What is your Favorite or Best Detector for GOLD Jewelry

[attackcat1]

Most jewelry found (gold) is with Troy Shadow 2 followed by the Fisher 1270X

 

[amberjack]

Thanks AmberJack....Yup that's why I buy somany detectors in the winter..... lol keeps me busy...I think I have 14 right now....Now it's time to make a bunch of videos and then unload them !!!

I know what you mean detector collecting its like detecting detectors but there's plenty worse things to do with ones money.

look forward to the vids.

AJ

 

[jd88047]

My F75 would be my pick as I have a few years on it. But I have a buddy who ran a T2, and just wow is all I can say. Not putting any detector down, but it most likely would be the one your holding. Also location is important. I suspect the list would get short here is you only asked folks who found gold coins and detector they used to find them.

 

[WaterHound]

Wow! Guys! These post, wag my waterhound tail! You mean l don't have to dig every stinking iffy target but might miss a tiny gold chain that a jeweler won't give you beans for anyway, yeah yeah yeah! I know they add up. You know in my practice patches the gold rings and coins ring solid and true and tabs as well , the MX sport is hot on that aluminum range I can see why many like this machine for gold of all types. Your so right fellas about slowing down and hearing ! And proper coil for each site.

 

[Oldguy]

Most of the gold I find is with my Tesoro machines. That's probably because most of my gold comes from the water, the Tiger Shark is my only water machine. It will hit on incredibly small targets as well. The other gold producer for me is an old baseball field with too much EMI for my display machines, but the Tejon works fine there. In my case the Tesoro machines are the ones that work in the places where the gold is.

 

[IDXMonster]

This is a never ending topic in detecting possibly because it equates to Fort Knox for the inventor of the machine that can truly pick the gold out of the trash. I have had several claim they have made the leap but none could prove the point when put to task. The White's spectragraph machines right up through the V3's polar plot with the Big foot coils etc. , seem to be the hardest diehard believers but they have all failed in the field tests.

I never found a single gold item with the XLT , the DFX or the V3i , nor have I found any gold with the F75 ltd 1 or 2 , nor a CZ3d. I have never used the Tesoros but have found 26 gold items in modern dirt/turf trashy park hunting with the Etrac , CTX and Deus. Deus gets four of those which gave the "round sound", the remainder were FBS machines with the Etrac bagging the most. The idea that these machines are poor for gold and low conductors is bunk if you listen to the tones. I frequently dig as many or more nickels on a normal park hunt with an FBS than quarters or silver jewelry , simply because so many are left behind in heavily hunted parks. The key is to go slow enough to hear each target clearly and separately , and these machines will give you a tone different than the blurry tones of can slaw , however tabs and cleverly folded foil will still give you a tone to dig so you better resign yourself to digging those sounds. That has been my experience with digging gold to this point , tones reign supreme , not VDI,,,it just keeps you in the ballpark for talking

Obviously the law of averages is on your side (if you dig ALL the aluminum) to eventually turn up the yellow stuff but the tonal quality of these machines can improve those odds if you match the coil to the trash density and can discipline yourself for the hunt. It's tiring so I don't even try to maintain that concentration for more than a hour or so at a time. I have never pulled out gold and knew I was about to pull out gold , just digging a good sounding low conductor.

My time in these types of sites has me believing that the actual amount of gold lying around is not what we hope it is but in truth much less.

I just ran across this post as I

Be looking for those types of targets more and more but I could NOT agree more....the notion these machines(CTX and Explorer2 here) cannot find low conductors so we’ll is ludicrous. Both these machines will scoop up nickels like nobody’s business and the OP is SPOT ON....you have to hear AND examine each potentially good target. AND you have to have discipline to walk away from something not sounding right in the first place. Great post!

 

[LTimedigger]

One thing that makes gold hunting challenging is that it can lay at 1" or 10". I found a 14kt baby ring at 9". So you really can't use depth as a discriminator as in coin hunting. All of my gold find have been with the CTX and the deus. Statistics have shown there is much more "micro" gold lost than rings so you need a machine that hits well on these. Not all do. I understand the EQ hits the small gold really well. Would like some Nokta readers to test a chain and tell us how it performs. And a small gold chain retails for about $150. If a dealer won't give you 50% off retail, shop some more or give it to someone you love. Oh and slaw does tend to give a much more jumpy signal. Just passing these and digging the tabs probably does help your odds. HH

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... Statistics have shown there is much more "micro" gold lost than rings so you need a machine that hits well on these. ....

