A Condensed "Splitting Hairs On Rings" Summary Of Where They Fall, & It Probably Ain't Where You Think!

[Critterhunter]

I realize that Splitting Hairs On Gold Rings thread is rather lengthy (but detailed) for a read, so I thought I'd post a two message summary of the findings for you guys on just where most gold rings fall in various "zones" in terms of say trash, tabs, or nickles. Read on as I bet you have always heard rings fall mostly in the tab or nickle ranges. Nope!...

A friend found over 100 gold rings over the years water hunting with an Xcal digging all signals above iron, junky sounding or not, so this test pool of rings isn't biased by digging only good sounding targets or certain conductivity zones. I've seen test pools of rings graphed percentage wise in the past, but since they were largely the result of selective digging the data is biased. This one isn't, and that's why we compiled a chart of these rings.

We also compiled a chart of randomly found round and square tabs, and then ran the numbers to compare for instance notching out tabs. Even using the notch raised just high enough to kill a 165 tab VDI # (on a GT) and blocking out 84% of all know tabs, the vast majority of gold rings would still be recovered from the site. While you wouldn't want to do this beach hunting, in a park loaded with millions of tabs avoiding the tab range will greatly alter the trash to treasure ratio for you and still recover most of the rings.

Further "selective digging" criteria would also have to be used to cut down on the trash. For instance, most of the rings would lock onto one or two VDI #s no matter which way they were swept, where as trash, especially oddly shaped trash, will vairy (at least on the GT) by 3 digits or more. Further restrictive criteria could be applied by the sound of the target. Only a handful of rings would bounce by 3 digits or more, and that same small amout of rings would also have a rather sick or warbly sound to it, while most of the rings have a round, smooth, soft, "quality" sound to them.

Now, you may not find this very interesting being that this information appears to be compiled VDI wise for one machine, but read further. Below you'll find a graph where the percentage of rings fall on the conducitivity scale in terms of the foil, nickle, tab, and other ranges. As you can see, there are more rings in the foil range than even the nickle and tab ranges combined. Digging the nickle zone is a rather poor strategy when ring hunting. However, it is useful even to me when I only plan on coin hunting but will take a chance on a nickle number, as that could be an old nickle, maybe a ring, or at least I should have the satisfaction of standing up with a clad nickle.

Although, you have to adjust this generic listing of the conductivity/ring percentage scale to various machines. For instance, with lower resolution on some machines than the Sovereign what others consider the "nickle" zone or "tab zone" might be a much wider net of targets, and so for instance the nickle zone on one machine might well drop down into well into the foil range. On the Sovereign foil starts at about 60 or so on the VDI, and the target range up of low to mid conductors ranges all the way up to about 178 where copper pennies start. Nickles are usually about 144 to 146, but old degraded ones can read as low as about 136 or 138 on the VDI. For that reason the following chart has the official nickle range from 139 on up to 148 (though it's rare for a nickle to read higher than 146, or as low as 136, or at least I never had dug one that read that high or low). Tabs start at 148 and go up to 169, so these zoned off conductivity zones are pretty clear cut using high resolution, with enough fine detail to crunch the numbers in pretty good clearity in terms of conductivity zones.

The original thread is here. It's rather lengthy but through out it various graphs are used to display the data in various ways. Later, towards the end of the thread, bar graphs are used to more visualy represent where the rings fall on the conductivity scale. It's much more telling to view the data that way.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1096415,1101102#msg-1101102

We also scanned these rings onto an Etrac and created a few graphs for that. That information can be found in the Etrac forum in this thread...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?63,1377441,1377441#msg-1377441

 

[Critterhunter]

I apologize if this is rather redundant is some respects, as I am just re-posting another message without editing out information that was already covered in the above message...

While the original two thread's intent was to chart VDI numbers on rings and tabs for the Sovereign and the Etrac, I feel you'll find this data useful to the other machines as well. Further into it, on page 2 the graph for the tabs can be seen and where they fall percentage wise. It's unexpectedly a bell curve.

