Cherry Pickers

[mrwilburino]

Being a city dweller, I tend to spend a lot of my detecting time at local parks and other public areas. That can be a real mixed-bag. Sometimes you end up with a full treasure pouch; other times you walk away empty handed. I don’t mind if a site has been completely worked out, it just means that someone put in the time and effort to do it and they deserve whatever they found. Lately however, somebody has been blitzing the area with their disc cranked up leaving nothing but nickels and zincs. These aren’t deep silver sites either, just your standard clad producing spots. Now I realize that people have the right to hunt the way they want, and it probably IS the most efficient way to pull the highest dollar amount out of the ground in the shortest amount of time, but does anyone else see this as kind of a lazy, unsportsmanlike way of doing it? Certainly there are times that the practice is justified. It may be the only way to get anything out of an extremely trashy area. Those who have researched and discovered a vintage, virgin site may use it as a way of getting the silver out before someone else follows in their footsteps. Not to mention, nowadays it might be the only income that person is receiving. If so, I would be happy to hunt with them and give them whatever I could find. For the average MD’er however, going from tot lot to tot lot and sucking up the clad…..Is it really hunting, or more like shooting fish in a barrel?

 

[mrwilburino]

Looks like a giant dental pick!

 

[TerryC]

It has been my experience that the soil conditions play as much a part of the extraction as operator technique and experience.

 

[jgo]

I was pretty selective about the signals I dug until I took a chance on a pull tab like signal that turned out to be a gold ring...
Now I dig more than I had been. I did manage to find one more gold ring after that, but I am probably at a ratio of 100 pull tabs to one ring. If I want to find the occasional gold then I'll have to dig some pull tabs.

 

[Cool Hand Fluke]

Cherry pickers will definitely miss some good targets. I will usually pass up zinc readings, but sometimes will dig them if there is a chance to find indian head pennies. A few months ago I brought a friend to hunt with me in a S.F. park ballfiled. We were hunting in a baseball field where I've found close to a dozen silver dimes. My friend got a zinc penny reading at 4 inches. He dug out a 10K gold men's class ring from Saint Marys College, class of 1972! It was a solid zinc reading. I'm sure in the last several months that I've hunted this area I beeped that target only to pass it by because it was a zinc reading...

 

[The Beep Goes On]

That's how I do it, at least for local parks that I know I will be back to time and again. Most of the local parks are not old, so I concentrate on the high tones initially, and then gradually expand my mental accept range as the high tones begin to disappear. If I find more than a couple of quarters in one of the local parks nowadays, it's rare. At this point I just go for small to large gold...including the zincoln range. I can tell a zincoln 99% of the time, but I have three gold rings that came in at 44, 47 and 49 (solid, quality signal)...just like a slightly corroded zincoln, which can sound very good.

For one-time parks that you will only hunt once, or seldom, I believe it can be more of a psychological decision instead of one based on a coherent detecting rationale. There's this whole park in front of you and you only have a few hours to make it count. The urge to 'cover ground' is easily rationalized, but, as has been said, you might do better concentrating on a much smaller area while bringing all your skills to bear on finding what others have missed (that means dig). Except for the rare fresh drop or a virgin site, that is where the memorable finds are to be had. As always, there's never just one way to look at it since every hunt is unique.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Sonoma mike, yes it's probably true that you missed that 10k ring on previous hunts there. But it's also true that you probably missed 100 zinc. cents as well And if you set your mind to dig the shallow clad, zincs, etc... too (on the off-chance that one of them might be an actual keeper), a mental trick starts to occur, if you're not careful: you'll subconsciously start going "bong to bong", and ........ therefore ..... you might never have gotten those dozen silver dimes, because your ears become subconsciously tuned to the loud bongs you are allowing in. And of course, the shere time you spend digging zincs, is also time that you likewise would not have been digging those "dozen silver dimes". So there's several ways to look at it. It also depends simply on if you have time to strip mine or not.

At Garfield Square, when the grass was stripped out, then later on, new soil got folded back in with old soil, there came a point where there was no more "second guessing" on good verses bad, as far as target depth went. So we sort of went into relic-mode, where we dug all except iron (it was a demolition site, afterall, so digging and holes were not an issue). An interesting statistic arose from this exercise: I made careful count of everything I pulled out, with no disc. at all (aside from iron), for an entire week. Hundreds of targets per night. And when it was all said and done: I think I had 4 gold targets: 2 rings, an amulet, and a watch-backing (none of which read up at zinc penny btw). The number of zinc pennies was staggering. And the number of tabs, foil globs, can slaw, etc... was staggering. All in fun though, but certainly not something I would have done "just to get the gold", in an un-disturbed turfed park! Time would be much better spent just going to the beach, if gold jewelry were the goal.

Naturally, that's an example of a blighted park that was carpeted with screw caps, clad, etc.... But still though, I'm betting that the ratio of large men's 10k rings (which can ring up to zinc), and zinc pennies, is hundreds to one, even in up-scale parks.

 

[The Beep Goes On]

Very good points Tom. Some parks are just the right age; not much trash, but have had the right amount of traffic and clientele to make it worth it. Not everyone has access to a beach, nor the means to hunt where they would really like to hunt. A lot of us just hunt where we can and where it's convenient. Getting out is the main thing. Jewelry is everywhere, but if you don't know how to dig in the grass, don't, and only do it when conditions permit. The local rangers and I get along just fine in this regard.

white = silver
yellow = gold
red = unique/odd

37 targets in just one of the local parks seems worth it to me.

 

[Coin Digger]

Sonoma mike, yes it's probably true that you missed that 10k ring on previous hunts there. But it's also true that you probably missed 100 zinc. cents as well And if you set your mind to dig the shallow clad, zincs, etc... too (on the off-chance that one of them might be an actual keeper), a mental trick starts to occur, if you're not careful: you'll subconsciously start going "bong to bong", and ........ therefore ..... you might never have gotten those dozen silver dimes, because your ears become subconsciously tuned to the loud bongs you are allowing in. And of course, the shere time you spend digging zincs, is also time that you likewise would not have been digging those "dozen silver dimes". So there's several ways to look at it. It also depends simply on if you have time to strip mine or not.

Strange yet very true about digging zinc pennies, there's so many in some places you forget to listen for other targets.
I don't know how many times I've seen someone just throw their pennies on the ground rather than stick them in their pockets. The same with pull tabs. It's fixed to the can yet they pull it off and throw it on the ground.

 

[Smudge]

If they're leaving nickels, they're leaving jewelry too.

Everyone has their own methods, but the more one cranks up the discrimination, the more one restricts themselves to clad coins only.

Not the best move in my opinion, but to each his own.