Down for the count?

[hbeaton]

Since getting the ACE 250, I must first say that it indeed is a great machine and I have found a few coins in the first couple days of using it. However, some questions....and let me say that I'm not asking for secrets of where to hunt, etc. but i have yet to come across anything that is old i.e. barbers, mercs, seated halfs, walking liberties etc. Where do you find these things? Secondly, i have absolutely no clue on how to use discrimination or the elim buttons. I have an idea of what they accomplish but not how to use them. Third, I did a bench test with some coins and even when I have the coin on top of the ground, it will detect it but say it's buried...why?

Maybe part of this is just being a little discouraged that i'm not finding "the good stuff".

Thanks for your help.

-Hunter

 

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[leadsman]

Surface coins seem to confuse the ACE and even make it hard to pinpoint. Try burying the coins around 3" to 8" and leave them for a while to have a more natural setting to test and practice with. I have found that older coins require thinking "outside the box" as in looking for roads that are under construction like another thread here. You can also find them in the woods where there have been few other detectors. Roadsides near former attractions seem to produce as well. Try to visualize where people were 100 years ago and what they were doing, that should help.

 

[Gribnitz]

You are probalby hitting the local parks ? Consumer detectors have been around for 30+ years now, so anything easy to find in a public park are probably long gone. You can still find old coins there, but they are going to be hard to find.

The best places are on private land. You just need to get the guts to ask someone to detect an older property and you will find silver.

The local historical society is another great place to check on old gathering places. Odds are that the old hot spots are probably now private property though. Just catch the person outside, be friendly and ask. I have gotten permission far more times than I have been turned down. Just make sure you leave the place looking perfect. Take a towel to put your dirt on so you get ever speck back in the hole, and never bother if the ground is so dry the grass will die.

 

[richg]

I have been at it about a 1 1/2 years and last year no silver, this year so far I picked up a couple buffalos, 5 mercs and 1 silver roosevelt. I think it just takes time unless you are truly lucky. I dont have that kind of luck. I did find several relics and stuff dating to the early 1900's. I like that stuff better anyway.Good Luck!!

 

[lonewolfe]

Surface coins seem to confuse the ACE and even make it hard to pinpoint. Try burying the coins around 3" to 8" and leave them for a while to have a more natural setting to test and practice with. I have found that older coins require thinking "outside the box" as in looking for roads that are under construction like another thread here. You can also find them in the woods where there have been few other detectors. Roadsides near former attractions seem to produce as well. Try to visualize where people were 100 years ago and what they were doing, that should help.

I agree here with leadsman,

the older coins just aren't laying around in abundance like new era coinage is, and you have to put yourself where the old coins are. Then you need to be able to acknowledge what the detector is telling you. Old coins most often are deeper than newer era coins. They will/do sound differently, a lot of them are made from different metal comp. than newer coins too so, that makes them read/sound different.

You'll get lucky and find a few at 2 to 3 inches once in a while but, most will be deeper (5 to 8 inches) on avg.

Run your 250 in relic mode, and don't worry about adjusting it for now,

wait until you become proficient with it and learn as you go before messing with the adjustments,

Garrett did a pretty good job with the way he set this one up, and you shouldn't have to adjust anything but the sensitivity when/if it starts falsing on you near power lines, etc.

 

[hbeaton]

this might sound dumb lonewolf, but can I still detect coins in relic mode?

 

[treasurekidd]

Yes, you can. Relic mode is factory preset, so you won't need to adjust anything. Relic mode actually uses a lower discriminination level than coin or jewelry mode, so you'll actually find more in relic mode. Relic mode is set to register coins, jewelry and larger iron items, while discriminationg out small iron items like nails, screws and bottlecaps and foil, while coin mode, with it's higher discrimination level, is set to look only for coin sized items made of silver, copper, nickel and gold (and, unfortunatley, aluminum) and ignore the rest. Just be patient, and learn the machine and what it's telling you.

On another note, maybe you also need to slow down in how you hunt. Not to sound like an expert, which I'm not, but it took me a while to disciplne myself to shorten my swings, hold the coil lower to the surface, and to walk slower, so as not to miss large patches of soil. Walk nice and slowly, and shorten your swings to about 2 feet wide while holding the coil as close as you can to the soil, and swing slow. You may be doing this already, but teaching myself to hunt slower and swing shorter improved my finds much more than anything I could have done with the settings on the detector. Give it a try and see how much better things pop up! Good luck, and Happy Hunting!!

 

[DugHoles]

I think experience will be your best bet along with asking questions here on on websites "specific" to your brand of detector.

GL & HH,

DugHoles
Upstate NY

 

[lonewolfe]

this might sound dumb lonewolf, but can I still detect coins in relic mode?

Treasurekidd said all that I could say in his post above!

HH

Lonewolfe