Ohio Metal Detecting - Blog

Finding Nickels with the E-Trac, Part 2

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:10:14 -0800

Well, a year later I am ready to cover part 2 of my blog on finding nickels.

My hypothesis at the end of the last blog post was: Would opening the FE all the way from top to bottom for 12-13-14 result in more nickels? Is the FE value of nickels the trick? That would explain my friend's result with using Relic mode. It would also tend to support my supposition that the nickel "halo" is causing the nickels to read lower than FE 12 and more like/closer to iron. This will be by next experiment... which will be covered in Part 2.

Did opening the FE all the way from top to bottom for 12-13-14 result in more nickels? No, not really. They all tended to stay right around the 12 line and in the accepted range for coins in

the preset coin program. The FE value is not the trick, nickels come in right where they are supposed to for the most part.

For 2010, I found that having learned the nickel tone, by doing these experiments and training my ears, I was digging a lot more nickels.

I learned that by pinpointing a signal and then sweeping the coil over the center of the target, a good nickel signal almost always showed a predominance of CO 13, even if it bounced around. Sure, the beavertails are foolers, and I dug more of those this year too. I also found that a repeating 11-14 is almost always a beavertail and not a nickel.

So, my advice for finding more old nickels is to try setting up your screen to be only open for nickel signals and go for a few hunts just for nickels. Set that tone in your head, so it pops out from the trash and noise at that end of the scale. Having learned the tone, you should be able to easily pick it out and will start digging more nickels. The more you dig them, the more you will hone the skill of finding nickels.

I had a question in my mind about depth and what it did to nickel signals, but a very deep shield nickel that came in at a good but weak 10-13 satisfied my curiosity on that point. The nickel signal is just as consistent as the other coin IDs on the E-Trac. CO 13 is a magic number for nickels, much as CO 44 is a magic number for memorial cents. Not infallible, but darn good and better than any other ID detector I've ever used.

Terry Barnhart's 2010 Finds

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

These are the finds of my friend,Terry Barnhart (Goes4ever on the online forums). He was a Minelab X-Terra 70 wizard, but upgraded to the Minelab E-Trac this year. I think his finds, all made near his home in Van Wert, Ohio and even at sites he thought he had hunted out with the X-Terra are a phenomenal example of what someone can find in Ohio with the right equipment and the right mindset. He met and surpassed many of his detecting goals for the year, over 100 Indian Head cents, over 100 silver coins including two Seated and a gold class ring and a wide variety of relics.

Terry said, "I had the X-terra 70 for about a year and a half and my local Minelab dealer told me I'd do better with an E-Trac. I thought he was nuts, how could I do better? I was doing

exceptonally well with the X-terra and thought the upgrade would be a waste of money. But come tax time this year the wife told me to go ahead and get the E-Trac. So I did, and I have NEVER looked back, it is an amazing machine and I wish I had gotten it a year earlier!

The number one thing I think I do better with the E-Trac over the X-terra is finding coins in heavy iron, this machine in TTF (two tone ferrous) is literally KILLER, no coins are safe with the E-Trac in your hands! I hunt fields and old farms most all the time, so I needed a machine that could find stuff in heavy iron and the E-Trac is THE machine just for that! It is amazing on deep coins, and for me it is an Indian cent magnet."

Click on any photo below to view larger.

November 2010, a great month of detecting!

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Just as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, I have the best month of the year! Lots of firsts for me, and these are firsts in 20 years of detecting! Seated coin (dime), fatty Indian (1862), a Chinese cash coin, and a three ringer minie ball.

And on top of that, four large coppers, a two cent piece, 21 Indian heads, three shield nickels, two V nickels, five buffalo nickels - all with dates, 18 silver dimes, 1899 Barber quarter, four old

trade tokens, some silver rings, a Canadian large cent. One December find snuck into the pictures, and that's the small silver cross.

I'm a park hunter, and I'm still astounded all these things came out of the heavily hunted parks I have been searching for years. And to have found them all within the span of a month is just unreal.

Click any photo below to view larger.

2009 Year In Review

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Well, I was out on Dec. 31 in the snow looking for silver coin #300. I came home with a pocket of clad, that last one was just too elusive.

