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Making fake rings to fake out detectorists

Had a couple of hours after work today to get out and detect in 30 mph north winds at a school playground. 10 gram .925 sterling and garnet ring, 14K gold filled 😪 ring and a POG Slammer Whammer Heavy Metal game piece that just about gave me a heart attack since it is the size of a Morgan/Peace/Ike dollar. Deus 2 is pretty fun on modern trashed sites. Using Sensitive 5 tones square wave audio. These weren't difficult/advanced targets. They were in the 4 to 6" depth range. Had time to dig over $3 in US clad too. Clad pays for gas at least for my short trips.

I had about 40 minutes to spare today before it got dark. Went to a local park which has a history of having very unfriendly fire ants in mounds hidden by the grass. I used the 10x5 on the Equinox 800 again. Last target of the day was this ring next to the parking lot about 2 feet away from a chain link fence. The TID was 27. Park 1, 7 recovery, all metal, 50 tones

Went to a local tot lot today for about 1 1/2 hours. I have detected there in the past, but this time had the 10x5 on the Equinox 800 in Park 1 with 7 reactivity as I focused along the chain link fencing. The first gold, the small butterfly, gave a strong, solid 6 TID. The other gold displayed a locked-in 8 for the TID. It's been a while since I've been detecting and these rings are the first gold of the year. They were each about 1" deep in the very sandy soil. The Smithsonian jewelry piece displayed a 34-38 TID.

Someone asked recently about finding small gold with a 15" coil at the beach. I found a little patch today and slowed down enough to find a couple of pieces of tiny jewelry. If you have a compatible detector (x-terra pro) then this 15" coil should work. Will it work on others as well?

So, been a good while since I posted anything I've found! The beaches here have been pretty lean, since our back to back hurricanes washed everything out, and redeposited virgin sand! Only an odd Spanish coin or two, by a lucky few! And "mostly" very few recent drops for the rest of us! But there's always somewhere to hunt, even if it's not your preferred areas! Today was one such day! I've been slowly following up on some historical research, as many of you do, since I moved here about a year ago! And decided to work some old sidewalk strips! I had the 5x10 Coiltek on the 800, as I knew that there is always tons of trash in these spots! And while I didn't turn up any "vintage" coins🤯, just the regular clad and such, I did get a nice repeatable 33-34, that turned out to be a nice silver ring! While it won't win any value awards, it actually fit me perfectly! So it's a keeper! I'd be very happy with at least one silver (or gold) "something" a month, and so far, I'm on track this year! Last month was a nice Mercury dime at a WW2 Barracks area! But I can't wait for the beaches to pick up, with some Spanish, or Jewelry, etc... I'm not picky!!😁 And while I wouldn't wish for any more devastating hurricanes like we just had, a few well placed, "out-to-sea beach strippers" would be ok by me!👍👍

Yesterday I went to my beach and left the 6" Equinox coil on for an extended hunt. I had used it a couple of days before on a high iron beach so that I could hear targets clearly. Yesterday's hunt turned out to be an experimentation of sorts. What could I really find on a 'tough' beach with the little coil. I've found gold jewelry on the beach with it before. When I first got the coil I wasn't able to go nugget hunting so I went to a beach. Right out of the box as they say I found 4 little gold rings many years ago. I pretty much put the little coil away over the years in favor of the 15" coil and occasionally the 11" coil. Coverage is the operating logic to that. I feel 'naked' without the big coil. Yesterday I was willing to experiment. After selecting the frequency and then ground balancing I was able to go to 25 on the sensitivity/gain. This let me hear my threshold and without chatter so it was a matter of swing speed. There weren't a whole lot of targets so each time I'd find one I would try to find a patch. I managed to find a couple of them as you can see and some interesting targets in the 1.5 hour hunt. The rack on the left is one of the largest objects I've found on this beach. It was down about 8" and it weighs about 5 lbs. Some of the quarters were down about the same depth. The knife blades were iffys I think because they are mostly stainless steel. The silver Thailand earrings were in the wave wash and are very light at 3.2 g and were found together as displayed. After a bit of learning the capabilities of the little coil again I then wondered what is best. Do you take a small coil and use it at maximum sensitivity or do you take a larger coil and turn down the gain? This would go for other types of detecting as well. This is certainly a reason to have multiple coils.

