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The Reg Wilson Gold Album


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1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Fabulous photos JR and I am honored that you are posting them on the forum! The quote above reminds me how I wish I could go back about thirty years and rearrange a few things. I was up to my neck in life at the time and the bulk of the electronic gold rush passed by before I finally caught up in life. No technology can ever replace the heady early days when large gold was literally scattered around waiting for the first detectors to arrive at various patches and locations. It quite literally is all history now at most locations and so sharing that history is appreciated greatly by myself and others. Many thanks to you and Reg and all the others who participated in making these photos available.

 Thanks for that Steve. I'm not blowing smoke here but frankly, I doubt there's a better run and more comprehensive gold forum anywhere, so this is the logical place to post it. Thank you very much for hosting it!

I sometimes wish I, too, could return a few decades. I certainly wouldn't have been chasing coins in the 70's - :biggrin:

Interestingly, some of the sites the Beagle Boys detected were quite well known by then and much gold had already been detected. Their ability to recover more was due to the huge "unfair advantage" the Minelab SD prototypes presented. This meant that the larger deeper pieces could be readily recovered. As you point out, it seems unlikely that such an opportunity will present itself again, with newer detector technology today only presenting comparatively minor advantages over their predecessors - but we live in hope --

John and Reg told me the trick back then was to locate patches where big gold had already been recovered with existing detectors - and clean up.  Nonetheless, much of the gold in this album was detected by standard detector technology, following some brilliant prospecting and thorough research.

 

 

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JR

I would venture to say that this history was not shared so much at the time it was happening.  It would have to be exciting to get up the next day and see what you could really find that was new and missed by others.

I'm reminded with all of this big gold gone that it would be impossible for many of us now to understand a big gold patch.  Much of the 'evidence' has been removed but you alluded to this JR on one of your first posts here.  You said you were somewhat amazed your present patch had been missed and these pictures give that perspective.

I might not be finding many nuggets in the field right now but I'm finding a lot of them here!

Mitchel

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11 hours ago, mn90403 said:

I would venture to say that this history was not shared so much at the time it was happening.  It would have to be exciting to get up the next day and see what you could really find that was new and missed by others.

Mitchel: It's probably fair to say that in the beginning, the SD prototypes were a better kept secret than "Enigma" during WW2. Later, word began to leak out.

Bruce used to camouflage the prototypes in various boxes, the Goldseeker 15000 was common and the blue Whites box as well. Immediately after the SD2000 was released, I obtained a late model prototype (from tester Jim Stewart) which had been used by Pieter Heydelaar. This was housed in a red plastic Minelab "Goldstriker" box and was faulty.

I was able to repair it and used it for awhile before it was returned to Bruce Candy. In my opinion it was superior in performance to the 2000. All these prototypes had a coded startup sequence in case they fell into the wrong hands.

Reg sometimes ruminates on writing a book about it called "Unfair Advantage" I hope he does!

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JR

I'm finding much more than nuggets ... haha

That would be a great book.  With these pictures, a few recording after the home brew takes effect and some transcriptions and I bet you've got it.

You could do an eBook and code the copies so you get some return on the effort.

Mitchel

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Bruce used to camouflage the prototypes in various boxes, the Goldseeker 5000 was common and the blue Whites box as well. Immediately after the SD2000 was released, I obtained a late model prototype (from tester Jim Stewart) which had been used by Pieter Heydellar. This was housed in a red plastic Minelab "Goldstriker" box and was faulty.

Ah ha, JR your ref to the goldstriker takes me back a bit, one such camouflaged MD made its way up here to the north. Twas a continuation of a magic time, we are very privileged to be here for the electronic gold rush. But it is not over by no means, I suspect. No big jumps like the SD over the VLF that we can see at present, but then we didn`t see the VLFs then PIs doing what they did until we got the hang of things. Oh for a young set of legs and tomorrows MDs today..........

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It's a quiet relaxing Sunday so I might as well keep posting. Truth be told, I'm enjoying it far more the second time around and the layout is now less chaotic. Thank you to everyone for your encouragement.

The "Beagle Boys"  pirat with Ian's "7 ouncer" so called because he bought it with 7 ozs of gold:

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Ian with an 8oz piece from Lucknow lead at Maryborough:

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Ian and Reg: 23 oz nugget from Garibaldi. Notice the Porsche cap. Reg has had a couple of 911's over time.

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Reg said: "Ian looks a bit disappointed that this 11oz bit from Garibaldi wasn't bigger. It sounded bigger"

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38 oz nugget from Creswick. Reg, Stella Garcia and son Hayden:

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The Laidlers (now deceased) and grandchild, with 6oz colour Reg detected on their Corindhap property.

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John Cain and his mum. Ray Daniel and Reg detected 20 ozs on their property at Baringhup West.

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closeup  of above:

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A 20 ounce nugget and the better bits from a virgin patch just south of Stirling rush Wedderburn. There were many smaller bits as well, for a total of about 50 ozs:

263y7et.jpg.7d5c31e567d350fe343b6909ae54533f.jpg

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JR, thanks for sharing all these.

As a newbie to the Golden Triangle and detecting I am loving the history in these pictures. Created an account just to comment! wouldn't it be nice to revisit the area 30 years ago, wow.

Thanks again JR.

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Thanks Mop. Interesting how later technology only finds small bits on the areas worked with the proto's. The biggies are gone.

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JR,

I'm wondering the land owners.  How did they come by it?

Years ago I was told that Florida cattle ranchers and others could have moved to Australia to set up operations for cow/calf and sheep.  If they did so they would have been guaranteed land.  Did this land include the minerals?  Was any of that land or any of the land you prospect now part of that plan?

It would be a big boon to the rancher.  They would or could still be interested as the farmers in Britain are willing to split with relic hunters.

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