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Coin To Coin: Gofind 44 Easily Beats Gold Bug Pro


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Coin to Coin: GoFind 44 easily beats Gold Bug Pro

Test objective: to determine which detector can find the most coins over two weeks (to allow each detector a few swings at the title). Although the total coin value is obviously important, the main objective is shooting the most Australian coins – whether they be ‘silver’ 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c or ‘gold’ $1 or $2.       

Test site: The public beach at Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island, North Queensland.

Local conditions: Narrow white sand beach with a thin layer (about 30cm deep) of newly introduced sand covering an older deeper layer. The beach slopes steeply into the Coral Sea and sits along a pub, restaurants, cafes and water-sports places, so there should be plenty of tourists dropping their coins (I just hope plastic cards won’t bugger up our coin count). Being popular, the beach yields a load of beer bottle tops, aluminium packaging (including a condom wrapper) and rusty crap deeper down.  

Weapons of choice: Erik favours the Gold Bug Pro whilst ‘Matey’ (not his real name) wields his mighty GoFind 44. Whilst Matey had the home bay advantage (Erik’s from another bay) he hadn’t had a looksee for about a year. It was only when he saw Erik on his old stomping ground that he decided to have another swing. The result of the meeting is this very informal ‘coin-shooting’ challenge and bragging rights at the pub.  

Influencing factors: Erik is a total newbie on the GBP. Matey is an old hand with the GoFind and recons Erik’s machine has got too many ‘bells and whistles’ for it to be any good on the beach.

Play-by-Play: As mentioned GBP had already had a few swings before GoFind got into the game. It did so in great style, shooting a handful of gold within half an hour of the glove being thrown down. Not one bit unnerved GBP returned very early Monday morning (counting on huge coin drops over the weekend) and shot some gold and silver. GoFind had a few swings during the first week shooting gold, both large ($1) and small ($2), as well as large silver (20c and 50c). A bit more unnerved, GBP stuck with his game plan and had a good hard swing the following Monday morning, shooting small silver (5c and 10c) at great depth (about 40cm deep) and large silver a lot shallower. GoFind just kept hauling gold. The final epic week saw both detectors shoot a few more coins, but the feeling was that the site had been well and truly over-worked and Lady Luck was playing her hand (usually in GoFind’s favour). By now both detectors had also broadened their search areas, hitting nearby picnic and bbq areas as well as further along the bay where topless sunbakers hangout (yes, local testing conditions were very tough). Swinging around the bus stop and the back of the pub also proved lucrative.   

The Results:

Gold Bug Pro: large gold (2 x $1), large silver (3 x 50c and 7 x 20c) and small silver (6 x 10c and 4 x 5c). Total: 22 coins valued at $5.70

GoFind 44: large gold (16 x $1), small gold (5 x $2) and large silver (5 x 50c and 2 x 20c). Total: 28 coins valued at a massive $28.90

The Verdict: The GoFind 44 is the ‘must have’ detector for both large and small beach gold! It is also handy for large silver but not too hot on the small stuff, shooting none at all. Whilst the Gold Bug Pro is universally recognised for its gold finding ability, on Australian ‘gold’ coins it rates poorly (shooting only large gold on a few occasions and no small gold at all). The GBP is the detector to get if you are after small silver at depth, its ability to find 5c and 10c coins is second to none (at least to the GoFind 44).

Whilst this very newbie detector prospector has obviously got a lot to learn, he is seriously considering adding a GoFind 44 to his ‘beach gold’ arsenal. Until I get it, Matey has promised to keep his GoFind away from my local bay. Afterwards it’s open season on all the island’s beaches and bays, I can’t wait…

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Uh, Chase, I'm almost certain he wasn't kidding. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be buying a 44 if you dont lay down some educational content.

Erik-kidding or not that was a well written entertaining post, thanks!

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1 hour ago, Lacky said:

Uh, Chase, I'm almost certain he wasn't kidding. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be buying a 44 if you dont lay down some educational content.

Erik-kidding or not that was a well written entertaining post, thanks!