So, now I take stock and look back at a really fabulous year of detecting thanks to the Minelab E-Trac, which has definitely paid for iteslf in just 9 months (I started the detecting year mid-March with my Minelab Explorer SE).

$349.63 in clad coins
Over 4,700 total coins and tokens.
299 silver coins, 1244 wheat cents.
Dozens of rings, most silver, two gold.

2009 was my 19th year of detecting, but by far this was truly the best year ever. In 2009, I found my first large cent and oldest coin, dated 1820. Then just a few weeks later, a second large

cent, 1844. I found my oldest silver coin, a beautiful 1833 bust dime, which amazingly came from the most heavily detected park in the city.

Dog licenses dating back to 1924, a small tribe of Indian cents, two Civil War storecard tokens, nickels of every sort...

It's been great fun and a great challenge. I started the year aiming for 100 silver coins, thinking I would be quite lucky to get that many. Instead, with the E-Trac, I quickly surpassed my initial goal for the year.

I still was not able to add a Seated coin to my collection, so this will definitely be one of my goals for 2010. I may also have a goal of 2010 wheat cents, which should fill a half gallon mason jar! But as always, I am open to finding whatever ends up under the coil! Good luck to all in the coming year!

Finding Nickels with the E-Trac, Part 1

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:53:15 -0800

Most of the online forum conversations I start about nickels either get no responses or a bunch of defensive talk about how the E-Trac finds plenty of nickels. In less trashy sites, I'm sure picking out nickel signals is a breeze, and if you run wide open and "dig all" I'm sure that works too. I've found some old nickels with the E-Trac, but nowhere near what I did with some of my older machines in the past.

Overall the buzz in the online forums is that while the E-Trac is a silver slayer, it is weak (but not useless) on nickels (and theoretically gold). My impression is that this is true. Air testing

shows good responses to nickels and gold, but in the field it doesn't seem to be so good. Let me stress here too, I am not discussing gold at all. I am only wanting nickels for this experiment/discussion, so let's not drag the dreaded gold into it.

What I wanted to get at is:
a) Am I doing something wrong?
b) Can I do something better/differently?
c) Are there nickels here and I am passing them up because they don't sound like I think a nickel should?
d) Are there just very few or no old nickels in my sites?

So, I figured I would try an experiment to up my nickel count, and specifically check some areas where I had been finding deep older coins (many wheats) for some buffalo or V nickels.

I used the learn feature and made a nickel-only screen with the medium cursor, using a handful of dug nickels. I think this ranged from CO 10 and 17, so no signals under CO 10 or higher than CO 17. Range for FE was between 8 and 15.

The particular park I went to has been generous with older coins 1920-1970, but is also loaded with pull tabs. I'm not worried about the COs in the 20's so much that "could" be nickel 3 cents or fatty Indian cents, or other coins. The most likely targets here are going to be worn V nickels, buffalo and Jefferson nickels. Seriously, I could dig pull tabs forever out of this place, so "dig all" is a crazy proposition, unless I decide to start collecting pull tabs. And if you do like collecting pull tabs the graphic I have attached may be of some interest. Also, many may not be aware that the first pulltabs came out in 1962 and had a rather unique shape. If you want to read more about those, look here http://www.rustycans.com/HISTORY/zips.html

So, went out to try it out for about an hour before the rain came. Looking for repeatable hits in that nickel window. Scratchy partial signals were not considered for this experiment. Dug a lot of one piece ring pull tabs (ironically stamped "Don't Litter" - circled in red on graphic at bottom), tails from two piece ring tabs, assorted other tabs, some foil and four newer nickels. The newer nickels were 2-3" deep and red colored, so they were not new drops, and had been in the ground a while. What I noticed was that the nickel signals that were nickels, when pinpointed and then swept over that "center" - all gave me a relatively repeatable signal at CO 13 that the junk tended not to. The coin signals were a bit smoother, but not enough that I could clearly call them out.

The results are shown in the picture above: 4 pieces of foil, 2 pieces of canslaw, 8 tails of pulltabs, 4 pulltab rings, 5 one piece ring pulltabs, 6 regular ring pulltabs, 4 Jefferson nickels.

