Myers Depot Metal Detectors

Buying gold to test detectors

needler420 said:
I am trying to learn the different sounds and signals my metal detectors give. I have all my base metals but only silver as a precious metal. I need gold, platinum and palladium.. ....
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I have read through all the replies on this thread so far, and only Jason's is the only to give the "aha moment" so far :


Jason in Enid said:
.... your detector has ZERO clue what is under it and is only giving responses to pre-programmed expectations. The size of the target, the shape of the target, the thickness of the target, the depth of the target, the minerals between the detector and the target, other targets close to the target, EMI interference all play roles in the repsonse you get....
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Or put another way: The detectors TID (graphs, #'s, tones, etc....) are not reading COMPOSITION (eg. gold, silver, brass, platinum, etc...). They are only reading conductivity. And ... unfortunately, that gets screwed around with via size ! Also purities (alloys, karats, etc...).

For the size and mass concept, here's the easiest way to explain/show this:

Take an aluminum can. Snip out a thumbnail size piece. Test it. It will read around nickel. Right ? Ok, now wave an entire aluminum can. What does it read ? Penny or dime or quarter. Right ? Ok, what changed ?? Nothing! ONLY THE SIZE ! The composition, in all cases, was exactly the same: ALUMINUM.

So too is it for gold : A teensy gold ring might read in the foil range. A mid sized gold ring might read tab. A fat men's 10k ARMY ring might read zinc penny. A $20 gold piece (or entire gold bar) can read penny or quarter.

And don't forget gold come in endless purities (and shapes and sizes): 9k, 10k, 14k, 18k, 22, and pure 24k. A small 24k gold ring might read in the penny range (because there are no alloys). But a small14k gold ring might read at nickel.

See ?
 
Jason in Enid said:
What you are asking really requires an entire book to explain. The nickel-edition of it is that your detector has ZERO clue what is under it and is only giving responses to pre-programmed expectations. The size of the target, the shape of the target, the thickness of the target, the depth of the target, the minerals between the detector and the target, other targets close to the target, EMI interference all play roles in the repsonse you get.

IF YOU WANT GOLD (or any jewelry really), DIG EVERYTHING THAT ISNT IRON.
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Great Explanation Jason ! I had read something similar to your explanation several years ago ( I can't remember where ) but I believe the way you have written this is more concise and to the point . This gives credence to the saying the best discriminator is your brain .
 
needler420 said:
I am trying to learn the different sounds and signals my metal detectors give. I have all my base metals but only silver as a precious metal. I need gold, platinum and palladium..

Is it worth taking out gold bars from a Assay card to test it? I have 3 different metal detectors between my family and no one owns anything that is gold to test. Plenty of silver but no gold or any other precious metal. I am debating picking up about a gram of gold for my tests and novelty purposes. Not really as a investment even though it is.:laughing: All the gold I see comes in Assay cards and capsules etc. I plan on taking it out and burying it in dirt and doing the same with some platinum and palladium. I been checking the costume jewelry at flea markets and thrift stores but no luck.
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Man, I wish! I wish there was a detector that could tell gold from aluminum, or other metals. But no...they're right. The sounds/signals your metal detector gives is not based on what type of metal it detects, but rather the size, shape, density, etc. of the metal object(s) it is detecting. Testing with pure bars of various metals will not give you any real world detector signal knowledge whatsoever. Testing a gold bar will tell you what a gold bar sounds like, but not what gold sounds like. Testing a 5 gram 14K yellow gold wedding band will tell you what a 5 gram 14K yellow gold wedding band in that same orientation and depth, and soil will "likely" sound like/signal as.
Discrimination, now, is a long-winded subject. Use it to have your machine ignore known junk type signals...or don't.
 
Foragist said:
Man, I wish! I wish there was a detector that could tell gold from aluminum, or other metals. But no...they're right. The sounds/signals your metal detector gives is not based on what type of metal it detects, but rather the size, shape, density, etc. of the metal object(s) it is detecting. ....
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There has been a few dreamers (some who should know better) that have come onto forums saying that gold "sounds different". They think that .... even though the TID's might be exactly the same (TID, cursor placement, numerical readouts, etc...), yet gold sounds "more mellow" or "smoother" or .... other such audio differences.

