121 Random Gold Rings Scanned In From An Unbiased Test Pool

[Dr.Bill]

Wow Rich that is really to the point and well put - that post should be stickied to the top for reference .

HH all

 

[OhioCoinHunter]

As of the time and date of this post, gold is [size=large]$1375.70[/size] per ounce.

 

[Biofilmz]

To Diggler - I've played around with my Etrac and Safari on about 20 gold rings, and they easily detect even tiny rings less than 1 gram in mass; however, I can wave a 4 gram gold chain (all bunched up or elongated) on the coil, rub it on the coil surface or at various distances and it cannot be detected by either detector (E-trac: auto sensitivity, procoil, all metal, deep off, fast on, gain 24, trash density high; Safari: autosensitivity, procoil, trash density high). I observed the same negative signal when I added two 14k gold chains weighing 8 grams. This experiment was repeated on different days with the same results. I found the same results with an x-5 coil. One clear caveat to my experiment was that it was an air test; another is that my sensitivity was not on a high manual setting, and a third that it took place inside my house. While these caveats may question the validity of my tests indicating that they were not performed under optimal conditions, I still wager that they contain some truth. My conclusion from this study was that while the etrac is an exceptional deep coin machine and is great on gold rings, it is not the best for finding light weight gold chains - at least in my hands, and that is fine with me, I'll leave finding gold chains to my Tesoro.

Also this primary post is great, and the hard work and data are appreciated.

 

[Biofilmz]

Crunching the numbers with Excel - to determine which groups of numbers come up the most using the excellent data set above.

CO
2-6 - 40.5% of gold rings
7-11 - 15.7% of gold rings
12-15 - 10.7% of gold rings
16-20 - 11.6% of gold rings
21-30 - 13.2% of gold rings
31-34 - 8.3% of gold rings

Seeing the above break down and knowing what I dig when looking for coins (most of the time), I realize that I am only covering 19% of the gold ring range, and thats if I am looking for indian heads in the 31-34 range.

Thanks for this eye opening data set.

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for the input/advice/remarks/further data. i will have more to say later, as i can only type with one hand at the moment. cut top of finger off in snow blower. was re-attached. not fun.

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's a new "condensed" thread more to the point about the findings of where the rings we scanned fell percentage wise on the conductivity scale. It's more useful data to be applied to any detector, as it generically lists the foil, nickle, tab, and coin ranges in terms of what percentage of rings fell where...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1720979

 

[ryanchappell]

Cool study!

It would be interesting to have a histogram showing the distribution of rings at various VDIs

Something like this but with VDI along the bottom and count horizontally.

I could make my own if your spreadsheet had the vdi of each target listed instead of it lumped together at the bottom. Maybe I would group custom counts like CO 1-5 had 3 rings, 5-8 12 rings, 9-11 had 11 rings, 12-16 7 rings, 17-22 5, 22-33 8, 34-39 5, 40+ 2, but I would also want to see it for each individual number. You could see the trend where your best bet at finding a ring would be. Of course it would only be a perfect study if you could take the hunters digging tendencies out of it, by having them dig every target good or bad, and also do a separate histogram showing trash.

 

[ryanchappell]

Crunching the numbers with Excel - to determine which groups of numbers come up the most using the excellent data set above.

CO
2-6 - 40.5% of gold rings
7-11 - 15.7% of gold rings
12-15 - 10.7% of gold rings
16-20 - 11.6% of gold rings
21-30 - 13.2% of gold rings
31-34 - 8.3% of gold rings

Seeing the above break down and knowing what I dig when looking for coins (most of the time), I realize that I am only covering 19% of the gold ring range, and thats if I am looking for indian heads in the 31-34 range.

Thanks for this eye opening data set.

That is the data I was looking for!!! Wow your chart alone says exact why E-Trac users as a whole are not finding gold. Your average E-Trac user is a silver-shooter, only digging 12-45 and higher, 12-13 and 12-35 -12-36 if IHs are present.

To get gold digging every signal 13 and under, and every 33-36, would help tremendously. You get 70% of the rings by struggling with foil up through the nickel range. I would want to add the zincoln range, because of the huge payoffs from giant mens class rings, weighing 0.75 oz to 2 oz!

I will have to dig every 12-05 that sounds good, from now on, could be a $2000 diamond. I need to do a comparison between a diamond ring and a lump of foil that both register the same. That would make a great video.

 

[Critterhunter]

There is a "gap" between the highest pull tabs and the start of the zinc penny range that I REALLY like to dig. My favorite target numbers to dig on the GT is 170 and 171, and perhaps 172. Zincs start at 173. The highest reading pull tabs end at is 169 (99.9% of them that read highest will not go over 169, anyway.). It's rare for me to dig a tab that gets past that number. So, for that reason there is a sweet spot right between where the highest tabs will read, being 169, and where most low zincs will start, being 173. That "odd" 170, 171, and even to some extent 172 number is my favorite "odd" numbers to dig, and I rarely run into a lot of trash that will read those numbers so it's always worth digging to me.

I seem to find a lot of interesting things that way, like antique makeup compacts and other cool relics...And, you never know, could be a big fat gold ring, or better yet a silver 3 cent piece and $5 gold should read right in that range according to my charts and some of my own testing, and there are a few other "odd" coins that bottom out at 173 and might very well read a tad lower due to wear, orientation in the ground, depth, or minerals...Those being certain indians, 2 cent, half dime, and a $10 gold coin. In fact, I even found oddly by testing that some wheats read right at the bottom # (173) for a zinc. Not sure why, because I know indians had different make ups and will read several places depending on year, but far as I knew wheats all were the same composition? Have to check my book on that and refresh my memory. Either way, just saying that gap between highest pulltab (99.9% of the time) and zinc is an interesting spot on the scale to dig for me, where a few good coins should read, and in fact a few other good coins might drop into just due to various factors, and there's always the chance for a gold ring or the cool relics I seem to find in that range.

Don't know your Etrac numbers for that gap between the highest tab and a zinc off hand, but try digging that number(s) in that gap and you might be surprised what you find. I know it always excites me, in particular if I see a 170 or 171, but even 172. More often than not it's something cool even if it isn't a coin.

 

[beachdude]

I just loaded this pattern up and went to my local sports field and dug this massive silver chain, so it seems to work on silver too!

 

[ryanchappell]

There is a "gap" between the highest pull tabs and the start of the zinc penny range that I REALLY like to dig. My favorite target numbers to dig on the GT is 170 and 171, and perhaps 172. Zincs start at 173. The highest reading pull tabs end at is 169 (

Yes. I am thinking that it is around 12-28. 12-25 to 12-34 or so. At 12-28 I have dug 3 or 4 silver rings, several cool old tokens, and a couple of rouge compacts.

I just loaded this pattern up and went to my local sports field and dug this massive silver chain, so it seems to work on silver too!

Nice huge chain! What did it register?