Help and points of view required

[MH]

Hello forum, I realy hope you can help me. I have a very old great aunt living in a village in Greece. She has always told us about pots of Gold that her father and uncle burried in their wood before the Gremans invaded in the WWII and subsequently killed him, and with him the location of the pots were lost. The wood is very huge so looking for them unaided would be impossible. The great aunt has always insisted we go and look for it and now I have taken upon myself to find the hidden treasure. I am hoping that someone can recomend a good metal detector that has good depth to help me in my search. As mentoined earlier these are gold coins in clay pots and have been burried in the woods for over 50 years, and we dont know how deep but bare in mind it was dug by two guys. So is there a metal detector that is useful for such a thing, and how is it better to get one with the round coil or the 2-box one, or maybe the industrial ones used to detect pipes? Please please help.
Many thanks

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

Cool Story and I wish you the best of luck in finding the treasure. I will let the experts guide you in the selection of a good detector. Hope you find it!

 

[Jeffro]

I'm no expert, but with two guys digging, its probably not shallow. Go with the two box. Check out this forum under "detector reviews", may be some good info in there! HH!

 

[Sandman]

Jeffro is right about the Two Box. You can cover more ground with it but bear in mind that a tree may have grown on top of it and it is surrounded by roots. They probably didn't bury it in a place where water would ruin the pots though it wouldn't hurt the gold. If there was any fighting in the area, be ready to dig up unexploded ordinance.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

Sandman

 

[catlord17]

Yeah, and be careful about that ordinance! I've found a few shockers myself, scary to think if I had been a little less careful digging them up I could have lost a hand or face or something.

 

[jeff of pa]

I'm going to Go a Different way, and suggest
a Garrett 2500 with a Large Coil (I believe it's called a "Treasure Hound" ? ) even tho I'v never used one, I believe this set up will work better then a 2 Box (I personally don't have much Confidence in 2 Box detectors, but That's just my opinion).

Either that or a Minelab gp3000 gold detector.

do you know how old they were, when they Buried this gold ?

I'm not Discounting they did this, But Gold is heavy in the first place, and would have taken energy just to get it to the Burial Site.

I also have Problems with Believing anyone would bury anything deeper then a couple feet. after all, whether it is 2 Feet or 10 Feet
it's still out of sight.

and you also are risking getting caught wasting time digging a deep hole.
Not to mention the Idea Your going to have to Re Dig it later.

It's not like they had an army of slaves they were going to kill & bury with it. and then they would need another team of Slaves to dig it back up later. which Makes No sense to me at all.

JEFF

 

[MH]

thank you Jeff and everyone, I also dont beleive they dug too deep, and the gold we believe was no more than 10-15 years old before they burried it, would that make a difference?

 

[jeff of pa]

the age of the gold makes no Difference.

What it was Buried in does, If you use too much Discrimination.

 

[bakergeol]

Before one looks for coin hoards one should take a look at this post. It is a post from Gary in the UK. It contains coin hoard tests using different VLF detectors with no iron containers. They all failed. Now if all the coins were melted together- yes probably all of the good VLFs could detect this mass. But as the detectors are looking at each coin separately and not part of the whole they can't detect them.
http://www.garysdetecting.co.uk/hoard_test.htm
After seeing this I would not consider a vlf just for coin hoards(no iron container).

What is interesting is that the gold coins here are also not in a metal container but are in clay pots. They may be crushed and dispersed a bit after 65 years. Now my question is that you are not detecting a solid lump of metal(gold) but many small pieces(gold coins). Would a 2 box detector react the same as the above VLF detectors and also fail to detect the coins? I imagine this is similar to why some VLFs can't detect gold chains- they see each link and not the whole. I would try to ask someone on a 2 box forum if they can detect a handfull of coins only or in a non metallic container (no iron container). We assume a 2 box could detect this as we have seen all the advertising "Will detect a jar of coins(with iron lid) at 2 feet, ect, ect" . I don't know the answer to this and I hope some 2 box pros would enlighten me here

If the 2 box pros say no it is not possible to detect a handfull of coins in the above environment- What is left? Well pulse induction would have to be considered.


