Deep Seeker...a few more things about gold.
A picture is worth about a thousand words and I have posted these pics of most of the gold I have found over the years to illustrate how gold can come in and behave and many hunters have said it helped them to understand this stuff better.
The numbers you see are from Fishers, here is a legend to compare to better common targets.
Foil on Fishers range from about 16 to 27...some have found small gold even lower into the very low 20's but I have found a few starting at 24 which is where condiment packages hit also.
This includes that small 14k heart ring and a pretty big channel wedding ring with diamonds that was white gold.
Nickels on my Fishers range from about 28-35.
Zincolns come in at the low 60's like 61-63 or so...48-52 is still zinc but very low zinc like can slaw.
White gold can be mixed with a few metals to make them that silvery color, mixed with silver they come in higher, mixed with nickel they come in lower.
The two side by side channel rings is eye opening...the 10k white gold one on the left is way bigger than the yellow 10k gold ring on the right but came in way lower at 24 vs the yellow one that was more into the nickel/tab area.
I have one or two other white gold rings that came in higher into tab/nickel but they had to be alloyed with silver...not nickel.
Notice the Neena ring...it is actually pretty small but came in very high because it is high karat 22k.
Normally a lower karat ring like this would come in way lower.
On a club hunt a few years ago a member found a very tiny gold ring that was so small it barely fit on the tip of my pinky finger.
On every detector that swung over it that thing came in as a solid dime because it was marked .999...solid 24k.
Every gold target I have ever dug, (which were all shallow from 2-5" deep), have come in super solid on all my detectors and on my Tesoros with no clicks, pops, fuzziness or noise as I dialed the knob past the fade out point and then back down which is the way I do it on all targets to figure them out.
They were all silent and then just...came in where trash usually is much more noisy.
Deeper gold might act differently and some other gold might too but for me not one of them ever has to this point.
As far as those big gold class rings I discovered that on my analog Tesoros the sound of these bigger pieces, and maybe some smaller but very high karat gold too I suspect, has a different sound than any other targets I have swung over using my Tesoros.
It is quite unique, the sound is clear and sustaining as the most perfectly cast bell you have ever heard and a bit longer than most with sharp ends to that tone.
It is my holy grail sound that I have heard only twice in my life but every time I take a Tesoro out on a hunt my biggest wish is to hear it again just once more.
The first time I heard it was using a Compadre.
I got a signal that came in, (or faded out if you thumb that knob up), at the 3:00 area on my disc knob the same as most other full zincolns do.
I didn't recognize it at the time, to me it sounded like a solid, full zincoln and when that big class ring popped up I was shocked.
A few months later hunting with my Vaquero in a trash filled site next to a picnic pavilion I heard it again but that unique sound must have gotten into my head, heart and DNA after that first and only time because on this one it stopped me dead in my tracks and rocked me back on my heels the instant I heard it.
This was the only time in my career that I knew 100% that I was swinging over big gold or any gold before I dug it...the only time.
I hope you hear that sound sometime in your career because I assume this kind of target will sound the same on most Tesoros.
Once it happens to you you will understand and to me there is not many more thrilling experiences as this that you can have doing this great hobby
