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Prospecting For Processed Gold


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Alright so what is your favorite detector for hunting jewelry? Anyone can chime in here, just curious what is liked PI, VLF, discrimination ext.

All my detectors were bought with gold prospesting as the number one objective ATX, whites SPP and GMT. I think I am setup pretty well for a dig all approach although the GMT takes digging trash to a hole new level with tiny pieces of foil and the likes, but has the ability to find micro jewelry.

A couple of years ago I found a diamond stud on a beach in cal. Turned out to be a fake dimond but it was a small find none the less.

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When it comes to gold prospecting AND jewelry detecting in parks or other grassy locations, the multi-purpose detectors are generally the way to go. You do want to be able to reject ferrous targets and you may not want to dig every tiny little piece of foil ever dropped.

Fisher Gold Bug/Gold Bug Pro, Garrett AT Gold, Nokta CoRe/Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705, Teknetics G2, Tesoro Lobo, and White's MXT variants are major contenders for people that may already own them for nugget detecting

Being a niche detector guy my personal favorites have been the White's DFX now replaced by the White's V3i.

The secret to jewelry detecting is picking the right sites. The detecting can be as simple as set for bare ferrous rejection and dig everything else. Or you can try and get sneaky digging certain VDI numbers and ranges to try and improve the jewelry to trash ratio. Not everyone wants to dig every bit of trash in the park, and the fact is VDI targeting can be fun in its own right.

The two far opposite extremes would be a Tesoro Compadre for $160 and a single knob. It can do just fine. Set it to reject ferrous or maybe smallish foil and go to town digging everything that beeps.

 

tesoro compadre-metal detector.jpgtesoro compadre.jpg

 

The White's V3i is on the other end of the spectrum. Here is an example of just one of many possible display screens analyzing a target in three separate frequencies.

 

v3i-display.jpg

 

I think detecting should be fun, and part of the fun is trying different strategies and finding what works best for you. The key is to keep it enjoyable so you keep at it. If you keep at it, you will find stuff. It really is that simple.

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Disregard that last post I thought the last one did not go through.

Nice little stud plidn1!

Steve I think I may fall somewhere in the middle like MXT , F75 or FORS Gold something with a value in prospesting trashy sites as well as jewelry.

It hard for me to get away from the prospecting aspect, oh well.

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Hi Greg,

Yeah, I am for sure not trying to sell anyone on the V3i. In fact, just the opposite. Most people should stay away from it unless they really know what they are getting into. Massive feature overkill.

I highly recommend the mid-frequency do-it-all machines for jewelry detecting. The MXT is the default choice for anyone wanting power and simplicity in a detector.

In theory you could use the GMT and for tot lots or other easy digging sandy areas it actually is a good choice. But like the Gold Bug 2 the extreme sensitivity plays against it in the turf. Just too much tiny aluminum to contend with.

It appears we temporarily lost Mike, not just here but on the other forums. Hope he is OK. Mike and I have kind of shadowed each other with parallel thought processes on detectors over the years. One of those two people independently coming to similar conclusions kind of things, so I have always paid attention to his posts.

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Hey Steve,

I didn't feel like you were pushing the V3i at all. I asked what everyone likes and you gave me that and much more, so thank you for that!

I had forgotten about that Tesoro Compadre. A friend of mine had one and it is a very effective little detector.

I do like the V3i and the 22.5 kHz may be more sensitive to small gold than the 14 kHz MTX.

Also the price of the V3i isn't that expensive compared to my ATX and other gold prospecting PI detectors out there.

I will be looking forward to more results in your comparison betwen the V3i, F75, FORS Gold and CTX 3030.

Thanks Steve.

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Sorry Everyone.
I have been experiencing issues getting online, or when I do get on, keeping the connection.  

Mike

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Turning into a great thread.

 I love the pictures, plidn1.

My favorites for inland processed gold.....

Tesoro Golden Sabre II (GSII).....Discontinued......12 kHz, two tones with adjustable tone break, and the tone break will send shivers down your spine on gold when set correctly.  Notch Accept or Notch Reject that is user adjustable.  I have this tuned for hunting woodchip playgrounds with the Cleansweep coil mounted on it.   I need to put a manual ground balance on it so I can use it in turf.   I tried a couple of days ago but I had bought the wrong pots.  I bought 10k ohm when I actually need 100k ohms.   I tried anyway but it didn't work and I had to return it to stock.    I hope to have another go at it next week.  I want to put an external pot on it for both the ground balance and the notch width.   Cleansweep in the woodchips.  8" concentric in the turf. 

Tesoro Golden Micromax with the new tone arrangment....Discontinued....10 kHz, with a gold tone that can be moved along the gold disc range.   Worked well.  But Tesoro thought its best attributes were bugs.   When I called and tried to talk with them about it, they wanted to do all the talking and none of the listening.  You can find my posts about it on Findmall, maybe.  Many of my posts lost their content after the server crash/upgrade.   I currently don't have one now but will probably get another one one of these days if I ever get the SGT sold.  I loved the Cleansweep coil on this one.  Almost never took it off.

Fisher F5...This one is super for gold jewelry hunting in my opinion.   I actually chain hunt with mine, well, not chain hunt, more like "clasp" hunt because it can be set hot with low gain settings and I just hunt the tiny clasps.

Fisher F75.... I have a F75 LTD DST model and now that it's quiet and I can actually hunt with it I am finding it a super detector for just about everything.   I find it working really well in JE mode with about a 20 sensitivity with the 10" eliptical coil off my F5.  I love it.   

Teknetics Eurotek Pro... Low tone for iron, VCO mid tone for gold, and high tone for high conductors.  This one works well for jewelry hunting.   I should use it more.  Its fun. 

Whites DFX....The DFX in 15kHz only, normalization turned off, or in reversed mixed mode.

Whites V3i....I like the V3i mainly for the visual id.   It offers spectragraph that shows three signagraphs on the screen, one for each frequency, but you can turn the spectragraph off, which then shows only one signagraph for the dominate frequency.   It also allows you to adjust the number of VDI each bar represents, so you can change the defauft 7 TDI per bar to a smaller number, like 1 VDI per bar.  There are other signagraph controls that allow you to tune the visual response just so, result being the best visual target representation available today, in my opinion.   Intelligent visualization.   I sold my last one to fund another purchase but will get another one in 2015. 

Those are my favorites.  Right now I'm enamored with  the F75.   I'd pay a premium to get a Cleansweep/Bigfoot style coil for my Fishers.

HH
Mike

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