Anyway, the first page or two of this thread shows actual Sovereign VDI numbers. On page 3 of the thread you can see that I broke that VDI range down into more understandable (generic) numbers in terms of where the foil range, the nickle range, the tab range, the coin range, and so on falls on the Sovereign...And thus what percentage of rings read "in the foil range", and what percentage reads "in the nickle range", and so on for application to other brands and models of metal detectors. Shockingly, for example, 47.1% of all gold rings fall in the foil range. Even more shocking, only 9.1% fall in the nickle range. And for further jaw dropping statistics, only 31.4% fall into the round and square tab range. Many people would have suspected that most gold rings fell in the tab range or perhaps the nickle range. So, even if you combine both the nickle and the tab range, that still is not as high of a percentage of rings as there are in the foil range. That alone should blow a few people's minds. But, as I think I already said, it all depends on the resolution of your machine. if your nickle zone is much lower and higher than where nickles really read, then you will of course find more rings in the nickle zone. But, even if that's the case, you'll find that the vast majority of rings are still probably going to be in the foil range below it.

Obviously, keying in on the "nickle zone" is a rather poor choice in terms of percentages, but it's still fun to do when only coin hunting and so perhaps you might pop an old nickle or a ring, if not at least a modern nickle. But, keep in mind that these "zones" depend largely on how high the resolution is on your detectors. All coins above copper penny are compressed into the 180 VDI #, but foil starts at about 60 and ranges up to a copper penny at about 178 or so.

Zinc pennies read around 173 or 176 on the 180 meter. From 170, so just a hair below zinc penny, all the way up to 180, there are only 12.4% of gold rings that read that high. I bet many would be shocked that as low as that is, it still is a higher percentage of rings than what read in the nickle zone. More details at this link. The third page has this data on it in a chart, but the prior pages as well as ones after page 3 also have various charts displaying that data in various ways. Later in that thread I started showing various target ranges via bar graphs, which gives a very visual representation of these numbers on the spectrum of the conductivity scale.

Foil on my machine has a good bit lower tone than the nickle range of numbers, so it's rather easy to note and avoid or dig if you want. What I've found is that odd shaped blobs of foil (thus being most foil found at a site) will give a rather sick warbly sound to it. Not only because the foil is oddly shaped, but also because the foil has surface "hills and valleys" or fine ripples running through it. Thus, gold rings that read well down into the foil range *usually* have a nice smooth, warm, round, "quality" sound to them, while most foil won't. The rings will tend to lock onto one or two VDI #s no matter which way you sweep, while the foil, especially odd shaped for and other odd shaped junk as well, will tend to roam by 3 digits or more depending on which way you sweep. Rings, like coins, being round, should most lock onto one or at the most two VDI #s no matter which way you sweep. Out of over 100 gold rings we tested there was only a handful that sounded sick or warbly and also would roam by 3 digits or more in VDI. These were rings with fine webbing or many holes in them. Even a super thin gold ring won't do this warbly/sick/roaming thing. It's due to the nature of the ring structure that'll make them sound like odd shaped trash.

 

[dewcon4414]

Looks like those are HIS stats.... those stats have a lot of varience based on location, person, machine, ring design. size, and of course Karet or mixed metal. Thou no one will argue that women wear the majority of the rings.

Dew

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Critter,I guess we better start digging a lot more targets.Thanks for the information.HH Ron

 

[Critterhunter]

Looks like those are HIS stats.... those stats have a lot of varience based on location, person, machine, ring design. size, and of course Karet or mixed metal. Thou no one will argue that women wear the majority of the rings.

Dew

Well, these rings were sourced from several beaches in various cities of higher and lower class, as well as a few other states as well, so it's about as unbiased of a test pool as you are going to find, or at least as good as it gets in trying to be unbiased. The variances of ring types in terms of K or mixed metal, size, etc....are the very thing you are trying to randomized to averages by basing the sample over varied locations. About the only somewhat "biased" slant that one could take from this test pool is the fact that they were all found in the water. I'm sure there are certain types of people who swim and others who simply don't, so there might be variances to the test pool based on that criteria, but otherwise I feel confident you'll not find a more random sample of rings to base numbers on. And since he was digging any and all signals above iron, bad sounding or not, this also makes the test pool as pure as possible. I've already had one person contact me in another forum and say that he did a similar compilation on an unbiased ring test pool and found very similar numbers to mine, so it appears there is even more merit to support the law of averages in terms of statistical data.

