I have found 100's of old coins, rings, necklaces ect with nothing but my Ace 250. Thats over a span of 8 years or so, I don't know if I'm lucky or what but I have found quite a few unhunted areas and pulled up coins and relics that weren't all that deep [practical limit for a 250 on a coin sized object is about 7"]
Never really got into parks, not because I thought they are hunted out but because I can't tolerate large amounts of trash. I hunt in ghettos, I hunt in suburbs, I hunt beaches and all kinds of odd places because ny 250 is in my truck all summer long, so wherever and whenever the mood strikes I detect.
I do some research and try to find the lay of the land in my area 100 years ago and have had some success at that. I have upgraded detectors including AT pro for water, F75SE for better depth and just got an Ace 400 which I have barely used yet, but don't feel you have to spend $2,500 to find good targets, that simply is not the case. More swings, more dings more rings - Like anything else, you'll get what you put into it.
I've had my dry spells, went almost all of last summer with no silver coins and few rings, then towards the end of summer I lucked into an old hot spot when I yanked out dozens of silver and buffalo nickels, then went on a run where I found 6 gold rings and 15 silvers in the span of a week. Lucky ? Persistent ? Karma ? Who knows, but it just as well could have been you or anyone else, so keep at it, don't expect silver to fly out of the ground at you ,,, I look at every signal as a present, you never know what it is until you open it [dig it up].
Nature of the game, you will find alot lot lot more tabs, foils and bottlecaps than rings, but you can't safely ignore them else you'll pass up rings. I pretty much dig it all in jewelry mode, except at tot lots where I tend to ignore penny signals, but even them occasionally something good rings up in the penny range.
