Gold Test

I changed the bait to gold on the L-rod and spent a further four hours detecting on the same field as the Silver Test (see previous post). The photo illustrates the finds. The first three objects from the left on the top row all have some gold plating remaining, while the fourth object is silver plated copper-alloy. The remaining finds are all copper-alloy. There was also some junk in the form of iron and aluminium although this was minimal.

Now I admit this is not a very scientific test because every time a find is removed from the ground, the conditions of the experiment are changed. You can see this in that the number of finds in the gold test was only a third of the number found in the silver test, for the same amount of detecting time. The law of diminishing returns in action! What is significant though is that in both the silver test and the gold test around one quarter of the finds contained the metal used for bait. If that continues in the field then, I am sure you will agree it must make a big difference to treasure hunting success…