How does gold react?

HuntNdig

Sr. Member
Oct 6, 2011
463
47
North Texas
Detector(s) used
AT Pro
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I haven't found any gold items yet, nor do i have any gold to run tests with, but what type of signal will gold give? I know the smaller the gold the lower the tone and the bigger the gold the higher the tone, but will the gold stay within a steady read out range on VDI or will the shape of the item effect the numbers? Basically, will it read a steady number or will it be jumpy within a certain range? I have a Fisher F4 and have been digging low targets and some have been jumpy but not knowing what gold rings up or how it rings ive just been digging everything.
 

Upvote 0

jmoller99

Sr. Member
Jan 8, 2010
294
109
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA
Detector(s) used
Whites GMT, Goldmaster Vsat, 5900, Bounty Hunter Discovery 3300 and Falcon MD-20.
Primary Interest:
Other
Get some small lead fishing sinkers or small lead bird shot. These react very much the same a small gold nuggets. If you can't find them, then you will have trouble out in the field. There are many thousands more small pickers and less than 1 gram nuggets than bigger nuggets out there to be prospected. Big gold, while very uncommon, can be found by pretty much any reasonable detector.

The F4 will too low of a frequency to find any small gold. Its a 6.8 Khz machine. Most gold detectors run at 12 kHz and above. The Tesoro Compadre actually does ok on small gold (its a very inexpensive detector), but lacks the ability to ground balance - something that is necessary in area where gold is normally found. Your F4 can be ground balanced for these areas.

The F4 will find silver - there is a lot in old tailings dumps in Colorado. That also tends to read low because it is rarely very pure.

Gold Rings read like aluminum pull tabs most of the time. Small gold chains usually won't be picked up by lower frequency detectors. When hunting for gold you often have to dig everything.
 

OP
OP
HuntNdig

HuntNdig

Sr. Member
Oct 6, 2011
463
47
North Texas
Detector(s) used
AT Pro
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Thank you for the response. I am just interesting in finding gold jewelry, i should have specified. I am no where near gold country that i know of, so any gold nuggets won't be coming out of the ground. I was just interested if gold rings, earrings, necklaces, etc keep a fairly solid number or tend to jump a little? And yes, digging everything is pretty much the norm for gold lol!
 

freddy williams

Hero Member
Oct 9, 2010
882
92
Alabama/ Ohio
Detector(s) used
GTI-2500, Whites V3, xplorer XS Cortes & XLT Cibola Tesoro Tiger shark Now using a Xterra 705, Ace 350...
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Gold gives off a distinctive tone you will know it when you here it if your familiar with your detector dig everything for the first 40 to 60 hours to get to know your machine after 40 hours start guessing what it may be then dig it to see if your right I can almost tell you the tones and what they are on my old XLT I am learning a minelab 705 right now the tones are similar HH :icon_thumright:
 

Lanny in AB

Gold Member
Apr 2, 2003
5,651
6,342
Alberta
Detector(s) used
Various Minelabs(5000, 2100, X-Terra 705, Equinox 800, Gold Monster), Falcon MD20, Tesoro Sand Shark, Gold Bug Pro, Makro Gold Racer.
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Freddy has given you a nice response. As well, get some gold rings and listen to the tones. Listen to test samples of other metals (iron, steel, etc) and your ear will soon get tuned.

All the best,

Lanny
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top