Tom_in_CA

Geotech Karl gives a great answer, as usual.  Yes it's just a form of sensitivity .  The sens. is the "sending" and the signal balance (aka gain) is the receiving signal.   So you can essentially just think of that as sensitivity.

The Eagle SL II black-box with the 950 loop was a great machine.   But when the Explorers hit the market, it was clear that the old school Whites depth was ... uh .... dated.   Still though, for its day, it was a fun machine.   Not a very good wet-salt machine though.

7 hours ago, Digalicious said:

Yep.

...and you'll still dig a lot of whatever you notched out, because of the TID change due to condition, depth, and orientation.

In other words, the notching avoids a very particular aluminum dig, only to trade for a different aluminum dig. So nothing has actually been gained, and gold is missed.

Granted, a notch would be beneficial if all of the site's aluminum trash only had one TID lol.

Good post.  Yes :  If the aluminum objects are fairly uniform (and not turned to confetti), then yes, you can isolate several locations on a TID scale that will likely be :  round tabs.  And/or round tabs with the beaver tail still intact.  And square tabs (of the 2 recurring sizes they were made in).  And you can knock out smaller foil (since very few rings read in the lower foil range).   This is simple Las Vegas odds.  

Persons, starting in the early 1980s at the advent of TID, studied this in depth.  Like if someone knew a buddy with a jewelry store, he could sample hundreds of the random gold rings.  And make note of their TID's on a spread sheet.  Then he could go dig up hundreds of aluminum objects (mid to low conductors) in a junky park somewhere.  Then air test all of those, entering them on his computer spread sheet as well.    Then, as you can see, it's simply a matter of where to knock out the most junk. 

So for example, you would pass all high conductor coins (yes, even zinc pennies).   Since very few rings read that high (unless they're super fatty men's honkers).   And you would pass round tabs (since only something like 15% of gold rings fall *exactly* there).  And so forth and so on.    This was known as "ring enhancement programs".

Yes, some persons did up their odds at gold rings vs trash in junky blighted parks.  But if they're in a park where cans have mixed it up with lawnmowers, and places where BBQs are allowed (which create molten globules), then .... you will be a sorry fellow indeed.   IMHO you are MUCH better served simply going to a place where gold rings have better ratios : Swim beaches, and land-spots where there's more athletics, and less eating/drinking.  

7 hours ago, strick said:

.......Let me ask you a question Tom......

Strick, now you're asking a question about relicky mindset hunting.  OF COURSE I go to passing only iron (with my darndest to "see through it").  SURE !   But that's not because I'm there angling for gold rings.   It's because I'm at a stage stop, or fort, or old-town sidewalk tearout, of something of that sort.  

So your point is separate from the discussion at hand (the direction this post had veered to anyhow), which is :  Telling aluminum apart from gold, and so forth.

Oh, and BTW :  There are some stage stop sort of sites where they are too junky to "be a hero" and strip-mine.  I can think of one, for example, where ... sadly ... a modern farm home occupies the site.   And the spot where the stage stop stood, is now the farm-yard of a 1940s-ish home.  And the people for this last 80 yrs.  (bless their little hearts) have raised pigs, chickens, etc.... in the yard.   And guess what's the best way to feed the chickens and pigs ?  Easy : Take all the kitchen trash out, and dump it in your yard.   They also had trash burn incinerators , blah blah.    

Although we got a few tokens and seateds in the mess, it was a place where my time was better spent researching sites which were less polluted with trash.  And in my 45 yrs. of this, I've found a few such stage stops where all human influence ended by, say 1880 or 1900 or whatever.   Now THOSE are *FUN*   😘

48 minutes ago, strick said:

A great video from our own @Gerry in Idaho on the subject of aluminum tabs

This video is nothing other than "ring enhancement program".   AKA notching.

SURE !   But this is not telling aluminum apart from gold .   

And so you know :  Any TID machine, (from 1983's first Teknetics TID machine to the present) can do the same thing.    There is nothing about that 705 that sets it apart.  And trust me :  When you get to a place where lawn mowers have turned cans into shrapnel, and foil wads abound, then these #'s games go out the window. 🤔  But does it work with "recurring uniform types of junkage" ?  Sure.   But it is not telling aluminum apart from gold.  You will still miss rings and you will still dig aluminum.

Great story & great pix !!   Thanx for bringing us along.

6 hours ago, Digalicious said:

....
A detector that can distinguish gold rings from the various aluminum trash, would be by far, the ultimate game changer in this hobby. .....

Dude, even if the ratios (of mistaken IDs) were 50  to 1, I would GLADLY go out to junky blighted parks, and get fooled that many times for each gold ring.   

When I challenged someone (making these claims) to join me in a duel at a junky blighted parks (that everyone has cherry picked the deep high conductors out of), he quickly adjusted his claims to assure me that the system isn't exact .  And that there are still aluminum items that would fool him.  But he would not venture to put down any ratio guesses.   And after much scrutiny, it seemed like it was going to end up being nothing more than random eventual odds, and selective memory bias.   Yet he could not bring himself to admit this.   And insisted that gold will tend to sound different, blah blah

You say : ".... One can take a particular ring and a particular pull tab, wave it in front of the coil at a particular orientation, and a particular distance, and they'll probably notice a difference. ..."

