firefitr227 said:
I am considering going to FDIC this year Mud. I have been a few times in years past. Its a good show and a good time. You in the business of selling gear or equipment? So back to this metal detecting gig. I am wondering what gold would show up as on VDI. I buried my wedding ring about 4 inches and got a steady reading around 42.. Is that right on? If so, that is also around the range of 75% of the trash I have found so I am just skipping over it. Now I am really wondering.
Gold...now you are talking about something I have some experience finding.
Below is a pic I made up awhile ago showing some of my gold targets and several VDI numbers on the F2 associated with them or at least the sections they came in.
All the F series detectors should show these targets at similar numbers give or take one or two due to different frequency ranges.
Since I made up this pic I have added about 9 more rings to the total, all found with the F70 and 3 completely different coils in the last year.
More than half of those in the pic were found with the F2 so any Fisher detector has no problem recognizing this particular metal.
The key to digging them up when you do swing over them is the knowledge of the person standing behind it.
Gold is the ninja of all metals and a master of disguise.
It can come in just about anywhere due to size, shape, alloys and purity, and can be affected greatly by other metals in close proximity, site conditions and even the direction you happen to come across them with your coil.
Except for maybe 2 or 3, no gold nickel area target came in as a true dead on nickel signal, all the rest were in nickel sections that were always trash for me, usually, zinc sections that were nowhere near a zinc cent but way lower, also mostly trash areas or true trash sections like foil, tabs or iron.
Very high karat can come in higher into the dime and even quarter sections.
Even a tiny 24k ring can show up as a dime, larger rings even higher and large gold coins can be way up there.
Chains of any kind are weird and that means both silver and gold so gold chains can also show up where you least expect it on the VDI numbers...the small thin ones even in iron.
Most say when looking for gold dig everything which is great advice and I used to do that.
Nowadays I just don't have the patience or unlimited energy for that so I do it a different way now because of my experience with all of these gold targets I have found I the last 5 years.
All these were found at relatively shallow depths at 5" or less and most were solid repeating signals from more than one direction with numbers rarely jumping more than 2 or 3....deeper gold can act differently and be way less stable.
The few that were pretty jumpy were that way because of other metal in the vicinity.
In one instance a nickel are ring was nestled up next to foil, in another there was a large iron piece deep on one side and a small piece of iron on the other so no stable dig me tones or numbers in either case.
Learning your detector extremely well is paramount in finding gold the way I do it and the only reason I found both of these rings.
The first one was way jumpy but I did hear a pretty great solid tone that was fleeting and short that still triggered my digging instinct, the second ring the trigger was seeing some repeating nickel numbers pop up as I swung over this ring and both pieces of iron that bounced from way high to way low that did it.
I don't dig as much trash as I used to but I still dig my share and in both of these cases that extra effort was worth it.
What I do nowadays is mostly go after signals that are solid, clear and don't jump more than 2-3 numbers on the screen if they are not deep.
If you get good at swinging the center of your coil over targets, any coil, it is not hard to get those numbers to calm down to that 2-3 number span if there is not a lot of other garbage close by.
Sometimes I will get more than a 3 number jump so I turn and hit it from another angle and those numbers then came in within that small span.
One or two of those gold rings were found that way, but for the most part even with trash pretty close on some most of these targets behaved in that solid stable way I described with no more than that 2-3 number jump as I centered that coil and made short, quick side to side passes over it.
It took me awhile to be able to do this with both the F2 and then years later with the F70 so in this case practice does make perfect and don't you expect to do this right away.
The area I look for gold is basically all of them.
Key numbers that I never disc or notch out are between 24 and the mid 50's.
Foil, nickel, tabs, lower zinc are prime, iron on small targets or thin chains and higher than that low zinc for high karat pieces or larger gold coins are a much rarer occurrence and possibility but still could happen.
Lastly, all I can say is that just about every one of these targets were a surprise when I opened a hole and saw them, and that kind of surprise is one of the very best things that can happen to those of us that do this hobby.
Hopefully you will find that out sooner rather than later.
Like the boys are telling you, this is very unusual for anybody to be so successful so fast.... thats why on your original post, we were not sure if you were jerking our chain or not!..
..Heck, seateds, barbers, walkers..1800's era coins? These are like the Holy Grail targets...most guys hunt for a long time to break into the 1800's...
