No need reminding any of you about my commitment to pound the local high school as part of my 2008 Wrap Up Campaign.
Lets suffice it to say I went back for another few hours today.
The Golden purred along as it should, with a new battery beeping reassuringly each time I tested it. There was none of yesterdays 'weirdness' and I'm here to say there is much comfort to be had from full power cells. Do yourself a favor - make it part of your pre-hunt routine to check those batteries!
I thought that instead of relating the in's and out's of today's effort, we ought to break things up. What say we take a look at the trash that surfaced, and see how it responded with the Golden in hand.
"The trash?!" you say. "David, have you lost it, man?" One might think I've been in the sun too long.
Well, maybe I have. But, so often we are focused on the good stuff that we fail to learn from the trash that we find. This stuff is metal, too, after all and it has it's own response. Perhaps looking at it this way, we can become better at what we do as detectorists by 'knowing our enemy,' so to speak.
"A picture is worth a 1000 words," as they say, so here is today's Rogue's Gallery... the trash finds:
[attachment 114017 DSCF0025.JPG]
Along the top you will see a particular US coin and arranged vertically below, trash items associated with it. What you see arranged before you is just how the Golden perceives these items. Following are some comments that come to mind about this picture.
The mid range occupied by the pulltabs is very wide, as you can see. There is a large gap between nickel and the coin realm and the Golden is designed to open that up. Many trash targets fall into this gap and we are told by the "experts" that this is where many gold items will fall, as well. Folks, I'm here to tell say - you could fool me. I aint dug a decent gold ring since last water hunting season!
I just dig 'em because I reckon smarter people than me to figure this stuff out, so who am I to argue. I DO know that my 14K wedding band would fit nicely into the line-up, right between the small ring tabs and the oblong ones. So I dig 'em... so as not to miss 'em.
Since I hunt the notch below nickel, I normally get quite a wad of foil items. This is another one of those 'mystery gold' targets ranges. Small rings and amulets, chains and filigree items come up in this area. I found a nice Scorpion amulet last year, right in the foil range. As small gold items are often worn - and lost - by teens, this is a must dig target range at a high school.
What I don't show are the many pencil eraser ends found. These things breed underground, I believe, and fall right in around nickels. I have noticed, though, that they tend to give a high-low mid tone response that fades out quickly due to their small size. After a while, you get used to them.
While we're on the mid-range, let me tell you about something I've started to do. The two middle tones are close together in frequency and this can be a little confusing. So when I get a mid tone, I've begun singing the note aloud to myself. "Singing the tones," like this is a little whacky, I admit.
But it helps to firm them up in your mind and eliminates a lot of the confusion. I'm certain any bystanders would wonder what greater sort of nut I am, singing to myself like this, but it helps me.
Up on the other end of the target range, we come to the high mid-tone and "fer sure" high tone targets. In this range you get your many zinc cents and all the largish aluminum items like those roofing nails, grommets, large ring pull tabs, square opening tabs and screw caps. It so happens that this is where you'll find most 10K gold, some small silver items and the Holy Grail of jewelry, high school class rings.
One of the the Golden's strong point is the high tone range - it is a killer on high conductivity items. This includes bronze, pre-1982 cents.
Unless you dont want to find the payola coins on purpose, there's a simple rule to follow with the Golden: If you hear a high tone, dig it.
Even if it is mixed with other tones, don't hesitate. I dug several dimes today that were under the coil with other trash. When I re-scanned the spot from which I recovered the dimes, I'd find these other targets still there. But the high tone came through.
Of course, anything can be fooled and the Golden is no exception. Those large items and the little brass nut chimed in with high tones, too.
Also found were the junk jewelry items seen here, which included a small tear drop silver earring about 1/2 inch long. It didn't make the pic because I had forgotten it in my pocket! It rang in at high mid range tone.
This makes about 6 jewelry items so far. When will the next one be a high grade piece? Only time will tell.
Here are the coin gleanings and trinkets:
[attachment 114018 DSCF0026.JPG]
Thanks for looking.
Lets suffice it to say I went back for another few hours today.
