Hype

[Sheppo]

8 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Well said Steve and “So say all of us”. New releases are fun but all the finger pointing over the years has grown old for me, being torn between seeing people desperate for information and at the same time being accused of HYPE has grown extremely thin with me and made more poignant by my now being a dealer selling the products I often talk about. 

I will always try my best to inform people of my perceived bias but do not mistake my passion for this subject as being hype to sell products because you will get it sorely wrong.

The only reason I hang out here is because of the effort you SteveH put into keeping this forum alive and informative, I love the hype/passion and excitement of this forum and thoroughly enjoy the camaraderie but at the end of the day after more than 20 years of being mangled by all the tall poppiests I am well over having to have my fundamentals scrutinised every time I offer an opinion!!

Good to see a defined line in the sand, to all who read what I have just written, I help develop Minelab detectors and I sell the things so take what I say with a grain of salt if your so inclined!!🥴

And this is why I’ve gone to you to buy both my machines and soon to be the third (slap me stupid for even considering going elsewhere with the first machine). It’s not because you sell them, it’s the knowledge base behind them.

It’s pretty easy to tell between the bulls**t and genuine knowledge when looking on other forums.

 

Glad I’ve recently found this forum and thankyou to Steve and JP and everyone else for the wisdom you have all shared on the subject.

[SDMiner]

I can see it now....Hershbach & Porter Gold Adventures coming to a Goldfield near you! 

[water spider]

metal detectors are time machines in so many ways and on so many levels. when you understand that you become a seeker of treasure and knowledge. and knowledge is a treasure

[geof_junk]

I think the big thing to watch out for is the belief that you need it now or someone else will get the nuggets that the other detectors missed. The good spots would of been tested by the tester anyway. The only thing that you might get is small, like the 400 odd nuggets in the photo below that I got on a trip a few years ago.

[geek4gold]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Anyone remember these? Were they helpful? 

Yes I have all those & yes they were helpful. I also have Chris Gholson's Nugget Hunting Essentials series of DVD's. Worth there weight in gold. The pair of them helped each other out in starting these.

G4G

[Gold Hound]

Hi Steve

For a number of years I posted in a couple of Australian forums, but after a while I got sick of defending myself and being accused of being a 'Minelab Man'. 

Then I found your forum Steve and it has been for me a haven of good uptodate information.

Now I don't even look at other forums!

Even though I dont show my finds, comment or post much anymore, I still regularly visit to stay upto date with changes

Thank you for providing a place for information to be shared in a fair and engaging manor.

[Steve Herschbach]

5 hours ago, Gold Hound said:

Hi Steve

For a number of years I posted in a couple of Australian forums, but after a while I got sick of defending myself and being accused of being a 'Minelab Man'........ snip

Even though I dont show my finds, comment or post much anymore, I still regularly visit to stay upto date with changes

And mores the loss for the rest of us. This is exactly what I’m taking about. Maybe I can help pry you back out of your shell also mate? People sometimes forget that the rough and gruff prospectors have feelings also. Or is it just jealousy? All I do know is a lot of people like you feel put upon enough that you go silent, and that truly is a shame, a genuine loss for the community. But still, I’m very happy to have you here under any circumstances, and thanks for piping up! 

I sure get it though, as do JP and others. Sometimes the urge to walk away is overwhelming... and I think it’s healthy.

[klunker]

17 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

And thank you. Was not sure where that was going, because I am a fanboy, but not in the way people might think. I am a fanboy of metal detecting and gold prospecting, and I think turning thousands of people on to it has been one of the better things I've done in life.

I did try too hard to cater to everyone here, when in fact all I have ever wanted to do is cater to people like me!  I know what I want in a forum, and that's why I set this up, to get what I could not find elsewhere. I genuinely am a child at heart, and I really do like to play with toys. I've not an ill feeling towards anyone, but I do want only "my people" here. And my tent is pretty large really, because I'm not exactly normal myself, whatever that means. I just like people to be polite. Thanks for the kind word, and many happy thoughts in return.

Me in lower right.... 

Whew! until I saw this I was feeling a bit left out.

[Steve Herschbach]

18 minutes ago, klunker said:

Whew! until I saw this I was feeling a bit left out.

You are a gem Norm. I hope I can get you out from behind the humor smokescreen, to let loose of a little of that vast store of knowledge someday. But I get it. Like Jim Straight always said “Silence is GOLDen”, and what he meant by that was too many eyeballs watching. Best wishes to you and Scott for an awesome 2021. 

[Jonathan Porter]

Humans are a weird blend, we hate adversity yet require it to feel fulfilled. There is nothing more fulfilling than doing it tough looking for gold and doubting yourself then being rewarded by a good find, the combination of the two makes for a very immersive adrenaline rush that is addictively euphoric. 

I think the insipid part of humanity we are all talking about here develops through petty jealousy and a smattering of frustration combined with a blend of skepticism. Maybe it’s because the pastime/occupation attracts a certain type of personality who loves nothing better than to throw in discord all based around that persons skepticism, because they can’t do it or have never personally experienced it then it has to be BS! Or they have done it and hate others doing it, or hate others who are successful spilling the beans and bringing in more competition. I see this a lot especially around discussions of new detectors, the expressions of mistrust because I work with Minelab so therefore my input is null and void!! Crazy thing is my input has to be totally unbiased when giving feedback to ML, really big expensive decisions are often based around my feedback, to the point where I spent a lot of my own personal time double triple checking everything I do just to be sure I’m not barking up the wrong tree. I get asked a lot by Engineer’s “Are you sure?” 🥴 

Here’s an extremely memorable example of the types of things that have happened to me over the years with prospectors and why I shy away from social gatherings etc. Years ago I was in a caravan park with Steve Herschbach and Chris Ralph, we’d come into town to do some washing and shopping and were hanging around while our washing dried. A fellow prospector I knew came up and said hello, I hadn’t seen him for years so it was enjoyable to catch up and also let Steve and Chris enjoy meeting some Aussie detectorists. While we were all laughing and chatting this guy I had never met before came up and barged into the middle of our group without even introducing himself and accosted me saying in a big booming voice “All that gold you showed off in your second video, you never got that all in one season, I call BS!!!”. This wasn’t the only occasion this sort of thing happened during Steve’s trip downunder.

Those personalities for whatever reason feel motivated to break social engagement protocols and just blurt out their ‘skepticisms”, they are in the minority but boy do they make an impact. On a forum where we are all hidden by distance and a keyboard it can often be worse where you will see outbursts from people who would normally remain quiet in a group gathering and is why I think we see a higher percentage of this type of behaviour online. Either way when your constantly the target for no good reason other than someone wants to ‘project’ their inadequacies and petty jealousies, it can leave you very gun shy but also seething inside because of the injustice of it all. 😞 

JP