How do I find Gold or Coins?

[E59]

I have a Garrett 250 and I took it round the farm yard only to get angry because the signals were constant and I know the farmers here left junk everywhere. My husband took it round and dug the junk-old barb wire, rusty broken stuff. My yard is the last place I want to practice. While we were out shed (deer antler) hunting yesterday we went past one of the old homestead sites and it got me interested. I would like to find coins or gold but I have lurked on here for a couple years and I see that people set their detector to pull tab to find gold, is this how it works best? I don't understand why the ring setting wouldn't be the best one. Also, if I am hunting a really old place and I doubt it will be full of junk like my yard, what would be the setting you experienced hunters would use? TIA, Sara.

 

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[jeff of pa]

The Content of Gold Makes it Necessary to Dig Can tabs to find it.

And Even FOIL to Find Small Rings.
usually the type with Diamonds.

I'v only ever found one Very Large 10K Class ring that came up
Quarter.

 

[jeff of pa]

Problem is there are tons of different Sizes & Thickness.

Plus 7K 10K 14K 18K 22K & probably a few more.

 

[E59]

Sorry everyone, I have posted this in the wrong section, after reading on a bit I found that there is a Garrett section. Still appreciate any info from experienced people. If you were to hunt at the site I am going what setting would you use? It is on a hill, the stones are scattered because it is used for free range hogs in the summer and they root everything. I would like to find coins and although I would love to find a ring I think the only ones I would find might still have a fingerbone in them! Unless the hogs got there first of course.

 

[Ant]

You need a machine that is designed for finding Gold. That machine might not be made for finding Gold. Granted, no machine can positively identify Gold or I would have it all. You raise you chances when you use a machine designed for finding Gold. To find Gold you'll have to trash, now way around it. Iron can be pass up with the right machine and experience.

I have a Gold Bug 2 and it has a long learning curve. This is how I hunt with it:

• Both toggle switches in the middle position (Normal)
• Sensitivity all the way up unless the machine won't balance but never below 8
• At this point the volume and threshold on the machine should be off
• I start with the volume all the way up on the earphones
• Now I turn the volume all the way up on the GB-2
• Then I turn the threshold on the machine up until I can barely hear a smooth tone (the tone should be as soft/low as you can get it but smooth)
• Now I turn down the headphones to a comfortable position (don't turn down the machine).
• Now I’m ready to balance the machine and start hunting
• After I start hunting and hear a solid target I check it out with the Iron Discrimination. If I get a positive response in ID mode I dig the target. Simple
  In 3 years I have over 60 (over 4 ounces) gold finds and my silver coin count is going up by the week. It takes a long time to learn the sounds, but it pays off to keep up with it. The GB-2 works better on scrapes, demolitions, parks are OK, fresh water lakes, campsites and the likes.
  The only machine I’ve ever hunter with is the GB-2. I quit counting clad after the first 14 months that it took to find enough to pay for my machine. I’ve sort of wavered away from parks and schools, but when I need a gold fix I hit the playgrounds.

 

[Kas]

Set the discrimination low and dig it all. You'll catch on after a while, and will be able to tell the junk from the other stuff. You have to learn everything about how your detector works to do a better job.

Oh, that old barbed wire.

Don't think that it's junk, if it's the real old stuff it can fetch a decent rate.

HH
Ken

 

[txkickergirl]

set the discrim low 3-4 bars, and on my ace 250 rings show up as nickels. When I am at an old farm site if I have it on all metal mode, I dig half the tractor. I am also new to MD and what works for me is to hunt in jewelry or coin mode. On those modes you will not dig the barb wire or iron stuff. Yes I know I might be over looking those gold bars the starving farmer buried before they took his farm, but I can only have so many rusty parts to this and that. Just keep at it and you will get the hang of it.

 

[E59]

That's a nice handful Ant! I know when we go vacationing in FL this spring I'll take my 250 and see what happens, maybe I'll find enough to pay for a good gold hunting machine.

 

[Ant]

That's a nice handful Ant! I know when we go vacationing in FL this spring I'll take my 250 and see what happens, maybe I'll find enough to pay for a good gold hunting machine.

Thanks.

All of that was found on dry land, no beaches or lakes. Your machine is not designed to find gold but you will get lucky every now and then. One of the things that make a gold machine different is frequency it uses. The GB-2 is rated at 71 kHz which works best on small gold but limits depth. Other machines won't even detect most of the gold you see in my palm.

I'm not pumping Fisher by telling you to try the GB-2, they have other machines that work just as well out there. But I haven't used them. A dedicated gold machine will raise your odds considerably.
The proof is in the pudding. I've posted more than a few gold rings that are still in the dry dirt clod. If you want to see, just check out some of my gold finds clicking on my name, then click on show post.

Yes, you'll have to learn what to look for, but that comes with time.


HH

P.S.
If you hunt saltwater beached i.e. wet sand. You'll surely need a dedicated beach machine. You can hunt dry sand with most machines, but the finds will be few and far in between. Most of the goodies are in the wet sand. That's how it works.

 

[goldencoin]

i even got a huge 10k ring under pull tab...last check, you needed to find 100+ pulltabs per ring.

HH
-GC

 

[TreasureTales]

You've got a wedding ring, right? Take if off and put it (in a small plastic container if you've got one) on the ground where there is no trash in the ground. Now run your detector over your ring until you get a signal and reading that you will remember when you go out to the farmsite. Most folks think gold is easy to find because of its density, but gold is actually one of the hardest things to find with a metal detector because the signal/tone is similar to nickels, pulltabs, foil, and bits of junk iron. You'll need to practice with some known gold item before you can get lucky enough to find gold out in the real world. Finding coins, other than gold, should be much easier to identify and find. But even those pieces of barbed wire and junk should be teaching you something about how your machine works and what readings to ignore or dig for coins in general. Sorry, but there is no easy and sure-fire way to find gold. That's why we get so excited when we find it...it's not the value that really gives us the thrill...it's the luck in finding it!!! Good luck, and don't give up.