Kindly identify this mineral,

I don't know if it's the same on cellphones but on computers there are (Google?) ads at the top of each page and another interspersed among the posts to that thread. I'm not complaining as I realize they help pay the bills. I seldom click on them (don't want to targetted any more deeply than I already am) but occasionally I do. I noticed the following ad and took a screenshot: You can see on the inside of the ring it says 'S925'. OK, what gives? Does the 'S' mean 'plated' because it's hard for me to believe a solid sterling ring (with lots of blingy 'stones') is only $2.60. Or is it like those sites that tell you "so-and-so got a new iPhone for $5.95...")? I also wondered if it's fake marking. I've read you guys getting gold jewelry which was marked a certain Karat and it turning out to be plated. Tougher and tougher everyday for detectorists, beach and jewelry specialists included.

One last day of 2022, so out I went to a local ballfield next to a rec. center. As soon as I stepped out of the vehicle, the drops began with distant rumblings. Sensing a deluge was not imminent, I started with the playground that is padded with wood chips. The swing set gave up some coins as did the rest of the structures. I was almost under the monkey bars when I got a softish solid 6-7 ID in 50 tones. After taking a bit of time to locate the item, even with the pinpointer, the silver, sliver moon showed its face. About 3 feet away, the same numbers displayed which turned out to be the back of the earring; the 10x5 is amazing at finding small stuff! After that, I detected a bit in the turf as the rain intensified. I hit a strange signal that was about a 17 ID. The lapel pin, along with the two backing pieces, was about 4 inches down. Happy hunting to you all in the new year!

Was out to a local basketball court the other day trying to pad my totals for 2022. I was digging whatever had good, solid sounds using the 10x5 on the Equinox. Just a short time into the hunt, I noticed that a line of shrubbery that had been along one side of the court was no longer there. I started in the middle and worked way to the right side. There were many pennies and dimes, with a few nickels. Quarters were not in the mix, so when a 32-34 ID showed up, it easily caught my attention. Down in the soft dirt, among some roots, a large silver spinner ring popped out, likely lost while someone played ball and it rolled under the shrubs. I just happened to be the first person to detect the area after the removal. The gold ring is my wedding band which looks like a a child's ring next to the silver monster. Park 1, all metal, 7 recovery, 50 tones

Went to a local soccer complex for a few hours today in cloudy and cool (68°) Florida. (Sorry to those with frozen ground right now. If it makes you feel better, I went in shorts and a t-shirt just to pretend that I was suffering in the cold. 😁) The 15" coil on the Equinox covers a bunch of ground and can still find the goods, especially quarters, of which ai got about 15 today. The signal for this, I assume one-of-a-kind, silver bracelet was sketchy and jumped around a lot between 10 and 29. The place is LITTERED with bottle caps which sound very similar at this field. It was just under the surface, so I thought I would stop and investigate; must have been something about the largeness of the signal that caught my ear using 50 tones. There is no 925 stamp, but the aluminum polish really blackened up nicely and it sounds almost like a very large silver quarter when dropped. Park 1, all metal, 7 recovery

I had about 90 minutes for this shallow water hunt - No gold this time, but did manage a pair of silver rings. The smaller is .925, the larger of the two with the opal is unmarked but appears distinctly silver and is quite a looker. The dark wedding bands are tungsten carbide, one with koa wood. My collection of the tungsten carbide / stainless steel rings is growing and growing. Ugh. It was nice to get out for a bit. Hoping to get back out with the 800 and try again later this week. rich

