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Admittedly I had lost all interest in First Texas and their detectors for some time, I haven't been detecting all that many years but I jumped through the First Texas ranks with a GBP, GB2 and two models of the Teknetics T2 along with their F-Pulse, now I even have an F19 on its way. It appeared with their lack of new products and very dated models they were just another generic detecting company, not something to really pay much attention to. My most recent of their purchases was the F-Pulse not all that long after it came out, while a decent pinpointer it is hardly something to be excited about a company's prospects over. Other than a coil that nobody seems to know much about and I haven't been able to find anyone that actually bought one they haven't really released anything for a very long time, and when they did it was just a rehashed older model, or as we like to call them paint jobs. Recently they started an Ebay firesale letting buyers dictate the prices they are willing to pay for their detectors, and people have been getting fantastic deals, but if you sit down and think about it for a bit are the deals really fantastic or are they about the price the detector should be in today's market, with the various competitors leaving these models well behind, it seems more like they're working out the prices people would be willing to pay and running with it, they've probably sold more of their higher end detectors in the past month or so with this firesale than they have in a year or two. Suddenly First Texas is being talked about again by people that had little interest in their detectors when they were full price. Many of us predicted this would happen one day where their high-end machines are basically entry level in the modern marketplace. I was thinking this is it, they're just going to clear out the stock and wind up the hobby detector part of their business, then I took at look at their Facebook group, I hadn't bothered to look at it forever as they were just a stagnant business. To my surprise it was very active, mainly with their marketing of course but active none the less. Every few days they're doing posts marketing their products, this really took me by surprise, and they had no indication at all they're doing an Ebay fire sale, another surprise, if there was a good place to announce it you would think it would be their Facebook group with 24000 followers, that's a broad reach of people that would see their sale that may not know about it. I think they're just settling into the new normal, working out the ideal pricing for models where they can get sales and will then return to their status quo of selling the same old models for the next decade. They appear to have a larger focus on metal detecting products outside of the hobby market on their Facebook group too, which probably demonstrates where a much of their detecting income is derived from. Their last marketing post was only 2 hours ago. Here are some of their recent marketing posts. So, they do have a pretty active marketing person on Facebook, and someone making up fancy marketing pictures. I hope they survive as a hobby detecting company, and I really hope they've got at least one more "New" detector up their sleeve, a Gold Bug 3 would be something many of us would appreciate, but I'm sure a F75 SMF would be more of a crowd pleaser for a bulk of Fisher fans.

Sorry to hear about your issue. Honestly, making a detector with wireless coils then requiring a wire to make the coil work is a silly design. Give me regular wired coils any day, double that if for underwater use.

September 24 2002 Digging Deeper We all got an early start to our workday. The weather is still holding up with temperatures in the 70’s and no rain. The haul road is in great shape and we are trying to get our glory cut finished before the next storms set in. Jacob said we are on borrowed time and the weather could change quickly. Even snow could be here soon which would likely end our season. Jacob is still working his way deeper and the test pans are fair with some coarse gold. Nothing like we are thinking we might get but we are absolutely convinced that there is a big pot at the bottom. If only Jacob could get down there with the excavator. He is trying his best and that’s all we can ask. We washed another 100 yards and will do a cleanup in the morning. Not expecting anything great but it will add to our totals. I called my wife tonight and told her we are getting near the closing of the mine for this year. Can’t wait to get back home. TO BE CONTINUED ............

