A fun find and a question

[ausnimrod]

I went out to a friends yard with my kids since they were off school for President's day. In about 10 minutes, 5-6 neighborhood kids showed up, so I only got about 600 square feet done in the yard. LOL.

But we did find something fun...about 3 inches down, an old plastic easter egg filled with dirt and 3 pennies dating early 90's. It was fun to find with all the kids around.

Question. I'm starting to feel like I don't understand how to "read" everything yet, since I haven't found any silver yet. (I dig every strong signal no matter what, so maybe I'm too "discriminating." Is it possible for me to record few seconds of a suspect area I don't understand and post it for you guys (and girls) to give me you "2 cents?"

 

[jim tn]

What type of Fisher? How long have you been detecting with it and how long have you been detecting? Silver also doesn't turn up every outing nor every place hold it. HH jim tn

 

[ausnimrod]

What type of Fisher? How long have you been detecting with it and how long have you been detecting? Silver also doesn't turn up every outing nor every place hold it. HH jim tn

Fisher F70, 3-4 years when my daughter and I can. It's fair to say I don't expect to always find silver, but i've found maybe 200 coins, with a fair amount in appropriate age ranges for silver to possibly be around. I'm confident that 90% of the areas I search are virgin, as I do mostly yards. I live in an area where homes are built anywhere from the 60's back to the late 1800's. A few homes are in the early 1800's. (I haven't gotten permission for those yet)

 

[dfmike]

Do you have a few silver coins of your own ? A silver ring ? (80 percent silver content or better). Ground balance your F70, Put the targets in the ground, cover them well and see how your F70 responds. You will get a very good idea of what to look for. On most detector, solid silver targets give a very high and very stable reading. If your pennies are made out of copper, the target range is similar. If the areas you have done are virgin and have been built in the 1800's , you should have found some silver coins by now.

 

[jim tn]

Well, you are finding coins so it may be just a matter of getting your coil over a silver one. Silver and clad dime doesn't sound much different and the tid is a few numbers higher on silver. Are you finding wheat cents? If so, you are in the right spots for silver. Good luck, HH jim tn

 

[WV62]

Could be your sensitivity setting is to low and you are not getting any depth out of your machine.

If you start finding wheat pennies you are in the silver zone.

Do a little air testing and see how far you can read a dime from the coil. This will not help you much for coins in the dirt, but it may tell you if your machine is running good or needs more adjustments or sent off for repair.

Good luck,

Ron in WV

 

[still looking 52]

Wheat pennies is your biggest clue, once you find some of those you'll find some silver. Another point you may want to consider is how deep are the coins your finding? Silver is older and it will be deeper, the deeper coins real respond different and the signal won't be clear. I agreed with what Mike said about burying some coins and testing what you find but would add you should bury some of the coins between 6" and 8" range and notice how they sound.

 

[ausnimrod]

Ok. Thanks. I think the next thing is to bury some silver coins and get a "feel" for how they read and sound. Thanks for all your ideas!

 

[WV62]

Keep in mind a newly buried coin will not read like a coin that has been in the ground for 50 years. Also you only need to work with dimes, if you can find a dime you can find any coin larger that.

I find coins at 6" pretty easy, but I buried a penny and a nickel in different holes in my yard at 7". I can't get my F75 to hit on either.

Ron in WV

 

[MarkCZ]

Silver doesn't really sound any different than a copper or its copper clad counter part!
Like what has already been said and ask! have you been finding Wheat Pennies? If so then your hunting
in the silver zone!
Let me ask you this!
Do you find any of those beaver tail beverage pull tab (Pull & Toss Rings), you know the ones with a ring and a tab attached to it?
If so what would be a common depth you might find them, and I mean actually in the dirt?
The reason I ask is that those pull rings came into production right the end of silver coin production.
That means to be getting silver you HAVE to be already getting the most common finds for the time period!
Wheat Cents!
Beaver Tail Pull Rings!
Like my big bother Ron said, if your finding coins but NOT finding silver then the problem isn't in your discrimination!! that's because silver
discriminates out ABOVE what your finding!!
If your hunting known old enough sights but your not finding the Pull Ring Tabs and Wheat Pennies then your not hunting deep enough!
Run the disc up to Zinc Pennies! (notch in nickles)
Get your sensitivity up to at lest 60!
Get the threshold up to a -2 or -3
The F70 and the 11" DD coil and the above settings should get you down to around the 6" (in the dirt) range.
Keep your coil CLOSE to the ground!
Don't try and mow grass with it, but put a little speed to your sweep!
And make sure you get a good ground balance over a clean area of ground.