And anytime jokers/dreamers such as this say such things, the quickest way to put an end to such nonsense, is to invite them out to the nearest blighted inner city junky park. Turn them loose. See what their ratio of gold to aluminum actually is. And then ..... presto, you will hear the sound of crickets :laughing:
 
Tom_in_CA said:
There has been a few dreamers (some who should know better) that have come onto forums saying that gold "sounds different". They think that .... even though the TID's might be exactly the same (TID, cursor placement, numerical readouts, etc...), yet gold sounds "more mellow" or "smoother" or .... other such audio differences.

And anytime jokers/dreamers such as this say such things, the quickest way to put an end to such nonsense, is to invite them out to the nearest blighted inner city junky park. Turn them loose. See what their ratio of gold to aluminum actually is. And then ..... presto, you will hear the sound of crickets :laughing:
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The closest I have found to that idea, is based on the shape of the object. A ring will give a very good, very solid VDI response. Metal detectors seem to love a round shaped item and a ring shaped item even more. Tabs are often a "little" more jumpy in terms of VDI.

OF course, there are plenty of tabs that give solid VDI, and there is lots of gold not oriented flat which will warble the tone a bit, plus bent rings, broken rings, earrings, chains...
 
needler420 said:
Does platinum or palladium have any distinctive tones I need to pay attention too when discriminating against other base metals?

Would having a specimen sample of either one for testing be beneficial in allowing me to discriminate any other base metal. I am trying to have a sense of what I dig before I dig it. Do I just have to dig everything that goes beep with a cheap detector to find any precious metals.? Why does my detectors have discrimination modes. Does it only discriminate against other base metals allowing to identify other base metals easier and not and precious metals?
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discrimination is for when you get tired of finding pull tabs while searching for gold and want to find coins. The machine doesn't know what kind of metal it is.
Normally a gold ring that is still good and round and laying flat will give a solid signal that doesn't jump around as much as a trash signal, unless the trash is good and round and laying flat. If you are after gold you have to dig everything above iron. I start off digging everything that doesn't jump around, but after a while I get tired of trash and go after coins
 
Tom_in_CA said:
There has been a few dreamers (some who should know better) that have come onto forums saying that gold "sounds different". They think that .... even though the TID's might be exactly the same (TID, cursor placement, numerical readouts, etc...), yet gold sounds "more mellow" or "smoother" or .... other such audio differences.

And anytime jokers/dreamers such as this say such things, the quickest way to put an end to such nonsense, is to invite them out to the nearest blighted inner city junky park. Turn them loose. See what their ratio of gold to aluminum actually is. And then ..... presto, you will hear the sound of crickets :laughing:
Click to expand...

Everytime I dig a gold sounding signal, I say to myself, "This sounds like gold. Please be gold" The ONE time I dug a gold ring, I was right!! It sounded just like gold! :D:lol:
 
Mud-puppy said:
Gold is a cruel Mistress, and its a fools errand for a Detectorist to woo her with any kind of rational thought..
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Do you consider it a cruel twist of fate or divine intervention that pulltabs and metal detectors appeared at the same time? Could you imagine what detecting would be like if there were no tabs?
 
Jason in Enid said:
The closest I have found to that idea, is based on the shape of the object. A ring will give a very good, very solid VDI response. Metal detectors seem to love a round shaped item and a ring shaped item even more. Tabs are often a "little" more jumpy in terms of VDI....
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Jason, I think the notion (that we all admittedly have) is nothing but the psychological trick of selective memory bias. As stiff-wrists says:

Stiffwrists said:
Everytime I dig a gold sounding signal, I say to myself, "This sounds like gold. Please be gold" The ONE time I dug a gold ring, I was right!! It sounded just like gold! :D:lol:
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The subconscious memory bias trick works like this: Every time we go to dig a low/mid conductor , we say to ourselves "this sounds different". But when it turns out to be trash, we THEN say to ourselves "Come to think of it, it *did* sound kind of junky". But when one DOES turn out to be a gold ring, only THEN do we remember our premonitions and think "Aha! I knew it !".

