Buying gold to test detectors

Yes, I'm serious.

I would agree..in a bad rollover, everything inside the vehicle is spilling out and raining down all over the trajectory...like some sort of Gruesome Pinata...

Would it be 'Not Cool' to go out and hunt the sides of the roads where the crosses are? Consider..a lot of our best finds are from where people met with tragedy...maybe yesterday, maybe 200yrs ago...People die all over this Planet, every single day in various forms or fashions...Metal dont care, it simply returns to the Earth from whence it came...We come along afterwards and witness the event through our phones...

I have always wondered about AquaChiggers massive in the river Silver Dollar score...did the guy make it across? Did he drown? Did his horse buck him off and kick him in the head? Did he get shot out of the saddle? Did he fall through the ice? Who was he? Whats the backstory to that loss? :?:
 
Well yeah I understand this part. That's why all my testing specimens are the highest purity I can find as to they won't be contaminated with other metals.


I don't get it, If I'm not suppose to use the discrimination on my metal detector along with process of elimination to my own tests and using budget detectors sub $100 dollars, do you guys just dig anything that goes beep or do you try a process of elimination to avoid digging junk metal?

And this is where art meets science. Because gold is rarely "pure" gold, and because different sizes and shapes also affect the VDI and sounds, it's really not a useful test to go grab a pure gold coin or bar to figure out what "gold" sounds like.

Here's a list of gold I've found and the various ranges:
My gold ranges are actually in EVERYTHING (literally, not a gap in there) from 39 to 75 on the AT Pro/Max.

  • [39-41] I had a 39-41 bouncing signal that turned out to be a tiny 1 gram gold ring (14K).
  • [40-41] a 40-41 signal that was a gold earring. (larger at 2.4grams, if I recall correctly, but not a full circle).
  • [42] Several 42 signal gold rings some 10K, one a big 4.2 gram white gold ring, but it was a very small size, something like a 4.5.
  • [43-45] Several gold rings that bounced between 43 to 45 but strongest on 45 (lightweight unisex gold rings, both 10K and 14K).
  • [46,47,48] Gold rings at the 46, 47, and 48 range (pretty consistent here with women's diamond rings). As an example, my 41st gold ring rang up a solid 48. 1.73 grams 10K with two small diamonds and an amethyst.
  • [47-72] One 10K class ring that bounced from 47 all the way up to 72. (and when I say bounce, I mean BOUNCE... all over the place. Even on top of the ground it was everywhere. Big thing, too. 14grams or so.
  • [50, 52-54, 52, 55, 56] Plain band rings (10K and 14K) at 50, 52, 51-54, 55, and at 56. An amethyst 10K at 55.
  • [52-53] One 22K bangle at 52-53.
  • [54] bouncy signal. 14K bangle charm 4 grams.
  • [58, 60, 62, 67] Bigger 14K men's rings at 58, 60, 62, and 67.
  • [62] 22K signet ring; 14K mens ring with diamonds
  • [69] Gold 10K ring at 69
  • [67-71] One set of rings that rang up between 67 and 71. One was a 14K with diamonds, the other was a 14K and 18K ring (had a small 18K front).
  • [72, 73, 74-75] Honker gold men's rings at 72, 73, and 74-75. all 14K.

All the above numbers are based on SPECIFIC rings and gold items.
All but two of them bounce a point or two off depending on the angle. The two I recall were dead solid were at 55.. both of them never varied. I thought for sure they were going to be nickels.

Short answer, I’ve found gold in every VDI # from 39 to 75. I’m aware of some folks who have found it as high as 85! But... And here's the but... 90% of the rings were solid or fairly solid signals. NOTHING like a wimpy piece of foil in the ground. But... there's that 10% that DID sound like foil (one was a tiny promise ring at a bark park, that rang up 42 and a whisper, the others were just choppy and surprised me.. ALL "poor" signals were deeper than 5", though)

The bottom line here, is that you cannot but a “few pieces of gold” and expect all the gold to sound like those. Tiny nuggets and thin gold chains will ring up well below 35 on the VDI. Best bet is to dig solid signals, and learn what your machine sounds like on trash. The only way to do this is to dig up everything for a while. Eventually, you’ll be able to tell the difference between a ferrule (the end of pencil) and gum wrappers from standard jewelry.