My observations:
1) Other detectors (now or in the past) were hot on nickles (vs. tabs) at the heavily hunted sites I am at (i.e. there are not many old nickels left there) I know I dug quite a few old nickels in these places with my Fisher CZs and they were hot nickel machines.
2) The Minelab nickel window is tight... CO 13 seemed to be a magic number, but you had to be right on it for the most part to get a nice repeatable CO 13. If you were a little off center, it bounced around enough that I would probably pass it up as junk. (That said, I have dug old nickels that were not solid CO 13s but smoother deeper signals that just said "dig me" to my ears.)
3) Does the halo/leaching of old nickels possibly make them read lower or higher? Perhaps more like iron? This was my suspicion, but I have no evidence either way. Would I theoretically then find more old nickels in dry soil conditions? This did not prove itself to be true this summer.
4) My friend with an E-Trac says when he first got the E-Trac he used Relic mode and dug more nickels. He's since switched to Coin mode and reports his nickel count has dropped off from when he was using Relic mode.

Hypothesis:
Would opening the FE all the way from top to bottom for 12-13-14 result in more nickels? Is the FE value of nickels the trick? That would explain my friend's result with using Relic mode. It would also tend to support my supposition that the nickel "halo" is causing the nickels to read lower than FE 12 and more like/closer to iron. This will be by next experiment... which will be covered in Part 2.

Why am I not digging deep targets?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:17:52 -0800

"How come I am not digging really deep targets with (my detector).The deepest I dug was about six inches and on the videos they're digging (coins at) like 11". Are there specific settings for digging deep coins...?"

I saw this post on the TreasureNet forum and it got me thinking. I often read these discussions online about detector depth. Way back when, depth was the "next big thing" a detector could offer. The marketing started to be all about depth. Now here we are and most modern detectors

have reached a plateau. There's only so much you can get out of a handheld machine with a coilthe size of a dinner plate. Your depth is going to max out at around 12" on coin sized objects.

Discussions of depth are also often exaggerated, much like the proverbial "fish story," so I always take estimated depths with a grain of salt. Some claim to dig coins at 14" deep. While I think it is possible, I also think that may be the limits of the depth possible with dinner plate sized coils.

Most coins in undisturbed ground are going to be less than 7" deep. This has been my experience in all areas of Ohio I have detected. Even my two oldest coins, an 1820 large cent and 1833 dime were about that deep. Where I do run into unusually deep coins are areas near rivers that have been silted in, sites that have been backfilled, farm fields that have been tilled or sites that have had construction/destruction activity.

From what I have observed, even the entry-level Garrett Ace 250 gets excellent depth on coins. In clean ground, I think most modern quality detectors are going to give more-or-less equal depth.

So, why spend $1500 on a machine that only goes as deep as a $200 one? Aha! That gets to my point.

High priced detectors offer other enhancements and tweaks that give them an edge over the cheaper machines. More information about targets provided on grids and graphs, better coils, faster processors, automatic ground balancing, etc. And this is why I said earlier that in clean ground, I think most modern quality detectors are going to give more-or-less equal depth. Note the italics.

I have confidence that my high-end detector will find coins that a cheaper machine will not. The important factors in finding coins in hunted out or trashy locations are target ID and target masking, not just raw depth. The electronics of my machine give me good information to help me make better decisions about what to dig. If you have an entry-level machine and dig everything, you will make some great finds. But you have to dig everything! That's a lot of nails, pull-tabs and holes!

So, will your detector find coins at 11"? I bet it will. Are you going to dig a lot of coins at 11"? I doubt it. Stop worrying about the depth, the machine can take care of that. Spend time learning about interpreting the information... sounds and sights, the machine gives you.

You don't need an additional searchcoil!

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:06:12 -0800

It seems to be easy to go accessory crazy with detecting. I think many times people who are not able to spend a lot of time detecting, instead start buying detecting accessories. Maybe these detectorists are not having much luck and think a new machine or a new coil is just the thing they need to make better finds.

When it comes to coils, this is a tough one to answer. Certainly for different types of detecting, having a smaller or larger coil can be an advantage. But 90% of the time the stock coil will give you good results for coinshooting.

There are two main types of coils available, concentric and double-d (DD). Knowing which type your detector uses helps you understand how to get the most out of it. A concentric coil puts out a cone-shaped field (shaped like a O), the DD field is more like the "center slice" of the concentric (shaped like an I).