Wasn't expecting this, but a forum member, @dogodog, texted me and said he was going to take a vacation about 2 hours from me and invited me to hunt the local beach. Got there at 8, he was there with his wife and a few other friends. He had made breakfast and invited me to join them, nice 👍 they were renting a house for a few days to catch an air show and get beach time. While we were out detecting we got a bit of a show from the Blue Angels and other aircraft: At one point we were watching the planes and got swamped by a wave 🤣 It was an incredibly nice day, pretty much everything event-wise is over at this beach as of Saturday, when we got there it was pretty empty but got busy later, surprising for a Sunday. I brought my Deus 2 to give it a real big beach run, I thought it would be better there with EMI than my Equinox, but found out that as long as we weren't too near the hotels it was quiet. We started out walking the surf line, the tide was coming in but we're got a chance at some low spots. The beach had been dragged earlier in the morning, we thought with the sifting machine but were later told by someone informed that they just bladed it. We really didn't find much along the surf, and ran into a few other detectorists. Pretty much everyone was saying there wasn't much out there, we were finding pennies and then I got a penny signal and was surprised to dig this copper junk ring: That gave us some hope. Turns out we are both pretty hardcore hunters, but stayed together for the most part to shoot the bull, seems we have a lot in common. 😀 One thing for sure is we both enjoy talking with people. We ran into a lot of nice folks there! Here's the total for me, kinda disappointing we didn't get more jewelry. It was ironic that Jamie was finding mostly pennies, he sure made up for it later. 🤔 32 coins and the ring. $3.21. we got up higher on the beach later in the day and found a lot more coins. Overall it was a memorable day, a real blast, and I have a true friend. 🙂 I can't thank him enough for inviting me. I'd do it again at a moments' notice.

I got a bug up my rear to do a park hunt yesterday after I seen the gold ring that 350 found. First target 12-12 on the CTX. 14k over 10 grams...about 6 inches deep...been there a while. It would ring up higher but the band is broken. There are thousands of foil and pull tabs in this park not to mention bottle caps. The CTX 3030 is the George Washington of detectors (It cannot tell a lie) It's my favorite machine for trashy park hunting. Notice what is missing in the trash photos...bottle caps. I never dug one. The CTX can effectively eliminate them and still find the tiniest of foil and gold. There is no interrogation of the target no raising and lowering the coil...no looking at jumpy numbers etc...you just wont hear the bottle caps with the custom programs...there is a reason it's still king of the hill on minelabs vlf team. All I want is a faster CTX hopefully the Beast will fit the bill. BTW all I dug after that was trash and coins...even went back this morning for another 2 hour hunt just trash and coins. strick

Sunday usually is a day for yard work and other stuff before going back to the grind of work. I woke up early at 3:45 am and planned my day. Mowing, garage cleaning and a trip to Lowes. By 1:30 pm I was done my list and felt the urge to hit my go to hunted out spot, which still keeps on giving. My goal/plan was to dig as many gold signals as possible but still dig any other good target along the way. So I told the wife I was headed out to do a couple of hours. I decided to hunt a tiny baseball field for kids that really only produced clad and a few rings over the years. . Yup clad again but around 2:00 I got a nice solid silver tone, Not positive it was silver because I was running the 800 in 40 Khz and have been just getting the hang of some of the tone and number nuances. Digging commenced and out popped a cheesy 1980's silver/turquoise ring, I'll take it. A few more swings and out came a Kennedy 1/2 dollar. Its the first in quite a while. More foil, more foil and no gold later I abandoned the ball field to hunt near the early house on the property. More clad, more foil, No gold and time closing in on my couple hour hunt. At this point I decided to swing along the flagstone walk from the house to the large driveway. I've hit this at least 4 times in the past. I got to the very end and hit on an odd 20-23 tone that was kinda shallow. Expecting a crap penny I was surprised to see a copper ring and an old one at that. I decided to call it a day at that point and not get too greedy and save a few targets for another day.

