How Many Pull-tabs?

[Tom_in_CA]

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*   😘

[Tom_in_CA]

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.  

[okara gold]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:36 AM, Compass said:

Can't see the pictures but I'm sure that you dug up quite a bit of trash for that gold. I was doing some bench testing the other day and one of the nicest rings in my collection rings up as a "14" on my 800. However, it was found on the beach with one of my pulse detectors.

Here is the 14-k ring that IDs as a "14" on the Nox 800.

 

[TampaBayBrad]

On 10/24/2023 at 9:53 PM, okara gold said:

Here is the 14-k ring that IDs as a "14" on the Nox 800.

 

That would probably sell real quick for more than melt to any "Nancy" that sees the photo!

[okara gold]

8 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

That would probably sell real quick for more than melt to any "Nancy" that sees the photo!

For sure... I would never throw that one into the melt pile. There must be a Nancy out there somewhere that just has to have that ring. lol 

[ColonelDan]

Over the years, I’ve experimented with notching even though I knew what the answer would be.  I just tested various notch settings with a variety of aluminum to include a variety of pull tabs due to curiosity and maybe a degree of boredom when I couldn’t get to the beach.  😊

The results of my testing did not surprise me.  As posted above, aluminum can register in a range of VDIs depending on several factors.  What was obvious also was that pull tabs are somewhat like bottle caps in that they are not all alike in composition ergo they cannot be pigeonholed into a specific VDI or even a narrow range of VDIs.  
 

Bottom line of all this… like others have said, “If you want the gold, ya gotta risk digging the tabs”

Just the conclusion from my boredom driven experimentation…..😂

[rvpopeye]

One of the sad truths of life., no doubt. 

Ya know,, while I was bored I realized that could be fixed  !

????????? You say how  ?

Increase the aluminum price up to $2k an ozt🖖

 

[ColonelDan]

On 10/15/2023 at 10:08 AM, 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.

Yep,  particularly true on the beaches I hunt.