Popular Post Lunk Posted December 19, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2019 On my first trip to the desert southwest 20+ years ago armed with my trusty Fisher Gold Bug 2, I looked up a nugget shooter by the name of Glen “Griz” Anderson in the Arizona outback town of Quartzsite, who was gracious enough to take me out to an old nugget patch that he and some other locals had hammered. He said if I hunted it thoroughly that I should be able to turn up a bit or two. Sure enough, careful searching with the six-inch elliptical concentric coil of my GB2 did coax a couple of crumbs out of the old patch, but other than that I wasn’t having much luck. So I decided to be adventurous and started detecting up slope away from the patch, towards the crest of a small hill. That’s where I started encountering the bird shot pellets...LOTS of them. After recovering about a dozen of them, I dug what sounded just like another, but it turned out to be a very small bit of purple quartz laced with thin stringers of gold instead.🙂 It seemed nobody had bothered to detect this area for long because of all the bird shot, but I stuck with it and for every dozen or so of the tiny lead pellets, I would find another bit of the beautiful purple quartz laced with gold, until I had a couple dozen pieces. I hunted the spot for a few days until it dried up, and I’ve been back again every time I have acquired a new detector over the intervening years, which has found me a few nuggets off of the patch, but never another bit of the purple quartz. So I was hoping to find more the other day with my White’s Goldmaster 24k, outfitted with the 6-inch round concentric coil. I was finding birdshot, but alas, no purple quartz and gold. As I pushed the coil under a very small palo verde tree, the 24k let out a healthy ZIP! declaring something definitely larger than a bird shot; I was fully expecting to see a 22 bullet or casing sitting on the surface, but could see nothing. So I raked a bit of the loose surface material into my nugget scoop, waved it over the coil and ZIP! got it! It turned out to be a small 4-gram speci with a limonite crystal, quartz crystals, and gold! I’ve never seen anything quite like it - a very unique piece. 33 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 What a stunning speci Lunk. I have never found one that looks like that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim McCulloch Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Well done, Keith, thanks for sharing. Awesome specie! Keep up the good work. HH Jim 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesD Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 A grade stunner piece! Thanks for sharing Lunk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 WOW, I should be so lucky, not luck in your case. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GB_Amateur Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 Stunning find, Lunk! Did you use acid on it or did just water clean it up? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn in CO Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 WTG Lunk! Very nice specimen, congrats on a great find! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geof_junk Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 I would not use acid on a limonite crystal as it is Fe . It is great to get a three-some.(Quartz,Gold and Limonite crystal) The black crystal is what we call devils dice. My favourite three-some find is below, the silver/dark grey one is Tungsten or wolfram Tungsten has a similar Density to Gold Density 19.3 g.cm-3 at 20°C Melting point 3410 °C Boiling point 5660 °C 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunk Posted December 20, 2019 Author Share Posted December 20, 2019 13 hours ago, kiwijw said: Don't suppose you have waved a Gold Monster or a Nox 800 with small coil over that area? I’ve actually used the Nox and the GM 1000 at this locale, both with their small coils. Must have just missed this particular spot before, as the speci was right on the surface. Happy Holidays to you. 3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said: Did you use acid on it or did just water clean it up? As Geof noted, I didn’t want to use any kind of acid on the limonite, so I just used a gentle scrub with a toothbrush in soapy water. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatup Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 great find lunk i have found a couple pieces that look something like that minus the limonite cube 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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