Do You Dig It All? Maybe You Should

[plidn1]

For Those of you that believe your screen and run high discrimination, you are cheating yourself of some nice finds.
This happened to me this morning.
I had my MXT with the 5.3 coil mounted, walking the tree line in my park. I have worked this part of the park many times with all my detectors.
As I approached a spot I had found a gold ring at in the past, the detector hit on a "Penny" at 6". I went around the target and it was bouncing between penny and bottle cap.
It was a strong hit, and I dug a 4" deep plug. After scanning the plug, I scanned the hole and it read pull tab at 6". I thought I was done at this point, but decided to get it out.
Going down about 6 1/2", I scanned the plastic pan containing the remaining dirt from the plug, and the target was there. The top clump of mud produced a black hills gold (10 K) ring.
Right with it was a 1" round piece of foil!
This is why, not only do you dig pennies, but you dig EVERYTHING else.

Sorry for the bad pics.

 

[Aarong81]

Great find! But were you considering leaving the target because it read as bottle cap or pull-tab? At 6"+ a pull-tab signal is really promising. Seldomly can a pull-tab read very well that deep and unless it has been landscaped they don't sink that far on their own since they are so light and havn't been around very long. Even a penny or dime at the coils maximum depth will read as junk or even just a whisper with no VDI. Anything above +0 should at least be moved out of your hunting area. Call it digging junk or removing junk. You might even know its junk but it will still null good targets. I have a few really good areas to hunt and I have dug all the good signals above +10 or so with my 950 coil and now I go over them with the D2 and get good signals where there were no signals with the 950. Why? There is junk right next to the targets and the concentric cannot seperate very well. Lots of the good stuff is found by digging what the previous detectorist thought was junk. Trust your instinct not the detector.

 

[plidn1]

Great find! But were you considering leaving the target because it read as bottle cap or pull-tab? At 6"+ a pull-tab signal is really promising. Seldomly can a pull-tab read very well that deep and unless it has been landscaped they don't sink that far on their own since they are so light and havn't been around very long. Even a penny or dime at the coils maximum depth will read as junk or even just a whisper with no VDI. Anything above +0 should at least be moved out of your hunting area. Call it digging junk or removing junk. You might even know its junk but it will still null good targets. I have a few really good areas to hunt and I have dug all the good signals above +10 or so with my 950 coil and now I go over them with the D2 and get good signals where there were no signals with the 950. Why? There is junk right next to the targets and the concentric cannot seperate very well. Lots of the good stuff is found by digging what the previous detectorist thought was junk. Trust your instinct not the detector.

I run with Disc. between 1 and 2 and dig everything that doesn't read iron. I have been very successful with this method. I have been pleasantly surprised many times. I have found that by digging all the trash, you can go back over and over again, and finding good targets get easier with a lot less work. I have found, that when it reads a penny, it could be almost anything. Good or bad.
I once dug a 4" foil target and laying just to the right and down slightly was a nickel That the machine had missed.

 

[HanoverDigger]

A lot of times I'll dig signals that read in the low 30's to mid 40's. Most of them are usually in the shotgun shell range. I was digging many of the shells until I popped this beauty! So sometimes it does pay to dig questionable signals.

 

[plidn1]

Another great happy surprise.
Makes it worth all the effort.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

That is one nice gold ring ! Congrats .

 

[skateteacher]

Yep! I tell everyone to dig the tone not the VDI. Last night I got a great tone at 30 VDI. In my short career this has always been junk. Until last night I had never dug anything good between 30-40 VDI. Did pas it up? Heck no I dug and got this: 1907 Tio Ore "10" coin from Sweden

 

[Critterhunter]

One of my favorite VDIs to dig is that small gap right between where the highest tab will read and a zinc penny. On my get that number range is 169 for the highest tab # and 173 for a zinc, so that 170, 171, and 172 # is one I never pass up. Not too many targets will read in that range at my sites. Sure, sometimes it's an ate up zinc, but often it turns out to be a nice cool relic or some other odd find. Last good one I dug was an antique compac makeup case that gave a 170 or 171 # if I remember right. I was hoping it'd have some coins in it but no dice. There's also a few odd old coin types that will read right in that range so you never know.

When I'm being particular about just old coin hunting, i seem to always at least be in the mood to dig some "odd" #s I don't often see even if it's one of those days when I don't feel like digging it all or ring hunting. Those odd #s are the ones that often turn out to be something to talk about.

 

[John (Ma)]

MXT loves gold, I find a lot of great finds in the bottle cap areas, I only use the screen as a tool to guess my target, the screen is not the determining factor to dig or not. Nice find!

 

[Cajuncoinhunter]

Once again, the MXT proves that its worth its weight in GOLD ! Great job. cch

 

[plidn1]

I forgot to say,
That to dig the last 2 inches or so, I had to cut 3 tree roots out of the way.
I really wanted that Tab.