George

 

[MH]

Well I will look for such a forum, would you anything about the industrial detectors used to detects pipes? I am sorry if these questions sound dumb but I am new to this world of metal detectors nad my head is like soup since last week when i began doing my research.

 

[bakergeol]

To answer your question about the industrial detectors- utility detectors. Ask if they are magnetometers. A magnetometer will only detect iron so it would be useless for gold only. The wand or stick looking devices are magnetometers.

George

 

[MH]

Well having looked at some other forums, it seems that P.I devices would suit my purpose, however, given that what I am seeking is a pot of coins would that not decrease my chances using a P.I with a square coil?

MH

 

[bakergeol]

Perhaps the best way is this. Find a metal detector dealer that sells 2 box detectors and/or PIs. Than bring with you a jar of US nickels. No iron whatsoever in the jar. The nickels will be close to the conductivity of gold. Than test the 2 box in the parking lot to see if it will detect the jar of nickels. Do the same with any deep seeking PI you are considering. Try before you buy. Do not purchase ANYTHING until you have personally verified it will work. Do not believe any claims about PIs from unknown companies without seeing that it works. The fact that you mentioned a square coil for a PI means to me you are not looking at the same PI machines I am looking at(Minelab, Eric Foster).

Considering you really don't know the depth of the coins a 2 box would be the best bet if it can detect a non-ferrous jar of coins. However, there are other considerations. 2 Boxes are not fun to use- pinpointing and if the area is saturated with iron (UXO) you could be digging up deep iron(2 to 5 feet) for months(?).

Now what I would do is see if my PI (Goldscan 5) would be able to detect a jar of small low conductors such as nickels and/or small aluminium pieces. PI's are really hot on low conductors such as gold, but I don't know if it would see a mass of low conductors or only one low conductor. Just don't know. I will do a test when I have time and report back here. The GS5 has the depth comparable to a GP3500 and unlike other PIs it can reliably ID iron with depth. I can distinush a steel can from an aluminium can(think gold here)from 1/2" to several feet but have never tried a mass of low conductor coins.


George

 

[MH]

Thank you very much George, and everyone else, I appreciate your comments and advice. And it would be interesting to see the results you get George, in the meantime I will go and read about the detecters you mentioned.

 

[bakergeol]

Hi MH
I thought I would get back to you on that test I planned to do with my PI. The issue was would a PI react the same way as the VLFs did in gary's test and fail to detect a lump of coins buried deep. My brief test does not compare with Gary's as I simply did a brief air test and just wanted to get a trend here.

Using my GS5 I could barely detect a nickel at 16" with the stock 11" coil in regular PI mode. I then put about 12 nickels in a small plastic container about 1 3/4" in diameter and 1/2" thick. There was a good increase in signal strength at the 16" level and I could detect it to about 20". So it was plain the PI was detecting all the nickels(or gold if need be). Unfortunately in metal ID mode(actually the GB mode, I could only ID the nickels as non ferrous to about 15". Engaging the metal ID mode reduces the sensitivity quite a bit. Detecting caches you would certainly use a larger coil (Coiltex 18" elli mono) than the intermediate nugget coil I am using.

Anyway I think a good PI could do the job if the caches are relatively shallow.

Good Luck
George

 

[jasonbo]

i would say get a tm 808

 

[MH]

The results of your test George is very encouraging and appreciated. I have a been trying to find links to dealers or outlets for the detector and coil you used but I am having a problem finding any, can you please write me the full name of the equipment used or possibly send me into a useful direction.
Many Many thanks


And....
Jasonbo have you used the tm 808 and why would you recomend it?

 

[bakergeol]

Hi MH
I PM you some links. They is a lot of information out there on the internet for 2 box detectors and PIs- just take your time.

Good Luck