DetectorIsMyCoPilot
New member
I've been detecting for about a year with an XLT that I picked up at a garage sale. I had always wanted to get into the hobby, but had never committed to buying a machine until there was one (actually two...I bought both) leaning up against a house at a garage sale. The price? $50 for both.
Anyhow, for the past year, I've been learning the machine and wondering when or if I'd ever hit that first gold. I've gotten a few silver coins (a 1901 Barber quarter and a 1954 Franklin half being the most significant), but never any gold. I was hunting at a park that I've hit at least 25 times before, and finally it struck: a 10 karat gold ring with a fairly large aquamarine center stone and six small diamonds surrounding it (VDI: 16). Stoked was I, to say the least. The next day I tried to get to the park again, but it was covered with soccer players, so I thought I'd drive around to find other hunting grounds. I ended up at a high school that I'd been to once before but had written off because of the amount of junk that I had dug. It fit the criteria for the day, though: it was vacant! After about an hour of digging a healthy balance of clad and junk I got a hit on my XLT with a VDI reading of 13 (ring or foil). I decided to dig it expecting a rolled up gum wrapper or one of those safety seals they use on the gatorade bottles. To my surprise another gold ring popped out of the hole -- this time a 14 karat ring with a round cut onyx stone in the middle and a very unique setting. I guess it's true that gold really does come in streaks!
One of the lessons that I learned is that simplicity sometimes pays off. For the past six months I had been playing around with the custom programs on the machine and had kind of hit a dry spell: very little silver, a lot of junk, and a lot of clad. On these two gold-bearing hunts, I simplified things by going with one of the preset programs and just turning on the Tone ID and the VCO (enhanced pinpointing).
Anyway, thanks for reading!
Anyhow, for the past year, I've been learning the machine and wondering when or if I'd ever hit that first gold. I've gotten a few silver coins (a 1901 Barber quarter and a 1954 Franklin half being the most significant), but never any gold. I was hunting at a park that I've hit at least 25 times before, and finally it struck: a 10 karat gold ring with a fairly large aquamarine center stone and six small diamonds surrounding it (VDI: 16). Stoked was I, to say the least. The next day I tried to get to the park again, but it was covered with soccer players, so I thought I'd drive around to find other hunting grounds. I ended up at a high school that I'd been to once before but had written off because of the amount of junk that I had dug. It fit the criteria for the day, though: it was vacant! After about an hour of digging a healthy balance of clad and junk I got a hit on my XLT with a VDI reading of 13 (ring or foil). I decided to dig it expecting a rolled up gum wrapper or one of those safety seals they use on the gatorade bottles. To my surprise another gold ring popped out of the hole -- this time a 14 karat ring with a round cut onyx stone in the middle and a very unique setting. I guess it's true that gold really does come in streaks!
One of the lessons that I learned is that simplicity sometimes pays off. For the past six months I had been playing around with the custom programs on the machine and had kind of hit a dry spell: very little silver, a lot of junk, and a lot of clad. On these two gold-bearing hunts, I simplified things by going with one of the preset programs and just turning on the Tone ID and the VCO (enhanced pinpointing).
Anyway, thanks for reading!
