The Attributes of a Good Jewelry Hunting Machine

[berryman]

From time-to-time I'll read posts on the forum where folks tout particular machines as being especially good for finding jewelry (the M-6 and the GBP come to mind). What attributes define a good jewelry hunting machine? Do good jewelry hunting machines run at higher frequencies or have superior automatic ground tracking capabilities? Or are there a certain combination of features that, when taken together, make particular machines especially efficient when it comes to finding jewelry? Or does it have more to do with operator skill than it does with the technical attributes of the machine?

 

[Barry NY]

it all depends if you are looking for gold jewelry in the dirt, dry sand or wet sand........

 

[CladDog]

All frequencies can find jewlery.

However, higher frequencies tend to have a better ability to lock onto small targets.

But the depth isn't amazing. A few inches on the smaller targets.

If hunting for recent drops, I think a higher frequency small coil configuration would work best.

 

[Southwind]

For me it is a combination of sensitivity to low conductors and a good VDI. The sensitivity to low conductive metals is obvious, the accurate VDI is to save being fooled by trash as much as possible. Of course no VDI is going to be 100% accurate in determining gold, but anyone who says a good VDI doesn't help doesn't know what they're talking about.

One of my favorites was the White's DFX. A great combination of sensitivity to small gold and a accurate VDI system. I now use the AT Pro which doesn't have quite the VDI system the DFX has but much more sensitive to small gold.

 

[Mike Hillis]

1st... Tone id so you don't have to dig everything or look at a meter for every signal.
2nd... The ability to audio flag the jewelry range you are looking for so you can FOCUS.
3rd...Heat. That heat can come from the frequency used, or the heat can be from the ability run high gain or sensivitity, or threshold settings.
4th...Coil selection. You need the right size/type to maximize your time at any given site.. The more efficient you are in recoverying the right type of target signals the more sucessful you will be. Sometimes that may mean a small coil, sometimes that may mean a large coil.

Those are the top four attributes for me. Everything else is gravy.

HH
Mike

 

[berryman]

Please elaborate on what you mean by "audio flag" and what you mean by "heat".

 

[Mike Hillis]

audio flag = a tone used to notify you when you get a target in the conductive range you are interested in. That tone (audio flag) might cover the entire gold jewelry conductive range or maybe only a specific section of it.

heat = sensitivity to the target. That sensitivity could come from the detector frequency in use or by the ability to really crank the gain up or both.

HH
Mike

 

[MarkCZ]

n/t

 

[Tom Slick]

I have to agree with the responses above. Most of my jewelry hunting is done on the sand, either Beaches, Volleyball courts, or Tot Lots. To me, a good jewelry detector usually needs to run at a frequency around 15kHz to 20 kHz. It needs to have either a good Automatic ground tracking system or have manual ground balance (no factory set GB). It needs to have stability at higher sensitivity levels and it needs to have a good selection of coils for different hunting environments. When I'm hunting Jewelry in the grass like parks or soccer fields, I also want a good VDI display, good discrimination and a slow sweep speed with fast recovery speed.

 

[MarkCZ]

Well lets see,
If you take a small gold earring, a loop kind with a latch and lay it on the ground both open and closed.
Then take a F75 (new model) with several different coils and every setting it has to find it Will Not hit on the earring with it open looped? (closed looped it hits, but doesn't really like it)

Then take a Tejon with either of two coils and as long as you keep it within the discrimination range it will hit on the earring Perfect! with it opened or closed! Good Solid hits!

Which one of the above would be your choice for finding smaller gold jewelry?

And get this,
The Tejon was $350.00 used!

And its reports like this and LOTS of them from all kinds of people testifying to how great the Tesoro's love for Gold is that lead me to buying one just for Jewelry hunting.
My plan, Coinshoot an area with my other detectors, then go back and search it with the Vaquero for jewelry (public places anyway)

Mark

 

[mudpuppy]

Several of these posters find more jewelry than others, totlotters, beachsweepers, park hunters...some hunters leave the house with an intent on jewelry and they hunt specific areas and key on certain locations, observe the weather, tides, seasons, festivals, lost stuff posted on Craigslist, etc...they have various machines but focus on those goofy signals and are successful..They study the art and mastery of jewelry hunting, and look at each area through that mindset..I'd say any one of them with a cheap detector of any brand, would find more gold and silver jewelry than others would with a top of the line unit, simply because they've mastered a few important skills. Besides reading a site, speedy retrieval is one necessity, since each and every foil and pulltab signal must be examined. Sometimes its as simple as being the first one there in the morning, or at night after a big weekend on the beach, or sports event, or festival. More often than not, its more of a race against the other hunters than the elemental aspects of equipment. Heck, when I was a kid, after a big wind storm, we'd race out to the beach on our Schwinn Typhoons because coins and heavy items were laid bare by the wind and could be eyeballed, and we got to know the certain areas where people would drop stuff more than others..
Mud

 

[MarkCZ]

