Virgin Parks? Or State Of Mind

[plidn1]

I have a park down the block from me that has taught me so much in the last 18 months.
I was just thinking about how well my park has treated me.

This park is between 40 and 50 years old. It is a typical neighbor hood park, about 4 or 5 Acers in size, with a ball field, soccer field, and a small tot lot. The perimeter has about a 15 foot high burm with, now, large shade trees. It has a few picnic tables scattered, and a small nature area.
There is hardly never a time when it doesn't have people in it for one reason or another.
It has been worked a lot over the years and I have played in it myself thousands of times, for detector entertainment and someplace to test a used detector bought for resale.

About 18 months ago, I retired my favorite old detector, a Garrett ADS 3, that I thought I would never get rid of.
My hunting buddy had an MXT and since he liked it so much, I bought one.
I was so over whelmed by this detector, it took me two months to learn it enough to find anything.
So I went back to the basics, and with no discrimination, I started digging everything.
I learned that detector inside and out in about 6 months. I dug dump truck loads of trash out of there, but found enough gold and silver jewelry in about an 8 month period, at two hours a day, that I scraped over $3000.
But the real value I found, was how to hunt. After 35 years of swinging a detector, I was hitting pay dirt.

Now 18 months later, the park is still giving up more gold and silver jewelry. And this is stuff that has been in the ground many years.
The reason I think it gives so much to me, is because it is so close and I can access it easily any time, allowing me to work the hell out of it. I have covered almost every square inch of this park from all possible angles, and it still surprises me on a weekly basis.
I think it is no different then any other older park. I think if you are in any park as much as I am in this one, working it, as I have done, they would all produce big time as I am finding more then my fair share in other parks.
I keep looking for and finding new places to work, even wishing for a virgin park, but always return to this one because it is so convenient. And I keep making good finds. Not as much as before, but it is still profitable.

I believe it is truly a numbers game. The odds are, the more you try, the more you succeed.
I think, for variety reasons, a person could just pick 2 or 3 close parks, and just work the day lights out of them.
After a while, you get to know the terrain, and it get's a little easier.

I am starting to believe there is no such thing as a worked out park. I now look at any park as virgin territory.
The secret is to know your detector inside and out, keep it swinging and it will find you the goodies.

 

[Smudge]

Well said.

You made a significant jump in detector technology going from the ADS 3 to the MXT.

I also have to admire how you went about using your new detector. Too many times we try to use the new detector like our old one, and in the process we usually limit its abilities.

More than once I have seen some people with a "dig it all" approach. They stop worrying so much about depth, sensitivity and discrimination. No doubt they spend a lot of time on their knees digging. No doubt they walk out with a bagfulls of trash. No doubt they tend to cover a much smaller area than most of us on an average hunt. And no doubt they make more spectacular finds than we do.

Your ADS 3 was probably limited to what targets it could unmask due to the technology available at the time. The MXT's unmasking abilities are far superior because detectors have come a long way over the past 10+ years (and can easily evolve even more). I think if we realize just how many good targets we lose due to the effect of masking, no matter how slow we go, we would be shocked.

Some may argue this with me, but I'm guessing we bypass probably 70%-80% of good targets in the ground due to masking. Which is why I agree with you that a site is never truly "hunted out".

Best of continued luck to you and happy hunting!!!

 

[plidn1]

I was amazed at how many times I dug a trash target and a coin or other value target was right next to it.
The detector was always trying to tell me in it's own way, what was there, but I had to learn the only way you can. And that's dig it all.
It took a long time to brake myself from wanting to cover the whole field in an hour, rather then work the ground I stood on.
I have broken most all my bad detecting habits now and let me tell you,
There is no greater feeling then when you see that gold come out of a clump of dirt.
I must say, I almost fell into the same trap as many. I almost sold that detector the first week I had it. I did not like it nor did I under stand it. It was frustrating and hard to use.
But now, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
A large tip for all. Just before I put it up for sale, I bought a 5.3 coil (6 3/4") for it. The first day out I found a 17K, white gold, 12.5 gram men's wedding band. That coil never comes off the detector and the rest is history. The MXT and 5.3 is the most amazing combo I have ever seen.

Second best is the compadre. After you learn it and what it can do, it will also amaze you.