You get no manual in the box when you buy a Manticore, just a Quick Start Guide, but you can download a full pdf manual online. Yet 10 months after the last software update, the manual does not mention any of the updates at all. I get that not printing and giving us a manual saves Minelab money, but the one benefit we could get from that is an updated manual when changes occur. When new models ship that already are updated, will new owners downloading this old manual even know that some of these new features exist? In the past there was also an actual pdf that outlined the update details but now we don’t even get that. Best there is now is an “official” YouTube video apparently farmed out to a third party. Stabilizer - All-Terrain Multi IQ - Reduces falsing on iron in heavy iron sites with mild ground mineralization - Adds a tonal nuance to iron to help distinguish good targets from iron - not recommended in normal conditions. Can only be used while in Multi-IQ and in an All-Terrain Search Mode. Stabilizer Filter - Makes the audio weaker and thinner on targets affected by stabilizer Red Target ID - All Metal Mode Only - Target ID is red if iron is detected New Options in the Softkey Menu: Speaker Mute/Unmute Search Mode Recovery Speed Frequency Sensitivity Boost Clear ID Map Flashlight ON/OFF Display Brightness Goldfield Mode – Fixed an issue with small gold sensitivity & discrimination depth. All Audio Themes are now available in Goldfield Mode Beach Mode - Ground Balance has been improved for dry sand. Default Recovery Speed in Beach Low Conductors and Beach Deep have been increased to 4 Audio Boost for Underwater Headphones Default settings for Tone Pitch for Targets IDs in the Coke range changed from 2 to 1 in All Terrain Fast, All Terrain Low Conductors and All Terrain High Conductors UI Languages support added under General Settings (Czech and Hindi added, minor updates to other languages)

I would have been impressed too if they had released the FindX with a 9" ( or elliptical 10X8 ) stock coil instead of a 11". With a 11 coil the machine will be front heavy and they will loose a lot of potential customers , children , women , and more generally users looking for light machines . A 9 coil is much more cumfortable to use and it has very good depth and separation , and I dont understand why manufacturers continue to release new detectors with such big coils . Probably because bigger is better ... 🙂 Hopefully there are exceptions like the ML Vanquish 340 or 440 ( elliptical 10X8 stock coil )

I believe the delay is probably about releasing a product that is as perfect as it can be. They (Garrett) are trying to avoid releasing a product with defects, and the costly procedure of shipping costs to repairs/damage control. There is often a conflict between engineering and sales. Sales want the product released ASAP vs. engineering arguing that the product is not quite ready. If it is a good product, it will sell, regardless of the current mood about it not being released on Garrett's anniversary and hype, followed by complete silence. It will be released when it is ready!

Yes I understand. But XP left the end untreated in the clip [exposed] . This is why there is water egress in the cable. I have since made mine bullet proof, for Salt water hunting. I cut that piece of sheet clip off and attached directly to the coil with Goop Marine compound. First, I treat the end several times lightly to seal it then install like this [see pic]. The open space is for the charge clip which works just fine. Now this may not work for everyone. But since I am a dedicated beach hunter, I never need to remove that crap-e antenna. 😎

I love detecting in Nevada, so much ground and so little time. I also love that Nevada is mineralized right from the bottom to the top, great place to find gold. Keep swinging those coils, and hopefully sooner than later you'll get it over some nice nuggets. All the best, Lanny

I guess Minelab heard our desire for the GPX-5000 in the US… Have ordered quite a few of these new units with 3 years manufacture warranty. Veteran’s 15% Discount also. So let me know if you’re looking for one, also willing to take trade-ins. Have an Equinox 800 with 2 coils 11” and 6” for $495 Also have a used GPX-5000 coming that’s in Excellent condition for $2,500 Coiltek Elite 9” $275 Oregon based so no tax and free shipping. Ron’s Detector’s 208-739-8079 rrlmmc@gmail.com

Steve, You may not need the 11 inch. I have all three and only use the M15 or the M8. My 11 inch just rides in the car as a backup. LOL Used the M8 at a park on Tue. Only my second truf hunt in almost 5 years. The park is filled with can slaw and old nails, but I did manage a 1939 Merc and 6 wheaties. Out of the other 10 cents, 8 were copper and only 2 zincs. It was hitting about 5 targets or so per swing. The M8 is legit. Joe

He has very limited data relying on free wifi so I guess he'll pop up his photos and story when he gets home. I hope we can point the finger to an area where he finds gold, be nice to add a little NZ flake or two to his collection 🙂

