Gold Coin Cache Hunting--Technical Question

[mbryant01]

I've got a site where they may be a cache of gold coins. It would be 2-4 feet deep in a clay jug. It's buried in red clay, which is very mineralized soil. I'm trying to figure out which type of equipment to use, such as a large PI loop, GPR, magnetometer or maybe a Electromagnetic (EM) antenna, like OKM makes. I've been told that a cache of gold coins will not show any bigger (surface-area-wise) than a single coin, even though they are touching each other, but a solid a gold bar would show a bigger surface area, because it's solid. I was wondering if this is true, and if anyone could recommend what equipment would work best in these conditions. Per the Lorenz site, (a German company that makes very good PI units) their 1 meter loop is too big to pick up on a single coins and their double-d coil (the one the can differentiate between ferrous and non-ferrous) doesn't go much past 15 inches on a coin. I was also told by a GPR manufacturer that GPR does not work well in mineralized soil. Not sure what to do.

 

[gleaner1]

U.K., I am seeing the light. I can see the two box is not prime for salt or highly mineralized soil. I want to hit mild soil, trashy (iron rubbish) old home sites, looking for two or three foot deep silver or copper caches the size of a shoe box or ever a half quart fruit jar, regardless if the container is glass or crockery or iron pot. I want to work large areas as fast as possible. I ask if a pulse machine with a big coil can be set up to out-perform a two box in this scenario . Is a two box just a pipe finder? Wont the pulse just hit on everything? Will a pulse "tame down" on shallow, smaller iron trash like rotten steel beer can slaw and the like, if you put a big 24 or 30 inch coil on it? With a good pulse, if the cache is an iron pot with and iron lid, is it possible to find it after you tuned out all the iron? Wont a two box punch deep and ignore most smaller iron crap in the first ten inches of soil? That's it, I am buying a two box and I am going to bury fruit jars full of silver and steel amo boxes two or three feet deep and I will answer the two box questions myself. After that, I will either keep it or sell it. I guess I will have to learn the easy way.

 

[U.K. Brian]

A good pulse hoard hunter will today find coins if fitted with a small coil. In the past this wasn't true. They were also all metal only. This soon changed and quite good discrimination was brought in working on the decay rate of iron. Drawback was it only worked for iron above fist size. This can be switched on or off as required.
Next move was to introduce measures to deal with various sizes of iron. In most cases this meant a magnetometer built into the coil or detector control box. Or with any P.I.(not just hoard machines) you can add one to the stock coil. Fix in centre for mono coils, off to one side or other for DD types. Detector would sound off over target and if magnetometer also sounds its iron.

Most hoards are not found straight out by a hoard hunter. In most cases a plough has hit the hoard and brought a few within range of a standard detector. A hoard hunter is then brought in to find the rest. Most don't want the expence of any type of hoard hunter but you hire one as needed and a few metal detecting clubs have a club one to be borrowed as needed.

With your question about the iron pot this is the weakness in the pulse discrimination systems. If you take out most iron to make things easier then you might loose what your after. On the other hand a two box hasn't got great depth, has areas it won't work and the advantage of missing small iron/nails etc is only based on lack of sensitivity so you would miss coins/gold rings etc which are often the clue that there's something worth having down there. On the general information you have given (mild ground, not to deep) then a two box should be fine.

 

[Bum Luck]

I'd look at this problem from this view: Your time and effort.

I'd start with a two box; you can cover a large area quickly and needn't be bothered with trash. I got a Garrett and like it. You should know pretty quickly if you have it or not. Tom's right about chasing will-o-the-wisp legends.

As a matter of fact, I may stop right there........

But if you don't, then I'd come in with plan B. I can't point you in a direction except to tell you that you're gonna do a lot of trash digging. I have a Garrett Infinium PI, and I think it would need a bigger coil down that deep. For gosh sakes, test your choice beforehand on a similar target before you plunk down money and time.