Well, the devil is in the details. Perhaps you're right that there's more micro-jewelry lost, than full-size normal rings. Eg.: earring studs, dainty fine chains, dainty earrings, etc.... HOWEVER :

a) So too is there 100x more junk in those ranges of TID. Not sure what type hunt location you had in mind (parks ? dry sand at beach ? Wet sand at beach ?), but .... I challenge you to get a machine that's capable of pinsized targets (lest, heaven forbid you miss an item of micro-jewelry) and head to the typical urban turfed park. Oh sure, you might be able to do it in some sandboxes. But , for example, I tried it with a Nox 800 @ a certain high-end tourist beach dry sand zone, where I knew for a fact that no one's ever gone for "micro-jewelry" before. D/t I reasoned "I bet no one's ever angled for items so small here before". And I was in for a rude awakening : Tttteeennnnsssyy little turd foils, pinheads, etc..... Contrast to larger rings, and you'll have much less junk that falls into those TID ranges.

b) And even once you brave the odds/ratios, you almost have to ask yourself: Once you've gotten that dainty fine chain, or earring stud .... How much gold is in it ? What's the weight factor ? Unless it had a stone in there (and I mean a BIG stone), you're basically finding stuff of little value. Most nice big diamonds are set in normal rings. No earings, or necklaces with spider-like crown to hold it. Yes it *can* happen, to get a sizable diamond mounted in micro-jewelry. But the odds are slim, on a ratio compared to stones set in rings.

c) Some of the machines that are capable of finding micro-jewelry, while at the same time passing iron (like the 800) are NOT capable of doing that on the wet salt inter-tidal zone sand. So the moment you go to tune out the effects of salt, you might be dumbing it down enough (to achieve no falsing and achieve stability), that you can actually kiss micro-jewelry goodbye. If so, then what are you left with ? Dry sand ? parks or sandboxes ?

d) For purposes of this post, I'm including dainty rings (like .... rings almost as thin as wire). I'm assuming that *normal* machines can find them, even though they read down into low foil. I would not include those in the "micro" category. Although some people would. D/t, yes, they're difficult signals (but not as difficult as an earring stud, haha). And yes: Some of those very thin lady's solitaires can have big stones. However, they *can* be had with standard machines too. Hence beefier than tinsel thin chains, that normal machines will miss.

Not saying I'd argue with finding a nice chain or dainty earing. But just saying, on a weight-per-weight accumulation basis, and on the basis of ratios of commonly recurring junk items , that : There's times when a person's time is better spent . Like the Las Vegas odds of time spent, value to-be-had, etc....

 

[LTimedigger]

I pretty much agree with your points. My definitions were pretty broad. By "micro gold" I mean small gold chains primarily which the best multi but high kfz machines are best able to find. e.g the EQ runs on both combined multi and single multi. Would only run on single with high kfz for the micro gold and then only in certain spots even though I know they are lost more. Would NEVER look on beach. Don't have to tell you that the time spent just finding the small piece of foil you've dug out just isnt worth it. But recently priced small gold chains and you can't get one for less than $140 so in spots where trash is manageable can be worth trying. Some examples band field(esp old ones), soccer fields, grassy parking lots, old house sites. But in parks or beaches, nope just the bands please(exp with a diamond-smile). Best.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I heard of a guy, way-back-when is San Jose CA: When nugget machines were first coming on to the market (mid to late 1980s), who figured that , since they were capable of finding dainty chains, and since all the parks and sandboxes in the entire city parks system had only-ever been routinely cleaned out by standard machines, that : It stood to reason that all the decades of md'rs , in these tot-lots and sand boxes, were missing dainty thin chains.

So he took his nugget machine out, for many many hunts, at many many such sites (digging in sand or tan bark is easy, after all, haha)

And sure enough : He did indeed get chains, earing studs, etc..., that all the other "mere mortals" had been missing. You can only imagine though, the amount of flitty bitsy stuff he was having to weed through.

By the end of the year, when he assembles all of them into a pile for club show & tell, it became apparent that a single fat gold ring or two, could probably have approximated the entire cumulative weight of his dozens of chains, earing studs, stick-pins, etc...

Believe me: I was weighing out these pro's & con's when I considered getting the 800. Because I'm the first to admit, that machines like the Excal, 3030, Exp. II, CZ's, etc... are going to miss those dainty things. But in the end, it just didn't seem worth the while. I certainly wasn't going to hunt land sites with that strategy. And if I was going to try it on the wet salt beach (as I'm primarily a wet-beach-erosion hunter), then I might simply loose out on the ability, once I adjusted for the wet-salt

However, you're right: There ARE times where it could come in handy. I just went on a posse-hunt for a gal who'd lost a fine necklace. $500 reward no less ! To hear a whispy object like that, I'd have to grasp for small iron grunts, threshold changes, etc.... when using my Explorer II. But once I got to the search zone, it turns out that it was in a nail-riddled beach bonfire zone. And I simply could not dig 100 nails, in an effort not to miss the chain. The 800 on the other hand, can get micro-jewelry AND pass iron, at the same time. So there was a rare situation where the 800 could have come in handy . But I probably would have gotten bogged down with 100 foil turds and BB's though. Doh! (beach bonfires breed those as well)

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Tom, I really enjoyed your very well thought-out post filled with lots of wisdom.

 

[quicksilver]

Equinox

 

[MassSaltH2O]

The Fisher Goldbug finds small gold. The freq is 40 kHz, I think. I actually own one. But I haven't used it lately. Nice light unit. Not very good at the beach, tho.