Jewelry hunting

I hope you notice the title of todays blog does not say jewelry, coin and  junk hunting, just jewelry hunting.
Jewelry hunting is like any other form of metal detecting, you are searching for specific targets in areas containing many other undesirable objects.
Trash targets in areas holding jewelry include bottle caps, can slaw, small corroding pieces of iron, but the main trash target is the dreaded clad coin because of the high numbers found in areas known to hold the jewelry. 
An experienced jewelry hunter should know a clad quarter, dime or cent sounds nothing like a piece of platinum, gold or silver jewelry, so why do the majority of beach hunters still dig clad coins knowing they are probably coins.
The answer has to do with the word "Probably" they dig because that good signal response could probably be a piece of jewelry.
When you gain experience you can play the percentages knowing probable coin signals are highly likely what your experience is telling you they are, giving you a good reason to reject digging them so you can get to any jewelry in the area faster. 
Is it 100% safe no, but you cannot dig everything at a tourist type beach because you are afraid of missing one gold or silver ring.
At heavily hunted beaches you can use the clad coins, bottle caps, fish hooks and other clearly not jewelry signals to your advantage knowing full well other beach hunters are going  to dig them.
Every piece of junk other detectorists stop to investigate and waste their timing digging, puts you one signal closer to recovering what a jewelry hunter is at that site for.
If you live in an area known for older jewelry or coins there will be times when you cannot risk rejecting coins because they could be silver also corroding bottle caps because they could potentially be encrusted pieces of jewelry.
During times of beach erosion or super low tides, old coins and jewelry may be within reach because of sand erosion or be within reach trapped in place along rocky shorelines.
Nickels and lead fishing weights should always be dug because they closely mimic desirable target responses, also lead and gold often settle in the same area. 
Todays metal detectors favor jewelry hunters, many give good second and often third opinions on targets detected while searching for jewelry.
If you use a metal detector with a VDI screen, you may have target conductive and ferrous readouts, target cursor placements or target audio responses to help you avoid digging junk.
If you don't use a metal detector with a screen, you can rely on target testing, target audio responses and eventually experience to limit the amount of undesirable targets you dig while searching for jewelry.
Either way there is no need to dig every metal object at the beach just because you are afraid you will miss one piece of jewelry. 
Which brings me to the point of todays jewelry hunting blog, to find the treasure in the trash you have to know the difference between trash and treasure.

     Available at www.garydrayton.com