2 Hour Notch Experiment Park Hunt. 5 Rings.

[F350Platinum]

Nice hunt Dig, nothing wrong with "specializing" if you didn't want to dig a lot of crap. Only problem with that is that gold will suffer, as others have said. 

Your last ring appears to be stainless, which should be marginally attracted to a magnet. A lot of the new and popular Tungsten Carbide and older stainless rings won't have any markings. If the center band on the last one is moveable that is a clue it is stainless as well.

[Digalicious]

Thanks F350.

The ring isn't ferrous at all. Although I would think that if it's a precious metal, it would be marked. I found around 20 TC rings last summer. If I remember correctly, they were all marked to show they were TC.

Yes, some say "If you don't dig up all the foil and tabs in park like sites, you'll miss gold rings". While that is technically true, I think it's false when it comes to what's in the pouch at the end of the day. For example, I know that if I wasn't notching, that picture would have a hell of a lot more foil and tabs, and maybe 1 ring. The reason I tried the notching, was because I got fed up with digging so much aluminum trash when looking for gold in trashy park like sites. Using the notch method, I found more rings in 2 hours than I had in about 50 hours of "digging all". Plus, with the notch method I dig a lot less trash per hour, and I'm not wrecking my knees and back.

Putting the notching method in a different way: Some very small gold rings and chains can and do ID at 1 number above ferrous (11 on the Legend). However, I've dug hundreds of 11's and only ever got 1 chain...and it was a junker. My parks are blanketed with small foil that ID's at 11. It would be crazy for me to continue digging those. My time would be much better spent, by ignoring 11's and digging numbers which are far more likely to be a ring. Since I'm not wasting time and effort on digging 11's, that should result in more rings.

Granted, this was only one experiment, and maybe I just got lucky. I'll be trying out the same method a few times in the next week, so we'll see what happens 🙂

[Tom_in_CA]

I notice that of the 5 rings, none were gold.   Right ?   When it comes to gold rings and notching (in and out of certain coordinate #'s), in the old days this was known as "Ring Enhancement programs".

 

But you can throw the programs out the window if you're in a park where lawn-mowers have made can slaw of aluminum cans.   The trick only works if your location has commonly recurring junk items.   But not if mowers have chopped things into confetti.   Then you can kiss Las Vegas odds goodbye at trying to get gold rings.   You'll be condemned to 100s & 100s to 1 odds.

[Digalicious]

13 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

I notice that of the 5 rings, none were gold.   Right ?   When it comes to gold rings and notching (in and out of certain coordinate #'s), in the old days this was known as "Ring Enhancement programs".

Hi Tom.

The point of my experiment, was to see if my ring to trash ratio would be much better if I used that notch method, instead of the dig all method. As it stands now, the answer to that is a resounding "Yes".
 

13 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

But you can throw the programs out the window if you're in a park where lawn-mowers have made can slaw of aluminum cans.   The trick only works if your location has commonly recurring junk items.   But not if mowers have chopped things into confetti.   Then you can kiss Las Vegas odds goodbye at trying to get gold rings.   You'll be condemned to 100s & 100s to 1 odds.

For whatever reason, there is very little can slaw in my hunting grounds. Regardless, I don't understand what can slaw has to do with notching out the numbers that in my experience, are pull tabs and small foil 99.9% of the time. For example, I've dug hundreds of 28/29 on my Legend, and it's always been a rectangular pull tab. The odds are extremely remote that a gold ring will ID at 28/29 compared to those tabs. By ignoring 28/29, I stand a much better chance of finding a gold ring in the numbers above and below 28/29.

[Skate]

On 5/6/2024 at 3:51 PM, UT Dave said:

Yes, talking specifically of park turf type sites.  Some of my deepest keeper finds in parks have been honker silver or gold rings.  I find them on or near the surface, too.  But they can and do sink in my dirt.  And probably just because a big ring gives a strong signal, like I said, some of my deepest keepers in parks are rings.  They tend to be oriented vertically too.  My guess is because most are quite a bit heavier on the top side.

- Dave

Not to hijack the thread but I have a question on your parks, specifically the age of the park you're hunting. Are your deep rings in old parks (50-100+ years old) or are they in newer parks? I'm trying to get more scientific (if that's possible) on my jewelry recovery. I'm curious if the sink rate is such that rings will go to greater depths faster especially in newer parks. My two parks in town are both on the new side, one 35 years old and one 15 years old. I have found rings in each but mainly in the top 2-5 inches. 

[midalake]

On 5/6/2024 at 7:58 AM, Digalicious said:

This was only 1 experiment so take it as you will. What I can say though, is that by notching the way I did, the finds were much better than “digging it all” for jewelry in park like sites.

Pretty ace for a two-hour hunt. 

[Digalicious]

Thanks Midalake.

Unfortunately, I didn't find a sweet gold ring in that experiment. I was just taken aback at the epic ring to aluminum trash ratio, compared to my dismal ratio when "digging it all" in aluminum infested sites.

The next couple of experiments I do, will give me a much better idea of how successful the method is for me. What can say for sure though, is that I will never, ever!, go back to "digging it all" in aluminum infested sites.

 

[Digalicious]

1 hour ago, Skate said:

Not to hijack the thread but I have a question on your parks, specifically the age of the park you're hunting. Are your deep rings in old parks (50-100+ years old) or are they in newer parks? I'm trying to get more scientific (if that's possible) on my jewelry recovery. I'm curious if the sink rate is such that rings will go to greater depths faster especially in newer parks. My two parks in town are both on the new side, one 35 years old and one 15 years old. I have found rings in each but mainly in the top 2-5 inches. 

I can't say for certain Skate, because close to all of of my rings are found in the water. I just haven't found enough dirt rings to make a comment on the sink rate. However, 4 of the 5 rings in my picture, were in the shallow roots. Also, the second and third ring from the left look very old, and they were in the upper roots. Sure, rings can be deep in turf, but I do think that most get caught up in the grass roots. For example:



I could be wrong, but I would think rings would get hooked in that tendril mess 🙂 Well, at least much more so than something closed shaped like a coin.

[UT Dave]

1 hour ago, Skate said:

Not to hijack the thread but I have a question on your parks, specifically the age of the park you're hunting. Are your deep rings in old parks (50-100+ years old) or are they in newer parks? 

Both.

My most prolific park for rings is a spot I call the "Ring Bowl".  It's less than 15 years old.  But it's a sled hill that bottoms out in a flood retention basin.  I've found big silver rings over 8" deep at the bottom of the hill in the basin there with the Manticore.  But I've also found plenty of deep park silver in the oldest parks around here, in the 100+ year old range.  These all came from one hunt in one of those parks and the big ring was quite, quite deep.

- Dave