for us newbies to find.

 

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[willie d]

Someone could be beating you to it or maybe it's just not there. I know it took me a few years to find my first piece of jewelry. This after hunting the beach for an average of 7 hours per hunt, 4 times a month, digging EVERYTHING. I spent many infuriating days digging clad and beer caps telling myself if I dig another Corona bottle cap I'm gonna take hostages. You have to keep at it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. There will be those days where you only dig clad and trash. Then there's those days when you dig up 4 rings in a small area. That's only happened to me once in 7 years. That first gold or silver piece will make it all worthwhile, at least it did for me.

 

[BioProfessor]

Gold is tough no matter where you are. I would suggest you get a small gold ring from a pawn shop or somewhere like that and practice with it. Tie a string to it and bury it on the beach. Go over it with your detector. My guess is, you'll miss it if it's not right on the surface. Bury a pop top ring, some foil, and the ring in a place on the beach. See if you can tell the difference. Change the depths and do it again. I think you will be surprised at the results of this test. Gold, pop tops, nickels, and foil all register about the same. I don't think anybody is cleaning out the gold and leaving the other stuff. There's just not that much of it there and it is not easy to "see."

Daryl

 

[spez401]

It could be that someone is beating you... or it could be that you're misreading your machine's signals.

When I first started using my excal... I thought that It would be easy, and i'd never dig another bottlecap, etc. But after a few hunts, I realized what you're realizing now... the good stuff is missing. I took some time to truly learn the machine after that (lots of practice, and a few books for reference). Then, Every time i used the machine, I would "call the shot" as my shooter friends would say, dig EVERYTHING and try to predict exactly what I was digging up. What an eye opener... i was missing some good finds, when I was thinking they were junk. After a little more practice, I started trusting the machine a little more. Now, every now and then when I go out, I'll do the same thing... dig everything and see if I called it right.

steve

 

[Treasure Tom]

Hi Murph!

I have not been detecting long, only about 2.5 yrs. Willie, Daryl, & Steve are providing excellent advice. I was digging everything in the beginning to understand the detector and to get practice pinpointing targets. I also had fun digging junk!

I was lucky to find my first gold ring about 3 months after buying my detector. At first, I thought it was a junk ring until I saw a "10" stamped on the inside. I don't find too many nickels, however, this ring did show up as nickel. Every nickel or pulltab could be a potential gold ring so I don't mind digging these signals.

It is strange but sometimes I make good finds where there are very few coins. I once dug only 5-6 pennies in one area but found an 18 K gold ring with a nice, faceted, blue topaz...so you never know. In some areas, I found lots of clad but no jewelry.

It gets frustrating sometimes but if you keep digging, the odds are that you will eventually find something good!

Tom

 

[ivan salis]

while a good overall for the price machine --the main draw back to the ace 250 in my veiw is that it is a "preset" machine--foil and pulltabs---gold items and nickles tend to read very close to one another---cutting out pulltabs means few if any nickles and gold items will be found--- this the main reason why I like a "adjustible machine" like some of the bounty hunters ones (some folks say they can not bre used on a beach---it can but often you must move doen the sensivity and uo the disc to make them stable to use---you lose some depth but it can be donethat way often)--- I take a nickle and adjust the sensivity till machine can bearly read it---that way you will lose some of the pulltabs but keep the nickles and gold in---with a lower priced "adjustible" machine this is how its done --you WILL have to dig pulltabs some to not lose the gold items--thats the way it is sadly---ultra high dollor machines have VDI numbers to help tell you which metal it is displaying a number which tells you what metal it "most likely is" by using them the "sound tone" together old timers can cut way down on the pulltabs--but even they get fooled sometimes---best of luck---Ivan

 

[Monty]

I have used the ACE 250 probably twice as much as any of my other detectors. I really think it is that good . I have found a couple of gold wedding bands and a gold class ring along with numerous silver rings and earrings, pendants, etc. I also have found a few silver coins. You said that your ACE 250 shows precious metal as a nickel. It should be showing silver and silver colored USA coins way over on the right side of your scale with the highest pitched tone instead of on the nickel icon. Gold on mine comes in on the nickel icon, but will bounce back between the nickel icon and the first notch to the right of the nickel icon. Whereas a nickel will hold a steady tone right on the nickel icon. Contrary to what you are telling us, my ACE 250 has found more nickels than all my other detectors combined. The only thing that really fools the nickel indicator on mine is foil. Crushed up foil causes the darn foil to read as silver. Monty

