VDI's - 18 and 19

Tony-Ok

Jr. Member
Jun 27, 2019
28
46
Oklahoma City Ok
Detector(s) used
XP ORX and Minelab 540
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
On my 540 a US $5.00 gold coin reads solid 18, so I try to did all 18s , bad thing is many square pull tabs also read 18. HH Tony
 

67GTA

Sr. Member
Dec 3, 2017
252
316
Franklin, KY
Detector(s) used
Equinox 800 XP Deus 2 Vanquish 540
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
If you dig enough pull tabs they would be valuable :laughing7: 18-19 could also be zinc pennies or even an IHP. If you're hunting in heavy iron it can drag the VDI down. Found a merc dime last year that only rang up at 16.
 

OP
OP
monkeys uncle

monkeys uncle

Full Member
Mar 26, 2014
175
145
Waxahachie, Tx
Detector(s) used
Vanquish 440, E-Trac, Fisher F-Pulse pin-pointer
Primary Interest:
Other
Pretty much agree with all your responses. My problem with VDI 18, I think is that I used to teach Statistics and "18" seems to have a VERY, V E R Y LOW probability of yielding anything except pull tabs and I'm toooooo old with toooooo little time left to be interested in digging them. No one wants to "walk over" a $5.00 gold pc...but, I ask myself "what are the odds??". It's a danged dilemma toying with my thought process...or what's left of it. :dontknow: :icon_scratch:

As it is, I usually ignore them...but...that really doesn't work either. Now ya know WHY I posted in the first place. :occasion18:
 

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Back-of-the-boat

Gold Member
Apr 18, 2013
6,874
8,473
California
Detector(s) used
AT GOLD/Garrett /C.Scope cs4PI/Garrett(carrot) pro pointer/ 5x8 double d coil and sniper coil/Lesche digger/Lesche "T" handle shovel.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
The problem is that pull tabs and gold ring up in the same numbers.
 

OP
OP
monkeys uncle

monkeys uncle

Full Member
Mar 26, 2014
175
145
Waxahachie, Tx
Detector(s) used
Vanquish 440, E-Trac, Fisher F-Pulse pin-pointer
Primary Interest:
Other
The problem is that pull tabs and gold ring up in the same numbers.

True...BUT there are significant differences in their quantities. Gazillions (and growing) versus "maybe" thousands (fixed) and if I didn't have an abundance of bad luck...I wouldn't have any luck at all. 8-)
 

The-Bone

Sr. Member
Nov 13, 2007
326
24
North East,Pa
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Detector(s) used
Ace 250, Whites Silver Eagle, BHID,M6,CZ21
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I just took my brand new 540 out on its first hunt and here are my initial thoughts...1. the damn thing is super sensitive. i even had the sensitivity backed off 3 or 4 notches and was pulling solid signals out of some pretty nasty soil. 2. i am a long time Whites user and am really in tune with their VDI system. The VDI scale on the minelab machines seems to be 1/2 that of Whites. So...many more targets(both good and bad) look to be jammed into the same VDI range. I knew the VDI's like the back of my hand on my M6 but this is going to be a tougher machine to figure out. There's very little VDI seperation between targets. Thats my only complaint so far with this machine. 18-19 and i was pulling pennies, 22 casings and junk. Problem is this sucker is also DEEP. so digging an 8inch hole for pulltabs kinda sucks(and i was using the small 8 inch coil. Like the machine just wished they ran 0 to 99 VDI scale
 

supertraq

Sr. Member
May 8, 2014
402
152
Pcola fl
Detector(s) used
Fisher cz6a,,,Fisher cz-20,,,,Teknetics gamma 6000,,"Tek Eurotek pro ,,Fisher gold bug s.e 2.9er,,Tek T2 ltd se,,Tek T2+,,Minelab Vanquish 540 and 340 and a new Nokta Legend and Garret Infinium
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Yep

Has anyone recovered anything of value with either VDI on their Vanquish? Please advise. I'll hang up and listen. :help:

10k gold ring i.ds 18 on my 540 & 340
 

pulltabfelix

Bronze Member
Jan 29, 2018
1,006
1,624
North Atlanta
Detector(s) used
Currently have CTX3030 and Vanquish 440.
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Pretty much agree with all your responses. My problem with VDI 18, I think is that I used to teach Statistics and "18" seems to have a VERY, V E R Y LOW probability of yielding anything except pull tabs and I'm toooooo old with toooooo little time left to be interested in digging them. No one wants to "walk over" a $5.00 gold pc...but, I ask myself "what are the odds??". It's a danged dilemma toying with my thought process...or what's left of it. :dontknow: :icon_scratch:

As it is, I usually ignore them...but...that really doesn't work either. Now ya know WHY I posted in the first place. :occasion18:

You can use those stats to your advantage depending on where you are hunting. On a beach, you have a much higher probability of getting ring just because sunscreen + jewelry + surf = rings. So on an ocean beach dig everything above iron. Hunting Civil War relics you probably will never find many rings so just ignore the 18's. I trashy park, maybe some ring but certainly lots of pull tabs and pop tops so only dig 18 if you are really serious about trying to find a ring that day. Expensive rings are on ocean beaches, cheap rings are in public parks.

So the stats on probably finds at different types of hunting sites are the most important stats in my opinion.
 

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