Well, I'll chime in..
Rings ( shape and design play a role as much as Karat ) will in my experience and I'm sure others as well, likes to lock on to 1 to 2 numbers.
Found two 10 k ladies rings last year, One locked onto 22 and wouldn't budge, easy to tell it was shallow ( the more you find them rings the faster you realize they like to hang up in the grass roots) . This one has a nice little heart on it and wt. was 1.1/1.2 grams if recall ( didn't think it would weigh that much haha)
Second was a 10 k ring with a funky large-ish diamond shape with alot of shaping to the metal so it catches the light, it locked in with 29-30 which for my F75 ( standard model) is a nickel and that is what I thought it would be. instead it was 2.204 grams of gold
Found a 8 birth stone 10k white gold ladies ring that locked in at 25, again like the other two mentioned it was tangled up good in the grass roots. think this one weighed in at 4.5 to 5 grams.
another small girls 14 k signet Aries ring was a good pull tab tone and number, think if memory serves it was 33-34, once again in the grass roots.
Revier helped and confirmed this same tendency on his F2, and has had a lot of great success with the yellow metal rings. And has found some of the bigger ( men's ) specimens that rang into the 50 to 60 number range, that I think he said is in the zinc range, this holds true for my F75 as well, 50ish numbers are crusty rotting zinc and 59-60-61 are good zinc pennies.
NOW ..... For other gold items like 14 k lady bug bracelets and earrings and 14 k small and thin cross pendants, the numbers were so crappy and the tone so inconsistent that it was the location and lack of trash that made me investigate them. volley ball sand and sport fields, soccer fields to be specific.
So as you are quickly realizing if you have read all this long windedness, there is a lot of trash ( foil tabs off sports drinks, pull tabs, can slaw and ring tabs among many other junk items) that fall into this range, The rings are the most consistent as I mentioned and your best chance as to a method that betters your odds versus the other thinner and odd shaped small stuff.
Truth be told this is one of the reasons I love my little Tesoro machines ( and they have repaid my investment in them in gold more then my other machines) They make me focus on the sound and not the numbers, great disc. and real sensitive to the small low conductors like gold and lead.
The F75 is sensitive too, but I get into the bad habit of trusting iron numbers to be iron, when it can be other good items.
Hope this helps you at least a little in the hunt for gold.. Remember Trash is in your future, when you want the yellow metal.
Lakota