The illustration above shows in grey, the fields of the concentric and DD coils. The concentric is on the left, and the DD on the right. The black bar at the top represents the search coil, the grey shows the penetration of the field into the ground. You can see the strength of the DD coil here in that it can "get between" the bottle cap and the nail, isolating the target. While the concentric coil will not give a good signal because there are three targets in the field at one time.

This diagram shows the DD field at a 90 degree angle on the far right. As is obvious, the DD coil has much more detection area at the "coin" depth than the concentric coil. But because it is also narrow, it has the ability to "see through" the trash. But, to be able to "see through" the trash, you need a slow sweep speed. If you race the coil across the bottle cap and nail, you're never going to be able to hear the "peep" of the good coin signal inbetween.

With the concentric coil, the deepest part of the field is very small, so if you are searching for a deep dime-sized signal, you have to really overlap your sweeps to maximize the depth. The problem with this is that the interference from shallower objects and trash will keep the detector from even "seeing" these deeper items. This is called target masking.

The DD coil is far superior in my opinion, as the narrow width of the field cuts out a good percentage of the trash and signals near the surface and the narrow field can really punch down around the trash signals. Also by scanning an area at 90 degrees and 45 degrees to the original pattern, you will be able to find almost all the targets in an area, and target masking is minimized.

A small coil is said to be good for trashy areas. With a concentric coil, this has some truth. The small coil will help you cherry pick a few good items from the trash. I think for the most part, smaller DD coils are no more effective than the stock coils. Most often though, I see people reporting making more finds (or the "look what I missed!") with a smaller coil, but it is not the coil that made the difference! What happened was they tightened up their sweep pattern and had to slow down with the smaller coil. Had they used the stock coil, overlapped their sweeps and slowed down they would get even better results.

Look what happens when we put the small coil on. The targets are in the same locations as the above pictures. The small coil has reduced our depth, the coin is now not detectable at all and we are still getting signals on the trash targets. We might have better results making sensitivity adjustments rather than using the small coil. Looks like going slowly with the larger stock coil might work better than using a small coil based on this situation!

Large coils are touted for having great depth, the trade off is they have a larger field so they are much more prone to target masking. Not only do these larger coils tend to be heavy, but they are really only effective in super clean areas due to masking. People buy these coils because they think they need more depth, and while this may be the case at certain sites that have been filled, reworked, or if your area has a high "sink" rate for items, a bigger coil is not going to help you at most sites. In most areas almost all coins are within reach of your stock coil! Any depth advantage is negated by the effects of target masking.
.

With the larger coil, we have many more objects detected simultaneously. With the concentric coil on the right, I now have six targets I am hearing at one time! The DD coil in the center and right diagrams do a little better, but we still have too many targets under the coil at one time to get a good signal, or a clear ID that says "dig".

Where a large coil has advantages is in covering a large relatively clean area. A field, a beach... finding traces of an old homesite in the middle of woods. These areas all have low trash concentrations, so there is little target masking and you can cover more ground faster with the larger coil.

Depth is, for the most part, a bogus issue. If you are coinshooting, most coins in "natural" ground (grassy areas) are less than 12" deep. Most newer name-brand detectors made in the past 15-20 years get adequate depth with their stock coils. The reason we do not find all the coins is not because of lack of depth, it's rather from poor overlapping of sweeps, target masking, and inferior target ID meters on the machines.

Before you go out and buy a new coil, especially for a machine that is new to you, learn how to use the coil that came with the machine. Understand what coil you have and how the field of that coil works. Slow down, overlap your sweeps. Remember that the coil that comes with your machine is selected by the engineers to give the best overall performance and also provide good weight and balance for your machine. All the features of the detector are tuned to work optimally with the stock coil, not that 5" hockey puck or the 24" trash can lid!

Master the stock coil and your detector, first. Understand your site and how the coils work. If then you decide you have a site that would benefit from use of a different coil, weigh the cost of the coil to the potential finds and see if that accessory coil is really a good investment. I think most often you will find that improving your technique with the existing equipment, and digging more junk out of a trashy area will have a greater impact on your finds than a new coil.

