Any slight differences between gold / pulltabs / foil?

[SilverSleuth]

I'm looking to dig a little less trash. Can I get the bulk of shallow recent gold drops by just digging clear low tone signals? Does foil often give off a less clear response? I'm looking to do some speed detecting at ball fields etc.. I know everyones always saying to swing the coil slow. I'm using the Minelab Explorer SE.

Thanks,

James

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[Tom_in_CA]

Aluminum and gold share the same conductivity. The type sounds: "clear-ness" "repeatability" "round-ness" are all dependant on the thickness, shape, depth, etc.... No, there is no way to tell the difference between gold and aluminum. The minute you think you have found a certain "sound" that seems different from gold rings to foil, I gaurantee you that I can wad up and shape a foil wad to sound exactly like any gold ring you can show me

You can buck the odds by editing in and out some more commonly recurring types of aluminum, but you will miss gold that fell in that range. Same goes for passing flitty sounds, that aren't locking on, etc.... Those could be gold chains, rings on edge, etc.....

If anyone tells you they can tell the difference between gold and aluminum, based on sounds, take them out to the nearest blighted inner city junky park, and turn them loose. See how long they stick to their claim. I think some people sincerely want to believe this, since the advent of the spectrum graph, 2-axis Explorer graph, etc... And when they finally do dig up something gold, they think "aha, that sounded different than the 50 pieces of trash I just dug and had a different graph plot" etc... But it's all in selective memory: Each time we stoop to dig, we think "this one sounds different", but when it turns out to be junk, we think "yeah, it did sort of sound junky". But if it turned out to be good, we think "Aha! I knew it sounded different "

 

[Willy]

I've basically just given up and dig the nasty stuff. Found too much jewelry that rang up as a trash item to feel comfortable about leaving much in the ground. One thing I WILL do, however, is to notch out the higher conductors.. stuff a bit higher than pull tabs. This is when I'm hunting rings and such. ..Willy.

 

[Ant]

My 36 Dry Land Gold finds and my 33 Silver finds for 2007 and links to the photos. All found using the technique that I developed:
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,121785.0.html
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,122166.0.html


You can raise you odds substantially using a dedicated gold machine. You can also tell the difference between small foil targets bits compared to a similar sized gold target. This ability has to do more with density of matel, and at times shape. Small foil targets ramp tones ramp up and down with a scratchy sound and not hard of a hit in the middle. But on a similar size gold target the ramp up and down on the tone will be smooth and have a solid hit in the middle. That's why I find so many small gold targets, and I don’t dig small bits of foil.

I found this lucky gold shoe target this pass Sunday. It was mixed in with about 4 small bits of foil and the group gave off a signal that sounded like a pocket spill. Pocket spills sound off with a broken signal on my machine. When I find what I suspect is a pocket spill, I investigate by moving the soil around and or removing a target and then rechecking.

If there’s a gold target there it’ll sound off loud clear. Much smother, louder and clearer than the same size bit of foil. That’s how it really happens, it’s just like that. That's what I do, which was the same thing I did and when found this tine baby shoe.

Posted in this thread:
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,123824.0.html

You can’t tell that it’s gold, but you can tell small bits of foil and thin larger irregular shaped quarter sized bits of foil (remember density). The GB2 is supper fast in Normal mode but it has a long learning curve. Keep in mind that gold is a deep seeking precious metal, and at old sites it's normally down below the Silver.

To find gold it takes a lot of labor. But once you learn how to hunt for it, and a few tricks, you can move faster then others who look for Silver. Depth is not an issue if you hunt demolition sites like I do.

Depth also has a lot to do with response. Good deep targets will hum or whisper and or give off a negative signal.

The proof is in the pudding. Or should I say it’s in how much gold can one find and give good evidence that it was found in the ground.

HH and good luck.

 

[SilverSleuth]

Thanks for all the replies.


Gold detectors are pulse induction right? I don't know a whole lot but is it true the PI can't tell the difference between a bullet and a gold nugget? I hear about people in the gold fields digging up alot of bullets and I think they'd skip them if they could. I wonder if a PI & ID detector in combination would give you the best of both worlds?

That's what I wanted to hear - about the common behavior of rings vs. trash. Even if one only went for large gold rings. I'm trying to discover patterns - if that's the right word - and play the percentages. I don't mind losing some gold.

Right now I'm digging hundreds of pieces of trash for 1 piece of jewelry and it's a little discouraging. I think there is alot of room for improvement learning the SE.