Cheers,

Skippy
 
Jason, I think the notion (that we all admittedly have) is nothing but the psychological trick of selective memory bias. As stiff-wrists says:



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.

I have about 8-10 solid signals every trip that I think, "ohhh, this one might be gold! Those are the ones I take videos of, before I dig. I have a LOT of videos reminding me that it's not possible to determine gold before digging. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

BUT... just because you cannot "know" something is going to be gold, doesn't mean you cannot "know" something is NOT going to be gold. There's a whole lot of trash that I can positively ID before digging. I test this knowledge periodically, and I always dig the first couple dozen targets (even if I think I "know" the trash type) in every park, because soil conditions change, and it keeps my skills sharp. With experience, you can self-discriminate out a lot of trash (making your hunt FAR more productive).

As an example, I recently went to a middle school where I know thousands of pennies lay in the dirt. Pennies tend to sound the same when they're clustered like that. I went out that day to find what WASN'T a penny. I skipped hundreds of penny signals, but dug everything that made me wonder. From the penny range, I found about a half-dozen pennies that were corroded to the point they didn't sound like pennies, 2 rings, 2 pendants, and a nice cross on a chain. Those 6-7 pennies, and 5 jewelry targets were all I pulled out of the penny range. 50% hit rate for good targets! Naturally, I pulled other good targets ($1 coin, + ~$2.80 in quarters, dimes and nickels.). My trash bag had only about 7-8 items in it that day. yes... I was skipping a lot of trash and pennies. But in the end, I was very happy with the outcome. In the 90 minutes I was there, I could have dug 80-100 pennies. Instead, I walked away with 5 pieces of jewelry, and about $4 in change. Self-discrimination works to improve productivity.


Even, then... Bottom line is that we have to dig it, to determine it.
I find a lot of gold for a land-lubber... but I've no doubt missed some in my self-discrimination too. I'd be nice to think otherwise, but nobody's perfect!
 
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!

Hmmmmm....you're right about that Jason. I have never thought about that, but may just give this a shot or two.
 
... I've no doubt missed some in my self-discrimination too.....

Skippy, thanx for your input. Good post.

I would call, what you are describing, as more of a notching and "enhancement" type programming. Whether via your ears, or your machines ability to program. Either way, you're angling to avoid those targets which are more often tending to be garbage. Eg.: Round tabs of a certain shape, pennies which lock on all-the-time, and so forth.

But this is not to be confused with telling gold apart from aluminum. Because, as you admit: You will indeed miss some gold. And you will indeed dig some garbage. And this notching/enhancement trick will sort of "go out the window" if you find yourself in a place with lots of can slaw (which reads ALL over the spectrum).

In the early days of TID (invented mid 1980s), there were guys who made computer spread sheet charts, after testing thousands of recurring objects (foil, tabs, all the different coins, scores of gold rings, etc...). And making spread sheets to determine the best #'s to dig to A) avoid the most junk, and B) let in the most gold rings. Those were called gold ring enhancement programs. You could edit the #'s into your XLT or whatever .

It was useful for some venues. But as said, you will still dig some junk, and you still pass some gold. And could be thrown out the window at some junky hunt sites. Some people confused these programs with telling gold apart from aluminum. And I recall when machines like the Spectrum, (with the cool graphs) and Explorer (with the cool 2x axis screen) came out, that .... some people thought that there would *finally* be a rhyme & reason to gold vs aluminum . But .... alas, ... it was not to be :roll:
 
I wouldn't think that running a detector over gold bars would help anyone much unless they were looking for gold bars. I can't imagine that if someone wants to check their readings that they can't find someone with a gold wedding band that they can run their detector over. That's what I use. I've gone through my wife's jewelry box testing my detector.
 