 

[Critterhunter]

For sure I think too that there are tons of old silvers still waiting to be found at "dead" sites due to masking. Something as small as a BB can mask a coin that is deeper, even way off to the side of it, if that BB is in the detection field in any way, and you'll never even hear that coin. Besides, I've dug plenty of silvers that read like junk or as say a penny due to being worn, on edge, minerals, depth, masked, and so on. The attitude thing has alot to do with it too. How many times have you heard of a newbie with a "cheap" detector head out to a site others have long since given up on and he starts popping keepers out of there. He doesn't know any better, and he's also digging targets that those of us with more "experience" will pass on thinking we know what that target is going to be.

 

[plidn1]

For sure I think too that there are tons of old silvers still waiting to be found at "dead" sites due to masking. Something as small as a BB can mask a coin that is deeper, even way off to the side of it, if that BB is in the detection field in any way, and you'll never even hear that coin. Besides, I've dug plenty of silvers that read like junk or as say a penny due to being worn, on edge, minerals, depth, masked, and so on. The attitude thing has alot to do with it too. How many times have you heard of a newbie with a "cheap" detector head out to a site others have long since given up on and he starts popping keepers out of there. He doesn't know any better, and he's also digging targets that those of us with more "experience" will pass on thinking we know what that target is going to be.

I agree 100 %. I am a firm believer in small coils for just that reason. You can only detect the shallowest target under your coil.
You have a much greater chance of hitting that deep target, with a small coil or when all the other targets are gone.
After I worked this park for a long time, I thought that with the small coil, I was missing the deeper targets as the amount of targets had gotten pretty slim. I was getting down in the 7" to 9" depth range with the 6 3/4" coil. I mounted the 9 1/2" coil and reworked, worked areas and found that I had missed very little in value targets.
The interesting thing I noticed, was that all the really valuable targets were in the 3" to 5" depth range. A few deeper, but most not.
That means that all the good targets were mixed with the bad. So if you were not getting the bad targets out of your way, you were finding nothing for the day.
And on the days I go out knowing I will find the gold, I do. When I go out hoping to find something, I don't.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I dug dump truck loads of trash out of there ........

What city in northern CA are you in? And you say the park is only 40 to 50 yrs. old, so I'm assuming there's very little to no silver coins there, right? So the angle you're doing is for jewelry, right?

The tactic of "digging all" (ie.: relic mindset of digging anything that's not iron) will certainly net someone finds that they wouldn't have found, if they were a little more "selective" (eg.: passing foil, or passing surface corroded zinc, etc...). I'm not sure what you mean by "dump truck loads of trash", because perhaps your park is not truly in a blighted run-down area, and you're talking a mere apron of trash, for each gold or silver jewelry item. But I can think of inner-city run-down ghetto neighborhood parks, where if a person took this stance, it would certainly not be worth the time.

In San Francisco, we had the rare chance, back in 2006, to hunt when grass was scraped off of a blighted neighborhood park to make way for astro-turf. For a few days, after they'd scraped off about 6" of grass and soil, it was heaven on earth, as every single coin was an old coin (all the clad had been scraped off in the top 6" ) But by about the 3rd day, they'd folded the new soil back into a lot of areas, so now the old coins were jumbled in with the new trash/top soil. But none-the-less, since digging was easy, we continued to treat it with "relic mindset" and dig all. I saved every single target, for an entire week of doing this ... 100's of targets per night. By the end of about 10 days of doing this, I did indeed have about 4 or 5 pieces of gold jewelry (a few rings, and a few other nicknacks), and some silver items. But I'm not kidding when I say that the ratio of each gold item, to aluminum junk, was easily 500 to 1 !! It simply would not have been worth it, before the grass was scraped, to go to this type of park, with the intention of "digging all", in order to find gold jewelry. If a person was that h*ll-bent on finding gold jewelry, his time would be much better spent simply going to a swimming beach.

Another example: a buddy of mine had pulled a lot of silver coins from a park in San Jose, back in the late 1970s/early '80s. Since he'd gone high disc, he began to wonder how many nickels (and/or gold) might be in this one particular good zone. So he made it his mission to purposefully grid off a particular section of ground, and methodically work every single last signal (even iron) out of it ....... JUST to "see what's there". Over the course of many months, working it every few nights for an hour or two after work (since he lived right around the corner), he did indeed get a few worthless orange buffalo nickels, maybe a V or two, and ... yes .... a few gold items (even some teensy earing studs, dangly things, etc....). He kept accurate notes of every single signal (depth, angle in ground, TID it gave before digging, etc....). The conclusion he came too, at the end of this experiment, was that this "strip-mining" technique, was simply not worth it (time, # of holes to be self-consciously digging in turf, etc...) for the amount of gold and nickels he'd gotten. Because he could simply drive over the hill to Santa Cruz beach anytime he wanted, and have odds at a gold ring on the beach

About the only turf I'd "strip-mine" for gold jewelry purposes, would be some athletic usage fields, where there's less junk (d/t no picknicking/eating usage of said fields), and higher ratios of jewelry losses (d/t frolicking/athletic use). And even then-so, probably limited to more upscale areas (not inner-city-blighted soccer fields).

