WIll gold jewelry go extinct?

[dahut]

With the price of the stuff, the thinking is people will either stop buying it or cash it all in. Eventually, detectorists will scavenge most of what there is to find in the ground.
With an ever dwindling supply of jewelry, an already shrunken supply of silver coins, government disdain for detecting as a whole and detectors second only to lottery tickets in these economic times....

Well, how long before clad will be all there is to find?

 

[BigCatDaddy]

I've noticed lately that more and more of the rings I find water hunting are titanium or tungsten. Nice rings but no melt value. What to do, what to do!!

 

[BH_Landstar_]

Hunt the clad, kids love to drop it at parks and game fields.

Clad total since 2010 is over $1400.00

 

[dahut]

I've noticed lately that more and more of the rings I find water hunting are titanium or tungsten. Nice rings but no melt value. What to do, what to do!!

That is a trend that has been building now for about 10-15 years. Stainless steel is also considered 'chic', these days.

Bugar mentioned it in another post,too. He concludes that the jewelry has already gone to the pawn shops or melters. He based that on what you are saying - he just aint finding as much.

 

[itsaawgood]

Its a hobby not making a living. Its the thrill of the hunt! If I expected to find something everytime I went out I would have been so disappointed I would have dropped the hobby long ago.

 

[Muddyshoes]

Gold jewelry has been around for thousands of years. It's not going anywhere. People may be more careful than they used to about losing it, but people are generally as careless as they've always been. There are silver and even gold coins still out there for the lucky finders who take time to do their research, and even the occasional fool who just happens to find one.

- Muddyshoes

 

[dahut]

Gold jewelry has been around for thousands of years. It's not going anywhere. People may be more careful than they used to about losing it, but people are generally as careless as they've always been. There are silver and even gold coins still out there for the lucky finders who take time to do their research, and even the occasional fool who just happens to find one.

- Muddyshoes

So, no worries, then?

 

[Muddyshoes]

Hate to say it, but by the time silver and gold is a very unlikely find at all, we'll be too old to swing our detector or remember who we are anyway.

What was I saying?!?

- Muddyshoes

 

[dahut]

Its a hobby not making a living. Its the thrill of the hunt! If I expected to find something everytime I went out I would have been so disappointed I would have dropped the hobby long ago.

Easy... calm down. I know all that.
It was suggested, however, that gold is a unique thing in that its value has risen to beyond the point of careless loss.
Do you think people are maybe removing it from their persons deliberately and cashing it in, thus removing the potential for finding it in the future?

 

[darrenb]

Heck, I must be ahead of the curve! I have been finding only clad for quite some time!!
HH
Darren

 

[dahut]

Heck, I must be ahead of the curve! I have been finding only clad for quite some time!!
HH
Darren

I know exactly what you mean!!

 

[itsaawgood]

Its not that people are losing less items....its the fact there are LOTS more people out there metal detecting these days. Early bird gets the worm....around here its a mad scramble to beat the others to the beach.

 

[norman maassey]

I'll be Rich Next Week!

 

[norman maassey]

Or more scrap value of Gold on themselfs daily and Jeannie never wears two day running. They would Die before they give sold or gave any of it at Gun point. I know a lot people that way.

 

[dahut]

Its not that people are losing less items....its the fact there are LOTS more people out there metal detecting these days. Early bird gets the worm....around here its a mad scramble to beat the others to the beach.

Yeah, that is one of the concerns. Once detectors became affordable, mass produced consumer items, available from a gazillion different sources, that outcome was inevitable.
We told ourselves for too long that it would be good for the hobby if this happened. Well... more correctly, the manufacturers, distributors, writers and eventually the web page designers told us it would. They were in it for the money, of course, but the rest of us who had been detecting for very long knew better. We were certain that the more people that got involved, the less there is to find for each - and the more official scrutiny we would endure.

Today, it is as you describe. Where once you could actually detect in a public place without much (if any) competition, that is over. No one gets it all, as we know. Bu tthe more coils over the same ground or lake bed can only mean one thing.

So it goes.

 

[zaxfire69]

I figure as long as there is women and men are married to women rings will be plentiful. Long as there are waves and women in bikinis maybe some of them will drink to many drinks and lose rings in the surf. Even if the gold and rings go extinct at least Bikinis will survive.

 

[Muddyshoes]

But you know? The average person who gets started on a whim is going to dig a few pulltabs and then crank the discrimination all the way up. They won't last digging through trash and nails for very long and will move on after a few pieces of can slaw. The people in these forums are not THOSE folks. We'll dig 100 nails at a single yard with the hopes of pulling out one nice piece of silver. Most of us aren't in it just for the money. Well, maybe you water-guys are.. *grin*

Competition is fierce for clad-farms like tot-lots, even the beach, but for places where the good stuff is deep and scarce with lots of junk and trash around, only the few and the bold will take the time to make all of that trash-clearing worthwhile.

