cherry picking silver

[Jiminsandiego]

Left the beach alone today and went to an old park (for San Diego that is). Hunted the way I do at the beach, dig pretty much everything, no disc. After a couple hours I had a gold plate ring, 20 pieces of junk, eight clad coins and a 1953 wheaty. O K so... the wheaty means there's probably silver coins and..the park probably hasn't been hammered by others. Now if I want to go to "silver only" mode (Clive's book) I put the disc on full. I did this and tested my finds at home, and almost all the junk was quiet.... but the clad (except the nickles) gave a good signal. I also turned up the notch full clockwise which seemed to help silence some junk. I know I'll miss any gold rings with this setting but what I want is silver dimes and quarters. My question is.... is there any way to further disc out the clad dimes, quarters and pennies? The tones seem too close to tell the difference between these and a silver coin. I don't have a meter and I use a $60 pair of headphones (I want the sunray pro golds). Clive says you can tell copper from silver by the sound and he calls it "silver only" mode.
Thanks for any input on this very long question.
Jim

 

[chuck ky]

if you could do that you'd also lose the silver.

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

I have had some success with the silver only mode described in Clive's book. Of course I know that I would loose the gold with the high disc settings but I remember one scenario where it worked great. I was in an old small town common that had a Gazebo on it. There was sooooo much trash near the Gazebo and it was driving me nuts. I only had an hour to detect, so I cranked up the disc and ran in silent search. I pulled up two seated liberty dimes using the silver only mode at that town common. I am very reluctant to use the silver only mode. However it does have it benefits in rare circumstances. But to answer your question if there is a way to decipher between clad and silver. Perhaps the digital meter can help with that. I am in the process of deciding if I do or do not need a meter. There is a very and I mean very subtle difference in tones between silver and clad. Perhaps a meter in use with the silver only mode can help sort the clad and silver out. Some of the guys in here must know if the meter can sort them out?

HH
Jason

 

[synthnut]

That's the problem with the scale of the Soveriegn ....There is too much ganged up on the 180 number on a 180 meter ......If you're running a meter , you're pretty much going to dig a 180 number anyway ......With or without a meter , there is a good chance that in a lot of cases , your Silver will be deeper than your clad ...NOT ALWAYS , but in most cases since it's beent here longer , it will be deeper .... The numbering system is one gripe I have with the Sovereign ...I have never dug so many Copper Pennies in my life !!.....But I have also pulled out some nice Silver too !!.... Get use to digging 180 or higher tones if you don't have a meter .....The one you pass by just might be a nice coin ...

 

[jamesinwesttexas]

I'm on the verge of using no meter, having trouble seeing the value of it. My last two hunts I rarely looked at the meter [it's hard to see mounted on the shaft and I only have the bar graph one] and experimented with disc all the way up [I was surprised to find an old tab] and then, since gold is all over the scale, using disc at the 3rd mark and notch at next to last mark and digging all that sounded. This was in a park and I found several pennies, dimes and quarters, nickles and trash. In a tot lot, beach or ball field or open area it will be mostly no disc, no notch. I'm beginning to learn the sounds but it's going to be awhile before I can pull up gold by the sound, hopefully just a matter of practice. I'm using the 10 inch Tornado coil. I should probably sell the meter and get a pinpointer. Always happy to hear any advice.
James

 

[cjc]

Hi Jim
I'm the first to admit that hearing silver with the Sovereign is hard to do and takes practice. Mind you, when you hear one--you often do know. These signals are high and clean. They are even higher than Wheat Cents. Part of it is knowing how deep targets sound as well and checking in all metal to get a better idea of just how deep something is. The copper is also rougher around the edges. The tone is one alert, but other features of the target act to confirm that it is silver. When you get out there, "wishful thinking" often takes over, too, so try carrying some silver with you to keep comparing. Also, some silver coin signals are in close to something else, so this kind of multi-feature approach is more consistent than just listening for the highest tone.
Hope this helps.
cjc
clivesgoldpage.com

 

[synthnut]

Sliver is is pretty much up in the high tone range .....It isn't all over the scale like Gold is .....Tones are so hard to describe, but as CJC mentions, bring a piece of Silver with you to check ......I have a good ear for Silver on both my Sovereign AND my E Trac since I have dug it with both machines ..... Silver at least for me was one of the easiest tones to remember ...It hit's hard , and it's a nice soft flutey tone that sounds different from other coins .... Once you hear it and it gets in your head, you just KNOW IT !!.....Gold is another story since it's all over the map ...It hit's similar to Silver except in the lower tones , but still hard to hear just right ....At least it is for me ......YMMV ...Jim

 

[w6pea]

Clive

Thanks for your post. I clarifies a few questions I have on my Sovereign GT.
Also I have several of your books very informative.

 

[Critterhunter]

The first time I had a silver dime under the coil on my GT I *knew* it was going to be silver. Silver has a smoother/softer/more sweet sound to it than a wheat penny. If you tweak the meter up from 506 to where it just bearly reads 507 (the 180 meter resets to these numbers when at rest once in a while, and is a handy way to calibrate the meter without using a coin) then it will go 181 on silver. I prefer using a silver dime and then adjusting it to where it just reads 181 at least here and there when sweeping over it. You can also do the same trick with a clad quarter if you are clad hunting, where as it will read 181 while a clad dime will read 180.

Mainly though I go by depth. There isn't too much shallower silver sitting around these days at public sites. When I'm just old coin hunting I'll dig past X amount of inches based on how deep I know wheats and silvers start to show up at a site. The only shallow "clads" I'll dig then are ones with trash or iron right next to them, as they could very well be a shallow old coin that the trash has masked for everyone else. Even if I have the meter tweaked to go 181 I'll still dig "penny" signals, as on any machine a silver can read lower due to trash, minerals, orientation in the ground, or it being worn a bit around the edges. Even still, if I'm just deep or masked coin hunting a 181 signal on a shallow target always has me digging. Can't risk missing an old coin because of the abilities of the Sovereign to see coins other machines can't due to various factors, as well as the better ability of the SEF coil to see masked coins or ones on edge.

Mainly go by the sound. The remark about "wishful thinking" is very true. You'll start to imagine a deep wheat might be silver, but when you really do hear silver you'll know it is for sure. A friend and I were checking a target a few months back that his 6000 Pro XL was saying somewhere between penny and silver dime. I swept over it and had the same feeling. It was a worn silver dime. Not bad, just the edges were worn down a bit. I've experienced this with every other machine I've owned, so never rely on a machine's ability to tell you it's a wheat, clad, or a silver dime. It's going to be wrong as often as it's right.