Question About Gold Machines

[Dancer]

Theres a lot of them out there.  Different manufacturers have at least one Gold machine.    A new analog machine recently debuted.  So , I'm thinking some are buying these to use on the Beach and Park hunting.    All these machines can't just be hunted in and around the Old Gold fields, can they?      So I would think that these machines used in our parks and are set go find small gold would become Overwhelmed with all the small pieces of Aluminum.  And such.     I got a couple sensitive machines (vlf) that in order to hunt I got to discriminate these pieces out.   So what I'm trying to ask is,     why buy them for Park and Beach hunting ?

[JCR]

I think the recently introduced Deeptech Vista Goldhound is aimed at Old World hunters on ancient sites full of small iron but not much modern trash. The desirable targets are the small THIN Silver coins, small Bronze coins & artifacts & small Gold coins.  That's why that work so well for us US relic hunters looking for Lead & Brass. As you & I both know, the Vista X is stellar, even in some Al trash.

[Rick N. MI]

I use the Gold Kruzer on beaches and in water for micro gold and I relic hunt with it.

I had White's GMX that I used in lakes. I liked it lot and wish I hadn't sold it. It's unfortunate no coils were made for water hunting. It's the same as White's 24k but waterproof. It would hit micro gold with disc set to take out nails. It's such a unique detector I think it would be a good relic hunter too. 

I would like to get a Garrett 24k in the future.

 

[Noah (FL)]

There’s gold jewelry hiding in all those bits of foil and slaw in our parks. I would wager that the majority of lost gold jewelry is broken chains, charms and earrings that will ID as foil compared to bigger rings in the nickel to tab range. Just have to spend the time digging all the crappy foil and slaw signals til ya find some.  I’m not saying it’s guaranteed to be worth your time but ya never know what might pop up!!

[phrunt]

Makes more sense to me to buy a Multi Frequency machine like the Nox for that task than buy a gold nugget specific machine, it has similar performance on small gold anyway and more versatile.   Even in it's park and field modes it's great on small gold targets and you can always switch to gold mode.  On beaches in the dry sand I can get away with using the far more sensitive modes like Gold or Park/Field to get the tiny gold targets if they're there rather than being stuck in the less sensitive to small targets beach modes.

Nothings stopping you using it's gold mode in a park, except the masses of tiny trash you'll find.

Many nugget hunters are just using the Nox for their prospecting VLF, there is a reason for this, it's just that versatile and well, good.

The benefits to the gold specific machines are often more to do with the coils they've got suiting prospecting better than performance, having the right shapes and sizes, the differences are becoming less and less as these multi frequency machines are stepping into their territory with force.

[midalake]

11 hours ago, Dancer said:

A new analog machine recently debuted.  So , I'm thinking some are buying these to use on the Beach and Park hunting.    All these machines can't just be hunted in and around the Old Gold fields, can they? 

I don't know?  Place of use would be a concern. I can not even get Beach 1 on the Equinox to hunt ocean wet sand. Gold machine?  

[Steve Herschbach]

Depends what you call a “gold machine”. All metal detectors can find gold. Genuine gold prospecting detectors are defined by exceptional ground handling capability. They often also focus on very tiny items. Quite a few have no discrimination at all, as discrimination robs depth, and often inaccurate, resulting in missed nuggets.

The PI nugget machines are obvious, and nearly all made by Minelab now. GPX series plus GPZ 7000, SDC 2300. Some of these get used by relic and beach hunters for their extreme depths.

But VLF nugget detectors? Not really. Fisher Gold Bug 2, Garrett 24K, Minelab Gold Monster, etc… these are true dedicated gold nugget detectors. Maybe a tiny number of jewelry hunters use them, but very few others. Main problem? Way too sensitive to tiny trash, minimal discrimination options. So no, very few people use “real” nugget detectors, for general purpose detecting.

As far as Equinox, Deus, Legend, etc., these are all general purpose detectors, sold mostly to coin, relic, and jewelry hunters, that can also do very well for prospecting. Lots of general purpose VLF machines cross over into gold prospecting, but the reverse is rarely true. I use my Equinox for everything, and consider it a superb nugget detector. My 24K however, gets used only for nuggets, or perhaps a little jewelry detecting.

It’s really the very limited discrimination options that keep dedicated nugget detectors on the sidelines, as most lack a target ID function beyond ferrous/non-ferrous. If there is anything a VLF nugget machine might be good for besides gold nuggets, it is jewelry detecting, particularly micro jewelry. But yes, you want jewelry, you will dig aluminum, and that’s goes in spades for micro jewelry detecting.

[kac]

I had used a Gold Racer for jewelry hunting and coin shooting in parks etc. I did ok with it, even found a trime in some pretty tough grounds. It is a prospecting machine and intended for natural occurring gold that is very different than jewlery where the gold is alloyed with other metals. So my experience with a gold machine for hunting jewelry is they are overkill and too sensitive where you are hitting tiny bits of foil. Lack of discrimination can make them very exhausting to hunt in trashy areas especially around can slaw and foil that has been shredded by mowers. The lack of coil choices and their depth performance in rich black soil when wet also is a drawback.

Majority of the jewelry I have found is with machines in the 14-20 khz range. If the machine has a good coil and sensitive enough you should be able to find the majority of gold with them. Most the rings, almost all earrings and chains I found had been between the iron range to below nickels with the exception of large platinum and 10k class ring. Jewelry does not always give a consistent tid as many look for, the odd shapes and positioning in the ground can make them easy to walk over. Best tip I could say is if you really have to discrim out then do it on a known pull flip tab that is in the area and do that at a minimum. Better the audio on the machine the easier it is as id ranges are all over. l tend to lean to 17.5-20khz range.

[Guest]

I used a GoldBug 2 and a Makro Gold Racer to hunt jewelry. As stated, the problem with these high frequency machines is the tiny bits of foil and small pieces of lead, it is a lot of digging on any modern site.

They will do the job for small for sure. The problem is that most of the really small jewelry (micro) has no real value aside from the fun of finding it. Most of the jewelry that has real value can be found with detectors that will ignore those tiny bits of foil.

I still have a GoldRacer, but have not used it since buying a Tarsacci. It hits nearly as small and only large(ish) balls of foil will signal on it. More ground is covered, you can hunt longer because you are not worn out, and you have a better take at the end of the day.

If someone loses a gold earring you want to find, a gold detector would be the thing if you had a known area to search though. If they did not know where they dropped it, you might be there a while.