Finding Gold, more Luck than Skill?

[Goes4ever]

I have only found 2 gold rings in my 5 seasons of detecting....both were within the 3 yrs I have owned the etrac. And both were at old farm houses. I lost count how many times I have went to schools, tot lots, parks etc...and dug low conductors all day and have never dug a single gold ring, charm, bracelet, necklace....absolutely nothing.

Today I tried again, went to a 1950's school, there was a school here before this one as well, going back to late 1800's so this area has had a ton of kids here over last 100 yrs. I spent two hours and dug all low conductors, I dug from 12-05 to 12-30, I recovered 58 targets in 2 hours...nothing good. lol

I got quite a few modern nickels, can slaw, pull tabs, balls of foil etc. But no gold. For you guy who get gold on land, not at the beach, consider yourself lucky!!!!

 

[Damar2003]

I agree, the gold is very elusive. The days I don't dig all those low conductors is problably when I missed it. Some people just seem to find it on a regular basis, I will settle for silver coins on a more regular basis.

 

[LabradorBob]

Very true i found a nice gold ring at a soccer field but i was digging all signals,filled my pouch up about five times and had to dump it,pull tabs can slaw.
but i bet we would be sick if we knew how many gold rings or coins we passed up!
Like a one dollar gold coin,whats that register 12-02? i dont remember digging any of those LOL

 

[E-TREC-Virginia]

If you're digging those signals, that's all you can do. On land, it's more about location then anything else. You have to hunt locations that people would be active, i.e., motion that would cause rings or jewelry to fly off or break off. Tot lots, ball fields, jogging trials, golf courses, etc.. At the beach, people get all greased up with sun tan lotion, the water makes your hands shrink and the waves can jar anything loose, it's just the prefect situation at the beach. I guess you could up your chances on land if you want to cherry pick with a very tight gold pattern. I've found numerous gold ear rings and charms on land, but very few rings. Wish I lived at the beach.

 

[NebTrac]

I've only found two gold pieces and you're right Terry. Its because I was digging "everything" at those locations. The ring was 12-10 (if I remember). I might've dug that at a park, but I might not have too. Just depends on how many beaver tails I'd already dug. The other was 12-06 and was in the cornfield. I just "knew" it was going to be another .22 casing, but ended up being a gold FOE pin. One thing I do know about you, its not from lack of trying.

NebTrac

 

[Goes4ever]

Very true i found a nice gold ring at a soccer field but i was digging all signals,filled my pouch up about five times and had to dump it,pull tabs can slaw.
but i bet we would be sick if we knew how many gold rings or coins we passed up!
Like a one dollar gold coin,whats that register 12-02? i dont remember digging any of those LOL

Bob, the one dollar gold coin registers at 12-06, I know because I bought one from ebay a yr or so ago so I could check it lol

now if I was in a field site where an 1800s homestead was I dig those, but normally most newer places no I would not, now today I was digging 12-05 and up

 

[banditicey]

I have found four Gold Rings and all in the same Park!

I dig sooo much trash looking for that next hit

It really matter's that the coil goes over the Find but you still need to know what to dig

Good Luck and Good Cheers

 

[khouse]

I found two gold rings recently for people. They were 12-2 and 12-3. I started digging some good deeper sounding 12-2 through 12-5's. I'm really amazed at some of the tiny pieces of crap I recover at depths.

 

[Jeff in Pa]

I wonder how many "Good" targets I have passed up? I walk by a repeatable low target unless its close to a 12-13 and does not bounce.

 

[beachdude]

As a noobie at metal detecting, I have found a lot of gold, both in the water and on land in parks. I agree it is mostly luck, but you can increase your luck by spending more time out there digging. In my first 4 months of detecting with a second hand Whites M6, I dug 7 gold rings in the grass at public parks, one of them a 22k band, and I really t had no idea what I was doing as I was still learning:

On land, the secret is to set your discrimination as low as possible (to accept foil and poptabs), and to dig everything in that range. Now that I am using an ETRAC, I haven't found any gold with it yet, I worry about the patterns and how they may be excluding gold. I am running Bill_S's trashy park program and have opened up a line in hopes that it may not block out some of those iffy gold targets:

Although since I haven't found gold with the ETRAC, I haven't that level of trust in the machine yet that you can only get by finding gold yourself with a detector. One day maybe.

 

[1goldsniper]

I have dug 3 or 4 but as is being mentioned all luck! One came in as a quarter area signal,another as a penny area, but one was coming in a .22 cal brass cartridge of 12-4-5 and was my first small girls gold ring being I was in a private yard I dug that one. But who knows how many I have walked away from,and small gold coins, in the old ghost town area a hunt mostly. But I do know 12-4-5 area is for sure going to bring up .22 casings, Knowing this is periodically I dig X amount of shells just hoping.