Same for when you are dreaming of your favorite rock & roll song. Then your radio alarm clock goes off to wake you up, and it's playing THE EXACT SONG YOU WERE JUST DREAMING ABOUT. You think "aha! I'm psychic". But the reality is, you dream hundreds of dreams per night. None of which come true. And when you wake up, you forget all of them within 5 seconds. But one day, when .... one coincidentally randomly comes true, only THEN do you remember the dream, and think "Aha! I'm psychic!"

So too do I think the same subconscious mental game is at play, when we think that "gold sounds different". The mental effect is powerful, so ..... you will always/only remember the ones that came true. And will always/only reject one ones that didn't turn out to be gold.
 
Jason in Enid said:
...Could you imagine what detecting would be like if there were no tabs?
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I talked to a guy who started md'ing, with primitive whites machines, in about 1963-ish. Granted, those machines only went about 3" deep on coin sized targets.

I asked the guy "Gee, that must have been a killer, having no discrimination !". But he corrected me, and reminded me, that pulltabs had yet not been in widespread use (or hadn't been invented yet). There were, of course, other forms of junk (crude types of tin-foil, etc...) But as far as pulltabs went: No, those weren't a factor in those days.

Sheesk, to only be able to go back-in-time, with the machines we have today, eh ? :laughing:
 
Hi needler420 :tiphat:

The folks on this thread are telling you right !

The bottom line.....there are techniques that will work to avoid digging trash most of the time. However, to reduce the chance of missing a precious metal target, it's best to acquire many hours of experience afield, honing our senses and becoming "one" with our detector to recognize the different, sometimes subtle, tone characteristics of items in the ground. We still get fooled once in a while by questionable sounding targets, but then decide to dig anyway and it turns out to be a gold ring and we do the dance !

I went through a similar experience as you, trying to learn and identify the different tones of jewelry made from precious metal alloys, however, with all the variables involved, as explained by others in this thread, it's impossible to score big on every hunt. I start out hunting in All Metal until my strength and/or patients runs out and then dial in a small amount of discrimination, just enough to reduce iron, and live with the fact that I might miss a little piece of jewelry that's either one or all of the following: low conductivity10K, tiny size, deep.

Assuming precious metal jewelry is our game, we can hunt smart by #1..always going to places that either now have, or previously had, lots of people present, #2..hunt the areas that have, or terrain that suggests, "people in action", #3..Go slow and low, keeping the coil parallel to the ground with no up-swing at the scan-ends and overlap scans as we move forward to be sure of thorough coverage. The first thread at the top of the list below includes an excerpt from Bill Revis (Username: "Uncle Willy") that will open your eyes to what good coil coverage would really require !
A bit extreme for most folks, but Bill sure makes a good point.

Below are threads that DIGGER27, Elite Member here with now over 14,000 posts or threads, kindly e-mailed me several years ago that will convey a lot of what he learned over previous years and will increase your knowledge in metal detecting whether using a Compadre or another brand and model.

I hope this helps......Good Luck !

ToddB64

DIGGER27 Threads on Learning the language of the Tesoro Compadre !

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=78080
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=84048
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=86773
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=97471
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=98640
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=201661
 
ToddB64 said:
..... Assuming precious metal jewelry is our game, we can hunt smart by #1..always going to places that either now have, or previously had, lots of people present, #2..hunt the areas that have, or terrain that suggests, "people in action", ....
Click to expand...


Adding to what Todd-B64 says, that if jewelry is your goal : Not only where "people were in action", but also: Specifically and Distinctly where there was NOT eating/drinking going on. Ie.: avoid the picnic tables and BBQ pits type of parks, if jewelry is your goal.

Because, go figure: Whenever people are eating and drinking, is when you introduce foil (for their food wrappings) and tabs (for their drinks). And molten can nuggets (for when people throw their can & pie-tin stuff into the BBQ grill).

So in order that you don't get driven bonkers by horrible ratios, pick spots where it's more strictly sports frolicking, devoid of normal eating/drinking . Or ... better yet .... swim beaches.
 
