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Micro Jewelry Hunting Detector Advice


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Hello Prospectors,

Some of you may have seen my rants of late and the general direction of interest, hunting small gold jewelry. Compared to other forms of metal detecting in general, and gold hunting in particular, there is less written about this but some as you no doubt know. A very small niche and not a lot of enthusiasts, no doubt due to the amount of foil one would encounter and the low value of some of the targets. Nonetheless, pressing ahead I am looking for your advice on what might make a good value in detectors for this.

It occurs to me that with the advent of the Makro Gold Racer and others that there might be some real bargains in used gold detectors where people are upgrading to the newer top of the line models. Your thoughts?

SLG

 

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SLGuin

I've said this over and over again and that's buy the best you can afford. On what you find will pay for that next detector you want. This will whole true if you get it out the door lots.

If you buy the Makro gold racer and willing to dig all your finds will be great. The small gold the large gold you find you keep. I know all the coins you find on the way you may not want so just send them to me.Haha

You just to jump in and get your feet wet and never look back. I've done it back in 65 and never regret it. 

the best to you.

Chuck

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It may be in theory a niche market hunting for micro gold jewellery,but one has to think a little out side the box on this one and start thinking what locations would these small items be found !! so for the most part i can only think of locations like your tot lots,sports fields those types of sites that folks congregate together and would drop those finds.Those are the most common places nd of course you will find rubbish targets as well like foil,ring pulls and can slaw.Once you have thought about the location/s then one can move onto a detector that will do the job.

As most gold jewellery would only be inches below the surface or certainly near the surface then detectors like the Tesoro range would be more than suitable,why you would want to spend money on specific gold detector with the name 'gold' in the name like 'Gold Racer' when all you would need is a nice lightweight Tesoro that would do basically exactly the same thing and also with possibly better discrimination into the bargain.

As you have a specif target that you are aiming for then a Tesoro with a small coil would be just as effective on a sports field as a Makro Gold Racer but without the extra cost,the Gold Racer and all these other machines are aimed at mainly gold nugget hunting and not necessary gold jewellery which is a totally different type of targets,of course the easiest situation is hunting for small gold jewellery and the locations that folks would drop such a item.

Of course this is only my thoughts about it but machines like T2,Tesoro's and F75 with small coils make great small gold jewellery machines but non of these have the magic 'Gold' word attached to them,if it was say a Gold F75 many more folks would buy them,its all to do with the marketing department that detecting companies can come up with,machines with words with 'Sold' or 'Silver' send the mind into over drive about you finding much more that without those words attached to them.

When i have access to sites that are likely of having fine small gold jewellery drops like when mums and kids meet,then i tend to use is either my T2 with a 5'' coil on it or even the underrated bottem end Tesoro Comapdre which is as cheap as it comes but those machines are deadly on small gold jewellery which is after all what you are hunting for.

This is of course just my opinion,but you dont need high end expensive machines to hunt for fine gold jewellery.

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Thank you both for your input. In your two posts you completely sum up both ends of the spectrum of the current thinking by many hunters when talking small jewelry, and it appears you are both right.

That Makro Gold Racer is proving to be killer, as is aptly demonstrated by the reviews it gets and by those who have commented on it for this purpose in particular. More specifically, Steve Herschbach and Tom Dankiewski (NASA Tom, who has written quite a bit about this). There can be little doubt that this is a top pick, these two men are well respected in the field and their words count big with me. No way a person could go wrong with this advice.

Then we come to the Tesoro and others similar. There is a cult around that Compadre especially, as might be seen at these two links:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=87892

Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links

These are only two, but you get the idea. There are lots more, and some pretty serious guys think the Compadre is also killer at a bargain basement price, while finding smaller items that more expensive machines miss. There can be little doubt that this is also true given how many people seem to be actually doing it. As good as the Makro? Probably not, but sure worth a try.

So how does one decide? For me, I will try it all and see what feels right for me and where I hunt. Even the Makro is pretty modestly priced compared to a CTX.

As a first report, I went out this morning to a little totlot a couple blocks from my house with my only current detector, the CTX. A fine machine, can be set up so many ways for so many things and is as close to a do it all detector as I have seen. But it does not do this very well. Wood chips hold targets on top for a while so sometimes with recent drops you can actually see what you are detecting and not so it is easy to get some direct feedback. I set a program up with open screen no discrimination and Combined mode audio with the tones adjusted to reflect the targets I wanted most ringing how I wanted them to ring, then did manual sensitivity as hot as I could make it and keep a half decent threshold. I did find some clad and some foil, in a place that gets hunted often. What I saw is that if the foil is big enough it will pick it up, small pieces, not so much. This is precisely what a person wants when hunting rings, this machine will not run past a ring of any size, but gold chains would be missed if they did not have a large clasp or pendant. Running it that hot has consequences also. The metal in the playground equipment are a big force of course, the Co/Fe id is moved a little, and the depth id is thrown a bit. Nothing surprising there, just not sensitive to tiny, and by design probably since those small foil targets are usually not wanted.

 

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3 hours ago, SLGuin said:

It occurs to me that with the advent of the Makro Gold Racer and others that there might be some real bargains in used gold detectors where people are upgrading to the newer top of the line models. Your thoughts?

SLG

 I'm pretty new to this but I've noticed some great bargains on Ebay lately (like a Fisher f70 going for $300 within the past week).  It's hard to say from one or a few datapoints and maybe last year at this time there were equally as many bargains.  However on your first point, in the first 3 1/2 months of 2016 we've already seen the release of four new models (Makro Racer 2, Nokta Relic, Garrett Ace 400, and White's MXSport).  I may have missed some, and there could be more soon.