 

[ivan salis]

monty --I think he meant gold when he said " pres metal" reading as nickle---if you notch out "pulltabs"--it often cuts out the gold as well as the nickles too--- that was the was point I was trying to get across---those "preset" notches that cut out the pulltabs--tend to kill your gold finds some---with a adjustible machine you can have a finer cut off point being your "manually" dailing it in by using a nickle---thus safely losing as much pulltabs as you can with out losing gold items in the process----you know what I mean----and no I'm not knocking the ace 250 because I think they are great machines for the money----just saying I like to be able to adjust my machine to the area and use the way I like---"presets" can limit you at times --- Ivan

 

[Murph]

Thanks for the info guys but I am not particularly worried that it is the detector itself that is leading to the lack of jewelry. I have bench tested and "sand" tested with items I buried myself and am fairly confident of its abilities and can guess the item I am digging 75 percent of the time. The sand is quite easy to dig so getting fooled by a piece of junk is neither labour intensive or particularly frustrating and is probably only 20 percent of digs.

I figure there are two possibilities here. Either bad luck or someone else who knows the area and there detector like the back of there hand is able to pull the good stuff and leave the loose change for me. It may also be possible I used up my beginners luck a few years back with my cheap little radio shack machine which yielded a men's wedding band and a small silver chain.

At any rate it has not been long with the new detector so hopes are still high.

 

[BioProfessor]

I thought loose change WAS the good stuff. That's about all I find.

Daryl

 

[Murph]

LOL.....well come on down to sarasota. you will find tons of it. Its rare that I dont find enough to cover the gas and a bottle of water for the ride home.

 

[DFX-SE Gregg]

I should be frustrated too...or should I I am about to pass 5000 coins for year within the next week or 2 and have only 4 silver coins and 14 rings....But you know what i am happy, the total is over $300 and I have sold two ofthe rings for $70. You will find some jewelry but yes a lot of the good stuff falls in the nickel range. Well because you mentioned coins my breakdown is

Quarters 14 %
dimes 24 %
nickels 7 %
pennies 55%

So I am not the nickel king myself....7 out of every hundred coins...but I do have tone id on my detector and I miss some jewelry I am sure but also do not dig a lot of trash....tone id is an awesome feature!

 

[RUDY2003]

Hey Murf. How's Florida today?
I use the 250 myself and this is what mine says...
The only gold I found was a small earring and it came up in the notch after the nickle. The silver rings I have found showed as dime on my Ace.
I don't know if this is normal but when I get a true nickle hit my Ace has a crisp ring as a coin, and when I get a nickle hit thats a pull tab or aluminum the Ace gives me the dull beep.
Maybe its the soil mineralization differences geographically.
I think that the rings hide anywhere from nickle to dime, for me at least...

Keep diggin'...

 

[DFX-SE Gregg]

Hey Murf. How's Florida today?
I use the 250 myself and this is what mine says...
The only gold I found was a small earring and it came up in the notch after the nickle. The silver rings I have found showed as dime on my Ace.
I don't know if this is normal but when I get a true nickle hit my Ace has a crisp ring as a coin, and when I get a nickle hit thats a pull tab or aluminum the Ace gives me the dull beep.
Maybe its the soil mineralization differences geographically.
I think that the rings hide anywhere from nickle to dime, for me at least...

Keep diggin'...

Rudy the same with dfx....dimes have been my silver rings...nickels have been my 2 gold rings this year... Nickels for me are also solid and pulltabs usually broken signal but sometimes they still trick me.....good post Rudy.

 

[Nashoba]

I have used the ACE 250 probably twice as much as any of my other detectors. I really think it is that good . I have found a couple of gold wedding bands and a gold class ring along with numerous silver rings and earrings, pendants, etc. I also have found a few silver coins. You said that your ACE 250 shows precious metal as a nickel. It should be showing silver and silver colored USA coins way over on the right side of your scale with the highest pitched tone instead of on the nickel icon. Gold on mine comes in on the nickel icon, but will bounce back between the nickel icon and the first notch to the right of the nickel icon. Whereas a nickel will hold a steady tone right on the nickel icon. Contrary to what you are telling us, my ACE 250 has found more nickels than all my other detectors combined. The only thing that really fools the nickel indicator on mine is foil. Crushed up foil causes the darn foil to read as silver. Monty

I totally agree with Monty here. If this is not the way your machine is reading you may want to ship it to Texas and have Garrett recalibrate it. Other than that, the Ace is just not the best beach machine because it hates salty sand. I live right on the beach here and seldom even take mine out there. I have found some nice thing but a majority come from other sources. I ALWAYS give praise to the Ace250 for being a great machine, but if I were going to hunt the beach seriously I would buy a better, more expensive machine and hit the water. THAT is where a majority of the good stuff is at the beach.