 

[signal_line]

The idea that a two-box won't find surface trash is a pipe dream. The idea that a two-box will go deep on a handful of gold coins is a pipe dream. The idea that a two-box is a cache hunting machine is a pipe dream. I don't even think the utility locating companies use two-box for anything. Everyone wants to believe the advertising hype. Well, go ahead and dive in head first. I suggest you wear a helmet because the water is only inches deep.

 

[Bum Luck]

The idea that a two-box won't find surface trash is a pipe dream. The idea that a two-box will go deep on a handful of gold coins is a pipe dream. The idea that a two-box is a cache hunting machine is a pipe dream. I don't even think the utility locating companies use two-box for anything. Everyone wants to believe the advertising hype. Well, go ahead and dive in head first. I suggest you wear a helmet because the water is only inches deep.

I won't pretend to be an expert with the 2 box, but I can tell you that the utility companies don't use a 2 box because they use signal tracer technology, it's much better for that specific job. It's too bad we just can't put a RF tracer on the cache - problem over.

I believe I'll continue to light up though.

 

[woof!]

Bum, don't be fooled by Signal. He knows perfectly well that utility companies use 2-box units, he's just jerking my chain because I debunk his LRL.

Utility companies have been using 2-box units for about 80 years and possibly longer. 2-box line tracers that can't be used on-handle (for example our TW-82) have become popular for conductive line tracing over the last 20 years or so. But you can't do a blind locate with them, that's still the domain of on-handle 2-box units such as our TW-6 (which can also do conductive tracing).

As discussed in this forum, there are several different kinds of apparatus used for cache locating. Each has its limitations and none works nearly as well as most people doing cache locating wish it would. The subject has been discussed at great length in the LRL forum:

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/long-range-locators/149978-there-long-range-locator-capable.html

--Dave J.

EDIT: The LRL'ers wasted 17 pages contributing nothing to the issue of actual cache locating, until I butted in beginning with page 18 of the thread which is the best place to begin after you've read the first post on page 1 of the thread. I don't do cache locating myself but I do know a thing or two about the equipment used to do it, having been in the business for over 30 years. ......Carl made an early if brief contribution to the thread and was roundly booed by the LRL'ers, who didn't want the conversation to stray into the area of how one actually goes about locating caches (as opposed to merely imagining caches).

 

[Bum Luck]

You mean like this? from http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/m...e-hunting-technical-question.html#post2860779

I owned a two-box. Like that one thread about which detector do you dislike, the two-box is on the top of my dislike list. I sent mine into to the factory for re-tuning. They said it was "good as new". ...........

I stand by my original post.

 

[woof!]

At least you were right about "too bad we can't put an RF tracer on the cache". (However, I've heard of fraudsters selling LRL's literally doing that.)

Caches are problem locates, it's not like utility locating where if it's there you can probably find it. There are a number of kinds of apparatus that will detect certain kinds of caches under certain conditions, and 2-box units are on that list. There is no kind of apparatus that will find most kinds of caches under most conditions. That's why treasure hunters who are serious about cache locating use a number of different tools and techniques.

--Dave J.

 

[woof!]

I can tell you that the utility companies don't use a 2 box.

The search term 2-box unit utility locating on any search engine will fix that.

--Dave J.

 

[Bum Luck]

The search term 2-box unit utility locating on any search engine will fix that.

--Dave J.

I understand that detector companies sell these units, but I see what utility locators actually buy and use daily.

I'm a land surveyor, and work with utility locates all the time for construction and planning. Around here, the locate business is 'subbed' out to a locate firm, but each individual utility has the option to locate for each request and often do.

I'm also a metal detectorist for a hobby, as well as use a magnetometer for locating property irons.

All of the utility locate work I've seen over a 20 year period use a signal trace unit. I own one myself. The advantage of that is that with a lot of stuff in the ground, you have to be sure of your work. I fail to see how a 2 box can do that with other things in the ground nearby. Think of it as the ideal discrimination system.

These guys do it for a living, and it says volumes that this is the system they use, at least in my experience, and I see dozens of locates in a year and know these guys by their first names.

I don't want to take anything away from a 2-box; I have one of those too, and I agree that they have a place. In fact I said that "I'd start with a two box".

