Hunting my own back yard without success

[coinbug]

I live in a heritage home with a big yard.

To date, hunting it with my Fisher Gold Bug (original) I've only found one coin: an 1885 English half-penny. I found it when I had the front sidewalk replaced; I searched after the old sidewalk was removed. The half-penny was the only hit in the sidewalk area, which is unusual as the rest of the yard is full of nails and junk.

In fact, I've dug countless nails, wire pieces, staples and so on, without a single coin or piece of jewelry. I've found more good stuff - old marbles and relics - just digging fence post holes.

With my detector I'm digging down to at least 8 inches. Could it be that I'm not digging deep enough - that I should be digging fainter signals?

Any tips or thoughts appreciated!

 

[Produce Guy]

Learn your detector,You Tube videos will help,and maybe make a test bed in your own yard. Good Luck!

 

[coinbug]

Thanks. I was thinking of making a test bed.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

I live in a heritage home with a big yard.

To date, hunting it with my Fisher Gold Bug (original) I've only found one coin: an 1885 English half-penny. I found it when I had the front sidewalk replaced; I searched after the old sidewalk was removed. The half-penny was the only hit in the sidewalk area, which is unusual as the rest of the yard is full of nails and junk.

In fact, I've dug countless nails, wire pieces, staples and so on, without a single coin or piece of jewelry. I've found more good stuff - old marbles and relics - just digging fence post holes.

With my detector I'm digging down to at least 8 inches. Could it be that I'm not digging deep enough - that I should be digging fainter signals?

Any tips or thoughts appreciated!

well, here's a thought: Are you aware that the Fisher Gold Bug is a nugget machine? Not designed for use as a coin (coin/relic/jewelry) machine. Oh sure, it can FIND coins. So its ability find coins is not what's in question. But rather, that the problem is going to be, that anyone attempting to use such a machine in a coin-environment (yards, parks, campgrounds, etc...) is going to be in for a harsh wakeup call about the amount of teeennssssy little flitty trash. You know, like you say: staples, pinheads, etc...

Coin/jewelry machines are more akin for the task you have. They have discrimination to knock out nails, staples, pins, etc... (and quite frankly, can't find items as small as pin-heads to begin with).

Each type machine is built from the ground up for their express purpose: nugget guys want a machine that can find pinhead and grain of rice size stuff to deep depths, while coin/relic guys want the ability to ignore such things, while getting coin-sized targets to maximum depth.

 

[coinbug]

Yes, I know the Goldbug is designed for gold nuggets; that's why I bought mine. I've tried using it for that, and have to confess that I find hunting for gold quite challenging physically; despite living in passable gold country I've never found a nugget.

Would it be better for me to buy a machine designed for coin/jewelry hunting, or to learn how to use my Goldbug to do that?

Edit: Re-reading your post the answer to my question is to buy a detector with discrimination, and then learn to use the Goldbug better if I choose, there being no downside to that.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

as you deduce, it's not much fun to try to use a nugget machine, for coin-hunting venues. Use the gold-bug for nuggets, if you decide to try your hand at prospecting.

Yes, nuggets can be hard! The guys that do it have to learn a long curve of where to go, is one of the main things. Not just "turn the machine on anywhere in the Sierra Nevadas" type thing (or wherever your nugget region happens to be).

You can always float the gold bug on ebay, then use the proceeds to buy a standard coin machine.

 

[TerryC]

Keep the bug.... and save for another machine.... with discrimination. Best of both worlds! TTC