I got a call a few days ago from my detecting buddy, Richard, who got a call from the Parks Dept asking for help to find a gold wedding band lost by an army officer playing football in one of the parks a few days before. The game had been played in a relatively smaller area of the park so the two of us started gridding it off but ended up getting rained out. The officer met us out there a few days later to show us exactly where they had played hoping to make it a little easier so we hit it again. As Richard continued gridding the main area, I searched my way to where the officer said he had parked his car. Pretty close to that area I got a solid 94 on the Deus 2 and since we had been told it was a "beefy gold band" I though that could be a good number. I pinpointed the target and when I opend the hole I could see the side of a wedding band. I thought I had it, but it turned out to Silver. Close but, no cigar! There were surprizingly few targets for the area's size and we didn't find the ring. I feel like the park had detected before we got there as I could see evidence of digging in someplaces and think that unfortunately the ring was probably found by someone else. That got me wondering if I was missing gold somehow, then I realized that I haven't found any gold jewelry since last year. I began to wonder if people just aren't wearing their good stuff to the parks anymore. I know there are a lot more detectorists now, so maybe that's it. Anyway I went out again yesterday to a park I hadn't searched yet and doubled down on the low conductors. Normally I don't pass on good sounding low numbers but I was digging everything this time just to see if I was missing something good. I hit a loud 91 and thought it was a stack of dimes or a can, but came up with a copper and onyx ring. So again, no gold, but I'll take Silver and Copper as consolation prizes. The search continues. 😏 Note: These photos don't show the grocery bags full of trash, foil, and can slaw that I threw away.

Here is a finds of the month picture!

I've come back down to earth a bit after my marathon hunts due to Hurricane Kay. A friend of mine and I hit a local lake yesterday and even though I found 6 rings, none were gold. One of them was a nice silver "good luck" ring adorned with symbols such as a 4-leaf clover, horseshoe, elephant, old man and number "13" (?) but the best find IMO was a small pocket knife. It was a bit tarnished but showed no signs of rust or wear. It has a "Damascus" style blade and walnut inlays below ornate brass castings. It cleaned up very easily with WD40 and elbow grease. I'm always looking for gold but I often find other items that are just as valuable to me and this is one of them. GL&HH!

I figured I would come here to get y'all's opinion on what I should do about a ring that I found. 5 weeks ago I found a large Texas A&M University class ring. I spent three days searching the internet trying to find the owner. I came across a department at A&M for lost and found class rings. I sent an email with all the pertinent information first. After 3 days I went back to the website and found a phone number. I called the phone number and talked to a lady there and gave her all the information again and she said she would do what she could to find the owner. A week later I received an email asking for some more information. It's now been 3 weeks since I had the last contact with A&M. What is a reasonable amount of time to wait before I declare the ring unclaimed? My wife says that in her opinion they weren't able to contact the owner. It's a huge 10 karat class ring. I appreciate any and all opinions, thanks.

I made a display of finds of the month. These were all found with the Equinox 800/15 inch coil. I wonder what I'll find with an Axiom? The rings and finds are placed on sandstones with fossils in them.

Back to the same park yesterday with the Equinox and the 10x5". I was in the concession area where people put up canopies in a row next to a chain link fence. The bracelet was not found by the coil, but I was digging a target that allowed me to see the silver in situ. The cross was a slamming 4-5 TID. Equinox, 10x5, Park 1, 6 recovery, all metal

I just needed to get out of the house yesterday, so I headed to a local beach about an hour before high tide. My intention was to just hit the towel line down. Well, when I got there, there was an active 4–6-foot cut about one hundred yards long. So, in it I went. About halfway through it I was getting pounded by the surges but hit basically a pocket of green coins and a few silver rings and more. I detected for about 2 1/2 hours before the cut had turned back into a slope and the coin finds dried up. I ended up with 203 coins, three of them were silver dimes and one was a wheatie. Only one of the coins is what I would call "spendable" and with some tumble time, some of the other might be. LOL I was using the Equinox 800. I was in Beach 1, with the 15 inch coil, sensitivity at 23 and constantly in and out of the surf as it was surging. Amongst the coin digs I got a hit that was a grunt to foil on tones. The number was -1 to 1. I dug it and came out with a tiny 7 1/4 inch bracelet that was hallmarked 14k (and tested 14K) and weighed .8 gram. It was intact but had a broken link at the clasp. That is by far the tiniest chain I have dug. This morning I wanted to confirm the number so I air tested it. Nothing, Nada, no tone what so ever. Now to be perfectly fair, there is tad bit of EMI so that might have been the reason that it did not make a peep. The value of the gold is not much but the value in detecting knowledge is priceless. I do wonder now just how many "tiny" pieces of gold I have been over and just walked on by???