I've got quite a few more pages done lately. (It's a lot of work to decide which stories and notes to include, plus the time to rewrite them.) It's given me a lot of respect for anyone, anywhere, that's ever written a book. (Sent the following to Jim today who asked about the writing--thought I'd share it as an update as well.) "I will admit that at this time of year the book writing is starting to conflict with the gold season, as I've been going through my detectors and ATV's to make sure everything is completely ready for the hunt to begin. Furthermore, I have to get out to check on the gold camp to make sure the trailers are all ship-shape for camping throughout the spring, summer, and early fall. There's still a lot of snow in the mountains, and that's where we've been chasing the gold for quite a while now. In fact, the elevation where we've been getting the nuggets is way up there, so the snow won't be gone until June at the earliest, but there's lots of other places at lower elevations that hold good gold as well, and that will keep us busy." (My son and I chase the gold together as often as we can. As well, my wife is a great panner, and she loves to pan the nuggets we throw in the gold pans along with the attached clay, etc., so we don't have to take the time to recover each and every target--saves us a lot of downtime, so we use the time instead to keep finding targets to throw in the pan. All the best, Lanny

Assuming it’s an overstock you get that inventory down and get very cautious bringing in more. In my business inventory control was every bit as important as sales. That’s cash on the shelf and you can go broke sitting on dead money. Reality bites in business and if the Manticore is not selling as hoped it may need a price reduction. More likely they flush the overstock and things go back to normal, albeit with lower sales. No gravy train last forever and all businesses have ups and downs. If the down gets severe enough you lay people off and/or close facilities. I think hard times and hard choices are coming in metal detector land. Tesoro is gone, White’s is gone, First Texas likely to be the next exiting the business.

Shaft system is trapezoidal and is basically a Simplex mid and lower plastic shaft. 15khz single frequency waterproof detector that just makes the US manufactured offerings look plain silly.

The Queenstown coppers took a cool photo on their night shift a couple of nights ago A different set of lights flashing above their car 🙂 Fingers crossed you can find some gold while in Queenstown Mitchel.

I found this very beautiful stone on the banks of an Australian (VIC) river. (Merrica River) It took me by surprise as it was stuck in a root and is perfectly smooth and egg shaped. Does anyone have any ideas of how this was created? And what stone it is? Our theory was that the roots grew around the stone, it was exposed and then the water smoothed it into shape. Or the rock was originally a larger shape. It was able to spin around inside where it was sitting. Any ideas welcomed.

A little late reporting on the trip, but here it is. We got a late start (did I mention my wife was coming with?) . First spot we tried was a dry tributary creek. I quickly gave it the proper name of "can slaw creek" I was using the atx, so there was no cherry picking targets. After about an hour, and 5ft later, we abandoned that spot. Next spot was a small tributary creek running about 3ft wide. Took the gold kruzer out and grabbed the gold pan and put the coil in the water. Got some targets behind a bigger rock, and just scooped what I could out into the pan. Every pan had several specks of gold. I forgot my snuffer bottle in the truck, so most went back to grow bigger. My last pan I decided I better save something, so I went and grabbed my snuffer bottle . These were the biggest pieces of the day ... Nothing to write home about. We finished off the day checking some tailings piles that the rancher used as his gravel pit. No luck there. The main creek in the area was running like a river. I will definitely be hitting that later this year. I wasn't able to get back to where I wanted to be on that trip. The roads (and my wife) would not allow it lol I'm hoping to find some bedrock in that area. It's a big place. We didn't even scratch the surface. I'm still very optimistic about the area. I might even sneak out there tomorrow without the wife lol

Most likely a rehabbed drill site. All of the drill cuttings have been pushed aside with a dozer and the bags collected and dumped. Lots of these in the district. The discolorization is due to the drill cuttings being green such as diorite, serpentine or green shale. Often, Nickel deposits are in a green zone there I've noticed.