Virgin hunting spots in most places is VERY hard to find!!!!!! back in the early to mid 1980's treasure hunters with detectors were EVERYWHERE!!!!! They hunted
every PUBLIC place like swarms of honey bees in a clover field!
They raped court house lawns of their loot!
City street curbs,
They nearly plowed older city parks and ball fields!
Every Saturday and Sunday in even decent weather they ripped up public school yards and shook'em like a rug!!!
They door knocked at about every door of every house that was 30 years old or older, leaving the lawns more radio active
than we left "Hiroshima"
They ravaged OLD cemeteries!
Its unspeakable what they did to older Church's property!
Even those little Route 66 Road Side stops, you know the ones with one or two picnic tables and single trash cans were victims
to there deployment!
It was a frigging metal detector INVASION!
Just about any store or shop in town that didn't sell groceries sidelined selling metal detectors, that even included Barber Shops!
They were relentless in their search for silver!!!

Mark

 

[ausnimrod]

Thanks for the insights! I have definitely been in places where I've found pull tabs, and wheat pennies. I've found clad coins and nickels that are dated near when silver was around too. I did not know about the invasion in the 80's. lol. I'm reasonably confident that every old home around here hasn't been searched, and Ill keep looking for permissions to hunt yards. That seems like the most likely option for me. Fortunately I have plenty of friends with old homes and properties that I will have more than I can do. I am going back to the "sledding" hill, where I was searching for a titanium ring someone lost this winter and it should have been on the surface since it was too cold to dig. I was getting a lot of great signals, but the ground was frozen.

I'm definitely going to do a silver "garden" test, and keep messing with my settings. Also, I almost named myself "Idigeverything" because I do dig every strong signal since I don't know how to read them. Many "weak" signals I'll dig, if they at least can be pinpointed. I find a lot of crap...nails, wire etc., but I'm trying to learn the "feel" of both the sounds and what's showing on the screen.

Thanks for all the advice! And I can't wait to post my first silver coin!

 

[RavRad]

I went my first two years Detecting without finding a single silver. I knew I was in the right places because my collection of wheat pennies and Indian heads was getting pretty big. I could find civil war buttons like a champ, but silver was always elusive. Then year 3 I found my first silver, a Standing Liberty quarter, and that seemed to turn my luck around to finding silver on almost every hunt. In cases like ours it may be just bad luck and most definitely the coil isn’t over it. I made the mistake of constantly buying new detectors thinking that would solve it, up to a CTX 3030.

 

[ausnimrod]

I went my first two years Detecting without finding a single silver. I knew I was in the right places because my collection of wheat pennies and Indian heads was getting pretty big. I could find civil war buttons like a champ, but silver was always elusive. Then year 3 I found my first silver, a Standing Liberty quarter, and that seemed to turn my luck around to finding silver on almost every hunt. In cases like ours it may be just bad luck and most definitely the coil isn’t over it. I made the mistake of constantly buying new detectors thinking that would solve it, up to a CTX 3030.

I went out today in my front yard. Lol. I brought a silver dime along to put into the first hole I dug. I've been through my yard a few times before, but today I still found 3 pennies, a small figurine (kinds looks like Obi-Wan_Kenobi) and a dime. I paid attention to the sreen, and it was pretty accurate for what it said it read like, and how deep. I had two "Quarter" signals that got me excited, but nothing of the sort came up. lol.

Still practicing and trying. Thanks again for all the advice to get me focused!

 

[MarkCZ]

I hope everyone knows that I was having fun with the wording in my 1980's detector "Invasion" although I didn't really make anything up! those people (we LOL) were pretty hard core
at hitting ANY place that could turn up some silver! It was in those early 80's to mid 90's when metal detectors had gained a LOT of ground in their ability to hunt and sort of a LOT of trash!
And Detecting clubs were VERY popular at the time and a lot of them used City parks for club meets and club hunts, and at a distance it would remind you of a swarm of bees in a clover field!
One really nice day back then I drove by our city court house and again it looked like a swarm of bees in the lawn, there must have been 50 of them spread out over the court house lawn!

Okay, back on track!
On your coin garden, these things can get really stupid once the coins get past about 4" to 5" in the ground, your detector may hit on them fine for a couple of days and then POOF!
its like they just vanish!!!!!

My advise would be to keep them no more than 4" deep! and use your detector first set on VERY low discrimination and clean the area first of all known trash metal!
Lay them in the ground FLAT and for digging the hole take as much of the dirt out as you can by cutting a plug, and maybe even hinging it on one side.

Now if you were going to plant some at 6" or beyond then I would try this method and let us know how it works, so far its only still in theory. Dig a small hole down to your 6"
then take the coin in one hand and insert it into one side of the hole at the bottom! then fill and tap the hole back in. The theory here is the actual ground matrix above the coin
will be LESS disturbed! and like that the hope is that the interaction between the detector and the coin will be more 'Real Life'.
Literally! I've got perfectly buried nickles @ 6" and 7" and to this day my detector will not hit on them in any NORMAL search mode! I know they are there, and they've been buried now for three or four years.
Try the side planted method and keep me posted to the outcome.