 

[Ant]

No, my machine is a VLF machine and it has a good ID on iron, and the frequency it uses is sensitive to gold. The SE on the other hand won't find gold worth a dang, it's a Silver getter and has proven itself on that. But for gold it's a dog.

If they made a machine that could ID gold or even get close, or for that matter lead, I would have all the Gold. Right, Not. Lead is very close to gold on the molecular level. History says that a group calling themselves Alchemist tried to but failed to change lead to gold, that’s how close gold is to lead.

Again, no machine can ID Gold. They make machines that respond better to low conductors like Gold than high conductors like Silver, and vise versa. A good silver machine can at times ID Silver with a fair certainty, but again, no machine can do that on Gold. We gold getters have gobs of low conductor to contend with so we use a couple of tricks to help us.

The reason Silver is easy for a good machine to identify is that silver is one of the highest conductors of electricity in nature. Aside from copper and now a days man made superconductors, the latter not being found much out in the field.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

dsw08, you ask: "Gold detectors are pulse induction right?" No, gold nugget machines are not (necessarily) pulse machines. While pulse machines (generally beach hunter machines) are good at finding small gold jewelry items, they are not as good as dedicated gold nugget machines, which are finely tuned dedicated VLF machines.

Some people are fooled by the title "gold machine" (for nugget specialty machines) thinking that this means that the machine finds only gold. This is not the case. It just means the machine is tuned/designed to find teeennnsssy little bird-shot/BB/staples type stuff, be it gold, aluminum, silver, etc....

No machine (not pulse, not VLF) can tell the difference between metals. They can only measure conductivity. And unfortunately, many items share the same conductivity (gold vs aluminum for instance). All you can do it buck the odds. For example: a full soda can might read "quarter/half", but obviously, it's too big of a target (size/sound-wise) to be a quarter. When it comes to aluminum vs gold, this distinction gets a little harder to judge. A wadded piece of foil can be made to sound exactly like many gold rings, both sound, shape, and TID-wise.

 

[Ant]

Hey Tom that's really right. I feel that a bit more information on this PI and gold subject is in order.

Here goes:
The best dedicated gold metal detectors are PI machines, and Minelab make them. Minelab actually has the best gold machines on the market. The best Minelab Silver seekers are thePI EX's and SE, and the best PI Gold seekers are the ML GP series, with the GPX4000 being the best and most recent release and pushing 5,000.00 G's.

I know you already know that Gold is a deep seeking metal as is Silver. So a PI machines is best for the a man prospecting for Gold nuggets in the field.

 

[Willy]

I'd have totake issue with PI's and Minelab being the best dedicated gold machines on the market. How 'bout I take a 1/10 grain nugget and swing an GPX 4000 over it? I can predict that it won't make a peep, whereas a Goldbug II/GMT would most likely give a decent signal. Which is better now? Pi's are basically good for big gold at depth. They basically suck when it comes to small stuff. If all you have in the ground is small gold, you can swing a PI till your arm falls off and won't be $.01 richer. Here's another scenario: I prospect in mountain streams/rivers, up to chest deep, how would the Minelab PI's do there? Simple fact is.. they'd suck big time. On the other hand, a Garrett Infinium would be right at home. True, it's a PI, but it goes to show that one detector isn't the 'best'. ..Willy.

 

[Ant]

I'd have totake issue with PI's and Minelab being the best dedicated gold machines on the market. How 'bout I take a 1/10 grain nugget and swing an GPX 4000 over it? I can predict that it won't make a peep, whereas a Goldbug II/GMT would most likely give a decent signal. Which is better now? Pi's are basically good for big gold at depth. They basically suck when it comes to small stuff. If all you have in the ground is small gold, you can swing a PI till your arm falls off and won't be $.01 richer. Here's another scenario: I prospect in mountain streams/rivers, up to chest deep, how would the Minelab PI's do there? Simple fact is.. they'd suck big time. On the other hand, a Garrett Infinium would be right at home. True, it's a PI, but it goes to show that one detector isn't the 'best'. ..Willy.

Hi willy.
I hunt exclusively with that GB2 and these links will take you to my Gold and Silver finds for 2007:
My gold finds for 2007:
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,121785.0.html
My Silver finds for 2007
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,122166.0.html

You know that gold is found in highly mineralized areas and that PI machines handle these conditions better than any VLF machine. That goes along with depth, and that adds to a PI machine being a better nugget machine in the field. Now on the other hand, VLF machines can handle trash better and find tiny gold as well as large gold.