 

[TheSleeper]

Sara, there are two basic mindsets towards metal detecting and most people fall onto one mindset or the other (PLEASE EVERYONE THIS ISN`T MENT AS AN INSULT JUST AN OPINION AND GENERIALIZATION) :

thehit&missems: they set there machines up to find the fastest and hopefully the best items. But sometimes they miss those deep old targets that get discrimbed out. Benefit, they cover more ground faster thus finding more items, but at the possibility of missing some deep items or items that were discrimed out.

thediggemalls: they set there machine wide open no discrim and max depth if they hear it they dig it. They don`t miss much but are sore as heck after a days digging. Benefit, finds those old deep items and items other machines discrim out as foil,tabs, poptops, and is in GREAT shape from all the digging.

I tend to be the latter, BUT in certain areas even I will use the descrimation to rule out some items, especially if i am in a junkyard. A man told me years ago, "the more ya dig the more ya find, the more ya disc the less ya find". Ain`t trying to say he was right nor wrong recken it just depends on the person reading it.

 

[E59]

That's some good advice and no offense taken. I will definately be tossing an old ring in the yard. I might look for a better metal detector before I go to FL or I'll try to find a way to rent a nice one if that's possible. Might be cheaper to buy one if we're gone longer than a week.

 

[TreasureTales]

That's some good advice and no offense taken. I will definately be tossing an old ring in the yard. I might look for a better metal detector before I go to FL or I'll try to find a way to rent a nice one if that's possible. Might be cheaper to buy one if we're gone longer than a week.

Well, you could do that....or you could get better acquainted with your current machine and then decide if you really want a new one or a rental. Frankly, the most important thing about metal detecting is knowing your equipment and becoming familiar with its idiosycracies. The most expensive, technologically advanced machine won't find a thing worthwhile if the user isn't familiar with it. If you're going to detect beaches in Florida, you need to keep in mind that salt water can ruin the internal workings of a detector. Don't drop it in the surf. Happy hunting, where ever you go. Good luck.

 

[Ant]

I’ll have to disagree with you guys on this, only because of the science of things. If you know different, please elaborate so I can learn. Thanks.

Unlike silver, which is high conductor, gold is a low conductor. Machines can fairly ID silver but they can’t ID gold. The successful land gold seeker needs a machine that can discriminate out iron, an iron discrimination mode. That makes a huge difference, as well as frequency.

I believe that a dedicated silver machine uses low deep seeking frequencies, just the opposite for gold. The frequency corresponds to how well the machine responds to a particular metal as well as the deep it will detect, lower freq’s more depth, high freq’s less depth.

When the coil on the gold machine I use passes over gold it gives off a signal that no doubt is a dig signal. It most likely won’t be gold, but you won’t pass over it if it is.

When you discriminate out iron, your trash and treasure looks like this:

 

[TreasureTales]

When I'm seriously looking for gold I don't use any discrimination at all, I run in the All Metals Mode on my machine. However, I'll occasionally find gold with the discrimination mode ON because I set the disc on low so that I don't ignore nickels.

 

[Ant]

When I'm seriously looking for gold I don't use any discrimination at all, I run in the All Metals Mode on my machine. However, I'll occasionally find gold with the discrimination mode ON because I set the disc on low so that I don't ignore nickels.

The GB-2, like other machines have a separate iron identification mode. It doesn't discrimate things out per say, it uses a separate test for iron. The Iron ID test is done by centering the target under the coil, a positive dig response give a solid squelch, and a negative no dig response is broken or chirpy squelch. That's what I talking about. So no need to dig everything with a gold machine.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

i even got a huge 10k ring under pull tab...last check, you needed to find 100+ pulltabs per ring.

HH
-GC

Well I'm glad to know I'm off in the right direction.

I think a lot of folks put too much confidence in the "masks" of their detectors. One reason I have not moved "up" to a fancier detector. I have a Musky with a simple dial sensitivity and I set it so she just reads nickel silver (of which I happen to wear a ring on my right hand). That's way down in bottle-cap, foil and other trash territory. But I also find white gold rings (1) and nickels (many, many). I think a lot of M/D folks pass over good objects when their detectors mask them within too restrictive a mask setting. Just because the image is of a pulltab it still blocks 1/16th or so of the scale; and ground minerals probably force most of us to filter out almost the lower 1/8, further reducng the spacing between segments. Filter out steel and you probably take nickles, too. Small and large gold rings bracket pull tabs, so if anything you get an "iffy" signal on what may be a beautiful ring or chain. The better detectors may have 140 or more segments, the lesser models as few as 14 or 16. Even the detectors that have an accept/reject button do so by a full segment and not an exact reading (at least I believe that is still so).

You'll never find a three cent silver if you aren't digging a LOT of trash. Screw caps are what kill me. MAN, they sound like silver dollars when they're uncrushed and top up in the soil.

 

[emesis]

Home shoppers network.

 

[TreasureTales]

The old style beer tabs (the ones that are not aluminum), they will get your heart pumping, too!!

B

Hmmm, which beer pulltabs aren't aluminum? I believe even the ring/finger loop type pulltabs were aluminum. I remember when pulltabs were first introduced (on aluminum cans) and they were aluminum too, weren't they? Bottle caps are steel, but the tabs were always aluminum unless they had something else in other states. I look forward to your answer because maybe I've missed something in my personal pulltab history/inventory. LOL