At this local old elementary school I mentioned in another post, I spent probably 3 hours clearing junk aluminum from an install of about 500 on-site constructed windows and found a 1953 silver dime. To me it was worthwhile. To most others, it's not worth their time. They're busy, have stuff to do, people to text. Those are the ones who put their like-new mid to upper price range metal detectors on eBay or Craigslist.

"Was a lot more work than I thought it would be," they say. (Well I don't know if they say that for sure, but I'm sure it's why most of them bail out of this hobby.)

Metal detecting is about fishing... figuratively speaking... It takes time, and it more about the experience and the hunt than the capture...although a good capture is the icing on the cake!

- Muddyshoes

 

[zaxfire69]

Muddyshoes you so right. There are days when all i dig is a pouch full of can slaw and brass wire. I go back to the same spot time and time again. Wait for the rain to soften the ground up. Go back to the exact same spot and dig more trash. Go back to the same spot get a good clean signal and there is a beautiful 3 ring minie ball. It is about persistence. Don't just dig that one good target and say well looks like I dug that place out. Go back. There are always more where that came from. Hit it from a different angle. More targets. Moving from Land to water is gonna be fun for me. I am going to give it a week for sure. Hopefully in that week I can find a good ring or necklace. I am confident.

 

[dahut]

But you know? The average person who gets started on a whim is going to dig a few pulltabs and then crank the discrimination all the way up. They won't last digging through trash and nails for very long and will move on after a few pieces of can slaw. The people in these forums are not THOSE folks. We'll dig 100 nails at a single yard with the hopes of pulling out one nice piece of silver. Most of us aren't in it just for the money. Well, maybe you water-guys are.. *grin*

Competition is fierce for clad-farms like tot-lots, even the beach, but for places where the good stuff is deep and scarce with lots of junk and trash around, only the few and the bold will take the time to make all of that trash-clearing worthwhile.

At this local old elementary school I mentioned in another post, I spent probably 3 hours clearing junk aluminum from an install of about 500 on-site constructed windows and found a 1953 silver dime. To me it was worthwhile. To most others, it's not worth their time. They're busy, have stuff to do, people to text. Those are the ones who put their like-new mid to upper price range metal detectors on eBay or Craigslist.

"Was a lot more work than I thought it would be," they say. (Well I don't know if they say that for sure, but I'm sure it's why most of them bail out of this hobby.)

Metal detecting is about fishing... figuratively speaking... It takes time, and it more about the experience and the hunt than the capture...although a good capture is the icing on the cake!

- Muddyshoes

I tend to agree with you, in the main. On the other hand, I have seen so many signs of other users that the use-once-and-toss individual becomes moot.
At least in my area, those folks have given way to an obvious cadreof consistent users. Other detectorists have observed the same thing.
Even if the less persistent user falls by the way, as you suggest, it seems there is a certain percentage that sticks to it. This increase in sheer numbers is being felt.

I just reckon that I'll keep at it. Eventually, I will be the only one still willing to do it.

 

[old lobo]

At Orange and L.A. county beaches during the hot summer months, detectorists are all over those beaches like a bunch of cockroaches, but that that's only half of why less is being found, at least in the dry sand. For years beach rakes cleaned the sand and they only picked up the bigger items, leaving much still in the sand. Now many beaches use the sand sifter machines which pick up 95% of the recent drops in the top few inches of sand. A friend of mine talked to one of those drivers last summer, and just that morning the driver had found 6 gold rings just by watching what was going up the conveyer belt of his sifting machine. Those machines cover many times more ground, much faster, than any detectorist can. Those machines clean in the A.M. so the way to beat them, if your a dry sand hunter, is detect in the evening as late as you can. A person can do better in the water or when the tide goes out, in the wet. I'm a terrible metal detectorist who usually finds anywhere from a few cents to a couple of dollars when I go out, but this last Sunday and Monday something happened to me that has never happened before, and it relates to what we are talking about here. Sunday I was detecing the wet sand and get almost no signals, when finally I get a signal that was bouncing between nickle and the notch under nickle. I dug it up and there was a platinum ladies engagement ring with a diamond in the center and three diamond chips on each side. Monday at 4:30 A.M. I was at a differing beach. There were already 2 people doing down by the water, and 2 doing the wet sand up near the dry sand. I didn't see them get near each other in that middle area of the wet sand, so as they worked their way away from me I decided to see if there was anything in that gap they seemed to have left. During the first hour I was finding several pennies, 3 quarters, 4 dimes, then I got a nickle signal, which many times means a can tab. I scooped it up and it was another ladies engagement ring. This time it was 14k white gold with 3 main diamonds on top and 2 diamond chips on each side. The next day I took both rings to my local detector shop and they tested to see if the diamonds were real. They were real in both rings. I have talked to other detectorists and they are also finding quality rings lately. The bigger the beach, the hotter the weather, the more crowded it is, the more activity, people staying late and partying and drinking too much so they don't even realize when they have lost something, all make a difference in your chances.