Types of Detecting in Ohio

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:31:20 -0800

There are quite a few different types of metal detector hobbyists. Seems the types of targets desired determine the types of detecting you do. Naturally, where you live plays a huge part in determining which kind of detectorist you are. Someone seeking colonial relics in Utah is going to have a pretty challenging and miserable experience!

What types of metal targets are out there to be found? Coins, relics, jewelry and ores are what all immediately come to mind. Ohioans are blessed with good opportunities to find three of the four. Not many gold nuggets around here, though I have heard stories of some people panning for gold

in the state.

Using a metal detector to find coins, or “coinshooting” can be done almost anywhere people have been. Some detector users are content with finding recently lost coins, typically where children play. These detectorists are often called “tot-lot hunters”. Other coinshooters are looking for older coins, ones that are no longer in circulation and may potentially be worth more than their face value.

Coinshooters are mostly spotted in parks, schools, fairgrounds and the lawns of homes. Their prime detecting grounds are turf areas, with occasional forays into wooded areas. Generally these searchers have a large number of potential targets to keep them busy.

Relic seekers are happy to find older items that they can connect with the past. Rusty nails, buttons, buckles, bullets and farm tools are all of interest. These folks are much more akin to archaeologists, researching sites and trying to discover traces of history. From the location of a cabin site dating back before the founding of our state to a battlefield, or even more recent events, these folks seek to make a connection with our history. They often have a vast amount of knowledge about the sites they detect and can tell you the complete history of a site from it’s first use 200 years ago to the present day.

Relic hunters frequent wooded areas and farm fields, occasionally at the sites of very old homes still in use. They may find a farm site littered with 200 years of debris, or a forgotten home foundation deep in the woods that has not been used in 100 years with very few metal targets.

Dedicated jewelry hunters frequent the beaches and the water. There is great potential here for profit, especially with the recent prices of gold. Certainly the beach and swimming areas are where the most jewelry is lost. Some are content to scan the dry sand, while others enjoy getting in the water with a specialized detector. Some try to find old swimming holes dating back to the turn of the century, for a mix of old coins, relics and jewelry. Others are up early Monday morning at a lake beach looking for items lost over the weekend. Many take great pride in returning lost items to their owners when they can be traced. Wallets, cell phones and keys have been known to show up in their sifting scoops as well.

Sun, surf, sand… Lake Erie provides all three, but there are many smaller lakes and swim areas in Ohio. These detectorists keep our beaches and swim areas safer by scooping up a lot of trash (some quite dangerous!) and sharp pull tabs out of the sand.

The last form of detecting is looking for metal ores… such as gold or silver. Mostly this is confined to searches for gold nuggets. In Ohio, pea sized and even seed sized nuggets are very rare. However, gold panning is done in some areas, and panning can produce a few flakes of the precious metal. These gold producing areas are located in the northwest 2/3 of the state that was covered by glaciers at one time.

All types of “treasure” await the metal detector hobbyist in Ohio! Your locale and your personal interests will dictate the type of detector you use and where. No matter what type of detecting you do, it is important to be responsible, have permission, and leave little trace of your presence.

Metal Detecting Clubs

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:03:27 -0800

I've just put the finishing touches on organizing the metal detecting club links on my website. I created an entire list of defunct or clubs of unknown status. As I was researching and composing, a million ideas flew through my head about detecting clubs so I thought I'd set a few down here in a bit of a ramble.

First idea is leadership. Someone has to want to do it and inspire others to participate. It takes time and commitment. This is no small thing to ask for people who are trying find time to detect, hold down a job and have a home/family life. So, besides a leader, there need to be some

helpers. From the leader to the helpers they are all volunteers. They don't get paid for any of the tasks they perform for the club. It is their personal time they are giving to you. It is a gift. Don't look the gift horse in the mouth.

So, what kind of helpers are needed? Someone to keep the website, write and mail a newsletter, a treasurer, someone to run the 50/50 and raffles, someone to get prizes for find of the month and the raffles. If you have group hunts or planted hunts, people need to organize those as well. No one person can do it all. So, if you just had the helpers I listed, you'd need seven people willing to volunteer to run parts of the club. Yes, volunteer. That means they do this work for free, and no doubt it is work.

