Micro Jewelry Hunting Detector Advice

[auminesweeper]

There is One easy Test to see if a detector is suitable for doing this, Just turn it on a wave your hand in front of the coil because machines like the Gold Bug II, GMT, The Gold Racer and the new one from Nokta and the MXT will pick up your bare hand at around 6 inches in the prospecting mode, If it can do that then it will find the small stuff your after.

Out of all the Air Tests this is one that will tell you something useful.

hope this helps,, john

[Roughwater]

On 4/21/2016 at 10:52 AM, SLGuin said:

My ignorant posts are clearly irritating to some, and a topic not popular to discuss by more. There will be no more of them, thank you all for what I have learned.

Please don't view your posts as ignorant or irritating. You have been most kind and respectful with your posts.  I don't think anyone here feels that way, I know I don't.  Some may not understand your pursuit but I think you are on to something in pursuing the Micro Jewry.    Will it be difficult, yes. It will take the hand of a patient person to accomplish. I think if you pursue it you will figure out way's to reduce the rubbish and still find the tiny gems you seek.  Different folks have different hobbies.  Many in this hobby value the size of the nugget or the value of the coin or Gold ring and can't see past that.  But finding tiny items of Jewry among all the bits of accumulated trash that will take skill and patience that most don't of us don't have.  I enjoyed going down the road you have led with your pursuit.  I hope you don't end your quest nor leave this website.  I would enjoy seeing this post continue as I am sure many here would.  I am real new to this site and you have far more experience than myself and I would like you to keep us informed of your finds etc.  I feel strongly that this is a good place to meet others that share this hobby.  Though I live thousands of miles from most here I think we kinda feel a certain kinship with others who enjoy this hobby.  I think you even got some here thinking a little outside the box as you do.  

Please stick around and let us in on your future hunts , what you find and what you learn along the way. Also you aren't the only person ageing here, many of us are. I am, but I think it's cool that we find joy in essentially playing in the dirt!        

[fredmason]

Sl; you are absolutely correct: FUN IS FUN! If you enjoy the thinking as much as the doing or just one or the other...You get to choose and no one can say you nay...

I will say these forums are not for the tender-hearted. The written word can be harsh and cold.

fred

[Jackpine]

SL I don't have degrees you do but my resume does contain thousands of hours of fresh water hunting and I prefer single frequency detectors over the Multi's  simply because as we all know they are more sensitive to the small stuff.  It all depends on how small you want to go and what depths the detector will hit the smallest of targets at.  When it gets down to it the difference between the dedicated gold machines and the better multi purpose detectors is only a matter of a few inches.  Any of the currently available high gain machines running in the 8-14 Khz range is more than enough IMO. 

I'm not sure of the Racer 2's ability for this as there is no single tone mode and 2 tone is "sketchy" on small low conductors unless you drop the disc into the iron range.  If and when Makro comes out with a concentric coil that may change.  The original Racer may be a better bet???

I did once find a tiny gold chain on the beach at good depth with a White's gold master but it was pure luck. 

Tom

[Steve Herschbach]

In bad ground the ferrous range and small gold range overlap. There is no 100% clean division between the two. The position picked by manufacturers is just a best compromise position. On the Racer 2 the default as in many detectors is to reject as much ferrous as possible, but you will lose some non-ferrous targets doing so. Set slightly lower you dig more ferrous but will get non-ferrous items that read as if they at ferrous also. The more mineralized the ground, the more pronounced this issue becomes. I tried to illustrate this graphically in this post.

If you want to simulate single tone detecting on the Racer 2 choose the two tone mode, then raise or lower the tone break completely to one end so all items make the same tone. Now use the id filter (disc control) to reject/accept targets. The original Racer does have a finer degree of control over the ferrous/non-ferrous break zone. It is similar to the difference you see comparing a Teknetics T2 to a Fisher F75. The T2 and Racer have expanded iron ranges.

[Steve Herschbach]

There is jewelry hunting and there is micro jewelry hunting, which was pretty much defined by Tom Dankowski in his 2006 article in Fisher Intelligence, page 14 - Infinite Untapped Hunting Opportunities 

The fact is there is no black and white division as to what is and is not micro jewelry, other than to say it is small stuff most people do not find because they are tuning out foil. Maybe you could just call it foil range targets? In any case, high gain mid frequency detectors with small coils blur the line between what is and is not capable of hitting this type of target. As has been pointed out, choosing a lower frequency machine can be a strategy for automatically causing certain trash to not hit as hard as some jewelry. Opinions differ on approaches and the real deciding factor in my opinion is the exact location a person is hunting. There are no absolute answers here, just what may or may not work best in specific situations, and before hand a lot of it is pure guesswork.

I don't put that much thought into it. I only have the areas I have nearby, and so they are what I hunt. Depending on my mood I do different things, and sometimes I just go dig a bunch of aluminum and see what happens. For me it passes as fun.

[1515Art]

this little park I've know of for most of my life i think might just be one of those good micro jewelry locations. hearing the different criteria that makes a good location this one has a number of factors aside from not ever hunted, the average surrounding home value is in the 4 million dollar range. the park gets a fair amount of use and thick with tiny pieces of aluminum scrap, i think I've the machine for the job, but haven't gotten my deus bible in the mail yet so I'm not sure exactly certain what settings might be best to start with and my other concern and this would be the one stopping me from hunting this micro stuff at all is I'm afraid the lawn will take a pretty hard beating if my luck is poor. the targets are so thick that it gonna take a long time of spreading the digging out and then trying to figure where everything left off as i move from place to place trying to cover the ground but spread out a lessen the impact on the grass. the only thing it might not have as a strong point is its more of a sitting park and not a soccer field environment.

[1515Art]

actually that was kind of stupid, I'm not griding a gold field so i guess the deus will do a pretty good job of keeping track of whats left in the ground... still gonna be tough on the grass.

[Steve Herschbach]

Well, I never dig holes when aluminum detecting in parks personally. I just use a pinpointer and screwdriver to recover targets in the top few inches. Anything my pinpointer can't find I pass on. My goal is to recover as many targets as efficiently and easily - ease being the key - as possible. And with minimal to no visible trace of my being there. There is no lack of these type of targets so no reason to go deep looking for them. 

When I coin detect and do have to dig plugs I ration the number of digs per location over time. I try to hunt when nobody is around also. I like to be invisible when detecting, both during and after.

[Danny]

Hi SLGuin,                                          I'm a newly , but on the micro gold front I have found these specimens with an sdc2300 on the beach in soft sand and swash . Don't know if you could justify the price on the mine lab detector but here are some pics on some finds. Some very nice silver and gold earring with quarter carrot diamonds and a Indian rose gold and gold pendant . Regards