What Do You Use To Probe & Pop Coins And Jewelry?

[Joe D.]

   The dip will wear; how fast depends on how hard the soil is! But it can be reapplied as often as you like! You can also put a layer of heat shrink wrap on the tip by itself! Or dip that, once heated on! That will increase the durability, so there is no metal to metal contact!!👍👍

[Mike Hillis]

Brass is too soft.   It wears away to fast at the tip and bends too easily.   If you have to use a brass probe you might as well plug everything.     

 A good probe can tell a person a lot about a target.  My favorite probe is an 1/8" by 10" screw driver.    The 1/8" diameter really transmits vibration to the hand.   The only real drawback is that it bends easier than a 1/4 diameter screwdriver.   Over time I found a 3/16" diameter that seems to offer a a little more bend resistance while keeping good vibration transmission, but I still like the 1/8" diameter best.   You should be able to tell you hit a rock verse a coin   

If you are hunting gold jewelry A good sensitive probe can tell you if the target is a wad of foil, a foil drink lid, a pull tab, or a coin or ring.   Foil and drink lid can be identified by how much resistance is required to push through.  After a while you get to where you can probe, id it and leave it in the ground and move on.    Same thing with pull tabs. The holes in pull tabs are sharp edged and want to cling and grate on the probe, where as jewelry is polished and smooth and doesn't grate when the probe slides against it.

Using a screwdriver in the dirt wears it down real fast.   You can start with something blunt and end up with something sharp much sooner than you would think.   Like transforming a flat head into a phillips in the course of a hunt or two.   

Regards scratching targets....New probes that haven't got enough wear on them scratch targets the easiest.  And I have scratched a few targets, both coins and rings,  though the the coins are the ones that hurt the most as its real easy to push a deep scratch on coin while only putting a tiny nick on a gold ring.   A scratch on a silver coin hurts a lot more than a nick on a gold ring as the gold value is the same regardless of the nick, and a good worn probe rarely nicks a gold ring very bad, while as a silver coin is often times ruined.   For high conductors there is no need to try to push through it, all that is required is contact to locate it. 

What I really like about a good electronic probe like the TRX and the Tek Point is how they increase the speed of recovery....instead of probing to pinpoint a target, I can use the electronic probe to pinpoint the target and then use the steel probe to discriminate it.    For example, say I using the F75 to hunt gold rings.   I get a nice nickel range target....I do a quick pinpoint with the F75, then put the electronic probe to use and it will tell me if the target is shallow enough to pop out with my screwdriver probe or if I'll need to plug it.   If the electronic probe will hit it, I can probe it.   And if I can  probe it then I can Id the target without having to dig it in many cases.  If the probe tells me it a tab or a foil drink lid or a big wad of foil I can I leave it in the ground for the beep dig hunter to recover while I move on to something more likely to be what I'm after.

HH

Mike

  

[Joe D.]

    Very comprehensive explanation on probe use! Worth a printing!💍

Thank's Mike!!👍👍

[CPT_GhostLight]

22 hours ago, Mike Hillis said:

...

What I really like about a good electronic probe like the TRX and the Tek Point is how they increase the speed of recovery....instead of probing to pinpoint a target, I can use the electronic probe to pinpoint the target and then use the steel probe to discriminate it.    For example, say I using the F75 to hunt gold rings.   I get a nice nickel range target....I do a quick pinpoint with the F75, then put the electronic probe to use and it will tell me if the target is shallow enough to pop out with my screwdriver probe or if I'll need to plug it.   If the electronic probe will hit it, I can probe it.   And if I can  probe it then I can Id the target without having to dig it in many cases.  If the probe tells me it a tab or a foil drink lid or a big wad of foil I can I leave it in the ground for the beep dig hunter to recover while I move on to something more likely to be what I'm after.

HH

Mike

  

Thank you all for your responses and Mike, for the excellent info as well! I have been using a ProFind 35 to pinpoint the target and then probing to find the exact depth to pop. If the target is out of reach of the pinpointer, I just move on. I recently purchased a F-Pulse pinpointer in hopes that it can go a little deeper to allow a deeper pop. I haven't used the slit method yet to try to reach deeper targets, but the parks I currently practice in were created in the 70's so there's probably not much silver there. As soon as I get a little better at this, I'll try some older parks, but my last time out I only scratched one out of eleven coins so there is hope. 🙂

[dogodog]

Cpt, It takes a lot of practice to become very proficient at popping coins with a probe. Take your time. I have only two places that require probe like instruments. I pretty much gave up on those parks after getting a $100 fine for detecting on one of those places, They said I was destroying park property. After a 20 minute argument and showing the police the park rules they still fined me. ANY park with those rules basically mean don't detect here. Just be careful of the fine print in the park rules stating you can not disturb or destroy park flora. That by the way includes grass = $100 fine.

[Rick N. MI]

I detected in a downtown park and the police had no problem with me detecting there but the maintenance person had a problem. I told him I had dug over one hundred coins and no damage to the lawn but he didn't care and kicked me out. No signs up in the small park. Found my first and only Morgan dollar there. 

[Coinboy]

I use a good ol screwdriver

[kac]

Just a thought. If you polish  the end of  the screwdriver then woudln't it be less likely to scratch the target?

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Kac....I agree, only I let the dirt polish mine with use.

I didn't mention a key down side of probing jewelry....I have knocked stones out of several rings by probing and never recovered the stone.  Some were not recovered because I didn't react to the missing stone until later and it was too late.   Other times it was because I couldn't find it when I looked for it.

When I find a ring I tend to just give it a quick glance and put it away.  No one else but me needs to know that I found a ring and its not until I get home to spend time with my new 'precious' that I discover I have a missing stone.  That is always a uuggg moment.   So I try to make sure in that quick glance that I notice if it has a missing stone and if that missing stone was big enough to spend time looking for it.  

Ideally if you think you knocked the stone out, you'd dig out the dirt and take it home to sift, but in reality....you can't go off and leave a hole open in the ground.

Anyway....something to be prepared for because you WILL do it and you'll always wonder if you knocked a big diamond out of that ring and left it in the ground.    

HH
Mike

[kac]

So far places I have hunted I don't need a probe and only one spot the maintenance yelled out because someone was using a shovel, showed him the spots I was at and let me carry on.

There are some old parks I am not sure about so may try a probe to test the waters.

Suppose tossing on a safety vest and put a hard hat on and look official might work too ;)