I don't want to get into an argument, but would like to pass on my experience to help folks out. That's it. My payoff? Reading about caches you guys find.

Keep 'em coming.

 

[Goodyguy]

I've got a site where they may be a cache of gold coins. It would be 2-4 feet deep in a clay jug. It's buried in red clay, which is very mineralized soil. I'm trying to figure out which type of equipment to use, such as a large PI loop, GPR, magnetometer or maybe a Electromagnetic (EM) antenna, like OKM makes. I've been told that a cache of gold coins will not show any bigger (surface-area-wise) than a single coin, even though they are touching each other, but a solid a gold bar would show a bigger surface area, because it's solid. I was wondering if this is true, and if anyone could recommend what equipment would work best in these conditions. Per the Lorenz site, (a German company that makes very good PI units) their 1 meter loop is too big to pick up on a single coins and their double-d coil (the one the can differentiate between ferrous and non-ferrous) doesn't go much past 15 inches on a coin. I was also told by a GPR manufacturer that GPR does not work well in mineralized soil. Not sure what to do.

First..... do you own any metal detectors? Second.... have you ever used one?
Looking for a buried cache of coins can be one of the most rewarding and one of the most frustrating endeavors you will undertake.

Most serious cache hunters, myself included, have an arsenal of equipment that can be employed depending on the situation at hand.

In your particular case you seem to have some good clues such as..... the depth of the cache, that it's gold coins, the container type, and the soil type.

What I'm wondering is have you narrowed the location down to a relatively small area or do you have to search a large property with no clue as to the location?
And do you know how long the cache has been in the ground? The size of the clay jug? How many coins are estimated to be in the jug? What denominations? Is the area going to be full of trash targets (close to a house or foundation) or relatively free of debris such as in a field or wooded area?

Those are some of the clues that an experienced hunter uses to decide what equipment would be best suited for the task. Could be as simple as using a probe, however in red clay particularly if it's compacted, the use of a probe may not be helpful. If you have the location narrowed down to a general area, something as simple as a depression in the ground could be an indicator.

Is this a one off search? or do you intend to do this regularly? And how strong is the information on this particular "may be a cache of gold coins" lead? Is it strong enough to be worth spending several hundred or even several thousand dollars on equipment that you are unfamiliar with using?

Knowing your equipment makes all the difference when searching mineralized ground. (or any ground for that matter)
As Dixiegal stated a twobox detector can be adjusted to minimize interference from highly mineralized soil. (however not without loss of sensitivity)

Also a good gold detector can be adjusted to null out the signal from hot rocks and mineralized soil. Do you know that using all metal mode will increase your depth sensitivity and headphones will allow you to hear a fainter signal and that using the external speaker uses up more power? You would be surprised at how deep a cheap Bounty Hunter detector can find a cache in all metal mode with the largest coil installed and headphones are used........ of course it's not going to find a pot of gold that's 4 feet deep

Did you know that there is no discrimination on a two box detector that it's always in all metal mode?

Anyway, Welcome to Treasure-Net and the wonderful world of treasure hunting!

Go for the gold,
GG~

 

[starprince]

If its a large mass of coins in one pile, you should have success with a VLF with a large coil. Make sure it has manual ground balance control. One more thing, if you have never use one before, learn how to use it including reading the instructions many times. Good luck!

 

[Frankn]

History, The reason the original 2 Box units had 2 boxes was so you could separate them. The transmitter box was clamped "electrically" to the pipe and the receiver was walked along the surface tracing the pipe path.
Fast forward, I use a Hays 2 Box that I bought used. It has found caches at 6' in metal boxes.
Summary, It does not pick up small surface trash, objects smaller than a softball. It air test close to 12'. If you get a 2 Box and don't find it, you are out about $300 (used). If you get a good PI, a 2000 or better and don't find it, you are out $3000+. I think I would try the 2 Box first.
Disclaimer, I have never used my 2 Box in red clay soil. It works in the Maryland soil and in the desert soils I have tried out west. Frank