Silver struggle

[daveycross]

I cant seem to find any silver coins, my favourite park has a good stock of oldish coins, mainly coppers dating between late victorian thro to the 1950s. I,m thinking mabey the kids who lost most of these coins only had coppers to lose. Out of handfulls of pennies and halfpennies, I,ve had 3 or 4 silver coins, I cant believe that there isnt some sixpences or silver threepences among these finds. I try air tests with my F5 at home and all seems well. The ground I hunt over is quite dry as it is in the shade of big trees and very few of my finds have been deeper than 3 to 4 inches. There is a lot of rubbish in the ground so I tend to dig most signals even tho I know its giong to be a bottle top or worse. I,m usually searching with the gai around 65 and the thres at 0, any suggestions or advice would be great.

 

[mudpuppy]

Can you go neg with the thresh? And maybe really set up to disc out everything up to 50, or adjust tones to hear a deepie or slantie barely chirp? Of course, nice damp ground really helps..that is if you are after silver coins only...I am sure lots of spots have been pounded by now, but every once in a while, a nice soaking rain puts you back in the game. Maybe only a few really good days per year at certain locations. Good luck!
Mud

 

[daveycross]

Cheers Mud, that,s very interesting, I can just about follow what you are saying,think I need a bit more experience. I did,nt even consider going neg on the thresh but it makes sense ( because of the trash?) as for the tones, I thought any low tone meant ferrous rubbish, am I wrong? I know what you,re meaning about the effect of rain and I agree, agood soaking works wonders but on this particular patch there is so much cover the ground rarely gets more than damp, got to get to know my detector better I think.

 

[mudpuppy]

I ran the F70 in Autotune for nearly a year before I figured it out! Nearly drove me nuttier than a squirrel in the loo at a peanut festival! I like a midrange sens, and the neg 3 thresh, and disc (notch) out iron, and set tones for at least 4, or Delta Pitch in my case.
Every once in a while I'll get a deep chirp, and can then run the sens up, or whatever to figure out what is there. Especially in lots of iron or scrap. most of the time, I'm just killing coins of all sorts in the 5" and shallower range. and only occasionally picking up a silver purely by accident, or by being there. That F5 comes highly recommended and seems a capable and fast machine. I look forward to seeing some silver from you this year!
Mud

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Silver is hard to find! Keep searching, it will come.

 

[TerraDigger]

Well, if the park is trashy or trashy areas. and the silver/coins are no deeper than 7"......try the 5" DD coil. You'll get coins that others have missed. The 5" is a beast in trash and most likely no one has used a coil of its abilities in your park/areas. Provides you with somewhat virgin ground.

 

[daveycross]

Thanks for the response everyone, I,m soaking it all in. Terradigger,that sounds like a good tip re the 5" coil but I think if I went that way I would be missing out on a lot of learning time, I,m really tempted to try a 5" coil but I, fairly confident that I have this park to myself, whenever I try a new patch I find all kinds of stuff and I live 1/2 a mile away and never seen another detectorist any where near the place so I feel I have time on my side to use it as a learning ground. Mud, I,m confused with your suggestion to disc out up to 50 because all the silver coins I hit register 26 to 40, I wonder if UK coins are massivley different metals?

 

[mudpuppy]

n/t

 

[leslie]

Davey, don't want to burst your bubble mate, but the Parks where I live are off limits

to metal detectorists,probably why you don't see any other guys metal detecting there.

Have you been given permission to search the park ? Don't get off on the wrong foot

my friend, council bylaws are very strict. I live 500 yards from the oldest, biggest park

in the area, not a cat in hells chance of ever searching it.

H H and Take Care

Les

 

[daveycross]

Hi Les , No I havent asked anyone for permission, I read a paragraph in a book by Ted Fletcher and got the idea that it was ok to detect on public land. I,ll make further enquiries.

 

[leslie]

Hope you do get permission Davey,and let us know the outcome.

Last year I searched a small field that only gave up copper coins

but I just kept going back to it, and sure enough I started to find

the silver coins, and the silver always showed up after it had been

raining pretty heavy, and by the way, I would stick with the stock coil.

H H

Les

 

[CODYB-156]

Become one with your machine, and the Force will be with you.

 

[TerraDigger]

I think Mud's recommendation to use 50 disc is to get the maximum 'gain/sensitivity' setting for maximumdepth. If your silver is hitting in the 20's - 40's try setting disc to 21 on the T2 to eliminate most nails. I would use a 10-15 disc setting myself. I have a post within the post titled......T2Users.........in the Teknetics forum here on FMall.....it charts disc settings and their effect on gain.
Do pay heed to Leslie's advice about the legality of detecting the park...even though I am U.S. based I am familiar with Councils and their detecting restrictions. If it is illegal, you are opening yourself up to legal problems/fines plus it hurts the hobby. I know you don't want to do that. Try getting permission on private property...that can be super productive....especially in Britain.

Best of Success

 

[TerraDigger]

Whoops...Davey has a F5.....so the 'gain' advice is invalid. Thought he had a T2.....I need to go to the market and buy some new brain cells.

 

[daveycross]

Ok, the park is on hold, got plenty other places to play around in while I do some ground work . Staying with the stock coil but thanks anyway Terradigga, its very tempting to go 5" but I,ll do it when I feel more experienced. Gonna try setting the gain a bit lower, mabey 35 to 40 so its not pushing too hard and open up the thresh to+3, set the disc to around 15 and scan the targets a lot longer and try to really tune into the differences in the audio. thats my plan for friday afternoon anyway just for an hour or so. Doing another stubble field on saturday but we,ve got to cross last weeks field to get to it and that was a great field. Might have to stay switched off till we get over, Ha.

 

[daveycross]

Great day yesterday, found another cartwheel penny which might have better detail than the first one I found, have to get rid of the crusty deposit first. Also found a copper farthing from the 1700s, can see the odd letter and the 17 of the date. the cartwheel I found a couple of weeks ago has been in my back pocket with my loose change for a while and the definition is starting to show quite well, might buy a coin tumbler for just such coins. Approached my local park manager re detecting and he said its ok with him to go ahead but after reading some of the posts regarding permission , I think I need to go higher so just for now I,m just going to forget parks. My pal and me are hammering two of our stubble fields as the developers are moving in some time soon, shame because the fields just keep on producing, nothing valuable but cracking fun. Roll on next weekend.