| halo,
making the coin twice its size in the eyes of the detector - and
in high discrimination will be rejected as junk because the
detector will read the entire surface area, coin and halo as one
object. Many valuable badges, medallions, medals, and items of
similar size will be rejected.
We all love to pull up a nice ring but did you know that
about 40% of rings are erased when your discriminator is set to
reject foil ( you can kiss gold coins goodbye at this setting
also.) Crank your control up to pulltab and you have wiped out
about 85% of rings, and nickels you might have found. Crank it
to the max and you have erased virtually all rings, a lot of
jewelry, haloed coins, coins on edge or at an angle. Many TH'ers
don't seem to care for nickels - but remember, a 1913 Liberty
nickel is worth about $1.5 million today.
I once watched a fellow hunt a small playground and do quite
well, picking up close to $5.00 in coins. Engaging him in
conversation I discovered his discriminator was set to reject
everything smaller than a battleship. I asked him if he ever
considered hunting in low discrimination. Astounded, he replied,
" Why should I? I didn't spend a ton of bucks for this
detector to dig junk, and besides I got everything that was
here."
" I'll bet you didn't, and I'll wager that you left
nearly as much as you found."
Amazed, he shot back, " You can't be serious."
" Humor me, crank your discriminator down and hunt the
area again."
" Okay" he said reluctantly. " I'll do it just
to prove you're dead wrong."
Imagine his amazement when he began turning up finds in areas
he had just covered. When he started pulling up nickels, small
jewelry, two rings, and some haloed coins, he was beside
himself. His whole attitude regarding coinshooting changed that
day and he thanked me numerous times.
Not all coins are buried a foot down and I recover a lot of
corroded, haloed coins just under the surface, passed over in
high discrimination or surface blanking. I have recovered
corroded half dollars only a couple of inches below the surface
in areas hard hit by detectors - and these were easy targets for
all but detectors set in the " lazy mode" that read
these prizes as junk. I once found two Walking Liberty halves
standing on edge side by side, about six inches down. They just
uttered a faint whisper in my headphones. Had I been running in
high discrimination those two beauties would still be there or
snatched up by some savvy coinshooter.
Another form of laziness is displayed by the coinshooters
with visual ID detectors who refuse to dig cents when identified
as such. This makes me very happy as I'm not one bit adverse to
digging cents. I find a lot of nice wheaties and Indian head
cents. Since all cents now are zinc, and copper cents haven't
been produced since 1982, and all copper cents that make their
way to the bank are turned in and melted down, in years ahead
copper cents will be rare and we all know what price rare is.
|
|
Many of these
beauties would have been left behind in high
discrimination.
|
Some time ago I was hunting a local park and noticed a
gentleman with a shiny, new, ultra-expensive detector, designed
to do everything but mint coins. I watched as he became
increasingly frustrated over his lack of finds. Finally he
packed it up and headed for his car. I made my way over to the
same area he had hunted just to check out a theory, and in no
time pocketed over $2.00 in coins plus a child's ring. One hole
gave up two quarters, a dime, and a nickel. Unknown to me the
coinshooter had not left yet but was in his car watching me and
doing a slow burn. |