Just my take
~Nash~

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I thought loose change WAS the good stuff. That's about all I find.

Daryl

I'm with you. These folks that ignore all clad are beyond my comprehension. I still dig zinc cents. Nickles and up are treats!

 

[Murph]

Well I have a few days off (hitting the beach first light tomorrow). I went over to my parents house and was able to bench test a wider variety of jewelry. I think I may have been using a bit to much discrimination.

Different gold rings when bench tested did not always give a solid nickel reading and silver jumped around in the higer coin rang. Since its so easy for me to dig in the sand I think I will use the custom setting I arrived at while bench testing all of my mothers items for tomorrows hunt. I will have to dig more items and more than likely end up with a higher ratio of junk per total digs but like I said not a big deal in the sand. I can practically dig it well enough to find the item with my flip flop.

On the lighter side I benched tested my fathers marine core embles and came up with iron. All that misery in boot camp for iron!!! I guess we have to cut uncle sam a break on that one it was war time.

 

[ivan salis]

like I said too much disc --( this is very common on the "presets" or by folks who try to get rid of "all" pulltabs is often the answer---properly "dailing" your detector in is the key to finding gold with the minimum of pull tabs) --using the "preset" no pull tabs often leads to poor if any gold and low amounts of nickle finds---not finding the nickles means that your disc is too high and your losing or skipping over them and the gold items in the process---I think your going to like you new setting better (even though you will be digging some pull tabs (learn to listen to the sounds very carefully to "train" your ears over time pull tabs do sound differant than nickles or gold items)---you will now hit the nickles and thus any gold items should you run across them ----gold finds will still tend to be rare thats perfectly "normal"----if your machine acts squirrelly around the wet beach areas ( SAY LOOKING ON THE BEACH AT LOW TIDE NEAR THE SURF LINE)---upping the disc might settle it down however doing that migt lose the "gold" ---so its a balancing act----so try to use as little DISC as you have to to keep it stable to get the best possible results from your machine---so good luck and great finds ---Ivan

 

[Monty]

Ivan, the ACE 250 doesn't have dial in discrimination like some detectors do. Rather it has notched discrimination, the nickel and pull tabs being a different notch. You can notch out pull tabs and still have the nickel icon sensitive. When I am hunting with any discrimination I usually notch out iron, leave nickel and the first pull tab to the right sensitive and notch out the zinc pennies. The other pennies will often show up as a dime so I will notch out everything between the nickel and the first pulltab notch and the last penny notch just before you get to a dime. Then leave the dime, quarter and half dollar sensitive. It's kinda hard to describe unless you have an ACE 250 LCD to look at while I am describing it. Using this setting I have found gold and silver and a ton of nickels. The ACE 250 is really a more sophisticated machine than most people think and will perform nearly as well as the high dollar machines That's why I don't advise the ACE necessarily for a newby machine. True, it don't like salt water or black sand because it doesn't have an adjustable ground balance. If it did I think it would perform right along side several more expensive machines. Then again I suppose if it had everything it wouldn't cost just a hair over $200.00! Monty

 

[captain Jack]

It could be that someone is beating you... or it could be that you're misreading your machine's signals.

When I first started using my excal... I thought that It would be easy, and i'd never dig another bottlecap, etc. But after a few hunts, I realized what you're realizing now... the good stuff is missing. I took some time to truly learn the machine after that (lots of practice, and a few books for reference). Then, Every time i used the machine, I would "call the shot" as my shooter friends would say, dig EVERYTHING and try to predict exactly what I was digging up. What an eye opener... i was missing some good finds, when I was thinking they were junk. After a little more practice, I started trusting the machine a little more. Now, every now and then when I go out, I'll do the same thing... dig everything and see if I called it right.

steve

that's good advice!!