Nickels Vs Tabs

[Edwardakis]

On 3/3/2018 at 1:57 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

I consider aluminum to be a good thing and pull tabs in particular. Why? Because it runs off the faint of heart and it is all hiding good targets from those not willing to dig aluminum of the scale that I am willing to do it. I have no problem just digging aluminum all day. 1970's pull tabs tell me the place has never been seriously hunted for gold rings. The surface layer if nothing else is masking what lies below.

Awesome info. I was actually at a lake the other weekend (my first weekend out, with the 600) and the lake was a bit low so there was a lot of sandy/mini pebble beach area available.  since I was new I of course did by best to learn the machine in a way to ignore pull tabs. I did end up pulling like 10 pull tabs out that looked to be much older and they were everywhere. This as a new detectorist made me think 'ah nothing but trash here'  I still kept hunting and found coins and actually called a nickel out because it stayed on 12 more than the pull tabs did, in fact I think the pull tabs fluctuated from 13-16 and the nickel presented itself mostly on 12, and would sometimes move to 13 so I called it a nickel and it was a nickel. this caused me to ignore 13s-16s more but I didnt realize that seeing all those pull tabs was a good sign that those beaches were not hit as often, or in a very long time. 

 

Planning a trip to go back very soon because of this new insight I have learned. Thanks for the info!

[Lacky]

3 hours ago, Edwardakis said:

Awesome info. I was actually at a lake the other weekend (my first weekend out, with the 600) and the lake was a bit low so there was a lot of sandy/mini pebble beach area available.  since I was new I of course did by best to learn the machine in a way to ignore pull tabs. I did end up pulling like 10 pull tabs out that looked to be much older and they were everywhere. This as a new detectorist made me think 'ah nothing but trash here'  I still kept hunting and found coins and actually called a nickel out because it stayed on 12 more than the pull tabs did, in fact I think the pull tabs fluctuated from 13-16 and the nickel presented itself mostly on 12, and would sometimes move to 13 so I called it a nickel and it was a nickel. this caused me to ignore 13s-16s more but I didnt realize that seeing all those pull tabs was a good sign that those beaches were not hit as often, or in a very long time. 

 

Planning a trip to go back very soon because of this new insight I have learned. Thanks for the info!

This is a thread on nickels,  but to make it very obvious for your situation, if you have a lake swimming area with lots of old pull tabs you should be digging all the pull tab signals, not just the 12's. Gold rings come in at the same range as pull tabs, small rings around in the 7ish range up to large rings over 20. If nobody has been willing to dig all the old pull tabs no one has dug the gold rings lost by swimmers either.

I feel like maybe we are already thinking alike about it, but as you said you are new wanted to make sure.

[Edwardakis]

5 hours ago, Lacky said:

This is a thread on nickels,  but to make it very obvious for your situation, if you have a lake swimming area with lots of old pull tabs you should be digging all the pull tab signals, not just the 12's. Gold rings come in at the same range as pull tabs, small rings around in the 7ish range up to large rings over 20. If nobody has been willing to dig all the old pull tabs no one has dug the gold rings lost by swimmers either.

I feel like maybe we are already thinking alike about it, but as you said you are new wanted to make sure.

Thanks for the feedback,  and yeah, when I was younger detecting I would dig every signal, now that I’m older and are understanding what these machines can do, I guess I took the screen IDs as a way to figure out how to skip more and so I tried, but yeah now I understand that a number in the lower range should still be dug up if it’s hitting pull tab numbers. So that’s good to know.

 

Thanks!

[Lacky]

3 hours ago, Edwardakis said:

Thanks for the feedback,  and yeah, when I was younger detecting I would dig every signal, now that I’m older and are understanding what these machines can do, I guess I took the screen IDs as a way to figure out how to skip more and so I tried, but yeah now I understand that a number in the lower range should still be dug up if it’s hitting pull tab numbers. So that’s good to know.

 

Thanks!

I'm not saying always, but in an area likely to have lost jewelry like a swimming area or an athletic field it's best to. Gold unfortunately covers the same range as aluminum, so to get one you have to dig the other. In areas much less likely to have lost jewelry, or if you just want to target coins than targeting just those coin numbers is fine and a great capability of the detector. If you are finding lots of old aluminum in an area that would also hold jewelry though it basically means NOBODY has searched it for gold, so I'd at least give it a solid effort and see what you find. If you get to the point its driving you nuts then just hunt coin signals the rest of the day. I mean, it is supposed to be fun!

[Tom Slick]

In my neck of the woods, I find Nickels to come in at 13 about 95% of the time. Rarely do they hit at 12 and I don't think I've ever dug a 14 nickel. Any lake that is producing pull tabs and especially the older ring tabs is prime Gold Ring Habitat. Not it they are an indication of gold being present, but a good sign that nobody has hunted it well or for quite some time. 

[Nuggetdog]

Most times I use the pinpoint function to help separate nickels from pull tabs

[Chase Goldman]

9 hours ago, Nuggetdog said:

Most times I use the pinpoint function to help separate nickels from pull tabs

Really?  How do you do that?

[Nuggetdog]

Chase, I’ve learned over time by comparing pinpoint sound and size. Nickels tend to produce a more robust tone and pinpoint larger than pull tabs, which pinpoint smaller. It’s not a perfect system though, I’ve found shallow nickels are much easier to separate from pull tabs but it’s quite fun to call it and be right most of the time

[cudamark]

Your hearing must be a lot better than mine. Tabs, nickels, some slaw, melted aluminum can nuggets,and gold rings all sound about the same to me. If I get a 14 or higher, I know it's not a nickel, but it could be any of the other three. At the beach they all get scooped. Quicker and easy that way, and it won't be there the next time I hunt that beach.

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, Nuggetdog said:

Chase, I’ve learned over time by comparing pinpoint sound and size. Nickels tend to produce a more robust tone and pinpoint larger than pull tabs, which pinpoint smaller. It’s not a perfect system though, I’ve found shallow nickels are much easier to separate from pull tabs but it’s quite fun to call it and be right most of the time

Coming from Deus, I consider myself pretty adept at tonal nuances and can definitely differentiate aluminum junk and pull tabs from gold rings and nickels using full tones.  I also use Equinox pinpoint to "footprint" targets but it definitely would be quite a stretch for me to claim to be able to do that for differentiating nickels and pull tabs.  More power to you on that ability.  Kudos to you.