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Ace 250 Target ID questions

G

grinin

New member
Couple things I have noticed and would like to ask the more experienced users.

In all my tests and the couple times I have been in the field a copper penny is always IDed as a dime. Is this appropriate? I have not had enough experience in the field for this to be a concern, but I imagine on modern sites there may come a time when I may not want to hunt pennies (time constraints, etc.)

Square pull tabs often ID as a nickel especially when slightly bent. It seems only the straight ones (uncommon in the ground) will regularly ring under the first tab section. (I have not found a nickel yet but I have found lots of tabs!)
 
Your Ace is working fine. All cents ain't made the same. The zinc ones, especially the corroded one will read a notch below cent. If a copper cent has been in the ground for a long time will build a halo around it and make it read higher. You will find the nickels. Nickel will read, nickel, sq. tab and GOLD RING. I like the nickel notch.
No metal detector can separate targets perfectly. Your observations are right. Learn your detector and you will do well. You have a good detector.
 
Agreed. Good answer, John.
 
Both are fairly normal.
In the air, pennys will vary to age.
IE: on mine, a zinc cent usually reads one
notch above the lowest 1c mark.
There seems to be a notch for two
penny types, but on mine the zincs
hit the higher of the two "cent" notches,
and wheats ring on the dime notch.
I tested an old indian head cent expecting
it to ring like a dime too, but nope..
It rings on the same tab as the zincs.
So the old cents must not have been
as conductive as the wheat pennys.
In the ground, I've had many zincs ring
as dimes. I think the main reason is the
"halo" formed after an amount of time in
the ground. I think the metal leaches
into the soil a bit, and makes it look
more conductive than it would in the air.
Also, what you see with the pulltabs is
fairly normal too. So if you ignore pulltab
hits, you take the risk of missing nickles,
or maybe a ring. Rings often hit around the
same ID area, although some can hit as silver.
The technology is pretty good, but not perfect
by any means. A lowly nail can read like a
dime if it has enough rust on it. Rust is
more conductive than the metal the nail is
made from. On those, it's not uncommon to
bounce back and forth from iron to silver coin
range.
You can take two quarters side by side, and
they will usually ring as quarters.
But stack two quarters on top of themselves,
and it will ring 50 cents.. So it seems
thickness of the clad coins makes more of an
ID difference than the side by side increase
in area.
MK
 
I had two copper cents ring in as a quarter today. I was fully expecting nice silver quarters but not the case. I even dug over size plugs as to not scratch then....
 
I had a first today....a nickel that rang like a dime!


It was pretty deep, but first thing i did was checked it to make sure it wasn't a war nickel.

Anyone ever have this happen with a nickel? I wish they all would ring like dimes!
 
I've had this happen with corroded nickels before too. Must be a halo-thing with nicks.
Skillet
 
i have had a ACE250 now for about...6 months..maybe less.. but i have pretty much cracked it, those new pennies come in as dimes all the time, its just what it does. also, i hardly dig nickels either, what i have found is that pull tabs give a better nickel sound than the actual nickels! i now know that it is a nickel when its a very short blunt sound. also, i don't dig them if they say its right on top because every time its a pull tab! i will on the other hand pull out my whites bullseye and pull it out by hand..just in case its a ring! but..its usaly a pull tab. just work with it some more and you will get used to it. have you found any silver with it yet?
 
it happens to me all the time, and sometimes i will get an iffy signal that jumps on dime/penny, and it will be a nickel..this never happened to me with my GTA 1000.
 
HEY SKILLET! remember when my dad was saying he found 6 nickels in that 1 hole yesterday? when he dug five out, i went over it with my detector to see if there were any more, and the it gave he a solid penny sound and about a quarter of an inch down was another nickel.
 
If you look at those pennies they are probably 1982 and later, the last year they made pure copper pennies. Any coin that is corroded or badly stained will often ID off a bit.

Bill
 
I know I've done good if my nickel count is up. Sometimes a one way nickel beep IS a nickel. When my brother and I have our friendly contests while hunting we count a nickel as 50 points. Just like a half dollar.
It's fun to make a game when you have a partner. Looser buy the beer!
 
I cannot emphasize enough to dig those Nickel notches! I had my best day ever yesterday with the ACE. I dug every Nickel ID I got, and was rewarded with 17 Nickels, 1 gold ring, and 3 little charms. I did find a Sterling silver cross, but it's ID was up at the dime/quarter area. I was checking a tot lot. so I didn't have to worry about pull-tabs. Usually foil is the nuisance in tot lots for me.

The zincers read as dime on my ACE as well. Mine gets a little jumpy if there are different types of coins close by each other ( like a penny, dime and a nickel all fairly close to each other)
 
[quote Jason in PA]I cannot emphasize enough to dig those Nickel notches! I had my best day ever yesterday with the ACE. I dug every Nickel ID I got, and was rewarded with 17 Nickels, 1 gold ring, and 3 little charms. I did find a Sterling silver cross, but it's ID was up at the dime/quarter area. I was checking a tot lot. so I didn't have to worry about pull-tabs. Usually foil is the nuisance in tot lots for me.

The zincers read as dime on my ACE as well. Mine gets a little jumpy if there are different types of coins close by each other ( like a penny, dime and a nickel all fairly close to each other)[/quote]

I dug 17 nickels today and I didn't get a gold ring.
I checked every cent today and everyone that would jump to dime was a copper cent. All my zincs hit on cent or one notch below depending on how bad they were ate up.
 
I spent another few hours in the field and noted that most zincs hit on the upper penny icon (next to the dime) and almost all copper pennies hit on dime. Again this does not really concern me and I imagine any discrepancies we see are probably based on how the ground in our area affects the metal in each particular coin. The only other possibility is that each detector is calibrated at the factory and they all behave slightly different depending on the "tuning".

By the way it would seem logical that since there are two cent ID locations that one should be zinc and one should be copper. Does anyones detector respond as such?

One thing that does concern me is that I rarely get a target to read the same thing each time I swing over it. Often the target will ID anywhere from nickel-tab-penny-dime-quarter or even more often 50 cent-1$-iron. I think this is due to the fact that the majority of my hunting has been at 1950's homesites that were leveled 2-3 years ago to make way for widening of the interstate. The debris was supposedly all hauled off, however connsiderable amounts of small trash were left behind. This is probably not the best site for a beginner.

So I have decided to try the tot lots, etc next.
 
When I lived in FL. the Ace had a very accurate ID. It was very consistent. The soil there had very little mineralization. Here in WV. the ID is all over the place. There are lots of minerals in the soil. Some places are better then others. I have also lost some depth. If they would put a ground balance on the Ace, it would blow the other MDer's away. Maybe that is why they haven't. It might upset the whole detector business.
 
My Ace loves them. They almost always sound off on the notch between the penny and dime icon. I have to dig them because sometimes it turns out to be a penny. Those nickel hits most of the time turn out to be part of a pulltab.
 
Nonetheless, get in the habit of digging nickle signals. If you get in the poor habit of passing them by, you WILL miss much gold jewelry when it comes along.
Fisher once did a study and 70%-75% of all the gold rings they tested came in at around nickel range. I have duplicated this myself.

SURRISE: Many filigree gold pieces, like pendants, come in BELOW nickel.
My last really nice gold piece was only a crappy foil wad - if I was the sort who actually BELIEVED what my TID told me.

Detecting has TWO sides:
1. Dumbass luck - we like to say "You never know," when this is the case.
2. Statistical odds - the wise detectorist knows them.

The WISEST detectorist works them both to his advantage.

Relying on your TID TOO much, ignoring all nickle-tab signals, is something you do at your own peril.
 
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