older silver and gold coins... how do they read on I.D.?

[Treasurechic]

I am curious, some of the coins like the old pine tree shillings and Spanish silver coins appear to be very thin, will some of them in fact read as foil?( I live in N.H. and our finds can date back to the earliest N.E. coins) or does silver read as silver? and will gold coins read like gold rings depending on their size or as coins? I own a Whites M6 and love it! I know its similar to the MXT so even some advice on what they will read on this machine would be helpful. I dig just about everything but iron.

 

[Wayne/TX]

Tchic, you'll get about the same readings with all gold & silver
coins. But, there'll be some differences because of depth,
orientation and thickness. The silver's might vary some
because of alloys with copper but most gold will be of purer
content because of value necessities.
..W

 

[UK Brian]

???

Best to look at a picture of any older analogue meter discriminator.
Individual coins are marked but gold is indicated from iron practically over the whole width of the meter. Silver ranges from about the middle to the top of the display.

Even this doesn't give a true picture. Your right to worry about thin silver because that can come in far lower, I.D.'ing down into the iron segment. The worse the mineralisation the more the I.D. is thrown out.

 

[Treasurechic]

Thanks for your help, I have decided to go to my local coin shop that sells the same model detector and test some readings on coins in his shop, I realize that depth and soil can fluctuate what an item IDs as, but I at least will get an idea!

 

[Treasurechic]

Thanks for the input!