You have to dig EVERTHING!!!

[aa battery]

These nickels came from the Army Air Base i have been hunting and i tried to clean a couple but gave up. If i didnt dig everything out there i would of never found this many. My Garrett gtax 550 is not the best MD but whatever you use try to dig each signal....aa

 

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[Charlie P. (NY)]

But digging everything makes all these new fangled machines with all those fancy high dollar features obsolete! Oh well!! So much for all those new fangled units!

Did that child just say the Emperor has no clothes?

I have a Minelab Musketeer Advantage that does a bang-up job of telling me there is something metallic below the ground. By playing the knobs and listening carefully I can tell ahead of time on about 80% of the hits what it may be.

But there are days, especially around picnic pavilions, that I want to dig coins and ignore foil, pull-tabs, bottlecaps and the aluminum can slaw (thought this can be tough for any detector IMHO). That's when the discrimination and notch can be a worthwhile luxury. Or around an old house or that same picnic pavilion after the roofers have shoveled and rained nails down on top of coins. Something with a bit of iron discrimination with a tad of "see through" capability is a back and time saver.

Wait for another 10 years or so when the roofs that currently have aluminum nails get to be 25 or 30 years old and start to fail. You think iron nails are a pest? At least a magnet lifts them off the site of the roofers are conscientious.

 

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[Shortstack]

Stick those nickels into a potato. I hear is takes off all the junk

Fishstank

Takes mercury off of gold hmmm

Actually, the potato only CATCHES the mercury when it's baked in a fire. The heat of the fire causes the mercury to vaporize into the 'meat' of the 'tater. To recover the merk, process the 'tater meat with a retort OR do it the easier way by crumbling the tater in a plastic bucket of water. The mercury will sink, and the potato material will float---mostly. Another way is to squeeze the potato with a hunk of suede leather. The merk will go through the suede material and the tater won't . There are more steps involved, but I won't go into them here.

 

[aa battery]

Stick those nickels into a potato. I hear is takes off all the junk

Fishstank

Takes mercury off of gold hmmm

Actually, the potato only CATCHES the mercury when it's baked in a fire. The heat of the fire causes the mercury to vaporize into the 'meat' of the 'tater. To recover the merk, process the 'tater meat with a retort OR do it the easier way by crumbling the tater in a plastic bucket of water. The mercury will sink, and the potato material will float---mostly. Another way is to squeeze the potato with a hunk of suede leather. The merk will go through the suede material and the tater won't . There are more steps involved, but I won't go into them here.

I knew that

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I thought you stuck it in a can of tuna to catch the Mercury?

I'm so cornfused.

 

[Rifleman]

I thought you stuck it in a can of tuna to catch the Mercury?

I'm so cornfused.

I tried the tuna can thing and it just coated my gold with more mercury and then no one would buy it because of the smell.

 

[dogcaught]

I know what you mean about constantly digging junk, foil, and clad at best. I got in the VERY BAD habit of only digging promising signals (high tones), and after reading this forum and others, i changed back to digging all repeatable targets. After making this change, on about my 3rd low tone, i unearthed an 1867 Shield Nickel two days ago. My oldest and best find to date. I'm glad i switched back, but i feel SICK thinking about those recent low repeatable tones i have heard, and the choice i made to walk on by. DIG THEM ALL!!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

dogcaught, if you got a shield nickel wherever you were hunting, then you, from the START, were at a place where perhaps a person would be wise to "dig all". But there are other hunt site locations where...... I can gaurantee you ...... you can dig all for an entire week, and at best, get jefferson modern nickels and thousands of can slaw, tabs, foil globs, etc... True, the 150th signal might be a gold ring (or shield nickel that a gopher brought up from deeper), but it's a question of odds. At some point, you have to ask yourself "is it worth it in this place? Will I go crazy on my way to the one keeper?"

Back in the late 1970s, a fellow in our town had the first 6000D that had come out about a year earlier. He was having a field day digging silver in the parks, since, at that time, the 6000d was so revolutionary for park/silver hunting. After a few months of that, and a few hundred silver coins, he reasoned: "there must be some gold rings and/or buffalo and V nickels I'm missing since I'm passing foil and tabs". So one day, he marks out an area about 20 ft. square, in an area of the park where he'd been getting old silver. He turned down the disc. to *just* enough to knock out iron, and proceeded to dig every single signal. At the end of several hours, he had an apron full of aluminum, and a single dateless buffalo nickel. He decided that ..... in that same period of time .... he could have had several silver coins, and have dug 30x less holes. He decided that, for gold jewelry hunting.... his time was better spent on the beach.