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Micro-jewelry with Gold detector
- Thread starter harpsoft
- Start date
Gerry in Idaho
New member
Harpsoft, For the average person who does not know how to properly run a Gold Detector, the answer is YES.. insane to even try.
A real Gold Detector will respond to all metal targets (ferrous and nonferrous). Some Gold Detectors can ID most ferrous, so you don't have to dig as much iron... BUT... at a school or park, there are literally hundreds of signals per every 10 feet. The mover comes along and chops pull tabs into 3 pieces. aluminum foil (gum and cigarette wrappers), BB's, bobby pins, staples, zippers, needles, screw caps, pencil erasers and everything else will respond. You need to know that gold machine like you know your wife.. if not, the chances are very low the average person would be successful.
last year I was called to find a 1/2 karat diamond stud ear ring. The post and stud were platinum and that was the only metal on there. I took over my Minelab Explorer SE Pro and the X-Terra 70 and no luck. I tried the White's MXT and DFX with no luck. My main problem was electrical interference and I could not get any of the detectors (no matter what I did) to shut up. The daughter, the mom and the grandmother were all out there looking on their hands on knees. I felt bad for not finding it, but nothing I could do. I told her I would come back early the next morning and try again.
Next day I arrive and have the Fisher Gold Bug-2. The electrical interference is hardly there at all and so I am in good condition to run the detector. The only problem is...there must have need 3 targets every sweep I made. So what do you do in this situation????
I asked to see and listen to the other earring. I put it on the ground and swung over it 20 times from all directions. I had to listen to the signal strength, the pitch, the width and signal drop off. I also noticed what seemed like a quick double beep. Now most of you don't have thousands of hours on a GB-2, but I have than much and then some.. After that I only went for the exact targets sounds and 5 minutes and 2 targets later I had it in my hand.
Talk about tears of joy flowing everywhere. They cried with so much joy.. it started to get to me...Yes, a grown man who they don't even know is standing in their back yard with a detector in hand and all glossy eyed..
They persisted that I take $50 for my time.. Heck, I was just happy to find the thing.
This situation was like finding a needle in a hay stack and the chances were really stacked against most people.
I really do think the X-70 or MXT would have found it provided the electrical interference was not there. I have done very well hunting small gold jewelry with both the MXT and the X-70.
Just so you know... Many bracelets and necklaces do not give off a very good signal at all, especially if they are gold. Test one with your own detector and I think you will see what I mean.
Good Luck, Gerry
A real Gold Detector will respond to all metal targets (ferrous and nonferrous). Some Gold Detectors can ID most ferrous, so you don't have to dig as much iron... BUT... at a school or park, there are literally hundreds of signals per every 10 feet. The mover comes along and chops pull tabs into 3 pieces. aluminum foil (gum and cigarette wrappers), BB's, bobby pins, staples, zippers, needles, screw caps, pencil erasers and everything else will respond. You need to know that gold machine like you know your wife.. if not, the chances are very low the average person would be successful.
last year I was called to find a 1/2 karat diamond stud ear ring. The post and stud were platinum and that was the only metal on there. I took over my Minelab Explorer SE Pro and the X-Terra 70 and no luck. I tried the White's MXT and DFX with no luck. My main problem was electrical interference and I could not get any of the detectors (no matter what I did) to shut up. The daughter, the mom and the grandmother were all out there looking on their hands on knees. I felt bad for not finding it, but nothing I could do. I told her I would come back early the next morning and try again.
Next day I arrive and have the Fisher Gold Bug-2. The electrical interference is hardly there at all and so I am in good condition to run the detector. The only problem is...there must have need 3 targets every sweep I made. So what do you do in this situation????
I asked to see and listen to the other earring. I put it on the ground and swung over it 20 times from all directions. I had to listen to the signal strength, the pitch, the width and signal drop off. I also noticed what seemed like a quick double beep. Now most of you don't have thousands of hours on a GB-2, but I have than much and then some.. After that I only went for the exact targets sounds and 5 minutes and 2 targets later I had it in my hand.
Talk about tears of joy flowing everywhere. They cried with so much joy.. it started to get to me...Yes, a grown man who they don't even know is standing in their back yard with a detector in hand and all glossy eyed..
They persisted that I take $50 for my time.. Heck, I was just happy to find the thing.
