What is a metal detector target ID number?

It's a numeric estimate of a buried target's conductivity, shown on the detector's screen before you dig. Garrett's AT Pro and ACE line use a 0-99 scale; Minelab's current Equinox 700/900 uses 119 segments from -19 to 99, while the discontinued Equinox 600/800 used a 50-segment scale from -9 to 40. Higher numbers generally mean better electrical conductivity — silver and copper read high, iron and foil read low — but the number is an estimate, not a certain identification.

Why do a nickel and a pull tab read the same target ID?

Because nickel metal and the aluminum alloy in most pull tabs have similar electrical conductivity, so both land in the same narrow band — around 52-53 on the Garrett AT Pro's 0-99 scale, per High Plains Prospectors' own cheat sheet. It's the single most common false-positive in the hobby: a detector reading a promising mid-range number is just as likely to be trash as it is a nickel, which is why experienced hunters dig both rather than skip either.

Can I trust target ID enough to skip digging trash?

Not reliably. Target size, depth, orientation, and ground mineralization all shift the number a detector reports, so two identical coins buried at different depths can show different IDs, and a large piece of foil can mimic a coin's reading. Garrett and Minelab both document this limitation directly — ID numbers are a strong clue for deciding dig priority, not a substitute for actually recovering the target.

What's the difference between the Garrett 0-99 scale and Minelab's VDI scale?

They're built the same way conceptually — low numbers for poor conductors like iron, high numbers for strong conductors like silver — but the ranges don't match. Garrett's AT Pro runs 0 to 99 with no negative numbers; Minelab's Equinox 900 splits 119 segments into a ferrous range from -19 to 0 and a non-ferrous range from 1 to 99. Even within Minelab the scale changed: the original Equinox 600/800 ran -9 to 40, so a number from an old Equinox chart doesn't apply to an Equinox 900, and a number from one brand's chart tells you nothing on the other brand's detector.

Do all detectors on this site show a numeric target ID?

No. Many sub-$150 machines use tones, icons or a needle meter instead of a raw number. Garrett's current ACE 200, ACE 300 and ACE 400 all show a 0-99 Digital Target ID per Garrett dealer spec sheets, so a numeric readout now starts at about $180; what the ACE models lack is the finer iron resolution of machines like the AT Pro (40 iron discrimination levels) or the Equinox 900 (20 ferrous segments).

Metal Detector Target ID Numbers Explained (2026)

Quick Answer: Target ID is a number a detector displays to estimate what kind of metal is buried before you dig — Garrett’s AT Pro and ACE detectors use a 0-99 scale, while Minelab’s current Equinox 900 uses 119 segments running from -19 (iron) to 99 (high-conductivity metals like silver) — not the -9 to 40 scale of the discontinued Equinox 600/800. On the AT Pro, a nickel and a pull tab both commonly land in the 52-53 range, according to High Plains Prospectors’ published target ID cheat sheet — which is exactly why the number is a strong clue for deciding what to dig first, not a guarantee of what’s in the ground.

Last updated October 29, 2026 — scale corrections. This guide previously listed the Minelab Equinox 900 on a -9 to +40 VDI scale and said Garrett’s ACE 200/300/400 show no number. Both were wrong: Minelab specifies the Equinox 900 (and 700) with 119 target ID segments from -19 to 99 — 20 ferrous and 99 non-ferrous, per Minelab’s published spec as listed by Kellyco — while -9 to 40 was the 50-segment scale of the original Equinox 600/800, which Minelab discontinued in 2025. And Garrett’s ACE 200, 300 and 400 all display 0-99 Digital Target ID. The table, Equinox card and FAQ below are corrected; the AT Pro ($549.99) and Equinox 900 ($999) prices are unchanged.

Earlier check, August 4, 2026: Re-verified both reference prices — the Garrett AT Pro is still $549.99 direct from Garrett and the Minelab Equinox 900 is still $999, matching the current prices used sitewide in our Garrett lineup and Minelab lineup guides. The 0-99 and VDI scale ranges, the nickel/pull-tab overlap zone, and the community-sourced VDI reference numbers all check out unchanged against current documentation. No corrections needed.

Every detector with a numeric or segmented display is doing the same basic thing: measuring how a target’s electrical conductivity bends the coil’s signal, then mapping that reading onto a scale. The scales aren’t standardized across brands, the numbers shift with depth and target size, and the two metals hunters most want to tell apart — nickel and aluminum pull tabs — happen to read almost identically on most machines. Understanding what the number is (and isn’t) telling you turns target ID from a guessing game into a real digging-priority tool. (For the phase-shift mechanism target ID is actually built on, see our how does a metal detector work explainer.)