.... I can't imagine that if someone wants to check their readings that they can't find someone with a gold wedding band that they can run their detector over. That's what I use. I've gone through my wife's jewelry box testing my detector.

The problem with testing gold rings, is that gold rings can come in a million sizes, purities, shapes, weights, etc.... And if you had access to a jewelry store, and could test 1000 rings with a full-spectrum 2-axis-screen and full orchestra TID: You would probably find that no two rings read alike :no:

And for every tone & TID you could isolate: I gurantee I could fold and wad up a piece of aluminum, to exactly mimic that same Tone & TID :no:

Contrast to coins, where: Every single coin came off the assembly line with the exact same weight, size, composition, etc.... Only very slight differences for if a coin is worn, vs not-worn. Thus coins are easier to predict.
 
I've found two platinum rings and I felt both were close to 14k gold on tone and VDI numbers. Have never found any Palladium.
 
I've found two platinum rings and I felt both were close to 14k gold on tone and VDI numbers. Have never found any Palladium.

I think it would be an interesting test if someone could a set of rings with identical size and dimensions. The only difference being the material made from.
 
The problem with testing gold rings, is that gold rings can come in a million sizes, purities, shapes, weights, etc.... And if you had access to a jewelry store, and could test 1000 rings with a full-spectrum 2-axis-screen and full orchestra TID: You would probably find that no two rings read alike :no:

And for every tone & TID you could isolate: I gurantee I could fold and wad up a piece of aluminum, to exactly mimic that same Tone & TID :no:

Contrast to coins, where: Every single coin came off the assembly line with the exact same weight, size, composition, etc.... Only very slight differences for if a coin is worn, vs not-worn. Thus coins are easier to predict.
I have no doubt that you are right. I am not an expert here. I can't identify things underground simply by reading the numbers. I dig almost everything and everything I dig up is a surprise. But when one is out metal detecting they are looking for things like lost gold rings, not lost gold bars. So all I'm saying is that if you want to test your equipment you need to test it on the kind of stuff you are looking for.
 
Big Silver Truck Wreck

In the summer of 1967, I was spending my last college summer off in Rhode Island, with my mother’s people, living at my grandmother’s house and got a summer job at Englehardt industries in South Attleboro MA. That plant made the “trilay” metal rolls of ‘silver/copper-copper/silver-silver/copper for the clad 50 cent coins.

Lots of interesting stuff happened - mainly an absolutely appalling rate of industrial injuries - I got my nose sliced open, missing my eye by an inch (OSHA has saved a lot of lives - it didn’t exist then) - but also some truly interesting stuff.

The silver came from the US silver depository at West Point. Tractor trailer loads of pallets of silver ingots - one deep on the floor of the closed trailers. When the loads came in, all us “kids” - summer help college students - unloaded the trailers.

One morning, as we punched in, we were taken aside and then loaded into a couple of vans. We drove to a clover-leaf exit from I95 where one of these trucks had gone off the road, rolled over and flung silver hither and yon into the bushes —— OY!

A few hours later every bar had been accounted for. Easily the biggest “find” I will ever be a part of.

Then there was the Nazi silver episode ... but that - as they say - is another story.
 
OK Folks :surrender: Time to bring this thread to a close don't-cha thunk !

It's been a great ride and we have all been given much food for thought and maybe for some, reading the thread was a reality check on the odds of finding precious metal jewelry.

For myself, I see it as a longshot, however, I try to go out on every hunt with the hope that Lady Luck and the Gods might shine on me today !

I do think by now needler420 has surely gotten the point regarding the infinite variables working against us who drool for Gollum's obsession.

My advice: Of course we need to use our brains and common sense to up the odds in our favor, but don't fall into the trap of "paralysis by analysis" and get yourself all stressed out; remember stress is a killer, so just try to relax and enjoy being outside and if you get Lucky and "it" happens, you can do the dance ! :ewink:


Cheers,
ToddB64
 
Platinum signals low in the foil area.

