General Discussion: There's a big difference between hunting for coins, and finding rings, vs. hunting for rings and finding coins...

Mud-puppy said:

We are not so much going out to find gold rings, as we are out to find GOLD....

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Agreed!

Mud-puppy said:

Clad keeps a guy alive, profitable and very sharp to the everchanging travel patterns of Humans. Hunting rings in and of themselves is a time/profit wasting effort, seeings how most are junk now a days, but the location you find them in does tell a story, that should be noticed and processed...

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I agree that clad keeps us profitable. As I noted, I don't pass up coins. BUT... I make approximately 3x to 4x in ring sales every year, compared to the clad I find. Last year, I pulled over $1000 in clad, and over $3000 in ring sales (mostly gold, but I do sell quite a few silver and tungsten ones at $5-$10 a pop). If I focused solely on clad, I'll bet I could have made another $200-$300 in coins... but..> I would have traded that $300 for $3000 in gold. And before someone jumps in with, "Yeah, but that was ONE year!"... I've done that three years running. 3x-4x every year. This year I'm right at 2.8x, but suspect some more gold is just around the corner.

I've heard that gold is illusive, but frankly, EVERY place I've taken my metal detector to on a business trip, has resulted in some gold, when i can put more than 10-20 hours in. I have a hard time believing that if people are out looking for it, that they're not going to find it, unless they simply aren't willing to put in the work digging those signals. And YES... it's location location location...

But as a case-in-point, I have seen posts by you, where you've hit football fields that obviously were loaded with quarters, and you'll pull out $20-$40 in quarters in a day's session. Personally, if I was hitting a field like that, the last thing I'd be skipping is the ring signals, because I'd be CONVINCED there were gold rings waiting to be found under that clad. Yeah, you pulled out $40 in coins... But what'd you miss? that's the part that kills me. How many class rings, women's gold rings, or coach's gold rings did you miss out on? Maybe none... Maybe 4. never know until you've dug it. But the odds are nearly 100% that you miss them if you're only digging quarters.

I see that a lot, where people cherry pick quarters all day long... all the while passing up opportunities to pull out the really valuable items. They convince themselves their strategy is producing great levels of returns! and here's the rub... IT IS. It absolutely is a great return. $20 an hour detecting is freaking awesome! But $200-$400 in the same time, along with $15 in quarters is way beyond awesome. I regularly trade that few dollars an hour (if that, since I'm really only digging about 20 extra trash targets or so, at a loss of just a few minutes total time) for the chance to hit it big... and it pays off at least monthly.

Bottom line still stands... If you're out hunting rings, you'll find them. Sure 79% of them are junkers. But 8% gold and 13% Silver are more than enough to add up to a whole lot more fun that stacking quarters.

Second bottom line... Frankly, none of us are in this to actually get rich and retire... and if YOU (the reader) are reading through this saying, "But I LIKE to dig just coins." That's AWESOME. It's about the fun, the enjoyment, and the experience of getting out. That's the #1 point of why we all do this. If you don't like to dig the trash to hit the gold, and love how you're doing it... I strongly recommend you do what you love! That's what its all about.

I love rings. I love gold. Change goes into a Cool-Whip container and dumped into Coinstar about every 5 weeks. I don't even count it, until then. And I make enough that I have upgraded my system 3 times with 3 coils, and have all the accessories I want... plus gobs of extras just for fun. CLAD PAYS.

Cheers!

Mud-puppy said:

Its probably best to just stick to busting totter finds...a committed to success guy can pull good pay simply running a steady totter route and kicking chips for clad..no doubt will eventually find gold, silver, junk rings, paper money, jackets, food, dope pipes and skateboards...all sorts of stuff, knives, guns, old silver dollar coins that little Jimmy stole from old G'pas coin collection!...All sorts of stuff in the totters! Introductory rig and a cotton nail apron and off you go!...

With an elcheapo introductory rig, a guy could merely hit the totters! No kneepads, no pinpointer, no shovel even, just a swipe of the foot to reveal the target, work a steady route, modify accordingly as the seasons evolve and the herds change, no need to get all scientific and over think this...a guy would do better at the end of the year than most...

This is a great Sport! Biggest factor to success is to simply get out of the house and hunt!...'You gonna talk or you gonna fish?'

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Amen to that. and bless the detectorist who comes across a tot-lot that is filled to the brim.

I had mentioned "mud-wrestling pits". But as you can well imagine: This is a very niche and rare location. Not much "mud-wrestling" going on anywhere.

But the reason I brought it up, was that one time, I got called out to look for someone's lost gold ring. They had lost it during a segment of one of those "iron-man" events , where the crowd's last stop was at a giant mud fest. Where everyone gets into bathing trunks, and sloshes around and throws mud at each other (and guys sit around and oogle at the girls involved, I suppose).