How target ID numbers actually work

A detector’s coil reads a target’s conductivity, not its identity. Metals with high conductivity — silver, copper — bend the signal one way and report high on the scale; poor conductors like iron and most foil bend it the other way and report low. Everything in between (nickel, gold, aluminum, brass) lands somewhere in the middle, which is exactly where the overlap problems start.

Scale	Used by	Range	Iron/ferrous zone
0-99 numeric	Garrett AT Pro	0 to 99	Low end of the scale, refined further by 40 iron-discrimination levels
0-99 numeric	Garrett ACE 200/300/400	0 to 99	Low end of the scale; 4 iron discrimination segments on the ACE 300/400
119-segment target ID	Minelab Equinox 700/900, X-Terra Pro	-19 to 99	-19 to 0 (ferrous, 20 segments); 1 to 99 non-ferrous
50-segment VDI (legacy)	Minelab Equinox 600/800 (discontinued 2025)	-9 to 40	-9 to 0 (ferrous); 1 to 40 non-ferrous
Tones, icons or meter only	Many sub-$150 machines	No raw number shown	Tone pitch or a needle/icon instead of a digit

On the original Equinox 600/800, a nickel typically read around 13, a dime around 26, and a quarter around 30 — numbers experienced Equinox users compiled through repeated field testing on that machine’s -9 to 40 scale. Those numbers don’t carry over: the Equinox 900 stretches the non-ferrous range from 40 segments to 99, so the same coins report higher numbers on it, and a Garrett reports them on its own 0-99 range. Always use a chart made for your exact model — the same coin can read three different numbers on three detectors.

Garrett AT Pro — 0-99 Numeric Target ID + 40 Iron Levels

Digital Target ID 0-99, waterproof to 3 m · $549.99

Full numeric target ID from 0 to 99 gives more resolution than icon-only entry machines, per Garrett's own AT Pro documentation.
40 levels of iron discrimination let hunters fine-tune iron rejection separately from the target ID number itself — useful in nail-heavy relic sites where the ID alone isn't enough.
Pull tabs and nickels commonly overlap in the 52-53 range on this machine, so our own coin hunting guide recommends digging both rather than trusting the ID to sort them.

Minelab Equinox 900 — Multi-Frequency, 119 Target ID Segments (-19 to 99)

119-segment target ID, ferrous/non-ferrous split scale · $999

Multi-IQ multi-frequency scanning feeds a 119-segment target ID: 20 ferrous segments (-19 to 0) and 99 non-ferrous (1 to 99), per Minelab's published spec.
The ferrous/non-ferrous split is a cleaner conceptual divide than a single 0-99 scale, but the numbers don't translate to Garrett's scale — or to the old Equinox 600/800 charts built on its -9 to 40 scale.
Community-documented limitation: a pull tab can be made to sound like a dime under certain ground and depth conditions, which is why our Garrett vs Minelab comparison treats target ID as a supporting signal, not the final word.

Why target ID isn’t a substitute for digging

Three real-world factors shift the number a detector reports, even for the exact same object:

Depth — a coin sitting deeper in the ground returns a weaker, less precise signal, which can pull its target ID toward the noisier middle of the scale even though the coin itself hasn’t changed.
Size and orientation — a large piece of crumpled foil can mimic a coin-range reading, while a thin gold ring can under-report and land closer to a pull tab’s number than to a “jewelry” ID. Our does foil set off a metal detector guide digs into exactly why foil and gold jewelry share this range and what that means for discrimination.
Ground mineralization — hot, mineral-rich soil adds noise to the same conductivity measurement that target ID is built on, which is one more reason our ground balance guide treats ground balance and target ID accuracy as directly linked, not separate topics.

That’s why every serious buying guide on this site — from the beginner’s guide to the silver hunting guide — frames target ID as a tool for prioritizing what to dig first, not a filter for deciding what to skip. Skilled hunters routinely dig “maybe” numbers precisely because the nickel/pull-tab overlap and depth-based drift make a clean digital number report look less certain than the display suggests.

The bottom line

Target ID numbers are real, useful, and consistently misunderstood. A 0-99 reading on a Garrett or a -19 to 99 reading on a Minelab is a genuine estimate of conductivity, refined further by iron discrimination and (on multi-frequency machines) simultaneous multiple readings — but it’s still an estimate, not an identification. The most reliable use of the number is exactly what field-tested hunters already do with it: let a mid-range number like 52-53 on the Garrett AT Pro or a repeatable non-ferrous number on the Minelab Equinox 900 move a target up the dig-priority list, then confirm with a shovel instead of a screen. For how target ID interacts with sensitivity and discrimination as you set up a machine, see our metal detector settings guide.