Everyone knows his/her budget constraints and comfort levels.  IMO, and this is purely hypothetical, if someone has $400 available and will have to wait 4-6 months to save another $400, then it's not worth the wait.  The time spent hunting with a very good used detector is better than the best new $800 detector futures.

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Indeed GB! And if it is a good deal, it can be traded up in the 4 months without much loss and it has been at least tried. Some of the gold detectors that the Makro Gold Racer is looking to eclipse are very good and for this purpose might be all that is necessary.

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6 hours ago, SLGuin said:

It occurs to me that with the advent of the Makro Gold Racer and others that there might be some real bargains in used gold detectors where people are upgrading to the newer top of the line models. Your thoughts?

SLG

That is true.  Also true you don't need a detector with the word gold in it.  However higher frequency machines 18 Khz and up tend to be more sensitive to gold but 15Khz machines can also be fairly sensitive with a small coil, especially with a concentric coil.  

I think someone mentioned the 19 Khz Gold bug and I think that would be a very good choice especially if you could get a good used one.  

The original MXT at 14.7 Khz I believe with a small coil would do you well also and they can be found pretty reasonable. They are pretty powerful too for when you need depth. 

 

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Agreed Roughwater. Also the Goldbug Pro with target id and everything. Truly though, with all the reading I have done in the last two days, there really seems no way out of getting the Makro Gold Racer. It almost seems as though every weakness in every other vlf gold detector is addressed in this one machine, and at a price that even used gold detectors do not have much of an advantage over.

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Most definitely bargains to be had on used detectors. A bit of a danger with regards to the past owners usage and care of it, but bargains all the same.
Though with the cost of new detectors being relatively low now, a new unit would be nice.
I think there are a vast amount of detectors, both not in production any more, and current new to the market models that really excel at it.
So many in fact that I wouldn't even single a couple out. 
Except to say I've a favorite in the 705 and 6" concentric coil, and that's in a freq of 7.5kHz. Not really a frequency for micro gold is it. But it is when working the unit in the right mode.


Inland gold jewellery, micro included, is a very niche form of detecting for sure, and very hit and miss regarding the worth of those hours put in.
A very interesting and off-shoot type of single hunt detecting. In fact I do not think there are many that spend a high percentage of their detecting time solely on gold inland, micro or not.
But the satisfaction reward of finding jewellery is a pleasing thing for both those that target it, or come upon it while detecting generally. And those that like keeping finds for show pieces.

Gold itself at parks and where people congregate on grass or dirt is very hard to come by when detecting, even if that's the main point to the hunt.
Along with the low amount of it, comes the minute, as in small, trash targets to be judged or dug in comparison to coin hunting.

The exception being specifically targeted inland areas for dropped gold. 

The first of what I call top areas, start with one my older brother and I worked out when we kids. 
Grass underneath and around old clothes lines. Especially if that house has had many owners, females making up the majority of the householders. The goods dropping out of the pockets of blouses, shirts and slacks.
Unfortunately they are undetectable areas due to the literal solid sheets and waves of old metal from pegs.
But if you dig a foot and half down, depending if the ground gets nice water soakage through the years and worms get their bubbly holes going, and sift the dirt through sieves, the amount of earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces, watches and coins is staggering.

The best detectable gold area I would say would be the grass lawns on public swimming pools. Let's face it, people are sitting or laying practically naked and have their valuables either on them or on towels on the ground with them.

Permission must be granted of course. 
Or you need the cunning of a fox ....something I'm sure we aren't all respectful of in terms of protecting our hobby. But one in which I've been guilty of. The sweetest of gold areas.

Second equal best that I like are inland swimming holes and picnic spots along creek and river banks. For the same reasons as above.
Only I do not get the coil under water, those that do would double my take on these areas.

The other is golf courses, public and private. Top spots. Don't forget the permission though you fox.
No damage left behind, and a lightly junked dreamfield goldfield.

The other thing on micro gold or larger, apart from the pleasure of the find and the nice collection a person racks up, is the monetary value. Something which I find is much overrated.
The seawater hunters take is far higher than that of inland hunters, and the ones that go at it strongly hit many ounces per season.
But I find the actual re-sale value on both gold in it's % form and actual jewels on rings to be extremely low, even after sourcing many buyers. Costs to the buyer and their profit have to taken into account of course.
I spoke to a jeweler at length that owned her own shop in a large complex once, and the things she told me about the industry blew me away regarding their price to full retail.

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8 hours ago, SLGuin said:
1 hour ago, SLGuin said:

Agreed Roughwater. Also the Goldbug Pro with target id and everything. Truly though, with all the reading I have done in the last two days, there really seems no way out of getting the Makro Gold Racer. It almost seems as though every weakness in every other vlf gold detector is addressed in this one machine, and at a price that even used gold detectors do not have much of an advantage over.

One thing about the Makro Folks is they seemed to responded to what users wanted.  They did it in a nice solid profession package too.  My only concern with your purpose for it is that at 56Khz it may want to find a lot of things that are ultra tiny as it's main target is gold nuggets down to grain size or less.  But if that's want you want to find it's probably the right tool for the job. 

I don't know how quick you plan to get a detector but you might consider hanging out here a bit more and check and cross check your options and get what YOU think think best serves you.  

Don't know if you have Read Steve's Reviews for gold detectors but if you haven't here is the link:

http://www.detectorprospector.com/gold-prospecting-guides/steve-guide-gold-nugget-detectors.htm

 

 

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