Minelab Explorer to find Gold coins

[photo-master]

Hi all I've got a quick question. I know for prospecting or looking for small nuggets you would need a dedicated detector. But just wondering how a Minelab Explorer (II, XS) might do with finding gold coins or small gold rings?
Thanks in advance. I am eager to learn from all you great folks...

 

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[jeff of pa]

I Got both with My Sovereign.

The Explorer should be even more Sensative to them
If set correctly

I Should add.

If you can get any to do some Testing with,
It will Improve your Chances.

 

[Iron Patch]

For coins the most important thing is to be willing to dig and dig and dig... and when you're done that, dig more, and do it year after year after year, then cross your fingers (and toes if you can) say a prayer, maybe move to CA, and if that doesn't work buy a ticket to the UK or get your buddy to plant one. In other words don't expect too many gold coins to turn up under your coil.

Gold rings... Not a problem but you have to know how to use the detector, have a site that will produce, and still dig a lot of holes!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The issue of gold, when it comes to nugget hunting, as per the needing of a specialized machine for that, has nothing at all to do with gold in the forms of rings and coins. The reason you'll often hear about gold nugget specialty detectors, is that gold ... in the natural form of nuggets, are rarely grain-of-rice sized or larger. Guys who go after naturally occuring nuggets, are usually getting them in pinhead sized (which add up over time). To find a nugget fingernail sized, etc.... is super rare.

Thus nugget machines are designed, from the ground up, to be super sensitive to teeennnssssy things. This is exactly the opposite of a coin/jewelry hunter's mindset, because perhaps he DOESN'T want to hear every push-pin, birdshot, and staple in the ground Ironically, a nugget machine that might get a pin-head sized nugget down to 2", may only get a coin to 8". While a coin machine won't pick up the pin-head at all, yet be able to get the coin to 10" And nugget machines/coils may have poor discrimination in their inherent engineering/designing, because they don't need disc. If they do have some sort of rudimentary iron disc, perhaps it's only effective in the first several inches. Beyond that, everything sounds the same. No problem for a nugget guy though, as he's in it for insane sensitivity, at whatever cost, for the smaallleest of things.

The Explorer does fine on coin and jewelry sized items, of any composition (gold, silver, copper, etc....). Of course, you're not going to find teensy gold earing studs with it. For that, you would need a nugget machine.

And within the various coin/jewelry machines, there are admittedly some that do better on smaller low conductor items than an explorer. But the trade-off is, you might not have as much depth as a power-house machine like the explorer, or perhaps you might start to falter in mineralization, etc.....

 

[photo-master]

Thanks guys, especially Tom and Iron Patch with the thoughtful thorough answers.

 

[photo-master]

One more question. In the hopes of finding gold coins should I accept foil and pull tabs or disseminate them out?

 

[stasys]

depend how big coin you want , but usually they are small, foil only if its bended few times, pultabs yes. start to detect and look what you will found. I think you are under advertisement impression that explorer-etrac some how can see gold coins

 

[tumbleinn2]

you may be lucky to find 1 Gold coin in your life time. Its like hitting the lotto!

 

[Dano Sverige]

Don't bother saying "should i discriminate out foil and pull tabs". It's much easier to say "should i discriminate out Gold?"!!

Get my point?

 

[Iron Patch]

you may be lucky to find 1 Gold coin in your life time. Its like hitting the lotto!

I know at least 25 serious detector guys within a few hundred miles of me and only 1 dug gold coin. So that's probably a couple hundred years detecting and millions of holes, and 1 gold coin! So yes, probably like a lottery win, at least in my parts. That being said, we have found things that are much rarer and more valuable than almost any gold coin I would expect to show up, so no gold isn't a big deal. It's on my list but definitely not at the top.

 

[photo-master]

I know at least 25 serious detector guys within a few hundred miles of me and only 1 dug gold coin. So that's probably a couple hundred years detecting and millions of holes, and 1 gold coin! So yes, probably like a lottery win.

Thanks that's good to know. I'll stick to silver and jewelry and if I ever find a gold coin I'll know just how lucky that would be.

 

[Iron Patch]

I know at least 25 serious detector guys within a few hundred miles of me and only 1 dug gold coin. So that's probably a couple hundred years detecting and millions of holes, and 1 gold coin! So yes, probably like a lottery win.

Thanks that's good to know. I'll stick to silver and jewelry and if I ever find a gold coin I'll know just how lucky that would be.

Location has a lot to do with it, and most places it is pretty tough.