Well sure:  SO TOO will every aluminum & foil blob "sound different from each other".  And SO TOO will each gold ring "sound different from each other".

On 10/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, Dean Stone said:

There is one Detector that can tell the difference in some tabs, ( The beaver Tail tab ) from gold Is the MXT. when you hit a tab, push the toggle switch forward, and if it is a beaver tail, it will be static . Best detector ever made for rings.

Dean, if the MXT were brought to a big city blighted urban park, be honest :   How much gold rings do you think you would find, while leaving how much aluminum behind ?

I hear the various claims that certain machines are better at telling aluminum junk apart from gold rings .  Eg.: "Static" or "soft" or "mellow" and all sorts of sound/tone claims.  Yet when you invite the people out to the nearest inner city blighted junky park to show you, then :  Seems that all you hear is the sound of crickets.

mind you : I'm not disputing that there might not, in fact, be some "better mousetrap".  But it just seems that while claims are made, yet :  No one ever seems to be able to show anything other than :  Random eventual odds.  🫢

Nice !

The trick to finding gold rings is not to "dig pulltabs till your arms fall off".  It is ALREADY A GIVEN that tabs & gold rings read in the similar TID range.  

So instead, the trick to finding more gold rings & less aluminum is :  Location location location.  

Why oh why oh why does any md'rs go to blighted junky parks (where the ratios are punishing) looking for gold rings ? Instead you ought to be going to where the ratios aren't as bad.  Namely : Swim beaches.   Heck, I've been on ocean erosion (where mother nature takes away all the light stuff) where there is ZERO aluminum.  And she leaves only coins, fishing sinkers, keys, jewelry, etc....   And have found multiple gold rings without a single tab or aluminum item.

And if you have utterly no choice other than to hunt land sites, there are better types land sites/turf :  Sports usage, as opposed to picnic usage.  Because the moment you add "picnics" and "eating", is the moment you're adding foil and tabs.  And the moment you add BBQ & bonfires, is the moment you add molten aluminum nuggets.

Another land site that's better ratios is if you're near snow ski lift lines (in the spring & summer thaw).  Because of people taking off their mittens while waiting in the ski lift lines (tugs at rings on fingers).

If you ask me, I'd find better place to hunt.   That's just too junky for my blood.   The sites that are much more fun, are the sites where a stage stop (or fort, or picnic site, or whatever) closed down/vacated by 1900, and no human has set foot there since.    Yeah Yeah, I'm spoiled rotten.  Doh !

But if I were hunting that , seeing as how it only date to the 1910s, I'd crank the discrimination and cherry pick for only high conductors.  Yup, kiss nickels and gold rings goodbye.   But .... that's just me.

Awesome !!   How many gold coins total does this make for your career now ?

deathray is right :  What is often called "Chinese cash coin".   They came over with the Chinese coolies by the barrel full during the Gold Rush, and RR building days.   Heck, they even came over before all that, during west coast colonial times since they were simply foreign coins that passing ships had.  We've found them in CA coastal mission-era sites where there was no more human influence after 1840 -ish.

I never argue with IH's

Great pictures.   Those type bayonets can be bought in military surplus stores.

Good pictures.   Thanx for sharing.

On 8/19/2023 at 12:12 AM, Cal_Cobra said:

....

TomCA and I converted an electric weed eater to a bush whacker....

Yup.  When I read the O.P.'s post, I thought :  "Hey !  Cal_Cobra and I did that too !".   But you beat me to the draw.   😜  

Yes, it has come in handy on some sites.  And a few nice coins can be attributed to it.

  I used it a week ago as matter of fact, where a lady thought she might have lost her ring in some deep grassy iceplant.    10 minutes with that thing allowed me to get my coil closer to the ground (but her ring wasn't there durnit ).

Try the device on a myriad of locations where you are relatively certain that no "fabulous treasures" are.  And see if you simply get similar blotches elsewhere, that mean nothing.

Good write-up

Fun little story.  Thanx for bringing us along.  

The good news is, that you are now ~ $3.50 richer, and that you are loved !  😍

Great story.  I love crawling around under the crawl-spaces of old buildings.  It's amazing what could slip through drip grates and vents and so forth in-the-old-days.

I dunno, but I like it !

Good pictures.  Nice history.

20 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

..., it kinda backfired in this case ....

Yes, there are a few dates where the Philly is actually the better numismatic choice.   Granted.   But all in all, S and CC tends to be the better ones. 

Hey, you gotta allow us some consolation.  You guys east of the Mississippi have Large cents in every sand box, so ... this is our one consolation  😂

Ah, it took you a little while to chime in Brian.   Glad we can all see your buckle.  Dated to 1875-1885, via our subsequent research.   And :  The late 1870s fits nicely with our known history of the site (when it went vacant).  

My wrap-up was in this post :  https://metaldetectingforum.com/index.php?threads/rare-az-token-found-half-dime-buckle-etc.302407/