The most import thing I think is dig the foil zone. In terms of all the "zones" or conductivity ranges that people group and classify (foil, nickle, tabs, coin being the main common 4), it's obvious by the numbers that the "foil range", meaning just below nickle, is where your largest single group of rings will fall. Think of it this way...You would have to dig all 3 of the other zones to equal the amount of rings found in the foil zone. That alone says a BUNCH. And don't be fooled, even larger gold rings can easily read this low. It's not just small women's rings. Of course if the site is loaded with foil, and you don't have a machine with good enough audio variances to tell oddly shaped foil from a round ring, then it's time to adjust your strategy to which of the other zones don't have as much trash in them at that site. This can change to tabs at one site, to "just below zinc" all the way up to silver range for another site, or in really bad situations probably the best choice would be to ingore them all and just dig the nickle zone, even though you have far less chance of finding a ring in that zone than the others. The key is to keep your strategy fluid for the situation, and not try to fit a round peg in a square hole. But, if conditions permit, by far the best "zone" to dig in pure numbers is going to be foil.

 

[dewcon4414]

Sorry but you are just plain WRONG when it comes to large gold rings hitting in the foil range. If you have one..... do a vedio and show me.... im from MO. Since you know the Exporer so well..... you are saying large gold rings can hit at 11-01??? heck even 02?? Just the amount of other metals mixed like copper will throw them above foil range. You can put any slant on it want but those are his stats based on the rings he chose. Anyone elce shouldnt expect those same results in their area even if they use the same machine and you shouldnt lead them to believe otherwise. You are getting this from NASA Tom who believes 97 percent of all jewelry falls within foil range.

Dew

 

[Critterhunter]

I have to disagree, as the data says otherwise. First, it was not "the rings he chose". It was ALL the rings found over a span of years digging ALL signals, sick sounding or not, while water hunting, and in varied locations and states of both higher and lower income beaches. And, in the other respect, I didn't say "large" or the largest of rings can read in the foil range. I said *larger* rings, meaning larger than just super thin plain woman's band, can read in the foil range. Just one small example of that is more than a few of the white gold rings. We found some of these, despite size, read much lower than what one would expect them to. I am not, however, saying that even all white gold rings will read in the foil range, just that some of those rings as an example will read much lower in general than one would expect based on pure judging by eye. Other rings, even not white gold, have surprised us in just how low they read despite being somewhat bigger than you'd expect them to fall. But, once again that's the purpose of using a good random test pool for as pure and random of unbiased numbers as possible. There is no real benefit drawn from trying to micro-classify rings by shape, sized, and K value. Rather, it's the overall picture of where gold rings fall of various types all mixed together, and so that is where as true of a random sample base is primary.

 

[dewcon4414]

Let me expound what Tom said.... If you get his vedio i believe you will see he says "Larger gold and PL rings hit the same.... HIGHER UP because of their conductivity" and thats a quote. Tom made that 97 percent quote after testing 23,000 rings in jewelry stores. He also said on his DVD..... that when asked to see the mens rings he was given 1 yes 1 tray of rings.... in the whole jewelry store. He also mentioned there was a 8 to 1 ratio women to men wearing gold rings. So i dont know that you can say 97 percent of all rings found will ring up as foil. They might in a Jewelry store. You can wiggle all you want.... but you are WRONG about the foil and rings..... especially if you dont think K value is a factor in how it reads. Id suggest you do some more reading.