But ML’s GP series have other options to counteract some of that. Like a large variety of aftermarket coils and other accessories to chose from. I don’t like ML to tell you the truth, they come from Australia and I like American products. And most of them are overpriced if you ask me.

In general, if you talk to the hardcore nuggets hunters they hunt with PI machines like the ones in the GP series. I’m recalling what I know from my experiences. What do you think?

 

[Willy]

Yup, a lot of what you say I agree with. The ML PI's are waayyyy overpriced, but a lot of people use them and there's plenty of 'peer pressure' to do so. Strangely enough, while PI's generally handle mineralization better than VLF's, there's a large area of extremely mineralized ground around the Coquihalla bedded range where VLF's are actually better!! This is due to a certain hotrock that sounds off like an SOB on both PI's and VLF's. The thing is, a VLF will classify it as iron whereas a PI won't. I tried out that area with both a Garrett Infinium and a GPX 4000.. total nightmare. On the other hand, I managed to get a bit of gold there with my XTerra 70. I think that there's also a lot of hype surrounding Minelab PI's and VLF detectors. So much so, in fact, that many people become blinded to the fact that there are other detectors out there that, in some cases, offer better performance. It all depends on circumstance. As per my previous example about nuggethunting in a river with an Infinium vs. Minelab PI, the circumstances would make the Infinium a clearly superior detector. Then again, I was also up in Alaska's Brooks range a few years ago where my CZ6a gave two guys with Minelab SD 2200d's a spanking.
When it comes to mineralization, I figure that a PI (and not any ol' PI) will get better depth but, like you say, how 'bout trash? Also, often enough a person can be working bedrock cracks. The mineralization can then be pretty consistent and/or the nuggets really shallow. Here, there wouldn't be any advantage to using a PI.. probably the opposite.
Anyway, I really don't disagree with the bulk of your views, just the global statement that Minelab PI's/detectors are the best gold detectors. ..Willy.

 

[EasyMoney]

This area here has a lot of fine gold in it, but most people pack and take their GoldBug II's, old au Compasses, and often a GMT or a Lobo Super Traq with them to Nevada. Only those who seek mostly larger nuggets take Minelabs. These detectors above do the best on fine gold, and the winner is? Well, there is a 4 1/2 inch chunk of big quartz mounted on a wall in a casino with a tiny speck of gold right in the middle of it the size of a period on the end of a sentence. Found by which detector?

A Compass au 52. Yep, a 20 year old detector.

No other detector can claim this right, not even the GB2.

Personally, if I wanted another gold hunter I'd get a LST, one of the finest all-around detectors ever made, and the best of the best auto GB too.

 

[Ant]

Hey Tom, no friendly debate


Hi Willy.
A metal detector is like a tool, and to be the most productive we need to use the right tool for the right job. It still comes what is the most productive machine be it hunting sites like black sand and or salt beaches, bedrock, deserts, turf, etc, we need right metal detector to be the most productive. Like the old saying says, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight. I feel the same way Willy so we have no disagreement that I can see of.

This area here has a lot of fine gold in it, but most people pack and take their GoldBug II's, old au Compasses, and often a GMT or a Lobo Super Traq with them to Nevada. Only those who seek mostly larger nuggets take Minelabs. These detectors above do the best on fine gold, and the winner is? Well, there is a 4 1/2 inch chunk of big quartz mounted on a wall in a casino with a tiny speck of gold right in the middle of it the size of a period on the end of a sentence. Found by which detector?

A Compass au 52. Yep, a 20 year old detector.

No other detector can claim this right, not even the GB2.

Personally, if I wanted another gold hunter I'd get a LST, one of the finest all-around detectors ever made, and the best of the best auto GB too.

You could be right, but as of today the GB2 is the most sensitive metal detector on the market at detecting small gold.

 

[newbieprospector]

I love reading these debates....but when it comes down to it, I think it's all up to the individual on the machine that works best for them. How fast you swing, how technically challenged you are, where you are hunting, etc., etc., etc. As for the initial question: Any slight differences between gold / pulltabs / foil? I say: DIG IT ALL!

 

[JOE(USA)]

Ant and Willy,

Great post guys! Thanks for your views. Joe

 

[SilverSleuth]

I love reading these debates....but when it comes down to it, I think it's all up to the individual on the machine that works best for them. How fast you swing, how technically challenged you are, where you are hunting, etc., etc., etc. As for the initial question: Any slight differences between gold / pulltabs / foil? I say: DIG IT ALL!

I agree now. No problem for me digging pulltabs at the BEACH. My bigger problem was DISCRIMINATION.

ALL METAL for now on.