I found a silver Disney kids ring once on the side of the road. Granted I dug a lot of trash but I also found a foreign cache of coins including a few silvers all on the side of a road. Found it with my trusty Compadre.
 
needler420 said:
I found a silver Disney kids ring once on the side of the road. Granted I dug a lot of trash but I also found a foreign cache of coins including a few silvers all on the side of a road. Found it with my trusty Compadre.
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If a person could mentally handle the massive amount of trash, they could probably do really well hunting roadside ditches and medians. I've worked so many car wrecks where cars are upside down or on the side. EVERYTHING in side the car falls out when it gets pulled upright and nobody cares about little stuff. ITs usually in the middle of the night and as long as the big stuff is gone, its good.

Piles of coins and plenty of jewelry are left laying out there!
 
Jason in Enid said:
If a person could mentally handle the massive amount of trash, they could probably do really well hunting roadside ditches and medians. I've worked so many car wrecks where cars are upside down or on the side. EVERYTHING in side the car falls out when it gets pulled upright and nobody cares about little stuff. ITs usually in the middle of the night and as long as the big stuff is gone, its good.

Piles of coins and plenty of jewelry are left laying out there!
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I have thought about this very thing a lot...We track Humans and Lifes tragedy portends some major losses...No diff than a Battlefield hunter, or even a ring hunter after a fierce riptide when folks make a chain to try to rescue somebody from the Surf...Those crosses along side the road? Yeah..all sorts of metallic evidence from a roll over wreck...
 
Jason in Enid said:
... Piles of coins and plenty of jewelry are left laying out there!
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jason, are you serious ? Perhaps as a singular incident experience. But as a general rule for "road-sides" ? I beg to differ.

One time I got called out by the highway patrol/sheriff's detectives, who had reason to believe that someone had ditched/thrown a murder weapon (knife or bullet or whatever) on to the side of a road. They told me the location I'd be searching. I studied google maps and satellite and determined that it was far away from homesites, walk-paths, etc.... Hence, naturally, I figured it's too-far away from pedestrian/home-site influence, to be junky. Right ?

It was right off the highway, but... as I say, far from pull-outs, homes, etc.... Thus the bare-naked roadsides should be free from trash, right ? But MAN WAS THIS AN EYE-OPENER : There were cans, car-chome parts, blah blah blah. It's utterly amazing the types/amounts of trash , that accumulate, in the 30-ish yards from the edges of ANY modern highway. When you factor in 40+ yrs. of people who ... open their windows and chuck their trash out their car windows, it's amazing how much trash can accumulate on what was supposed to be the "middle of nowhere " :(
 
I have also detected along side roads and there is tons of trash and junk. Lots of beer cans, liquor bottles (with metal caps), foil tops, car/truck parts, road construction debris, etc.

There are coins & jewelry but the junk is overwhelming making it no fun to detect.
 
Tom_in_CA said:
jason, are you serious ? Perhaps as a singular incident experience. But as a general rule for "road-sides" ? I beg to differ.

One time I got called out by the highway patrol/sheriff's detectives, who had reason to believe that someone had ditched/thrown a murder weapon (knife or bullet or whatever) on to the side of a road. They told me the location I'd be searching. I studied google maps and satellite and determined that it was far away from homesites, walk-paths, etc.... Hence, naturally, I figured it's too-far away from pedestrian/home-site influence, to be junky. Right ?

It was right off the highway, but... as I say, far from pull-outs, homes, etc.... Thus the bare-naked roadsides should be free from trash, right ? But MAN WAS THIS AN EYE-OPENER : There were cans, car-chome parts, blah blah blah. It's utterly amazing the types/amounts of trash , that accumulate, in the 30-ish yards from the edges of ANY modern highway. When you factor in 40+ yrs. of people who ... open their windows and chuck their trash out their car windows, it's amazing how much trash can accumulate on what was supposed to be the "middle of nowhere " :(
Click to expand...

Thats why I prefaced it with "if you can handle the trash". Yes, I'm serious.
 
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