The pit was created by making borders (with planks or whatever), then filling it with dirt and water, .... about the size of a basketball court. Then 100+ people go in for so-called mud wrestling.

By the time I got there to do the posse commissioned hunt for the guy, it was a few weeks later. The pit had been disassembled, and all the mud left to dry out. The caretaker of the property, upon seeing me detecting, came over to ask what I was doing. I explained that I was looking for a guy's ring.

But what followed next opened my eyes to how conducive this is to loss-of-rings: The caretaker guy (property of an adjacent restaurant tourist stop) said that this event was an annual event that had now gone on for several years. And he said that EVERY SINGLE YEAR, he sees people out there, combing the mud with their fingers following the event, looking for lost car keys, necklaces, rings, etc.... And that I wasn't the first md'r he'd seen out there.

It ended up that I didn't find the ring. But I found several personal clothing effects which showed the concept to be true: Things like zippers, buttons, misc. other jewelry (albeit not gold , nor the ring I was looking for), etc....

Trouble is, mud-wrestling isn't a wide-spread hobby, doh ! So swim beaches, where people are splashing their hands in the ebbing surf, and thrusting their hands into the wet-sand, is a close second

Tom_in_CA said:

I had mentioned "mud-wrestling pits". But as you can well imagine: This is a very niche and rare location. Not much "mud-wrestling" going on anywhere.

But the reason I brought it up, was that one time, I got called out to look for someone's lost gold ring. They had lost it during a segment of one of those "iron-man" events , where the crowd's last stop was at a giant mud fest. Where everyone gets into bathing trunks, and sloshes around and throws mud at each other (and guys sit around and oogle at the girls involved, I suppose).

The pit was created by making borders (with planks or whatever), then filling it with dirt and water, .... about the size of a basketball court. Then 100+ people go in for so-called mud wrestling.

By the time I got there to do the posse commissioned hunt for the guy, it was a few weeks later. The pit had been disassembled, and all the mud left to dry out. The caretaker of the property, upon seeing me detecting, came over to ask what I was doing. I explained that I was looking for a guy's ring.

But what followed next opened my eyes to how conducive this is to loss-of-rings: The caretaker guy (property of an adjacent restaurant tourist stop) said that this event was an annual event that had now gone on for several years. And he said that EVERY SINGLE YEAR, he sees people out there, combing the mud with their fingers following the event, looking for lost car keys, necklaces, rings, etc.... And that I wasn't the first md'r he'd seen out there.

It ended up that I didn't find the ring. But I found several personal clothing effects which showed the concept to be true: Things like zippers, buttons, misc. other jewelry (albeit not gold , nor the ring I was looking for), etc....

Trouble is, mud-wrestling isn't a wide-spread hobby, doh ! So swim beaches, where people are splashing their hands in the ebbing surf, and thrusting their hands into the wet-sand, is a close second

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Thanks for the explanation.. I have been wondering for quite sometime where you were coming from as I had seen you touch on this type of location in previous posts.. HOWEVER.. I DO remember Mud Wrestling back in the 80's in So Cal.. was a fairly big thing.

Stiffwrists said:

I really appreciate this post. Today I went on a hour or so hunt targeting rings. I dug any good sounding 40 and above signal on my AT Max. On this hunt, I targeted a large, recently built (within the last 10 years) soccer field/park. I concentrated on the sidelines and where I thought the coaches and players may have placed their stuff while playing. Here are my results. I did dig much more zincs and can slaw than I usually dig. I was surprised that many of the lower tone signals were nickels rather than garbage.

15 canslaw/foil
2 bottle caps
3 poptops
2 keys
2 quarters
2 dimes
18 zinc Penny's
5 nickels
1 sweet silver ring

This was the first hunt that I dug more nickels than quarters and dimes combined.

Skippy, is this a pretty typical ring targeting hunt?

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Good grief, Stiffwrists. I just found I never answered you!

Yes, that's a pretty typical ring targeting hunt. At some point (or by now), you've probably figured out how to discern a penny vs. something that "might" be a penny. I don't dig pure penny signals very often any more. only those that aren't perfect. Helps increase the find rate by cutting down the time digging zincolns.

I am certain that I've passed over the occasional gold ring. While I did detect 3 gold rings in 2019, 3 in 2018, and 2 in 2017, I tend to chase Silver Coins and often do not dig signals in the high 40's to high 60's on my AT Pro. I do get a lot of Sterling Silver jewelry, probably 70 or more rings and religious pendants with the AT Pro, as most of them ring up as pennies or higher and have a nice high tone. Almost all my jewelry finds in the three years of detecting are incidental to coin hunting. Though I must say that when I am detecting a good yard that has good targets, I do chase and dig the mid tones and have found jewelry.