Dew

 

[Critterhunter]

Hmmm... Did the 15 rings in the zinc range weigh more combined than the 57 in the foil?
Mud

Another interesting way to phrase your question is...Even if that were true (the weight of the 15 rings in the zinc and up range weighing potentially more than those in the foil range (not saying it is, as we didn't quantify the data in that respect), one might also have to consider the value of potential stones found on the smaller rings versus the larger ones. I would bet (with no data to back it up, though...just a guess) that there are more smaller rings, especially women's rings, that have diamonds or other valuable stones on them, versus just a large gold ring. Or, another interesting way to look at it is, is the rarity of larger rings above the zinc range going to make it a mute point, because you could potentially find more smaller rings as they are less scarce, and so over time would have more in total gold weight than you would by concentrating on the zinc and up range. Chew on that one for a few minutes, as it's got me thinking too...

On the other hand, back to the original implication on ring size versus where they fall on the conductivity spectrum...That issue has just been somewhat addressed in the messages above. I can tell you that we found many rings, though larger (key word being largER and not necessarily the biggest of the biggest in terms of "large"), read much lower than one would guess by eye. Due obviously to primarily metal content (not just pure K value, but what the gold was mixed with) as well as presented surface area of the ring laying on it's side.

Oddly, even ring shape appears to have some effect on this. For instance, a ring with a large crown but a very thin band, while perhaps containing equal volume of gold as a thicker band but with no crown, I've seen read lower than one would expect on occasion. The thicker band I would guess presenting a larger surface area to the detection field as a whole. However, I do not have any actual tests to back up that statement so I could very well be wrong. Just a gut feeling when one ring of same K value and similar weight, but of different shape, appears to read lower on the scale for some reason. I make no claims one way or the other without applied testing, and that would involve weighing rings by actual gold weight, matching them by K, and then comparing VDI #s on those rings. We simply didn't do much if any testing in that respect.

If anything, we all of course know a coin on edge can read lower on the scale, as it's presenting less of a surface area for the detection field to broadly see, so perhaps there are variables in ring shape or band size that can also make a ring read lower as well as higher on the scale than a ring with exacting gold weight, K value, and the even harder to nail down conductivity of the material the gold was mixed with.

Alright, now I really need a smoke because my head is spinning...

 

[Critterhunter]

Let me expound what Tom said.... If you get his vedio i believe you will see he says "Larger gold and PL rings hit the same.... HIGHER UP because of their conductivity" and thats a quote. Tom made that 97 percent quote after testing 23,000 rings in jewelry stores. He also said on his DVD..... that when asked to see the mens rings he was given 1 yes 1 tray of rings.... in the whole jewelry store. He also mentioned there was a 8 to 1 ratio women to men wearing gold rings. So i dont know that you can say 97 percent of all rings found will ring up as foil. They might in a Jewelry store. You can wiggle all you want.... but you are WRONG about the foil and rings..... especially if you dont think K value is a factor in how it reads. Id suggest you do some more reading.
Dew

Where did I say 97% of all gold rings read as foil, or that K value didn't matter in terms of conductivity? In fact, even what the gold was mixed with can alter conductivity as well. I'll give you the same advice you gave me to re-read the data I posted so you can be sure about what I have and haven't said, just as you thought my statement about largER rings being "large" (meaning huge) rings. If we are going to debate points I need at least points I have made to defend here.

And, while I haven't read that report and am unaware of it, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand but I would like to ask...Were those rings sampled at numerous high and low end stores of various "styles"? Because, I had thought about sampling store rings, but came to the conclusion that unless I sampled them from a wide range of higher and lower end stores, as well as from different stores with different "styles" or lines of jewlery, then the pooled data wouldn't be random enough and could alter the numbers. I'm not saying he didn't do that, but am just asking. I would like to see that report because it sounds right up my alley. If anything, after all this is the "splitting hairs" thread, so in order to be as pure about finding rings that are lost...You could *conceivably* (meaning *possibly* but in no way for sure) bias the test pool by using rings that haven't been lost, as some rings simply aren't worn as often as others, or in the same public places or activities as others. Now, even I must admit that that's really splitting hairs. I've already pointed out in the above messages that our test pool could be biased by the very act of the kinds of people who swim versus never swim. However, that's is far less of a distinctive line than other factors that can come into play in terms of potential to bias a test pool.

