Trash to treasure ratio

[VirginiaBikeGirl]

I love it when I find something good. I love researching the stuff, cleaning it, looking at it. I’m sure that many of my non-detectorist friends think the stuff is cool, but they don’t get it. What they mostly don’t get, is how incredible it is that we can go into a field, or a playground, or an old homestead and come out with treasure that’s been buried underground for year, sometimes decades and even centuries. They also don’t understand how much nasty worthless junk we find.

While bottle tops, pull tabs, and aluminum cans are the most frustrating to me, there is so much foil and nails and barbed wired. On farms, I find lead medicine tubes. The ones that are like toothpaste tubes. Yesterday, all I found was trash. A broken shovel, pieces of barbed wire fence posts, a huge iron or steel bullet looking thing that must have been for breaking through rocks (must have weighed ten pounds).

Maybe I’m just ranting. What trash do you run into most?

 

[diggin4clad]

While I do find a little bit of trash items now and then, I don't find a lot because I notch out iron and a lot of aluminum. The few things I find are generally pull tabs and the occasional can. Anything brass or copper is not considered junk because I throw it in the scrap metal pile and cash it in when I get enough to get 10-20 dollars for it.

 

[Cherry Picker]

It was the same for me for many years. I have changed my hunting habits and now my trash to treasure ratio is pretty good.

To be honest, I think for the longest time my problem was trying to find the perfect detector, that doesn't exist yet, instead of perfecting the use of what I have. I dig very little trash anymore. Of course, I have had to adapt my recovery level to match my lowered physical ability, but I still believe I have learned my detector to the point my trash recovery is minimal.

 

[sube]

I love it when I find something good. I love researching the stuff, cleaning it, looking at it. I’m sure that many of my non-detectorist friends think the stuff is cool, but they don’t get it. What they mostly don’t get, is how incredible it is that we can go into a field, or a playground, or an old homestead and come out with treasure that’s been buried underground for year, sometimes decades and even centuries. They also don’t understand how much nasty worthless junk we find.

While bottle tops, pull tabs, and aluminum cans are the most frustrating to me, there is so much foil and nails and barbed wired. On farms, I find lead medicine tubes. The ones that are like toothpaste tubes. Yesterday, all I found was trash. A broken shovel, pieces of barbed wire fence posts, a huge iron or steel bullet looking thing that must have been for breaking through rocks (must have weighed ten pounds).

Maybe I’m just ranting. What trash do you run into most?

Maybe you will get a little joy from this in the future all the trash you left in the ground some archy will be digging a pull-tab and be sat down as you are from a seated coin sube

 

[VirginiaBikeGirl]

Maybe you will get a little joy from this in the future all the trash you left in the ground some archy will be digging a pull-tab and be sat down as you are from a seated coin sube

Year 2250 - "Come here, everyone! Manox 7 has found a pull tab!"

 

[KOB]

I dig unreal amounts of trash on the beach. It is a totally different ballgame if you desire to be successful. Part of the game. On occasion I can cherry pick , but there are downsides to that. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing a deep faint iron grunt and pulling up gold. And looking up at the 2 guys who passed it over.

 

[MasonDixonMding]

I hunt a lot of fields. Cans are my problem trash. The plow cuts them in little pieces and spreads them out. For the most part I dig every things. This can get old quick. So I leave the very trashy spots for last. Some sites are 75% trash 25% good finds. A few remote sites 75% good 25% old trash ( broken iron pots, pieces of horse shoes and other old stuff)

 

[John Madill]

I like the beach because recovery is so much easier. Rarely have to kneel down, just scoop things up.
I pretty much dig everything there.

You can easily identify the quarters and dimes. But you really want better stuff so you have to dig it all.

I hate catsup packs and those circular foil tabs from drink containers. And those wet foil drink envelopes.

But they are quickly forgotten when you see bling in the scoop.

 

[Cherry Picker]

I like the beach because recovery is so much easier. Rarely have to kneel down, just scoop things up.
I pretty much dig everything there.

You can easily identify the quarters and dimes. But you really want better stuff so you have to dig it all.

I hate catsup packs and those circular foil tabs from drink containers. And those wet foil drink envelopes.

But they are quickly forgotten when you see bling in the scoop.

You hit the nail on the head for me and my tot lots.

 

[Diga]

When I'm hunting in park like, trashy sites, I only dig targets above the rectangular pulltab range. I'll miss all small gold rings with that method, but I won't miss most silver rings, or mid to large gold rings.

In the water though? There is so little trash, that I dig everything.

 

[John Madill]

You hit the nail on the head for me and my tot lots.

I still haven't figured out tot lots.
Around here they have an inch or so of mulch then a heavy weed barrier.

I'm not comfortable digging through the barrier and wonder how treasure would make its way beneath it.

All I have found are pennies and pull tabs.

So what's the secret?

 

[Cherry Picker]

I still haven't figured out tot lots.
Around here they have an inch or so of mulch then a heavy weed barrier.

I'm not comfortable digging through the barrier and wonder how treasure would make its way beneath it.

All I have found are pennies and pull tabs.

So what's the secret?

Kansas. In our climate getting anything but wheat/corn/sunflowers to grow is a challenge. Our tot lots are mostly 6"-8" of woodchips. A few sand.

 

[diggin4clad]

It was the same for me for many years. I have changed my hunting habits and now my trash to treasure ratio is pretty good.

To be honest, I think for the longest time my problem was trying to find the perfect detector, that doesn't exist yet, instead of perfecting the use of what I have. I dig very little trash anymore. Of course, I have had to adapt my recovery level to match my lowered physical ability, but I still believe I have learned my detector to the point my trash recovery is minimal.

Good points Cherry Picker. Learning what your detector is telling is way better than waiting fir that "mythical" better detector to arrive on the scene.

 

[diggin4clad]

I still haven't figured out tot lots.
Around here they have an inch or so of mulch then a heavy weed barrier.

I'm not comfortable digging through the barrier and wonder how treasure would make its way beneath it.

All I have found are pennies and pull tabs.

So what's the secret?

The reason coins and other things are below those tot lot barriers is because they were there before the barrier was put in. I'm coming across a lot more of those barriers these days, not to mention the tot lots that have been converted to rubber mats.

 

[HungryGhost]

With the Nox 900 my nemesis is foil mostly. The tone and the numbers are just too close to gold for me to pass up.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

Trash is the price you pay to find treasure. When in doubt, dig it out. What if it's not just another ring pull...

 

[maxxkatt]

Lance in the detectorist TV series was quite and expert on pull tabs and pop tops. One of the series running jokes.

 

[Diga]

What if it's not just another ring pull...

Epic series with excellent story lines and acting. I'm about to binge watch it...for the third time

 

[bottlecap4u]

I do almost exclusive permissions now, sweep through first and cherry pick for coins higher tones, then dig midtones yet notch out to -3 on the nox, still want relics so I end up eventually digging about everything with solid tones. those pesky pull tabs bottlecaps, shotgun shells. slaw, mason jar lids and copper sheeting crap. My ratio is low on the first pass but much higher when hitting the area again, every now and then a pull a cool object I initially passed over though. I want it all!!!!

 

[VirginiaBikeGirl]

I do almost exclusive permissions now, sweep through first and cherry pick for coins higher tones, then dig midtones yet notch out to -3 on the nox, still want relics so I end up eventually digging about everything with solid tones. those pesky pull tabs bottlecaps, shotgun shells. slaw, mason jar lids and copper sheeting crap. My ratio is low on the first pass but much higher when hitting the area again, every now and then a pull a cool object I initially passed over though. I want it all!!!!

OMG yes. I run through some sites four times.