Nice CTR ring!
So Skippy, I got over 200 rings last year, but only 3 were gold. All of the gold were fresh drops. All TIDs were in the tab/foil range. Location? Carnival. School. Baseball diamond. The second gold in 3 years from the same baseball field.
The question is: How do you target the dirt locations to find something other than fresh drops? I've dug enough aluminum !!!! to build a boat. It does get a little boring after awhile.

wasatchau said:

Nice CTR ring!
So Skippy, I got over 200 rings last year, but only 3 were gold. All of the gold were fresh drops. All TIDs were in the tab/foil range. Location? Carnival. School. Baseball diamond. The second gold in 3 years from the same baseball field.
The question is: How do you target the dirt locations to find something other than fresh drops? I've dug enough aluminum !!!! to build a boat. It does get a little boring after awhile.

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Some of it comes from the fact, that there are plenty of detectorists out there, who target primarily silver range items. I hit lots of parks and schools and eventually find some that are picked over pretty hard, but all the mid-range stuff is left in the ground. Those are my TOP choices to start weeding through the trash to find the gold.

The thing about gold is that it adds up so much faster than silver does, that it just "makes sense" to me to target it, even though the find rates are much lower.

Take for example, Loves the Shiny!'s post describing how he primarily taking silver out of the ground. The fact that he's found 70 silver jewelry makes me think that he's probably left close to a dozen golds in the ground. I usually find silver to gold at a ratio of about 3:1. If people are losing silver rings, you can bet they're also losing gold ones.

Coming behind LovestheShiny! you'd probably think, "oh this area is hunted out, with only trash left." Those are the places I target. I cannot tell you how many detectorists I've run into that rarely (if ever) have found gold... in an elementary school, I've pulled several out of.

If you're skipping the signals, unless you run into a BIG piece (ringing up in penny/dime range), you're likely just missing the gold.

Bottom line, is you should be looking at Location Location Location, not targeting trash. The idea that you have to dig 10,000 pop tabs to a gold is rediculous. I find one to about 400. I don't target areas with lots of pop-tabs unless there is a REASON for there to be gold there (such as next to the ONLY tree next to a skate park... yeah, there's going to be trash... but there's probably jewelry there, too!)

Cheers!

Skippy

Nic thread..I’ve always been a coin hunter and did great on the old coin count.Last year,I wasn’t getting out as much and figured I wanted some gold ..I think I’ve only found 4 gold rings ever,and they were by luck,i wasn’t digging everything..
So,a few months back I started digging everything,trash,coins,even a few hypodermic needles came out of the ground at our park..I’ve had to empty my finds pouch because it got to heavy,which has never happened coinhunting.
Looking for gold is not easy,that’s for sure.Ive actually switched from heavy deep hitting coin machines to lighter starter machines just because I’m digging so much trash now within 5 inches that I don’t wanna dig 8 inch trash targets..Haven’t found any gold yet,or any jewlery for that matter..But I know eventually I will,so until then I just keep plugging away

woodbutcher said:

Nic thread..I’ve always been a coin hunter and did great on the old coin count.Last year,I wasn’t getting out as much and figured I wanted some gold ..I think I’ve only found 4 gold rings ever,and they were by luck,i wasn’t digging everything..
So,a few months back I started digging everything,trash,coins,even a few hypodermic needles came out of the ground at our park..I’ve had to empty my finds pouch because it got to heavy,which has never happened coinhunting.
Looking for gold is not easy,that’s for sure.Ive actually switched from heavy deep hitting coin machines to lighter starter machines just because I’m digging so much trash now within 5 inches that I don’t wanna dig 8 inch trash targets..Haven’t found any gold yet,or any jewlery for that matter..But I know eventually I will,so until then I just keep plugging away

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Review where you're hunting. If people aren't likely to set the jewelry down (such as when they're greasing up kids with sunscreen, or to keep them "safe" during sports) finding gold can be a real longshot.

Try finding local parks in subdivisions big enough to have soccer practice in. Then hit the edges of the park (about 4-5 strips of metal detecting into the field from the edge). Then look for trees or bushes or spots where people would be likely to put stuff down.

Cheers!

Skippy SH13 said:

Review where you're hunting. If people aren't likely to set the jewelry down (such as when they're greasing up kids with sunscreen, or to keep them "safe" during sports) finding gold can be a real longshot.

Try finding local parks in subdivisions big enough to have soccer practice in. Then hit the edges of the park (about 4-5 strips of metal detecting into the field from the edge). Then look for trees or bushes or spots where people would be likely to put stuff down.

Cheers!