Not if it's a big-honkin men's fatty ring. Then they can read in the nickel, tab, or even higher range. Heck, a platinum bar, the size of a domino or brick, would read in the penny or quarter range :)
 
You can pretty much take any metal (non ferrous) or alloy of such, and get it exactly the right size, to ring up whatever number you please..

Aluminum for example..

Get a small enough piece, it'll ring up exactly like a gold chain, take that same exact alloy, and make a big enough piece, a it'll ring up exactly like a silver dollar..

To test for gold, platinum, palladium, hammer out different sizes of lead fishing sinkers, trim off if necessary...

<°)))>{
 
I always been a all metal mode kind of guy anyway. It is my preferred way to hunt. I like checking every signal. I do unearth lots of trash though.
 
But this is not to be confused with telling gold apart from aluminum. Because, as you admit: You will indeed miss some gold. And you will indeed dig some garbage. And this notching/enhancement trick will sort of "go out the window" if you find yourself in a place with lots of can slaw (which reads ALL over the spectrum).
I totally agree. In that middle school example, there were practically zero aluminum targets in the ground. I think I found 2 pop tabs all day. And I dug every pop tab target I found (could be gold, can't tell the difference).

As for the can slaw, I totally agree. Ring #100 for me was a solitaire diamond white gold 14K. I pulled it out of the middle of a lawnmowered can. I was removing the can slaw from the area because I knew I'd be hunting the location for years to come. I pulled about 2 dozen piece of can slaw out, and then WHAM... the ring. Sounded exactly like the can slaw. I would have missed it for sure, if I'd been ignoring "can slaw" sounding targets. This is probably why I had so much success in the first years of detecting. I really knew that "my" parks were going to be the only ones I'd detect, and that I'd be detecting them repeatedly... so why not clean them up? I found a LOT of gold that way. It was work, and there was a LOT of trash, but the gold just kept coming.

You were the one who told me "location location location" a few years ago... And I listened. I cleaned up a pop tab haven where teenagers sat under a tree at a skate park. More than 3 dozen pop tabs came out from under that tree... but I pulled TWO gold rings out. One class ring (women's) and one small worded gold ring (that actually had a root growing through it). I couldn't tell the difference (I was using an ACE series at the time, and a bell tone is a bell tone), but you nailed the idea that it was about location, not about finding pop tabs. Taught me a big lesson to pick a location, and clean it up! Some days I'm a winner, some days, I've just cleaned up a lot of pop tabs. LOL

In the early days of TID (invented mid 1980s), there were guys who made computer spread sheet charts, after testing thousands of recurring objects (foil, tabs, all the different coins, scores of gold rings, etc...). And making spread sheets to determine the best #'s to dig to A) avoid the most junk, and B) let in the most gold rings. Those were called gold ring enhancement programs. You could edit the #'s into your XLT or whatever .

Yeah, my experience (my post showing everything from 39-75), suggests such programs basically aren't worth the effort. As noted by others, where the real difference is made, is in the experience with your own machine. When you learn the language it's speaking to you, you can really hone in and remove a lot of garbage from digging. I do a lot of "when it doubt, dig it" mentality though. And I have a lot of doubts, based on what comes home with me!



It was useful for some venues. But as said, you will still dig some junk, and you still pass some gold. And could be thrown out the window at some junky hunt sites. Some people confused these programs with telling gold apart from aluminum. And I recall when machines like the Spectrum, (with the cool graphs) and Explorer (with the cool 2x axis screen) came out, that .... some people thought that there would *finally* be a rhyme & reason to gold vs aluminum . But .... alas, ... it was not to be :roll:

Wouldn't that be nice, eh? LOL
 
When I first got the ATPro I dug out every piece of jewelry, and the coin collection and waved em all over the coil. It was nice to look at the coins, it's just a few dozen common circulated coins that the wife's or my grandfather's thought worth keeping. Although I enjoyed going through all our valuables it didn't help with detecting. I was terribly disappointed with gold and how it ran all over the place and sounded like anything and everything. 3 small 14k gold rings all fitting on the same finger and looking the same to me and they rang up totally different.
 
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