The Golden purred along as it should, with a new battery beeping reassuringly each time I tested it. There was none of yesterdays 'weirdness' and I'm here to say there is much comfort to be had from full power cells. Do yourself a favor - make it part of your pre-hunt routine to check those batteries!
I thought that instead of relating the in's and out's of today's effort, we ought to break things up. What say we take a look at the trash that surfaced, and see how it responded with the Golden in hand.
"The trash?!" you say. "David, have you lost it, man?" One might think I've been in the sun too long.
Well, maybe I have. But, so often we are focused on the good stuff that we fail to learn from the trash that we find. This stuff is metal, too, after all and it has it's own response. Perhaps looking at it this way, we can become better at what we do as detectorists by 'knowing our enemy,' so to speak.
"A picture is worth a 1000 words," as they say, so here is today's Rogue's Gallery... the trash finds:
[attachment 114017 DSCF0025.JPG]
Along the top you will see a particular US coin and arranged vertically below, trash items associated with it. What you see arranged before you is just how the Golden perceives these items. Following are some comments that come to mind about this picture.
The mid range occupied by the pulltabs is very wide, as you can see. There is a large gap between nickel and the coin realm and the Golden is designed to open that up. Many trash targets fall into this gap and we are told by the "experts" that this is where many gold items will fall, as well. Folks, I'm here to tell say - you could fool me. I aint dug a decent gold ring since last water hunting season!
I just dig 'em because I reckon smarter people than me to figure this stuff out, so who am I to argue. I DO know that my 14K wedding band would fit nicely into the line-up, right between the small ring tabs and the oblong ones. So I dig 'em... so as not to miss 'em.
Since I hunt the notch below nickel, I normally get quite a wad of foil items. This is another one of those 'mystery gold' targets ranges. Small rings and amulets, chains and filigree items come up in this area. I found a nice Scorpion amulet last year, right in the foil range. As small gold items are often worn - and lost - by teens, this is a must dig target range at a high school.
What I don't show are the many pencil eraser ends found. These things breed underground, I believe, and fall right in around nickels. I have noticed, though, that they tend to give a high-low mid tone response that fades out quickly due to their small size. After a while, you get used to them.
While we're on the mid-range, let me tell you about something I've started to do. The two middle tones are close together in frequency and this can be a little confusing. So when I get a mid tone, I've begun singing the note aloud to myself. "Singing the tones," like this is a little whacky, I admit.
But it helps to firm them up in your mind and eliminates a lot of the confusion. I'm certain any bystanders would wonder what greater sort of nut I am, singing to myself like this, but it helps me.
Up on the other end of the target range, we come to the high mid-tone and "fer sure" high tone targets. In this range you get your many zinc cents and all the largish aluminum items like those roofing nails, grommets, large ring pull tabs, square opening tabs and screw caps. It so happens that this is where you'll find most 10K gold, some small silver items and the Holy Grail of jewelry, high school class rings.
One of the the Golden's strong point is the high tone range - it is a killer on high conductivity items. This includes bronze, pre-1982 cents.
Unless you dont want to find the payola coins on purpose, there's a simple rule to follow with the Golden: If you hear a high tone, dig it.
Even if it is mixed with other tones, don't hesitate. I dug several dimes today that were under the coil with other trash. When I re-scanned the spot from which I recovered the dimes, I'd find these other targets still there. But the high tone came through.
Of course, anything can be fooled and the Golden is no exception. Those large items and the little brass nut chimed in with high tones, too.
Also found were the junk jewelry items seen here, which included a small tear drop silver earring about 1/2 inch long. It didn't make the pic because I had forgotten it in my pocket! It rang in at high mid range tone.
This makes about 6 jewelry items so far. When will the next one be a high grade piece? Only time will tell.
Here are the coin gleanings and trinkets:
[attachment 114018 DSCF0026.JPG]
Thanks for looking.
Seriously though, those things are aggravating and even give an extended signal to make matters worse. If it weren't for the dang small gold rings I wouldn't have so much to gripe about-but I'm like everybody else-the moment I pass over one, it's gonna be a ring.