We get asked about gold detecting often here at BBH. With the way the world economy is at the moment and gold prices set to soar we thought it would be a good time to talk about metal detecting for gold, learning what to look for and some of the characteristics that can be displayed on your metal detector.

Gold can vary widely! For instance one could define gold as nuggets, gold flakes, placer gold, gold rings and the most common gold jewelry

In a nutshell, all the metal detectors we sell will detect gold, however, like with most things, some machines are better than others. Some have higher frequency is more specific to hitting a lower conductor like gold. No machine will detect gold only and disregard everything else unfortunately though. If that Detector ever hits the market it would be a huge success to say the least.

If you want to detect gold exclusively then there are several machines dedicated to finding gold of all varieties. There are also specific coils that can be chosen that would increase your gold hunting chances.

The trickiest part of gold when metal detecting is that there are so many different alloys, shapes and size combinations it can be almost impossible to tell what you have before you've dug it up. Gold in its purest form, say a nugget will have a very different tone and id to that of a gold wedding band. while the nugget may be close to pure gold, the wedding band could be made up of several different metals including zinc, palladium and even silver. Also the smooth shape and size of the ring would throw in a curve ball to IDing the target.

It all comes down to the metals conductivity. It's size, shape and depth all play a large role in what the target will identify as on your machine. one of the best tips we give to new detectorists is to practice at home and listen and watch for tonal changes based on different metals. a good way to do this is to turn the metal detector on and lay it on a table, then slowly move different metal objects in front of the search coil. You can practice with gold rings and jewelry, silver coins, cutlery and other household metals you may have laying around to get a feel for how your particular machine ID's the target.

Remember, when it comes to digging for gold, your going to be digging a lot of trash that could ring up similar to that of your gold band. A lot of our customers dig everything without discrimination which has the highest probability of hitting goal. Unfortunately you'll dig 95% trash.

Others with many years of experience and practice on their machines can usually tell just by the sound whats under their coil.

Our best advice is to get out and dig! Especially in the ranges from foil to zinc penny if you want GOLD!!!!