 

[plidn1]

I dug dump truck loads of trash out of there ........

What city in northern CA are you in? And you say the park is only 40 to 50 yrs. old, so I'm assuming there's very little to no silver coins there, right? So the angle you're doing is for jewelry, right?

The tactic of "digging all" (ie.: relic mindset of digging anything that's not iron) will certainly net someone finds that they wouldn't have found, if they were a little more "selective" (eg.: passing foil, or passing surface corroded zinc, etc...). I'm not sure what you mean by "dump truck loads of trash", because perhaps your park is not truly in a blighted run-down area, and you're talking a mere apron of trash, for each gold or silver jewelry item. But I can think of inner-city run-down ghetto neighborhood parks, where if a person took this stance, it would certainly not be worth the time.

In San Francisco, we had the rare chance, back in 2006, to hunt when grass was scraped off of a blighted neighborhood park to make way for astro-turf. For a few days, after they'd scraped off about 6" of grass and soil, it was heaven on earth, as every single coin was an old coin (all the clad had been scraped off in the top 6" ) But by about the 3rd day, they'd folded the new soil back into a lot of areas, so now the old coins were jumbled in with the new trash/top soil. But none-the-less, since digging was easy, we continued to treat it with "relic mindset" and dig all. I saved every single target, for an entire week of doing this ... 100's of targets per night. By the end of about 10 days of doing this, I did indeed have about 4 or 5 pieces of gold jewelry (a few rings, and a few other nicknacks), and some silver items. But I'm not kidding when I say that the ratio of each gold item, to aluminum junk, was easily 500 to 1 !! It simply would not have been worth it, before the grass was scraped, to go to this type of park, with the intention of "digging all", in order to find gold jewelry. If a person was that h*ll-bent on finding gold jewelry, his time would be much better spent simply going to a swimming beach.

Another example: a buddy of mine had pulled a lot of silver coins from a park in San Jose, back in the late 1970s/early '80s. Since he'd gone high disc, he began to wonder how many nickels (and/or gold) might be in this one particular good zone. So he made it his mission to purposefully grid off a particular section of ground, and methodically work every single last signal (even iron) out of it ....... JUST to "see what's there". Over the course of many months, working it every few nights for an hour or two after work (since he lived right around the corner), he did indeed get a few worthless orange buffalo nickels, maybe a V or two, and ... yes .... a few gold items (even some teensy earing studs, dangly things, etc....). He kept accurate notes of every single signal (depth, angle in ground, TID it gave before digging, etc....). The conclusion he came too, at the end of this experiment, was that this "strip-mining" technique, was simply not worth it (time, # of holes to be self-consciously digging in turf, etc...) for the amount of gold and nickels he'd gotten. Because he could simply drive over the hill to Santa Cruz beach anytime he wanted, and have odds at a gold ring on the beach

About the only turf I'd "strip-mine" for gold jewelry purposes, would be some athletic usage fields, where there's less junk (d/t no picknicking/eating usage of said fields), and higher ratios of jewelry losses (d/t frolicking/athletic use). And even then-so, probably limited to more upscale areas (not inner-city-blighted soccer fields).

I am in Sac.
Because of my age I only last 2 to three hours a day detecting the way I do.
But when I first started detecting this park in ernest, It was so bad you couldn't ground balance the detector. It sounded like pop corn popping when you made your swing.
I have a trash bag about the size of a carpenters bag. At first I was emptying it 3 times a morning.

No, I have never found a silver coin in this park. The only silver coin I have found in years, was at a little park I was testing a detector at a few months ago. I was going along the sidewalk and it was 2" down. A nice 1943 merc dime. Go figure. I am not an expert on silver coins.
As far as beaches, ours are infiltrated with GEESE. They clean the beaches totally, hitting every thing that shines. I gave it a shot once. I couldn't believe it. I worked a 50 yard by 25 yard stretch of beach and found 2 pennies and 4 pull tabs. It would seam if you want to hunt a beach around here, you need a shot gun.

I work mainly the sports fields in the area and school yards as the amount of trash is much lighter. When I get lazy, I will work the tot lots. I do find some nice jewelry in tots, but not like on the grass.
Unless I feel I am in a mood for major abuse, I stay away from the picnic areas. I also stay away from the large older parks.
I Am a jewelry hunter. When I find a gold ring, the small ones average about $65 in scrap, the larger ones about 125 scrap up to $300.
Most any good piece with eye ball I will retail at the different swap meets and shows.