Several of these posters find more jewelry than others, totlotters, beachsweepers, park hunters...some hunters leave the house with an intent on jewelry and they hunt specific areas and key on certain locations, observe the weather, tides, seasons, festivals, lost stuff posted on Craigslist, etc...they have various machines but focus on those goofy signals and are successful..They study the art and mastery of jewelry hunting, and look at each area through that mindset..I'd say any one of them with a cheap detector of any brand, would find more gold and silver jewelry than others would with a top of the line unit, simply because they've mastered a few important skills. Besides reading a site, speedy retrieval is one necessity, since each and every foil and pulltab signal must be examined. Sometimes its as simple as being the first one there in the morning, or at night after a big weekend on the beach, or sports event, or festival. More often than not, its more of a race against the other hunters than the elemental aspects of equipment. Heck, when I was a kid, after a big wind storm, we'd race out to the beach on our Schwinn Typhoons because coins and heavy items were laid bare by the wind and could be eyeballed, and we got to know the certain areas where people would drop stuff more than others..
Mud

Agree!
I can tell you for SURE that Coin Shooters rarely EVER find anything GOLD! unless its HUGE and their digging Zinc'ins
They are a lot of people that hunt only for high rage silver coins, they for the most part NEVER find any gold.

Beach hunting in West Virginia is OUT!
Tot-Lots are in!
Public Parks and ball fields are in!
And of course home sites are in!

Mark

 

[SpiritRelic]

Well lets see,
If you take a small gold earring, a loop kind with a latch and lay it on the ground both open and closed.
Then take a F75 (new model) with several different coils and every setting it has to find it Will Not hit on the earring with it open looped? (closed looped it hits, but doesn't really like it)

Then take a Tejon with either of two coils and as long as you keep it within the discrimination range it will hit on the earring Perfect! with it opened or closed! Good Solid hits!

Which one of the above would be your choice for finding smaller gold jewelry?

And get this,
The Tejon was $350.00 used!

And its reports like this and LOTS of them from all kinds of people testifying to how great the Tesoro's love for Gold is that lead me to buying one just for Jewelry hunting.
My plan, Coinshoot an area with my other detectors, then go back and search it with the Vaquero for jewelry (public places anyway)

Mark

This is something to think about?Could the digital circuits lose sensitivity to small jewelry?Tesoro is
still analog.Could it be the raw analog circuitry that causes this?Could this cause analog based detectors to regain popularity?Look at the deeptech,perfect example.I think we should address this issue more.

 

[Mike Hillis]

The open loop earring is being detected by the Tejon because the Tejon has an expanded iron range combined with a high frequency. To find that same open loop earring in real life with the Tejon will require digging a bunch of little iron and steel peices along with all the little foil and aluminum shards. But in a dig it all site where its easy to do and you don't mind adding all the little ferrous peices to your aluminum recovery it could work for you.

HH
Mike

 

[MarkCZ]

Well finding the gold, you can't ID it, its in to wide of a range. So a beep and dig machine just makes sense.

But not all beep and dig's are the same when it comes to gold, my brother forum member WV62 (Badger) has been doing a lot of testing related to gold jewelry detecting with his machines and as much as we both like the Fisher 1266 it did the worse in his test!
He even created a spread sheet to record his results. Lets see if I can remember some of the detector he tested. (and we no the problem with small chains and there links being a problem)

Fisher 1266
Fisher 1270
Fisher F75 and a
Tejon.

The F75 did the best on the gold until the Tejon came along! the 1266 was the worse.

Here is something else very strange about the Tesoro's. He plants a fresh coin garden @ 7" then he test the F75 and it wouldn't hit the coins at all, it was like they weren't there, sweep over them with the Tejon and BANG! no problem.

Now, I have had the same thing happen with fresh buried coins in a test garden when I planted them over 5" deep with a number of detectors, now after they lay there for a year or so the same detectors will hit on them, but the Tesoro's don't act like that, or don't seem to?

My brother says the Tejon just likes gold! its somehow different it what it does, were hoping that they are different enough that will be able to go back in the hunted out coin places and dig more trash and drag out a little more jewelry.

I'll have him take a look at this post to confirm his results, it is possible that I missed a tested detector, or other miss quotes.

Mark

 

[SpiritRelic]

That halo stuff applies to weak detectors.The Tejon by passes that,can't find it untill it's been buried for two years stuff.Tejon is the bomb!. :O

 

[MarkCZ]

That halo stuff applies to weak detectors.The Tejon by passes that,can't find it untill it's been buried for two years stuff.Tejon is the bomb!. :O

I don't think coins (well zinc's maybe) produce much halo, some older corroded copper pennies might, but silver ones don't halo, rust is the biggest halo problem.

Some companies state not to use test gardens for testing their detectors unless its an OLD garden, they claim once you dig the hole you disturb the ground "Matrix"
Now with fresh shallow coin gardens down around 3" to 4" I've never had a problem, my newest 7" coin garden still isn't usable and I planted it early last fall, so maybe it will be usable this coming fall?

Mark

 

[Flintstone]

n/t

 

[tabman]

tabman

 

[MarkCZ]

n/t

LoL yea, they're in there.

After they set for a few months they will start to hit but poorly, then after a year or so they start doing fine. I never really figured out why but its just the way it is.
I've got a number of coins buried now,

Nickels @ 3" 4" 5" 6" the three and four inch was never a problem, the 5" and 6" are now hitting solid, especially with the Vaquero!

The 8" garden is now doing pretty good, the Indian penny is sometimes a bit iffy.

The two newest gardens I have are a,

6" quarter, 6" Dime, and yet another 6" nickel. (this garden is still worthless for testing)
7" Buffalo nickel and a 7" 43 nickel. (just as worthless, you just get a little scratch and pop)

Mark