 

[Critterhunter]

Dewcon, just for clearity sake...You seem to be confusing things such as 97% of all rings reading as foil with somebody else's testing data. I've never read of or know of such a compilation. As was clearly stated at the top of this thread, these numbers are based on a friend's ring pool found with an Xcal. Please re-read this thread and then if you have things to discuss in relation to that I'd be more than happy to address them. Thus far I've had two different sources tell me that my numbers are very close to what they also found in testing an unbiased ring pool. Based on the laws of averages there has to be some kind of pattern to be seen, so I'm not surprised that others have found similar percentages in the various conductivity ranges.

 

[Critterhunter]

Critter-hunter, this is nothing new. Weeaaaayyy back in about 1982 or '83, when the first TID machines were hitting the market, there was several persons who attempted to chart a myriad of gold rings, to see if there were any patterns they could figure out. Some people even went out and made "ring enhancement" programs (like for when the programmable Whites Eagle came out). I guess a guy, if he knew someone who owned a jewelry store, could sit there and wave hundreds of ring samples, and chart them all. Then he'd take all the commonly recurring junk items typically encountered in the field: tabs (of the usual recurring sizes), nickels, foil, etc.... Then it's simply a matter of sitting down and making an "odds" (aka "enhancment") chart to see what signals are the best to dig, verses the best to avoid (Las Vegas style, haha).

But in actual practice, there was still no end to junk you'd dig in a typical blighted urban park. Especially when you add in can slaw, which has no rhyme or reason, and can be endless sizes. Or molten aluminum globules (near camp fires and BBQ stove pits) which exactly mimic anywhere you can imagine on the screen. So the "trick" would only work if you were in a zone where the junk were relatively consistent, with un-bent un-chopped tabs, and smaller foil wads (vs. big ones).

And now today, we add in 2 dimensional TID (up/down AND left/right) on machines like the explorer. And you can go a step further and factor in "tones and sounds" (like you say odd-shaped variable multi-tone ones, which don't appear to be round or consistent). But you WILL miss gold that doesn't happen to be perfectly round or consistent. And don't forget: rings don't always sit flat in the ground (to mimic air test results). They tent to tilt toward the crown end. A friend of mine sleuthed this out years ago in San Jose, CA: He "made it his mission" to take a part of a park where he'd mined lots of silver out of, and strip-mine every single signal out. He had, prior to this, gone high disc. to just get the coins. But he reasoned "there must be old nickels too, and some gold rings in here". So over the course of months, he gridded off a section, and dug every single signal, no matter how flitty or small, in a given section. In the end, after countles apron loads of aluminum and junk, he did get some gold rings by doing this. And since it was a serious study on his part, he even made meticulous note of how deep each item was, it angle, etc... He noticed by careful extractions that whenever he'd gotten a ring with a crown on it (one end heavier than the other), that they'd invariably be tilted to the heavier end! That's going to skew the "round" sound, just so you know.

Oh, and he also determined that it simply wasn't worth it, to try to get gold rings in this fashion (and worthless orange cruddy buffalo nickels). It was far wiser, if gold rings are a person's goal, to simply go to swimming beaches

Tom, I mostly agree with your thoughts. However, there are still a few things that can be learned by graphing rings in this way. Primarily, dismissing the myth that the nickle zone seems to have the most gold ring potential, or even that the tab range would probably have the most. I bet most people would not believe that, at least according to our numbers, there are more rings to be found from just a hair below zinc penny all the way up to a silver coin, then there are in the nickle zone. Again, that all depends on just how wide of a window a machine's nickle zone is, and probably the reason why the old myth about gold rings being hot in the nickle zone, as on machines with low resolution there would of course be more rings to fall into that zone, but still probably not as many as there is in the foil zone.