Needless to say, you have to work the areas available to you in the best possible ways. My way in your area may not work for you.
You have adjusted your hunting technique to suit your needs.

 

[GunnarMN]

plidn1 very good post , loved reading it ,

 

[plidn1]

We all get a little lazy at times and want to short cut when we can. I included.
I have had those days when I would dig 2 pounds of trash and 15 cents in change.
You get discouraged fast.

But I tell myself " It's My Job To Dig". If you go with the intention of digging 100 tabs, you will never get discouraged.
You will achieve what you set out to do. Then if you find a good target, you quickly forget about all the bad ones.

I watch my screen. When it says foil, VDI 6, I think to myself it could be a ring, a pendant or maybe an earring. If I dig a piece of foil, I say that's OK, That's what it told me, it's doing it's job.

I have a hunting buddy that will only work the pick nick areas and around the base of trees (He has more heart then I do) and he is finding gold. I will only hunt those areas for about a half hour before I get burned out. But the next time I swing there, there is much less trash to cope with. And once is a while, I too find gold.

When I find myself wanting to believe the screen because I just don't want to bend down again for nothing, is when I quit for the day or go find a tot lot.

 

[BarberBill]

Great thread - enjoyed it. It occurred to me several years ago that one plus about detecting in all metal is due to the fact that if a nail, bottle cap or whatever is masking a good target that would be missed using discrimination, in all metal you'll still get a signal and if you dig you'll usually find the trash and the good target. The down side of course is you have to be of a mind to dig lots of trash, but the goodies will come out of that.
BB

 

[Ism]

While I agree about masked targets, I have yet to find a good target that was masked by the trash I dug.
I'm still hoping.

 

[plidn1]

Masking will keep you on your toes or drive you crazy.
This happened to me about 8 months ago.
I was working tot's and came across one that was kind of hidden. I had the MXT with the 5.3.
Now I have to tell you, I have found well over 200 hundred rings with this detector, and not a one registered "RING" on the screen.

I started working this tot and it appeared no one had been there yet. I was finding several coins and found 2 silver rings.
I was under the swings and the detector hits dime 2". I dig down and there were 2 dimes in the wood chips.
Out of habit I made my recheck swing and the detector hits a target at 5".
Thinking more coins, I dig a silver ring. I am on a rush now. A three ring day all silver.

I get up, another courtesy swing and bam. Another hit in the same hole. At 7" is, you guessed it another silver ring.
Now I am wishing I was with someone to brag too. This is the best ring day I have ever had.

I get up and swing once again over my glory hole and the detector hits another target. This time it reads pull tab at 11". I am thinking, there is no way this detector can go that deep and hit a tab. I have got to make this detector honest.
So now I am excavating. I am so deep, I was thinking I should tie a rope around me and to the swing just in case I fall in.
At 11" or so, there it was. A beautiful sterling ring with a turquoise stone.

No need to tell you how I felt, I just had a 5 ring day, all silver, three in one hole.
So, to those that think targets can't hide, you would be surprised.

 

[Ed in SoDak]

We have curious native iron patches scattered about. You can't seem to find one of the bits with a pinpointer, it takes a strong magnet to round them up. Together they're enough to read in no-motion mode as a shifting target that moves as you dig and always reads 6 inches deep, no matter how big the hole. But even if they don't detect by themselves, in a deposit of many bits, they cause the ID of other objects to drop by a full ID segment or more. A dime becomes a zinc penny, small gold becomes iron, etc. It bothers some detectors more than others, but it tends to bother me the most!

Oh and we have the same nail salads with tin can dressing that everyone else knows so well, so it's a wonder I find anything of interest at all.

-Ed

 

[Grubber]

Ed,do you detect near Area51? I have heard of things like this on late night radio show called coast to coast!.

 

[Ed in SoDak]

Well, I dunno about that sorta far-out Area 51 kinda stuff, but if I drop a postcard addressed to myself into the hole, it disappears and about a month later it's in my mailbox with a Chinese postmark and a bunch of funny-looking scribbling on it! I had the scribblings translated by none other than Art Bell himself and he claims they say something like "The weather is here, wish you were beautiful!" Obviously not meant for me, so I tossed 'em.
-Ed

 

[Grubber]

WoW weird.No joke though,i have heard of others talk about those hot rock type signals,saying how the signal moves around,and they are hard to pinpoint.