Yes you got screwed are the shaft but now like a coin that has another side and its called a dealer that everyone buys from . This no name dealer told me he had just received a shipment of 20 Manticores and now Minelab tells him you got to sell them at somewhat large reduced price. If you buy from him he’s always shipped free and that adds more to his loss. You can bet your sweet ass Minelab isn’t going to compensate him for his loss. While we all are feeling sorry for ourselves I’m wondering now about who really pays when I ask for the 15% vet discount. The dealer has a price that he can sale you a detector set by Minelab. So you show proof and Minelab says sell it to him at the lesser amount. The way I see it the dealer took the hit for the 15% not Minelab. I believe and I may be wrong but Minelab wasn’t letting the dealers have the detectors at a lesser price. So Minelab made the same profit sale are not. The true person that benefited from this sale was one who didn’t have nothing to sale but just to buy. My suggestion to this dealer was do like some dealers are doing and that’s drop ship from your wholesaler . You may make less profit bye doing so but you don’t have your money in such a large inventory. Chuck

6000 - 10x5 Coiltek for creeks. My daughter pulled this piece from a crevice today. Due to the crevice shape, no other coil that I own would have been able to get into the narrow opening to hear it. The Nuggetfinder 12x7 is a bit better on depth range and is very sensitive. It would come down to location and gold depth before deciding which coil would be most suitable. 7000 - 12” Z Search. Sensitive on really small gold close to the coil and punches deep for larger targets. Found this piece today in a deep crevice only 1/4” wide under about 6” of river gravel. The 6000 only heard it when the gravel was removed. The rock had to be broken to access the gold. A small piece was also pinged from another open crevice that was full of gravel. It was too deep for the 6000 with the 10x5 to hear. The stock 11” coil may have picked it up but I’ll never know for sure.

With Australia and NZ never having experienced a GPX 5000 stock issue and the US dealers saying it was discontinued there was some confusion going on, I asked here and was told it's not discontinued. Now it appears it's back at the US dealers, so was this a false alarm? Did the US dealers think it was discontinued for some reason without being told it was? Maybe due to a stock shortage or low demand in the US so stock being allocated to other countries with better sales. New Gpx-5000’s W Warranty Back In Us And Others - Metal Detecting & Prospecting Classifieds - DetectorProspector.com Brand New Minelab GPX 5000's Available, 2 Coils - Metal Detecting & Prospecting Classifieds - DetectorProspector.com The GPX 5000 sounds like it is still a popular choice for Africa, good value and just works, built tough for tough conditions and they're just used to using it and know it gets results. That doesn't sound like a detector you would discontinue unless you had a genuine replacement, which the GPX 6000 is not, very different detector.

I think they do, this file is version 2 of the manual and it has the stabiliser setting, which is only available after the update They just don't mention in a changelog in the manual the changes associated with the new firmware.

I just got permission to detect a large piece of land in a well known gold bearing area. It is private land that nobody has been prospecting for many many years. Everything around it is claimed up tight. It's hard to describe how excited I am about this permission. I will have miles, not acres to hunt. 😁😁😁

I had an interesting experience this past summer. I was hunting virgin bedrock in a placer cut/pit. There were some nice nugget finds, and then I started to work a bedrock rise with a vertical edge that dropped about three feet into a larger sheet of bedrock. Piled up against that edge about six inches high was channel material the large bucket on the excavator couldn't scrape out. (Sometimes these spots hide nice nuggets too.) I took my pick and worked some material off the top of the dirt and scanned the bottom dirt with the Goldmonster. I got a signal and watched the display. The bar jumped to the right, then headed back into ferrous territory. With each sweep, it read the same way. I isolated the signal, and it was a flake of gold, about half the size of an oatmeal flake. I was surprised the display hadn't pinned all the way to the right in non-ferrous territory. I kept scraping away top material to detect the ground below. The same thing happened again, the signal ID'd off to the right then back to the left. Another flake of gold, about the same size. I looked closer at the material I'd dumped from my scoop, lots of little bits of magnetite and dark, heavily stained rocks. I worked more material in the same way, and I kept getting flakes with every scrape all the way down to where the jutting piece of bedrock met the bedrock sheet. There were a few larger pieces that pinned all the way to the right, but all the others, a nice catch of flakes, did the iffy bounce. With the Monster it really pays to check out those iffy signals or I'd have left a nice whack of flakes in the ground. All the best, Lanny