This situation was like finding a needle in a hay stack and the chances were really stacked against most people.
I really do think the X-70 or MXT would have found it provided the electrical interference was not there. I have done very well hunting small gold jewelry with both the MXT and the X-70.
Just so you know... Many bracelets and necklaces do not give off a very good signal at all, especially if they are gold. Test one with your own detector and I think you will see what I mean.
Good Luck, Gerry
Pyledriver
Active member
I have a Scorpion Gold stinger that I've found a gold necklace with and a couple gold earring backs. That said, depending on where you're looking, an ACE250 might be ok if jewelry (not nuggets) is your goal! As I contemplate a move upwards in detectors, the Xterra 70 seems to be the next step for me. With different coils it looks like it will 'do it all' and be better at each specialized aspect than my other machines are! Maybe you weren't looking for a detector recommendation?
Mike Hillis
Well-known member
What do you have in hand to hunt for the bracelet? If the bracelet isn't balled up you could hunt for the long signals. Look for responses that trace out about 4" or more. I routinely do that with my F5 and recover chains.
I've micro jewelry hunted with a Fisher GoldStrike and it works pretty good at it just because of the feature set. It's easier to hunt micro jewelry in the sand as the recovery is faster and easier. In the sand you can use your plastic cup to add in recovering the target. Wood chips present a recovery problem because the small items you'll be locating will keep falling deeper between the spaces. You have to use sheeting in the wood chips. Get the target on the sheeting and then isolate it. Hunting micro jewelry in a park turf environment would be way tough just like Gerry said because there is aluminum and small ferrous trash everywhere. But it can be done. In turf you have to be selective. You either hunt for the small tiny signals or you for signals that exceed a certain signal strength or you hunt for targets that trace out like a chain would. A good electronic probe like the Uniprobes are a must in the woodchips or turf as success comes only from recovering targets. More targets recovered equals better chance of finding something good.
The GoldStrike is no longer in production but if you can find one I think you would like it. It has ferrous/non ferrous discrimination with an adjustable ferrous discrimination range along with a 0 to 99 signal intensity readout that the threshold control regulates and uses a two tone audio system as well as a display so you can discriminate with your ears and not have to recover everything. 30 kHz makes it sensitive enough.
Have fun and good hunting.
Mike
I've micro jewelry hunted with a Fisher GoldStrike and it works pretty good at it just because of the feature set. It's easier to hunt micro jewelry in the sand as the recovery is faster and easier. In the sand you can use your plastic cup to add in recovering the target. Wood chips present a recovery problem because the small items you'll be locating will keep falling deeper between the spaces. You have to use sheeting in the wood chips. Get the target on the sheeting and then isolate it. Hunting micro jewelry in a park turf environment would be way tough just like Gerry said because there is aluminum and small ferrous trash everywhere. But it can be done. In turf you have to be selective. You either hunt for the small tiny signals or you for signals that exceed a certain signal strength or you hunt for targets that trace out like a chain would. A good electronic probe like the Uniprobes are a must in the woodchips or turf as success comes only from recovering targets. More targets recovered equals better chance of finding something good.
The GoldStrike is no longer in production but if you can find one I think you would like it. It has ferrous/non ferrous discrimination with an adjustable ferrous discrimination range along with a 0 to 99 signal intensity readout that the threshold control regulates and uses a two tone audio system as well as a display so you can discriminate with your ears and not have to recover everything. 30 kHz makes it sensitive enough.
Have fun and good hunting.
Mike
Mike Hillis
Well-known member
That is a very good question, B.T. I think the main reason it never caught on was the fact it that it was so different from the traditional gold machine. Probably the biggest difference was that the GoldStrike was designed to run as a silent search unit. For the guys that are used to running a threshold hum all the time both to monitor the ground conditions and keep the detector tuned as well as locating targets, silent search would be a big change and hard to get comfortable with. Newbies tend to follow the more experienced hunters, so if many of the experienced electronic prospectors didn't like it, or, if it couldn't be operated the way the popular literature said a gold detector should operate, a new machine would have a hard time catching on or generating a following.
Another thing I think that hurt it was it was always being compared against the Gold Bug 2. Folks are so used to incremental changes (and Fisher set a precedent of that) that many were looking for an enhanced GB2, and instead got a brand new design that wasn't a GB3.
HH
Mike