Ron in Michigan, I'm joining your gold quest...

[fir469]

Now with the days growing ever shorter, I find myself with only an hour after work to detect. So... I've decided to join the quest for 1,000 pulltabs with hopefully some gold in the middle lol. Weekends will still be spent relic/old coin hunting, but that hour after work each day will be spent at local parks and fields digging the mid range signals. I'm only digging mid range signals which sound relatively clear and only vary in VDI by 1-3 numbers say 140-143 and 156-159 type signals. Major bouncing VDI's will be left in the ground. Today offered up 72 cents and 16 pulltabs (this includes beaver tail style round tabs) in an hour. I'm using a Sovereign Elite with a XS-2 meter and 10" BBS coil...

So here's to 1,000!!! Let's hope I hit the shiny yellow stuff on that journey!!

-Jason

 

[ZOFCHAK]

If more than a couple people are doing this, perhaps we could use one thread to keep a running tally of everyone's average ?

 

[JOHNMARKHAM]

i had mentioned something like this last year as a contest but was told it wouldn't work on here...
hh
john

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Today got rained out very heavy showers,yea the weather is getting ugly.My pull tab can is getting full,LOL not close to a thousand,though may seem like it.Great idea lets pool our stats.Thanks Ron

 

[synthnut]

" there's tabs in them thar hills " ....... No huh ? ....... ....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

I've been also digging everything above iron on certain days, mainly for a gold ring but also in the hopes of removing some trash and finding an old coin or two under the junk. So far no luck, but I have in the past found coins this way. Just the other day I dug out a round tab and then got a nice coin signal under it. Got my heart going but it ended up being an old small screw cap from probably the 50's or so off a small bottle. It sounded 6 or 7" deep so I thought I had something good.

I'm curious to hear from others who have removed junk and found a good find under it when they re-swept the hole. It's good motivation. I look at removing the pull tabs when old coin hunting as hunting virgin ground one palm sized spot at a time. Remove enough of them and the square yardage has to add up to a pretty decent sized plot of land of "virgin" land that the tabs or other junk was hiding. One memory that comes to mind is an old park where I had dug 3 screw caps out of the same hole and then ended up popping a V-nickle about 2 or 3" below them. The other day a friend and I were digging all the tabs/junk above iron out of a small little old park when he said he had a good coin signal after removing the round tab. Ended up being a clad dime and penny. Since round tabs were made from 1965 to the early 1980's, and square tabs were made from 1975 to present, I would figure there are plenty of coins out there that detectors made in the 60's and 70's couldn't detect and ended up having a tab dropped over them before better machines came along.

 

[ToniSteve]

Hello,

I cleaned out a small beach with an IDX Pro and then a Tiger Shark, went over it with an Excalibur and found 2 gold rings. It did not take long to do the cleanup phase. <b>But on land it would be a much heavier work load.</b> I found some silver and 1 gold on the first two runs. Worked from dry sand to wet and then out to knee deep in the water. Using the IDX and the Tiger Shark was quicker for the first runs then the Excal would have been IMHO. But the Excal wins out for depth, not comfort or speed!

I was going to go out further the next weekend but an entire TH Club came out and beat me to it.

Oh well, there is room for everyone!

A faster, lighter detector <b>may</b> be the ticket for the cleanup run or runs. Oh god, I hope I am not upsetting the multi frequency gods!(sic)

If I had only one detector to chose from for beach and water work it would be the Excal, but having a few different detectors makes it easier to do some of this stuff for me anyways. (I love the Tiger Shark in fresh water situations, but go back in with the Excal when I am done with the Tiger) I am still piddling around with the GT, have not put that much time into it, but will.

These are just my thoughts as an amateur, so take them with a grain of platinum, whoops I mean salt.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[ToniSteve]

Hi again,
I was thinking about adding one of the ultra light Tesoro detectors for this kind of project, but I am unfamiliar with them. I think this clean up strategy is a good one. To bad I don't live in an area like Critter where it is really meaningful. The area I live in only goes back 125 years. And at that time there were not that many folks here other than American Indian folks.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[synthnut]

Steve,
In my area people went to parks to hang out back in the day ....They were every bit as much PIGS as we are today !!..... and thank God , money fell out of their pockets just like it does ours today !!.....Jim

 

[Ron from Michigan]

The Sovereign excels in a lot of area's,but fast ground coverage isn't one of its strong characteristics.I think a faster response or sweep detector should be added to anyone arsenal.We all have our favorites I like the T2 and 1236-X2.I have read a lot of good post on the Omega and don't forget the new Garrett.I may get in trouble with this but everyone should have at least two different detectors for these reasons.

 

[Critterhunter]

That's what I'd actually like to add next to my aresonal- a fast/light weight machine so I can sweep fast. It would make a good clad shooter and also a good scout machine when trolling the woods for areas of activity, but I'd always go back with my GT to get it all. That AT Pro being waterproof yet with a "full" sized LCD screen is unique and I might just add one of those to my line up down the road. I like the fact that it is light and also as at home on land as it is in the water, which can't really be said for the Excal without a custom shaft to lighten things up. I'm either getting one of those or an Omega, G2, T2LTD or F75LTD to add to my line up. Anybody know which of those gets best depth on silver/copper coins? I don't like high frequency machines but whichever is deeper on those compared to say the Omega which I think is 8 or 9khz?

Also, when just clad shooting or scouting fast I like to throw the GT into silent search as it lets you pick up the sweep speed a bit without having to hear the machine get fussy about that. I can still see when I'm hitting an area of activity in the woods due to iron because it will break through here and there, and when that happens I'll flip it out of Silent Search. Mainly I like being able to silence the non-changing threshold when scouting through dead areas, and also when just clad or shallow potential ring hunting and don't really need to hear any deep whisper crack through. Another dirty way to pick up the "speed" of the Sovereign is to use a bigger coil like the 12x10 or 15x12. With the 15x12 you are covering as much ground in two sweeps that it would take the stock 10" coil to do in three. Really more than that because the 15x12 is 12" wide.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Critter,I agree the AT Pro may be a good choice.The Sovereign is a proved go to detector,but a fast sweep unit will may a great addition or backup.

 

[ToniSteve]

Hi Ron and Critter,
Thanks for the suggestions about the clean up search and detectors that may fit the bill for this kind of work. Do others have suggestions on a quick detector for this? I am really fond of and appreciate my Tiger Sharks, so I guess I am interested in a Tesoro of some sort for this type of detecting. But I am open to anything. The IDX with the 8" is actually not to heavy, but much heavier then the ultra lite Tesoros.
Best regards,
Steve

 

[Critterhunter]

The QXT Pro is a very fast recovery machine that can be swept from very slow to very fast. It's very deep on silver/copper (as deep as my Explorers were in my soil, but not as deep as the GT) and you can assign high tones to specific zones so you can hunt by ear on the fly. It's wickid at finding coins in heavy trash thanks to that. Just listen for the high tone amongst the lows. So good that I didn't even edit out any zones and prefered to hear them all including iron as "low" tones while looking for any high ones. It's not heavy at all, either, and they can be had used for about $280. My only complaint was no VDI numbers, just 8 zones....but I could still tell various coins from each other based on the VDI and audio response. It also will hit on thin gold bands fairly deep, which is surprising being a low frequency machine.