Where do you find dedicated people with enthusiasm or at least a sense of commitment to do all the thankless work? Don't say it's not thankless... 90% of the time, it is. There are always rabblerousers who pay their membership fee, offer no volunteering or help, and want the world on a platter. This is not a retail store, one does not just "buy" a membership. It's an organization of people with a common interest and beliefs. Friendship and fraternity are key elements of a successful hobby club. You have to put something in (more than a membership fee) to get something out. If you need or want something from your club, ask nicely and be willing to help.

I was musing just now what a full-service metal detecting club would cost to operate, a country club of detecting. To pay for the wages for the things most club members do for free would probably be $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Let's see, say 50 members, that's $1,000-2,000 per year for a full service metal detecting club. That's a pretty exclusive detecting club!

I just thought of more people you'll need... a photographer (maybe someone to make short videos too) and someone to organize the yearly dinner. That's 9 people now. Where was I? Oh right, where do these people come from? The simple answer is I don't know. Some have boundless energy, but only for a short time. Others have family and job obligations that keep them from participating.

Another thing clubs and club members should be doing is lobbying government officials for metal detecting rights. And don't even think about asking for privleges unless the club is also advocating responsible and honorable behavior and training members in proper recovery techniques. Sadly, all it takes is one person to ruin a club's reputation or to close public sites to metal detecting.

So wow, this idea of a simple metal detecting club is getting really complicated, isn't it. No wonder so many have fallen by the wayside.

So, you need a meeting place too if you're going to have meetings. A place where everyone feels comfortable and interested members of the public can stop by. Public places such as libraries, historical societies, and parks are all great free places to meet. These reputable and respected locations have the added bonus of lending a sense of acceptability and legitimacy to your club. Not much fun if no one shows up to your meeting. How do you get people to make the metal detecting club a priority and show up every time? Is it the finds contest, the raffles, the prizes, a presentation or demonstration, a dinner or a group hunt? Different things appeal to different people, and with a small group, it's hard to please everyone every time so keeping activities varied is a help.

A club should have a public service component. The club can have a clean up day at the park, offer metal detecting services to local law enforcement, or any of 100 other ways of giving back. Every member should do something either individually or as part of the group. Why would you want this? Because it's great publicity for one, and secondly it shows that you do truly care about your community - a group of takers and users are not going to get much sympathy from local officials or the public when their rights are at risk.

Clubs should also be members of the FMDAC,The Federation of Metal Detecting and Archaeological Clubs. I have not been a great fan of the FMDAC and have found their responsiveness to members to be lacking. However, they are an organized front that represents and fights for our hobby. The more involved we are with FMDAC, the more they can do for us.

Now about the internet, which my aunt still considers a "fad," I promise it is not. There are still quite a few detector users who are not computer users though. Hard for many of us reading this online to believe, but it's true. That said, I think all clubs should have a web presence. Even if the club pays someone's teenage child a few dollars a month to keep a website going. Without local detector dealers recommending your club, how will people find it? A virtual club in addition to the physical club helps keep people connected, even when they may not be able to dedicate much time to their club or detecting. It also serves as a valuable resource to publicize the club and get new members.

Speaking of new members, ongoing recruiting needs to be a goal of the club. If you are not attracting new members, eventually there will be none. People stop attending club meetings for many reasons, some of which can be when they get busy with other hobbies, lose interest, disagree with others, have family issues, or illness. Clubs should have a goal of attracting new members and keeping them, maybe even offering some sort of bonus or award for existing members signing up new members.

Awards and prizes. I don't know about you, but I no longer need a silver half dollar as a "prize" when I win find of the month. I already have the find of the month, what greater reward do I need? Recognition is great, but a simple certificate serves me just as well as a coin. The thrill of competition is what keeps me going, rather than the promise of a reward. In a club I was a member of we had categories for find of the month. Best coin, oldest coin, relic, jewelry, button, etc. Back then I worked hard at getting something to enter in each category. I remember a friend and I went out one day specifically looking for buttons to enter in the contest. Now that kept things interesting and got us thinking outside the box about our usual detecting.

Why are newer metal detectors the key to older coins?

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:57:46 -0800

This is a follow up to the question, “Are newer machines the key to older coins?" Online forum posters brought up operating frequencies and gold, so this addresses these two topics.