Thanks Blackjack, I know what you mean by getting things lite, I have went from a 4" dredge, to a 3" highbanker dredge combo, and now to a 2" Keens dredge. Where i prospect has to many big rock to highbank, so a dredge is what i use to get around throse rocks. I do most of my prospecting in OHIO. with small gold. I think i would need to run to fast for the Dream Mat. That is why i ask. I have Gold Hog Mat, and don't like it much, so carpet and miners moss with ripples work good. Thanks for the reply. Dean

Hello All, I have several batches of Minelab GPX 5000's on the way. These are brand new, 3-year warranty and coming direct from Minelab. They are $4595.00 MAP price, so if you are interested in one of these units, please contact us ASAP to hold one. I already had a few customers looking for good, used one, now they committed to the brand-new units. Exciting to have some new one back available, as I find the Minelab GPX 5000 one of the most versatile gold detectors on the market. Email us at - rob@robsdetectors.com PM us here on the forums Call us at 623-362-1459 leave message or call 602-909-9008 for text or message. I know for a fact I will not have these long. Rob

I did get the machine only when the 5x8 became available as I like small coils for noodling in the trash. And with Manticore I know it will be a small coil with depth as good as some other detectors large coils. In that regard no big deal. But that does not mean I don't want the 11" coil I paid for! It will still be the coil to use in less target rich areas.

The F19 will be for my daughter on the odd occasion she wants to detect for coins. It does really well on our coins with its accurate Target ID on them in mild soils at our ski fields, especially our $1 and $2 coins which are all she cares about finding. The main reason for the "upgrade" over the Gold Bug Pro's was to give her volume control, she's a speaker user like I am, doesn't want to wear headphones so being able to turn down the volume is vital, the Bug is LOUD and embarrassing to use with its loud volume that can't be turned down in a public place. Incredible isn't it, their detectors like the Gold Bug Pro are so dated they don't even have a way to control volume.

Yup, it's make an offer - see the Fisher Forum for a few deals people have been getting. If you offer too low they will counter offer. In fact if you are logged into eBay and simply look at the page, you probably will get an offer. This way they are not breaking their own MAP rules. Impulse AQ is listed at $1999 guy offered $1200 and they countered with $1300, which he took. $700 discount and free shipping. $200 under the super duper introductory price that only the first 100 buyers were supposed to get.

Nobody is blaming them for an anniversary since nobody including Minelab cares. It’s just a marketing tool and not why they are blowing the Manticore out the door at deep discount. I’ve been too deeply involved in how the corporate world works to be anything but cynical about stuff like this. They are not anyone’s friend and not doing anyone any favors. It’s all pure cold hard business calculations at work.

Quartz Rock With A Faint Tone I was out in the Nevada desert with several buddies chasing the gold near a bunch of old hard-rock gold mines. I found so many pieces of old blasting caps with the Equinox, I thought I was going to go crazy because of the nice non-ferrous reading on the Nox. The Oldtimers sure did a lot of work in the area as there were massive mine dumps in front of the adits, all of them running in a crescent shape around the mountain. I headed up a little gulch that ran up and away from a large mine, and I started finding projectile (lead) after projectile, over and over again. And, the trouble with spent rounds is they ring up on the meter right in the gold range, so after an hour of finding my own lead mine, I headed back down the mountain. I walked over to another mine dump from a smaller mine, and I started finding square nails and more bits of wire and blasting caps (if I'd have kept all those bits, I could have started my own copper mine too), so I headed back to the rendezvous point to see what the boys had found. One of them had an oval piece of white and stained quartz about the size of a folded pita, and he was swinging his Gold Monster back and forth over the rock, and he kept getting a weak signal. (The meter would hop over toward the positive side, but then skip back.) My buddy had a rock hammer with him, and he started chipping off chunks of that quartz, then they'd scan them. With every chunk that gave no signal, he put them in a little pile. He kept chipping off chunks until there was only about a golf ball-sized piece of the original rock left. In that chunk there was a signal, and when he hit it with his rock hammer, it opened along a fracture line and there was the gold! Nothing big, but the only gold we found that day. All the best, Lanny

