Is It Possible to Notch Out Pulltabs and Still Find Gold?

[Tom_in_CA]

Sure. And you know why nickels are easy to call? Because when nickels come off the assembly line, they are 100% of the time the same weight, shape, and composition. Perhaps depth and corrosion will skew older one's TID's a bit, but even those factors can be learned and estimated on. HOWEVER, gold rings come in INFINATE shapes, sized, karots, weights, etc... And so too are foil wads in infinate sizes, shapes, and densities.

If anyone ever tells you that "gold sounds different", then here's what you do: take them out to the nearest inner city blighted junky ghetto park, and turn them loose. See how much gold they find, while leaving even "most" aluminum behind You will see that they quickly abandon their claims

 

[tabman]

Tom, thanks for the posts here. The 1000:1 was particularly interesting.

I think that some machines can ID most nickels tho. I can call it 80+% of the time when I think its a nickel, and it may be a nickel about 5% of the time that I call a pulltab and bother to dig it (I usually dig everything when starting a new area til I get a 'feel' for the ground conditions).

Same here. There's no need to use more discrimination than needed. I've found a lot of good stuff at places that others can't or won't detect.

When I'm at a site that's loaded with trash, it just tells me that people have been there and that they must have lost some good stuff in all that trash.

I'd love to hunt sites where the trash to gold ring ratio is better, but the ones around here have been hunted to death, by me and others such as JimTn.

The pickings are few and far between. If you hunt around here and don't hunt trashy sites, you ain't going to find much.

Also you have to be POSITIVE.

Sometimes I say to myself there just has to be hundreds gold rings hiding at this location in all this trash and all I have to do is put my coil over just one of them today.

tabman

 

[KinTN]

I make no claims of knowledge on gold as my haul is embarrassingly small....

 

[Nauti]

Sure. And you know why nickels are easy to call? Because when nickels come off the assembly line, they are 100% of the time the same weight, shape, and composition. Perhaps depth and corrosion will skew older one's TID's a bit, but even those factors can be learned and estimated on. HOWEVER, gold rings come in INFINATE shapes, sized, karots, weights, etc... And so too are foil wads in infinate sizes, shapes, and densities.

If anyone ever tells you that "gold sounds different", then here's what you do: take them out to the nearest inner city blighted junky ghetto park, and turn them loose. See how much gold they find, while leaving even "most" aluminum behind You will see that they quickly abandon their claims

Totally agree.......no body can tell gold by sound or vdi for that matter.I now hunt the beach a lot as I have recently moved to the coast and gold rings can give me all sorts of tones on my machine.You really can't afford to notch out or discrim too much or you WILL go over good stuff.The fact is this.......if you in any way notch out aluminium you will miss certain types of jewellry,especially the smaller thinner types.....you CANNOT notch out aluminium without losing something.It then comes down to what you you do not mind missing.If what you want to find is heavier type rings and jewellry you can start to bring in notch and discrim a little more,but you still need to experiment with your machine to make sure the notch and discrim you are using will not affect what you are after.For example,i have three different sized rings that I always have with me when I go to the beach....each one a little bigger than the other.If I am plagued by a certain type of aluminium I can then experiment with the notch and see how it affects each sized ring.Usually I will only notch out the actual tab piece from the ringpull and definately not the ring itself.I find that if I bring in the notch to just break up the signal on the tab all three sizes of my rings will still register with a good signal.This however only gets rid of one type and size of aluminium but at least it's one that will not bother me.I will only do this on the dry sand where most of the rubbish occurs and only if there is a lot of rubbish....when on the wet sand I do not use any notch or discrim.I think I would come down on Toms side of the argument if I had to choose between digging everything or searching for a site that contained less rubbish with more chance of hitting the jewellry.I admire those who dig everything but as Tom said, in a park absolutely littered with aluminium junk you could be digging for weeks without any signs of gold or silver whatsoever.I prefer to increase my chances by searching an area with less junk and more chance of hitting a good target....thats why I concentrate more on the wet sand areas at the beach where there is a lot less aluminium.The fact is this,the less discrim and notch you use the better your chances of not missing gold and silver.....it's then up to you whether you go to a trashy area and dig everything or be a bit more selective on your site choice.....neither option is wrong and each will have it's followers.

 

[skookum]

Hi,
Whites once edited a book called :
Taking a closer look at metal detector discrimination - by Robert C. Brockett
I don

 

[Hobo lobo]

Pull tabs are a dedicated gold hunters friend. If it went for tabs every body and any body could go buy a cheap detector and clean out the parks. With all of the pull tabs its too much work.

 

[deliveryboy]

I feel in "digging it all", that I win either way. Remember when people actually took pride in keeping the earth clean of litter? If everyone just passes over those tabs/trash, our earth will eventually just become a ball of scrap metal. Sure a few handfuls of beer caps won't change the world, but if everyone in the world grabbed a handful a day....you get the picture.

I have found 8 gold rings in the past month by digging everything with that I have found 1000 times that in pull tabs but I have no regrets in helping keep my parks clean.

Just my opinion on the matter.

I do feel someone needs to invent a different type off container opening that would deter people from littering them in the first place, Any takers?

 

[Hobo lobo]

I feel in "digging it all", that I win either way. Remember when people actually took pride in keeping the earth clean of litter? If everyone just passes over those tabs/trash, our earth will eventually just become a ball of scrap metal. Sure a few handfuls of beer caps won't change the world, but if everyone in the world grabbed a handful a day....you get the picture.

I have found 8 gold rings in the past month by digging everything with that I have found 1000 times that in pull tabs but I have no regrets in helping keep my parks clean.

Just my opinion on the matter.

I do feel someone needs to invent a different type off container opening that would deter people from littering them in the first place, Any takers?

It would be even better in people were a little more responsible and dint throw them away.

 

[deliveryboy]

I feel in "digging it all", that I win either way. Remember when people actually took pride in keeping the earth clean of litter? If everyone just passes over those tabs/trash, our earth will eventually just become a ball of scrap metal. Sure a few handfuls of beer caps won't change the world, but if everyone in the world grabbed a handful a day....you get the picture.

I have found 8 gold rings in the past month by digging everything with that I have found 1000 times that in pull tabs but I have no regrets in helping keep my parks clean.

Just my opinion on the matter.

I do feel someone needs to invent a different type off container opening that would deter people from littering them in the first place, Any takers?

It would be even better in people were a little more responsible and dint throw them away.

I fully agree with you, unfortunately when people get a bit "tipsy" or bored they have a tendency to pick at them. There has to be a better way to open a can without the stupid little pull tabs, with all this new technology someone could surely invent it!

 

[KinTN]

I like the plastic screw caps on bottles. Just outlaw Al cans.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

delivery boy and hobo-lobo, are you guys old enough to remember round tabs? If so, that'd make you 40's or more in age (as I think those went out of style in the late '70s or early '80s) . The square tabs that stay on the cans were invented FOR THAT VERY REASON. But .... for some reason, ... people still feel the need to remove them sometimes (by twisting them off). Not sure why anyone would go to that trouble, but I sure find a lot of square tabs.

But it's not near as bad as round tabs were, and are to this day. Zillions of round tabs still in the ground, at any junky park you care to hunt, that predates the 1980s.

 

[deliveryboy]

Yeah I remember the round pulltabs and still find those frequently here, too bad they cant just make them biodegradable so they eventually disolve.