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Thanks for the info
Any depth to any of your ring finds, or are they usually shallow? I recently bought a compadre wit the 5.75 coil for this reason, find jewlery...

sand and mud wrestle pits? Man you guys got everything in CA. I guess the only thing you might be low on are civil war battle sites. But other than that you guys can do your research and have a wide variety of choices.

Women here in Georgia don't need sand or mud wrestling pits. Any bar is a good venue for woman on woman fights and of course in our Atlanta ghettos if you got the gonads to venture in that part of town. Even a wedding is a good occasion for a woman spat.

I know of someone on this forum who probably organizes mud wrestling fights. He lives in Michigan.

Off topic but....yes the 80s was big for mud wrestling in So.Cal. A friend was getting married so I took him out to a strip club. They had a 10x10 ring filled with mud. It was $20 per girl at the time for 5 minutes of wrestling. I paid for 3 girls to wrestle my buddy. They even provided a bathing suit for him. Pretty much 3 naked hotties covered in mud , wrapped up like a pretzel around my buddy as a disco ball is flashing overhead with Motley Crue's "girls,girls,girls" pounding in the background. It was a drunk fest I will never forget and the best $60 gift I ever spent.

Just a quick addition in regards to hunting locations. When I'm looking for a new park to hunt, I'll get on google maps and look around. If you click on the name of the park, you can see reviews and pictures that people have posted at that park, and they'll often post pictures of big events, soccer games, etc that took place there. Viewing the pictures is a good way of identifying which parks host events like that, and also where the people are congregating at that park.

Moral of the story: dig it all, coin signal or not. Anything above a 45 on the AT series can be a ring. If you're out for gold you're gonna have to dig pull tabs and can slaw. I've also dug silver rings that sound almost identical to zinc pennies, copper pennies and clad dimes. If you want tips on ring hunting, I recommend checking out MDing ETex with Kevin's YouTube channel. He mainly searches places like schools and parks, and knows what he's doing. I'll post the link to his channel below.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnCY8zEbLouh_S7MHnFyI2Q

woodbutcher said:

Thanks for the info
Any depth to any of your ring finds, or are they usually shallow? I recently bought a compadre wit the 5.75 coil for this reason, find jewlery...

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Coil size is less important than willingness to dig a signal. I run a 14.5 NEL Thunder.

As for depth, I've found them everywhere between suface and 8" (which is my "legal depth" for hunting around here. I set my sensitivity accordingly. It's not an issue, since most places here are less than 30 years old, and once you get past the sandy turf (usually sod), it's pretty hard stuff. Most stuff settles at that 3-4" mark on the hard pan.

Skippy

Bagelbites said:

Just a quick addition in regards to hunting locations. When I'm looking for a new park to hunt, I'll get on google maps and look around. If you click on the name of the park, you can see reviews and pictures that people have posted at that park, and they'll often post pictures of big events, soccer games, etc that took place there. Viewing the pictures is a good way of identifying which parks host events like that, and also where the people are congregating at that park.

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Nice addition Bagelbites. I do the same thing. I went on a finding spree in 2018, that was 100% Google Earthed. Found something like 8 gold rings in 3 months. All from looking for small parks in neighborhoods. Was AWESOME.

Skippy

Mason B said:

Moral of the story: dig it all, coin signal or not. Anything above a 45 on the AT series can be a ring. If you're out for gold you're gonna have to dig pull tabs and can slaw. I've also dug silver rings that sound almost identical to zinc pennies, copper pennies and clad dimes. If you want tips on ring hunting, I recommend checking out MDing ETex with Kevin's YouTube channel. He mainly searches places like schools and parks, and knows what he's doing. I'll post the link to his channel below.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnCY8zEbLouh_S7MHnFyI2Q

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Anything over 39... Found some REALLY tiny stuff in elementary schools that was 10k. Kid rings. Thin,... like .6 grams.

I'm willing to bet they were left behind because most folks would have discriminated it out with Iron.

Skippy.

Skippy SH13 said:

Anything over 39... Found some REALLY tiny stuff in elementary schools that was 10k. Kid rings. Thin,... like .6 grams.

I'm willing to bet they were left behind because most folks would have discriminated it out with Iron.

Skippy.

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That's crazy. Never heard of such a low vdi for a ring. The only good target I would expect out of a modern school that rang up that low would be a little chain or something. The lowest ring vdi I've gotten was a turn of the century baby's ring. Scratchy 47 in the woods by a home site. When I'm at old sites I pretty much dig it all. Any non ferrous targets, repeatable or not, deep or shallow. Low tones can pay off more than you'd expect. Love digging the big iron too. Found lots of great iron relics from that over the years.

When I target rings of gold I concentrate on 40 to 53 on my at pro. But if it's a solid signal I dig.
My last three gold rings rang up about 45 I think it was and hard hitting signals. All three were within a foot of each other! Weird huh?