If anything, these numbers illistrate that it's a viable strategy to target the conductivity zones based on avoiding the most common trash zones at certain sites. Many would think that if you avoid tabs in a park loaded with them you'll be missing most of the rings. That simply doesn't look to be the case (if these numbers are to be believed). So, at a site where there are thousands of tabs but little foil, there is merit to digging the foil zone as well as the nickle zone, and vise versa at sites with lots of foil but perhaps little in the way of tabs. Or, at least at sites that are full of foil and tabs, there is merit to digging just a hair below zinc penny and on up from there, while perhaps throwing in the nickle zone as well to widen your potential pool of rings.

The proper strategy on a beach is of course dig it all since it takes little effort, but on the other hand there are those who avoid hundreds of zinc pennies on the beach and dig everything else, or even avoid all coins zinc and higher dig everything else. I know of one guy who says his beach is loaded with tabs beyond belief, and at least the numbers imply that you can avoid those and still get the majority of the rings present.

Of course when land hunting, besides using a fluid stategy to avoid a certain zone of common trash, the other major key is location in that you can greatly improve your odds by zeroing in on spots where there is more potential for ring loss. Horseshoe pitts, around basketball courts, volley ball courts, ball diamonds, behind the kiddy swing where mom is pushing her baby on it from behind, etc. I even had heard that the grass strips at the edge of parking lots are good places for rings, as people will be reaching in their pockets for their keys and thus might slip a ring off their finger as they pull their hand out of their pocket.

As far as rings being on edge somewhat, of course that is going to happen. Not all rings are going to be laying flat. However, that still puts them down probably well into the foil range for potential discovery if you are digging that zone.

 

[Critterhunter]

Not dismissing the merits or pros and cons to various strategies. They all play a part. There are, however, sites I hunt that are for instance loaded with round and square tabs, but have little in the way of foil or even can shards. Then, on the other hand, I have a few sites that seem to be full of foil or other small bits of aluminum, but oddly are devoid of much in the way of tabs. Then there are sites where zincs aren't in high numbers, so it would be potentialy useful to target just a hair below zinc penny (or, in other words, just a hair above your highest pull tab numbers), and dig all targets from there on up. The strategy has to be fluid in order to play the odds the site is giving you. As for tabs, we graphed in both square and round tabs to find those numbers, and what percentage of rings would be lost by avoiding that entire zone of round/square tabs.

Another tactic for gold ring hunting is to gauge the depth of the oldest of tabs, meaning the round ones, and then to dig all the "tab" signals that sound deeper than that at the given site. This is also useful for foil, as there reaches a point in depth where foil no longer exists due to it being deeper (and thus older) than when foil become common place. In effect, you are traveling back in time by going deeper, to avoid certain layers of particular trash that is found at certain depths at a site.

A friend used this to his advantage about a month or so ago at a site we were hunting. This soil was rather packed with heavy clay, and so the max depth of round tabs and much of the aluminum or foil junk was about 4". During that hunt, he came over with a smile on his face and showed me the top half of a gold ring that was perfectly cut in half probably by a lawn mower I would guess. You could tell the ring looked old based on the style of the initials on somebody's name on the crown. I asked him what that ring read as and he said well below nickle. I thought about it for a second and then asked what possessed him to dig that signal. Oh, he said, it was deeper than the tabs or other aluminum and foil junk that we've been finding at this site.

He used his head and a fluid strategy to adapt to the location. Had I been "thinking" that day maybe I wouldn't have gotten skunked, because I kept wandering around looking for a classic deep coin signal. Obviously in this soil there wasn't much potential for super deep silver, and that in fact the depths they were able to sink to in this soil would have still put them in reach of just about any detector on the market (say roughly 5 to maybe 6" max). Since all those were probably long gone, I should have spent my time looking for the only silver that probably still was left. That being coins on edge or badly masked, or in other words I should have been looking for any bad or iffy coin signals and digging those, even if they sounded very shallow, as they could easily be old coins at even shallow depths due to the nature of this soil, and being masked or on edge would probably be the only ones left there to find.