Mark

 

[ausnimrod]

Yesterday when I dug out a plug, I was at about 5" deep. I'm kinda anal, so I had the dime wrapped in a cutoff and tied corner of a plastic bag to make sure I could find it again. Lol. After I cleared the hole, I threw it in and replaced the plug. The F70 hit on it, and it said it was a dime! It seemed to work perfectly. The best thing is that it made me more "confident" in what the screen said. After that, everything I found was exactly what the screen said (pennies) except for the figurine and Quarter signals, which brought up nothing if I recall. It's been raining here a lot, so the ground is very moist. I guessing that helps the depth and signals a lot.

What I'm still trying to figure out is those signals that seem more like "chatter?" I have those spots or areas where the signal seems very focused, doesn't read on every pass I wave over it, but enough that it seems something is in there. Does that make sense? Often there might be a few little chatter signals is the same little area. Does that make sense? I always think "maybe it's a silver dime or quarter and it's on it's edge. lol. At first, I dig up anything, but as I my legs get tired, I'll start only retrieving the strong signals.

 

[jim tn]

If you can get ONE of those few little chatter signals to repeat it well could be a coin on edge. Kind of a different subject, but there are a lot more coins on edge out there then most hunters realize. And most of them don't realize just how small a spot a dime on edge at 6" actually is........or how small a sound it has. Soft sounding chatter spots, though, are usually just that. Oh, and for silver coins on edge hunting I have found Fishers 5 x 10 DD to be excellent. HH jim tn

 

[MarkCZ]

Yesterday when I dug out a plug, I was at about 5" deep. I'm kinda anal, so I had the dime wrapped in a cutoff and tied corner of a plastic bag to make sure I could find it again. Lol. After I cleared the hole, I threw it in and replaced the plug. The F70 hit on it, and it said it was a dime! It seemed to work perfectly. The best thing is that it made me more "confident" in what the screen said. After that, everything I found was exactly what the screen said (pennies) except for the figurine and Quarter signals, which brought up nothing if I recall. It's been raining here a lot, so the ground is very moist. I guessing that helps the depth and signals a lot.

What I'm still trying to figure out is those signals that seem more like "chatter?" I have those spots or areas where the signal seems very focused, doesn't read on every pass I wave over it, but enough that it seems something is in there. Does that make sense? Often there might be a few little chatter signals is the same little area. Does that make sense? I always think "maybe it's a silver dime or quarter and it's on it's edge. lol. At first, I dig up anything, but as I my legs get tired, I'll start only retrieving the strong signals.

Okay, getting a little more out of your detector takes time and trying different things and different settings and I'd say your time to find some silver,
You say you dig pretty much every good signal, that can mean a LOT things according to certain detector settings!
Like if your running one tone and a lower discrimination setting then what you would be doing is a massive amount of trash digging!!!!! and not letting the detector help you sort of at lest some of the trash. In this case you would be spending all your time DIGGING more than likely BAD TARGETS!
but this is a very good way to find Gold.

For now and until you can start finding some silver I think I would go for three tone setting.
Stay away from the SL mode for awhile.
I'd run my disc up to just under the Zinc pennies.
I'd set the threshold up to around -2.
I may or may not notch in nickels????
I'd set the sensitivity up as high as you can without the detector being noisy and no less than 60, if you can't make it to 60 then drop the threshold down to -3
Now your going to hear people tell you to listen for those "Soft Faint" signals, but before you take off on that as a FACT there is something to know about the F70 that I found in some testing I did with mine a year or so back.
Most often metal detectors either have or they don't have what is called "Modulated Audio" if it has modulated auto then a coin @ 6" deep will sound deeper or a little faint as compared to the same coin @ 2" deep.
A non modulated audio doesn't do that, the intensity of the audio response is the same at any depth the target is detected.

Now, I'm going to post a screen shot of a chart that I worked on for you to look over, it has different settings and different depth reading (air test results) for each setting. Notice to the far left at modulated and Non modulated! or where it is and where it isn't??
At different points in the chart you'll see SL=X. What that is is a point where I keep everything the same but I switched the detector to SL mode to see its effect on the depth, I didn't see the need to do it at every test point.
Here is a link to a Findmall thread where they are talking about modulated audio.
https://www.findmall.com/read.php?58,1589723

In this chart my F70 showed that the modulated audio is a stepped process meaning that its NOT ALWAYS one or the other!

Another thing to note about the chart is with the SL mode! I noticed that once I passed a 0 threshold setting the SL didn't seem to be of any help as far as any boost!!
The read areas in the chart are point where the detector became to unstable to evaluate. Your area of testing could change those points, a SMALL coil will for sure change them.

Click The Chart to enlarge the image!

Mark