We get asked this question all the time. Can metal detectors detect gold?
Well the short answer is not only can metal detectors detect gold but they do it very well!!
Metal detectors can detect gold in the sand, in snow, underwater even inside a pottery jar!
Does a metal detector detect gold?
Gold generally is found in difficult ground-mineralization, so the metal detector must have the proper controls to deal with ground conditions that can be noisy, obscuring the detector’s ability to ‘see’ gold nuggets in the ground.
In order to neutralize this ground noise the gold detectors rely on ground balancing circuits, either auto tracking or manual ground balance. The better the gold detector, the better it does it.
- Most inexpensive metal detectors thru top of the line detectors can detect gold.
- Some metal detectors let you automatically search for specific targets like gold, old coins, relics etc.
- Some metal detectors are meant specifically for searching for gold. That is what they are designed to do!
- Some metal detectors will find gold much deeper in the ground then others.
- You can click on this link to read our review of the top 5 gold detectors. Note that in this review we cover 5 detectors from inexpensive to very expensive to give a choice for every budget!
How do I use a metal detector to find gold?
Yes, we get questions like this a lot. Here is the straightforward answer:
- Read the instructions so you know how to use your detector. If you don’t you probably will use it wrong and not find anything, get frustrated and quit.
- If you have a piece of gold jewelry test your detector with it (DO NOT throw it out in the yard and look for it. Place it on the ground or wave it just below the loop of your detector and see if it finds it. Note the sound or the meter readings that your detector gives you when it “finds it”. NOTE: That with some detectors it will not sound or read quite the same as a piece of gold that has been buried in the ground for a while.
- Do this same test with several different types of gold as well as coins and silver and some junk like a nail a bottle cap, etc. This way you will know the different meter settings or sounds.
- If you can afford one of the better detectors with a visual display, I would get it. Now some old timers and people love the different beeps that detectors make that tell you if a target is good or bad. My first detector was like that and it worked great. But once I got a detector with a graphical target ID system I was hooked.
I once dug up a small silver charm and would have given up (It took me about 10 minutes to find it in the dirt, it was small) had the meter not kept telling me that it was silver!