I am trying to use this strategy more and more at my sites that don't have the potential to sink coins beyond say about 7" or so. 7" in my soil is still a feat for some cheaper machines, but there are a handful of good higher end detectors that can break that 7" barrier in my soil and get coins even deeper. So, at sites where I know coins are limited to around 7" or less, I'm no longer going to waste my time looking endlessly for a deep good coin signal. Instead, I'll seek out and dig the iffy ones due to being on edged or masked. At sites where I know coins can sink well beyond 7"...Well, that is where *in my soil* only a handful of detectors can get say 8" or deeper, and thus those are the places I'll be still looking for those super deep coins. But at my sites that coins won't really sink beyond about 7", it's largely a huge waste of time these days to be looking for that lone deep clean one. 6 or 7 years ago I could still find those 7" clean silver signals at those sites, but these days it's a pure rarity to find one of those at these shallower sites where they max out at 7" or so.

 

[Critterhunter]

On the topic of ring size and where they fall on the VDI scale, I forget that we actually did classify the rings by sizes of small, medium, and large. Looking at the stick for the Sovereign ID charts at the top of this forum refreshed my memory, as I had compiled a custom chart combining all prior Sovereign charts into a new one I made with my own findings on various coins.

Anyway, on that chart I have the rings we scanned listed as...

Small gold rings- 78 to 158 (this is from just about the bottom of the foil range all the way up to the mid-tab range)
Medium gold rings- 111 173 (this is from well into the low foil range all the way up to zinc penny)
Larger gold rings- 148 to 180 (this is from the very bottom of the tab range, as the lowest tabs usually are 148, all the way up to the top of the coin range)

That ID chart further refreshed my memory, as I did note in it that white gold can read lower than you would expect.

As you can see, the data supporters that largER rings can read well down into the foil range, and that in fact large rings can even read at the very bottom of the tab range.

 

[Critterhunter]

By the way, I forgot to mention at the top of the thread that as well as specific VDI numbers for the Etrac and GT, we also scanned the rings in on an M6 and so M6 or MXT users might want to check out this thread...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?31,1139039

 

[Critterhunter]

How to quantify the zones on any detector so the above listed chart in this thread can apply percentage wise in terms of where the rings fell...

Scan several small blobs of foil and note where they start on your VDI and record that as you're starting point for the "foil" range. Now scan several old and new nickles (Vs, buffalos, and jeffersons). Note the lowest VDI of those. You now know where the foil zone ends....right where nickle zone begins. Then, at the very top of where the highest nickles read, that will be the end of the nickle zone. One VDI # above that where you should consider the tab zone starts. Assembly a large assortment of tabs and scan them in. Note the highest a tab will ever read for you after scanning them. You now know where that zone ends. From the top of that (which is just a hair below zinc penny) on up is the coin zone. Thus you now have all the zones quantified.

These exacting "zones" is how they are represented in the chart in this thread that was posted after the first message. In other words, the very criteria used to classify the zones on the Sovereign. Well, one small exception. I believe (from memory) that start of the foil range I listed for the rings *may* not be the very start of the foil zone, but rather was the start of where the lowest ring read. I can't exactly remember but on the Sovereign foil may actually start at about 60 or so in VDI. In other words, the finest and tinest bits of foil. But, I could be wrong about that, and in fact the smallest starts right at 75 where the lowest ring read. Either way, the resolution scale of the Sovereign is so high in low to mid conductors that the difference between say 60 and 75 is miniscule for the most part, and wouldn't really effect your results by just noting how low the finest blob of foil reads on your machine. It's almost not even worth mentioning, even if small foil reads a bit lower than the lowest ring at 75.

 

[Critterhunter]

Sorry, forgot to add. On some machines that don't have very high low/mid range VDI resolution, you may have more trouble assigning distinctive zones for the various ones. Don't let that bother you, as the percentages should probably still be about the same ring wise. That is, unless the resolution is super low. I'd use a somewhat small (perhaps pea sized) blob of foil to define the start of the foil zone. I would use nickles (old types and new) to define your nickle zone, and so the end of the foil zone in those terms with the lowest nickle #. And use the highest nickle # to define it's end and the next digit up being the start of the tab zone, and the highest tab # to define the start of the coin zone, which in reality is just a hair below zinc penny.