 

[khouse]

I think you need to open your 12 line up with the 5 block. Maybe on up to 8 FE. You had no choice on your M6. It was like opening accepting all Fe numbers. At least with the etrac you can eliminate a lot of the FE range and still hit a lot of jewelry in the low CO range. This may get you back in the GOLD>>>>

 

[Goes4ever]

well I def. spend time at digging low conductors, this week I dug friday and again saturday 2 hours each time, digging only low conductors. So this week I dug trash targets for four hours. And even when I am not gold hunting I try to dig at least 25 low conductors per hunt at parks and I still dig all low conductors at private yards. In yards I normally don't find more than 3-4 pulltabs, seems like most people don't throw down trash in their own yard like they do in parks. One thing it has done is greatly increase my nickel count!...lol

 

[beachdude]

I think you need to open your 12 line up with the 5 block. Maybe on up to 8 FE. You had no choice on your M6. It was like opening accepting all Fe numbers. At least with the etrac you can eliminate a lot of the FE range and still hit a lot of jewelry in the low CO range. This may get you back in the GOLD>>>>

So you are saying that instead of that thin line, I should use the 5 block to make it thicker? 8-13 across?


One thing I have noticed with Whites products is that the shape of the target seems to play a very important role. Ring-shaped targets hit much harder with an M6 or BHID, but shape doesn't seem to have as much impact with the ETRAC

 

[gunwolf]

I agree Gold is hard to find. last year with the Ace250 I found multiple gold rings..nothing this year with the E-trac. and it is not like I am not trying I dig ALL repeatable tones high and low in coin mode and the high tones in TTF.
I just think more people lose silver rings/jewelery than Gold. I have 9 silver rings on the year since getting the E-trac. I thought I had found one real nice heavy gold ring...it was stamped 18K GF.

 

[khouse]

Yes. Your still zeroing in on the better potential gold. This is just what I have found with the two rings I found and some test targets. Still a ton of junk in that area.... So finding the best spot to dig those low conductors and a lot of luck may get you/us some gold...

 

[khouse]

Most of the time I don't have the time or patients to look for gold except beaches and tot lots. It's too easy with any machine to simply go for silver. The odds are just stacked against you searching for gold in the wrong places......

 

[OhioCoinHunter]

I remember hunting a park one day and a girl told me her mom lost her gold wedding ring along the side line of a ball field. She showed me where her mom was standing and where the ring could possibly be. I searched my butt off and could not find it. Still bugs me. I was digging the lower numbers, like 12-03's and so on. Dug a lot of garbage, but no ring. I just air tested my wife's wedding ring. It showed up at a 12-06. I also air tested her other gold band and it came in at 12-09. Normally I don't dig those low numbers to avoid digging a lot of trash. So that is probably why I don't find gold rings.

Minelab does make a gold detector designed to find small gold nuggets and such. It is an expensive detector. However if you find enough gold ($1614.90 an ounce right now), it'll pay for itself quickly.

This ring was a 12-27 in the ground when I found it. It air tests at 12-29.
The only gold ring I have ever found.

 

[elki1052]

So far I have found 2 gold rings on the 2 moths that I own the Etrac both at diferent parks one is dated from 1841 and has a cowboy bucking a horse on it it was tested and it is 14K, it hit at 12-2,3 wile in the ground at 7" deep, it was facing down meaning the havy part was down. then when I pull the plug and scaned again it hit at 12-8 solid because now was facing up.
on the same park I found few other old coins a total of 12 wheets the oldes 1901 and the newer 1952, one 1908 V nickle, a 1037 merc dime, and 1941 half dollar. lots of clad too. the size of the park is about 30" x 150" the smallest park in my home town.
the other ring was about 5" deep and it hit at 12-2 solid, for a moment I was thinking of a foil but a 10K ladys ring with a green stone on it. it has 10K stamp on it.
Now I agree that it is pure luck because in both cases I was able to found them because ny luck of experience with the Etrac that I'm just geting to know and it payded off, the same day that I found my secund gold ring I founded a nice silver ring 2 quarters, 3 pennys,2 nickes and 3 pultabs all in lesss than 1 hour because it was on my lunch time.
so just PURE LUCK!

 

[Coilfisher]

We have been discussing this in-depth in Thomas D's Open Forum.
Everyone knows the E_Trac is great at finding coins, but I believe it definitely can sniff out the gold too.
I have some experiments in the works if I can ever stop digging 12-46.