...but what if one of them is actually a gold ring? ...
arekusa : If gold rings are your objective, then why are you torturing yourself in aluminum ridden junky urban parks ?
The "secret recipe" for finding gold coins is NOT to go to junky blighted parks and dig pulltabs till your arms fall off". Instead, the recipe is : Location location location.
The best areas for gold rings is swimming beaches (whether fresh water or salt water). And let's be honest: Digging in the sand is easier anyhow.
Cool waters shrink fingers. People thrust their hands in and out of the sand to make sand castles. People lathering up with slippery suntan lotion. People performing frolicking motions as they splash in the water. And my favorite: Taking your ring off for "safekeeping" before you go in for a swim. And they hide it by their beach blanket, or put it in their shoe, or hand it to their friend to hold, etc.... This is a story that is oft-repeated when I've done posse hunts for people who lost rings at the beach, is that they took it off for safekeeping (kind of ironic, when you think of it, haha) .
If you don't have swim beaches anywhere near you, then there's other locations that, likewise, are better odds. Eg.: Ski slopes during the off-season at the lift lines (all those people taking on and off their gloves, which provide a tugging motion). PT wrestle sand pits (where people tug against each other when wrestling). Soccer field sidelines and goal post areas, where people have, for millenia, put their school books and possesions for "safekeeping" while they play soccer. Again, taking off their ring for safekeeping, and putting it in their school knapsack book bag, along the sideline (typically next to fixed objects, as a human instinct). I knew a guy who went around with this theory around basket-ball poles, assuming that people tend to put their jackets, school books, book bags, etc.... right at the base of the pole, when preparing to play basket ball. And he got rewarded with multiple gold rings by doing this.