Of course these "zones" might overlap a good bit on your machine due to it's resolution level, where tabs might read into the nickle zone, or nickles further down into the foil zone, or even there being little to no separation between the highest tab # and the start of the zinc penny/coin range. Unless there is huge overlap between these zones on lessor resolution, the reality of the ring percentages for those zones should be pretty close to the highly defined distinctive zones I was able to create on the Sovereign. But as a whole, there really shouldn't be much difference unless you've got severe overlap due to really low resolution.

You might want to more sharply define your lowest # for the foil zone if you can find the thinnest and highest K value of a plain gold woman's band with no crown to it. That will more than likely place it right at the 75 number I used to define the bottom of the foil zone on the GT. Again, I can't remember off hand if foil might in fact read a little lower like say down to 60 or so, but in reality I doubt even the thinnest of plain high K gold rings will read any lower than the 75 # anyway, so that's why the useful foil zone was defined at that #, if in fact it isn't exactly the very bottom of the foil range. Next time I'm out hunting I'll see just how low tiny bits of foil will read and post that # if it is in fact lower than 75 a bit. I'll then play with rolling up a few small balls of foil and see what size will read 75 if that's the case, and then be able to relate in size what the smallest ball of foil you can use in order to set the very bottom of your ring zone. Again, not sure if even foil goes below 75 off hand, but I suspect it does at least a bit, as I can't see a small tiny blob of foil not reading a bit lower than the smallest/thinnest high K plain ring. I could be wrong about that though.

 

[Critterhunter]

Interesting little read about finding gold rings being more luck or versus more skill in the Etrac forum...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?63,1723792

And I also wanted to link to the other thread about the "gap" between the highest tab # and the start of zinc pennies being an interesting number range to dig, as trash for me rarely reads in that 170 to 172 range and so you might find a big fat gold ring digging that zone or some other good find. I know I've so far dug some cool relics in that range and as said there is hardly any trash for me in that range either...

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1724223

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's some other related threads on the subject of gold ring hunting on land...

Anybody ONLY Ring Hunt On Land?

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,1697343,1697343#msg-1697343

Why Did You Dig That Signal That Turned Out To Be A Gold Ring? (Or Some Other Good Find)

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,1708213,1708247#msg-1708247

Digging It All. Unmasking Silver Coins Or Finding Gold Rings & Other Good Finds. How Well Has It Worked Out For You?

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,1683120,page=1

Land Hunting For Rings- Your Best Spots?

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,1677396,1678939#msg-1678939

Horseshoe Pitts

 

[Critterhunter]

Wanted to add this that I posted elsewhere...

One thing to remember when testing gold rings that have been dug is that they bias the results because people will key in on certain zones, unless they've been digging every signal above iron every time they ring hunt, regardless of it's ID or how it sounds. Naturally if you dig certain zones then the ring pool you've got to test is biased as they will represent those zones of conductivity that were favored. The over 100 rings we used to graph conductivity percentages were all found over 6 or 7 years by an Excal water hunting digging each and every signal above iron, regardless of the quality of the audio.

If you combine the percentage of rings found in both the nickle and tab zones they still aren't as high of a percentage as what was found in the foil range. I bet most people would not have believed that, but the numbers prove otherwise if this is a true representation of a random test pool of rings. In fact, I bet most people would not believe that the numbers show there are more rings from the zinc penny on up range then there are in the nickle zone. Of course this depends on how wide a machine's nickle zone is. I think the major reason why the old rule to find rings was to dig the nickle zone evolved out of older machines that had real poor resolution, and so the nickle ID zone on them was wider, well into the lower foil range as well as into the above tab range. What most people would also probably argue with is the idea that it's a good strategy to avoid the tab zone in a park that has millions of them and you'll still recover the vast amount of gold rings to be found there. It's a good way to lower the trash to treasure ratio in a situation like that where tabs are the most common trash target present.

Now, all this is dependent on whether to trust the numbers we found. The only thing I can say is that I've had at least two other people say they did similar number crunching with unbiased ring pools and found very similar percentages.