Looking at some online resources: "Lower frequencies penetrate more deeply but higher frequencies are more sensitive to smaller targets." "Different metals respond better to different frequencies which is why all gold detectors run at 15 khz and up." "The lower the freq. such as 3 Khz will be sensitive in detecting copper and silver targets. Higher freq. such as 15 to 60 Khz will

be sensitive to gold targets. That's why most gold detectors sold have a freq. starting at 15 Khz and higher. The detectors sold with general hunting in mind have operating freq. starting from between 5 to 10 Khz."

Minelab’s E-Trac and Explorer use FBS which simultaneously transmits, receives and processes 28 frequencies from 1.5 kHz to 100 kHz.
White’s V3 uses three frequencies 2.5 kHz, 7.5 kHz & 22.5 kHz and operates in the frequency domain only.
White's MXT is 14 kHz
White's XLT is 6.5
White's DFX is dual frequency 3 kHz and 15 kHz
Tesoro models use various single frequencies:
10kHz, 12kHz, 14.3 kHz, and 17.5 kHz.
Tejon ranges 17.2-17.6 kHz.
Garrett Ace 250 uses a 6.5 kHz operating frequency.
Fisher CZ3D and Fisher CZ20 are both dual frequency, 5 kHz and 15 kHz
Fisher F5 - 7.8 kHz.
Fisher Gold Bug - 71 kHz

So, if you're looking for gold only you want a machine that handles the higher frequencies. Hence, the Fisher Gold Bug at 71 kHz, and PI (pulse induction) units, but let's not get into PI units as most of us do not want to do old coin hunting in trashy sites on land with a PI.

The multiple and dual frequency machines should always be able to turn up more targets than a single frequency machine. Theoretically, if you have "cleaned out" a site with your 6.5 kHz White's XLT, and then come along with a 17.5 kHz Tesoro Lobo, you will find targets you missed and that were undetectable with the 6.5 kHz White's machine.

The result of this is that a newer multiple frequency machine will be able to find more targets than the single frequency machines (not necessarily older coins). So the newer multiple frequency machines, including the old Fisher CZ and Minelab FBS machines will do better than a single frequency unit.

This is where I start thinking about accuracy of target ID - beeping over metal is not enough, I need to know if it's worth digging or not. How does the number of frequencies affect the target ID? Is a dual frequency (or more) machine going to ID targets more accurately than a single frequency unit? It seems like this would be the case. Certainly in my experience I have found that my Minelab FBS machines are the most accurate ID machines I have ever used, and they are accurate at good depth as well, though any machine will start to drop off on target ID at the edge of it's detection range. I have seen some reports that users of the White's V3 are also reporting more accurate target ID.

Now about finding gold. How does operating frequency affects the detectability of lower conductive metals? Gold is always difficult as it is alloyed with different metals. 10k gold is about 40% gold, so the detectability of a 10k ring is somewhat dependent on what the other 60% of the ring is made of. Due to this variability in alloys, shapes and sizes of gold rings and jewelry, I do not think we can even predict accurate results for one frequency or brand or model of detector being able to find more gold while land hunting homes, parks and schools. Thin gold rings are smaller targets and will be picked up better by a higher frequency, so a higher frequency may have a slight advantage there. For purposes of this discussion, I'm keeping this focused on coinshooting and detecting at parks, schools and homes. Nugget hunting and beach hunting would be different styles of detecting.

I think it comes down to what we have all been told in the metal detecting press and on online forums ad nauseam. The only way to find more gold jewelry targets on land is by digging more junk and trash targets that fall in the pulltab range on ID machines. If you do not have target ID, you will dig more junk, hence the potential is there for more gold. So, do users of non-ID machines find more gold? Maybe. But their trash-to-treasure ratio is much higher than someone using a target ID machine.

And just a brief not about coils here too, as I feel these play a role as well. The two current most expensive popular machines are the White's V3 and the Minelab E-Trac. Both use DD (double D) coils. In my experience the DD coil covers ground better than a concentric. The Minelab I have found separates signals well, even penny size targets at depth. Better ground coverage with good separation means you will be able to recover more targets and there will be fewer missed targets due to not overlapping sweeps or target masking.

So, why a newer machine?
1. Multiple frequencies = more detected targets
2. More accurate target ID = more signals that say "dig me"
3. DD coils = better coverage and separation