At Steve's site, everything can be learned by reading what's here.  Erik, for what you are trying to do, I highly recommend you consider the versatile Minelab Equinox, it will accomplish everything you want to do and hope to do on the beach with a single detector that can combine the positves of both detectors you mentioned in your post and then some.  Even the forthcoming ML Vanquish 440 could get it done.

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Thanks a lot for your thoughts everyone,,

Yes, this post was written tongue in cheek and as Steve says it very much shows the difference between someone who knows what they are doing and someone who doesn't.. This hasn't put me off though.. its only made me keener to learn about detector prospecting (and as i mentioned it really is no great hardship detecting on tropical beaches)..

Phrunt, i did buy the GBP on ebay.. am just reading the  horror stories about fakes on this forum.. crikey! I'd be very pissed off if i've fallen for a scam.. is there a huge difference in performance between a fake and the real thing? could that mean that my detector is not set at 19 kHz? maybe its a lower frequency? but shouldn't that be better for shooting coins? 

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Phrunt, thanks again for your knowledge and input.. the GBP i bought came from someone in Sydney (at least that was the seller's location according to ebay) and compared to some others i saw on ebay this one was branded Fisher (as opposed to 'unbranded').. It also has manufacture numbers recorded on the box and inside the battery compartment.. i know this ebay seller could easily be selling on a fake but how can i tell? is there any way to check the frequency of this GBP? If it is a fake, i'm at least happy that it could be 19kHz.. I read elsewhere that fakes usually ran much lower at around 7 to 9 kHz.. hence my vain hope that despite it being a fake, i'd ended up with the ultimate ground balancing 'coin-shooter'.. with 'bells and whistles' that old Matey could only dream about..

also thanks for the video.. it reinforces what i thought all along: it won't do me any good moaning about my tools, i have to get out there and gain the experience (and learn as much as i can along the way)..  

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If you have an Airtest range of 2-euro coin around 30-32 cm, and for 1 gram gold brick will be 19-20cm, so this detector Fisher Gold Bug-pro... with 11 "DD coil in discrimination has the right range ..

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If this detector works at 19khz it will be more sensitive to different sizes of gold, but again to large silver coins, or to 25 Us cent / Quarter / will have less reach than bronze coins or copper coins of the same size ..

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Phrunt, thanks again for in-depth advice.. you've got me thinking about a waterproof detector, especially as i'm swinging at crystal clear beaches..

in the meantime i'll take this fraud GBP as far as it will go.. like i said it did also have some luck finding relics around the island's old homesteads.. i found three old spoons buried at nearly 40cm deep as well as old belt and dress buckles and buttons.. this was at a site where a house once stood that got flattened by a cyclone in the 1950s.. on another occasion i found a 1952 Australian Penny without a detector in the creek behind the site.. so i was keen for a looksee with a detector when i got the GBP.. 

am also checking out the islands gold diggings.. did you see that map with 7 known sites that i posted on another forum? where would the guy that send it to me get that sort of detailed information? he's even offered to provide the lat/long for these old diggings.. next month i've got a mate (who knows what he's doing) coming over to the island with his ML Gold Monster.. i'll keep you posted on progress.. thanks again for your help along the way.. 

17 hours ago, phrunt said:

A lot of fakes are branded Fisher, but they're also branded as Gold Finder FS2's I guess because Fisher put the pressure on them.  In all honestly unless you email Fisher with the serial number the best way to tell if it's fake is to judge by price, if it was brand new with both coils and you paid something like 300 to 600 dollars, it's a fake, if you paid around 1200 to 1400 Australian dollars it's likely real.

Here's one at a real dealer for sale in OZ  http://www.detectorsdownunder.com/fisher-gold-bug-pro-combo

I don't know about this 7 to 9 khz thing, the fakes are clones.  They're a stolen copy of the circuit board replicated, they didn't make their own detector so they will be running at 19khz.  7 to 9 khz isn't necessarily the holy grail of coin detecting frequencies although it was commonly used on low end coin detectors with fixed ground balance like the Garrett Ace 250 at 6.5khz.  The higher in the range Ace models took that frequency up to 10khz.  About 13khz seems to be the going general purpose frequency

The Equinox can switch to 5khz which I've tested a lot on small silver coins and I end up getting better results in multi frequency than 5khz.

 

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