Advice needed in search for lost neckless....

[fwcrawford]

I have been contacted by a woman that asked me to help find a lost neckless that belongs to her husband.
He was swatting at a bee and caught hold of the neckless and it broke and flung off into their yard.
She said it is kind of a rope design if that helps.
I will be using an X-Terra 50 and the small DD 18.75 coil for added sensitivity.
I also have the concentric high frequency coil, but figured the smaller coil may be more sensitive.
From what I have read, gold chains are very hard for some detectors to detect in the ground.
Any advice from others that have found gold chains is much appreciated.
I have only found one silver chain and it gave a reading of 12 on my machine which surprised me.. I thought is may have read a little higher.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice,
Felix

 

[Old Longhair]

If it was recently lost, it should be fairly easy to find as it won't be actually IN the ground.
If this is indeed the case, I wouldn't be too concerned about missing it with the bigger coil. Just open up the DISC pattern to hit on anything above -6 and investigate everything shallow. Your ProPointer will be an invaluable tool too.

Good luck!

 

[fwcrawford]

This neckless was lost about 10 years ago, so it is going to be in the ground, but I figure it can't be that far down.
I do have a pinpointer and like you stated, this will help alot.
Hopefully the area where I'll be searching is not filled with lots of trash.
I'll let you know the outcome..
Thanks,
Felix

 

[Old Longhair]

Well...one fortunate thing, is that chains don't have all of their weight concentrated in one small place like a coin does. Spreading it's weight over a lager area means that even being lost 10yrs it won't be terribly deep.

The problem with chains in general is that they are made up of a bunch of little pieces, which in turn your detector indicates as similar to foil. Hence the lower TIDs. Not knowing if it's spread out or wadded up doesn't make things any easier, but that's another thing for which your ProPointer can come in handy.

Regardless, you'll have to dig most every repeatable signal, or mark iffy repeatables with golf tees or poker chips to dig later if you don't find it digging the ones that give you that warm fuzzy feeling the first time over the area.

 

[mapper65]

Ask her if she has a similar necklace or can show you a picture of what it looks like then find another necklace that looks similar and lay it in the grass using different orientations and swipe your coil over it. Get comfortable what it sounds like and what the target ID is. That should get you in the ballpark before you do the search.

 

[fwcrawford]

Thanks Mapper,
I was thinking of that too.
When I go over to look for it, I will see if they have another one similar to the one that's lost.
I used this technique to find a lost ring and it sure helped when checking the signals I was getting.
Felix

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I found a 14K thin nugget gold ring that was lost about 10 years ago also, so I gridded off the area that they thought that they had lost the ring in. After about 2 hours of hunting, and a few coins were found, I suggested that we check the other half of the yard. I hunted about 20 minutes and I found it. It was still only about an inch down. It gave me a TID of 12 with my X-terra 705 and my small HF DD coil. The best thing of this recovery was that a good friend of mine had made this ring for this person about 11 years ago and he (the ring maker) had passed away about 3 years ago.

 

[leroy1937]

no doughy the grass has been mowed quit a few times


I found a ring one time in a city park under a low bush

sure the mower moved it

 

[jabbo]

Chains get tangled in the grass roots and so they stay shallow for a long time. The ones I found had to be torn out of the roots. My detector can detect a ladies gold chain with small links at a max of 3" but detector sensitivity needs to be near max. A mans bracelet would have much larger links and be easier to detect. If your coil goes over it you should be able to find it. If it is layed out straight it might give just a one way signal, that is going across the chain. Jabbo

 

[fwcrawford]

Thanks to all for your advice.. I went over and looked for it last Tues., but had no luck.
The owner had another necklace similar to the one that is lost and I use that one to check out the type of signal to look for .
ID reading bouced around between 3 and 6 from most directions.
I told them I would come out a give it another try when I get a chance.

 

[ryanchappell]

I have been contacted by a woman that asked me to help find a lost neckless that belongs to her husband.
He was swatting at a bee and caught hold of the neckless and it broke and flung off into their yard.
She said it is kind of a rope design if that helps.
I will be using an X-Terra 50 and the small DD 18.75 coil for added sensitivity.
I also have the concentric high frequency coil, but figured the smaller coil may be more sensitive.
From what I have read, gold chains are very hard for some detectors to detect in the ground.
Any advice from others that have found gold chains is much appreciated.
I have only found one silver chain and it gave a reading of 12 on my machine which surprised me.. I thought is may have read a little higher.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice, Felix

Go back and try again with the 6" DD HF coil. Dig all faint iron signals in the suspected area. It is possible a clasp or a link would show up as barely conductive, ie foil or pull tab, but especially if it is not still lying on the surface it will show up as iron. Dig strong iron, and non-ferrous signals as well. It could have fallen next to another metallic object.

Most metal detectors including the x-terra detect the individual links in the chain and not the chain as a whole. When signal is minimally enhanced by these links being in a chain and touching since there contact with each other is not under tension or otherwise forced. The chain latched into a closed loop it may have a stronger signal, but again both of these effects are minimal.

With any VLF detector non-ferrous targets fade to iron indications (VDI and Audio) as they approach the limit of that detectors detection distance. The limit of detector on a SILVER chain that I AIR tested a couple of days ago was 1 - 2 inches with a my 305, All-Metal, 6" HF and sensitivity at 7-8. It was about 0.5 inches with my Etrac 8x6.

When I was looking for a silver chain I first, focused on each iron signal in the suspected area, and looked for some kind of bounce to foil or pull-tab. This paid off with a signal that bounced to 36 (dime) witched turned out to be a 1925 merc at 3 inches deep. (Our soil is real bad.)

Gold will be about half of that, maybe lower. So you will probably need to dig all iron, especially the weak ones, I doubt, gold will even bounce to foil, even if it is just below the surface.

You will probably need to detect in ALL METAL even if the yard is riddled with nails. Turn the detector up as high as you can stand the falsing.

Thanks to all for your advice.. I went over and looked for it last Tues., but had no luck.
The owner had another necklace similar to the one that is lost and I use that one to check out the type of signal to look for .
ID reading bounced around between 3 and 6 from most directions.
I told them I would come out a give it another try when I get a chance.

How far away did it detect the necklace. Keep in mind a very small difference in the clasp size can make a huge difference.

 

[hotrod53]

With an object like that be very careful when digging, you may easily destroy it if you're not careful. I would spend a lot of time IDing it and pinpointing before digging. You could easily cut it in half if you're not careful.