I wish I'd have filmed it. I went to the river with my family this afternoon. I specifically picked a beach that I knew would be heavily populated, so I could do a little jewelry hunting, while the family enjoyed the water. The river was indeed VERY busy. I was making my way around the shoreline when a gentleman spoke up, and said he had lost a wedding band the week before. He said this mostly in jest. I asked him where exactly he lost it, and he pointed to the opposite end of the river (A deeper area, probably 6-8ft). I told him if I came across it I'd return it to him. I didn't really feal like being fully submerged; I get real cold, real fast. The knowledge that a ring was possibly just sitting there was too much to bear. I knew, what I was looking for (A large black tungsten ring), and I knew where to look. I made my way over to the deep end. The water was up to my neck, with a slow current. I put my equinox into Field 1. Im usually looking for gold jewelry, and run in Park 2. I figured Field 1 would sound off better on tungsten, but honestly wasn't completely sure. My first couple targets were trash (pulltabs, and metal flakes) My third, or fourth target came threw loud, with a 10-11 on the VDI. I knew 10-11 was exactly the number I was looking for (My previous tungsten rings have all came threw in that range). I took a deep breath, and went under. I had no goggles, but I had my pinpointer. I released all my breath underwater so I'd sink, and with my pinpointer under my right thumb, I began to grab handfuls of river bottom, waiting for the vibration to follow the pinpointer into my hand. This lets me know I have the target. The ring was only an inch or so, and it only took one attempt to get a handful of river bottom with the target inside. I surfaced, and stared at my hand, waiting for the ability to see what I had. There it was, a large black tungsten ring. I made my way back to the family, and asked the man's wife where her husband had gone "he went to the bathroom", she said. I told her, I found her husband's ring, and, victoriously held it up. The wife, and various onlookers were astonished. I was so excited, not only to get the target, but to be able to return it. I ran into the husband on the way to tell my wife, and let him know. It took a little bit to convince him, but I assured him I was serious. He told me it was a 700$ ring that he used in place of his nicer band while at work. He offered to pay, but I couldn't accept. I finally know the feeling of retrieving, and returning a wedding band, and it was just as good as finding a keeper.

Last night on a better tide I went back to a little patch I had found in the morning. In the morning I had found a few coins but no jewelry but I had a feeling with more beach I could do better. At night the parking lots near this beach are closed so I had to walk in about a mile but it proved to be worth it. Soon after arrival I found coins on the steep beach sides and just kept digging for over an hour. There was much more black sand than the beaches I normally hunt so I decided to change some settings. My first setting change was to move down from 23 on the sensitivity in Beach 1. That helped but then I decided I would try some F2 which is normally at 0 for me. Well, I'm here to tell you it worked like a charm. The 'noise' went away and I could hear the targets stand out. Soon after these changes I got a good clear 9 and was hopeful. It wasn't the 18-21s I had been getting or the 30s for quarters. Out popped a ring and in the light of my flashlight it looked to be golden but a little light. Bag it. Next target 2 feet away was a second ring. It looked like silver but maybe better so I bagged it. (The first ring had no markings and we think it is stainless. The second ring is marked P4SR. It is not a pure precious metal!) The 3rd little ring came along a bit later and it is not precious either. So I didn't have much, right? Well, not exactly. If you look closer at the picture there is a wirery looking chain. I knew it was silver but just thought it to be cheap. I didn't have my light on when I scratched it with my scoop. I was just using the half moon light at the time and just bagged it with the other stuff. I had loosened it a bit but thought it quite corroded. When I got it home and put some fresh water on it it was much more flexible. Then it was time clean it with the aluminum foil/vinegar/baking soda/salt. It blackened quickly and bubbled and then I was able to rub it with just baking soda. I could now see DY. I know that to be David Yurman from previous finds. It is a good feeling .925 chain that weighs in at 22 grams with a 26 inch length. That is when I was able to find the pattern and identify it as the Open Station Box Chain. It reminded me of my previous find so I looked it up here: The tag in the center was found several miles away but on July 22. That was 3 years ago. This new chain supports that pendant quite nicely. It makes for a nice combo.