I narrowed it down to my favourites per detector. If I was forced to narrow it down to 3 it would be the 10x5" Coiltek on the 6000 and the 15" CC and 8" on the GPZ, those two are very different in their application so I can't pick between them. If I was forced to pick a VLF I'd take the Manticore although I prefer using the GPZ and GPX now over VLF's, that took me years to decide but I just don't really enjoy VLF's now looking for gold. I haven't gelled with the 12x7", its lack of edge sensitivity really bothers me and I just prefer the 10x5" and saying something like the 12x7" will give more depth doesn't overly matter, if I wanted that I'd stick with the stock 11" as it gives more depth than both of them while maintaining almost all of the sensitivity, so the 10x5" is more for the shape and size than anything and the 11" for all other applications, the 11" is a stock coil that's actually really good, apart from its quality issues it's a hot good coil and the aftermarket coils aren't overly necessary unless size matters. Something else too, I've probably had the 12x7" on the GPX the most as I've been too lazy to take it off 🙂 I've given it a good chance.

I doubt it has anything to do with the Storm. I worked sales all my life and you only do something like this when you find your inventory is way out of whack. Minelab USA must have vastly overestimated demand for the detector and got caught with a warehouse full. So more likely that Deus 2 and Legend had an impact than worrying about a detector that is vapor so far. Companies don’t give profits away for no reason and clearing an overstock fast is the only reason that makes business sense here. The fact it puts a hurt on the competition is likely just a happy side effect. That’s why you only see it happening here in the states as inventories elsewhere are probably more in line with what they should be.

At least you guys in the US get the Minelab sale, even in Australia when it's an Australian company their "Anniversary" sale doesn't exist. A bit like the Military discount, give it to the US veterans but not the Anzacs (Aussies/Kiwis) So, they celebrate their 35th Anniversary in the USA, but nowhere else, even their homeland! Nothing more than a pre-emptive strike at the pending Storm that let's face it, is a detector that will mostly only be sold in the USA and trying to pair back some sales going to other brands. Minelab have given themselves a unique position for a business, loved for their detectors, disliked for their business methods.

My Manticore has paid for itself with finds already and I traded in another Minelab detector to a great dealer who is a member of this forum and that deal was good for both of us. The brick and mortar dealers are the ones that are really getting the finger. Minelab could show some respect to their “loyal” customers who paid full retail price for their Manticore and gives us a factory direct 30% discount on the coil of our choice or a WM09………. similar to what Nokta did when they released a coil and shaft upgrade for the Legend. I’m not holding my breath on that happening.

good on you

All I can say is, for the price, I'm impressed after seeing the Nokta FindX. I'm not a fan of the pole mount control housings in general, but this is better than some. The unit telescopes way down which is nice. Hard to see if the shafts are round, but all they need do (if not) would be to make the handgrip/pod rotate into being parallel with the searchcoil folded flat and you could likely get this in a backpack. OK, we have wired headphones, but there are dedicated headphone kits available where the transmitter is hard-wired to the "audio out" and then wireless to the headphones. A wireless pinpointer could then pair with the headphones. If you could put that wired transmitter under the arm cup, you would then have counterbalance for even the minimal 2.6 pounds it weighs! OK, maybe it won't hang with the big boys in highly negative ground (as far as anyone knows yet), but I bet it does just as well or better as most single frequency VLF Motion's in the recent past. Battery source: 2300 mAh Lithium Polymer... Not too shabby. Most of all, I'm impressed with the simple-to-the-point layout of the display and controls in thumb's reach. Maybe the ID number size is smaller than some, but possibly looks to be readable without glasses. I like the fact the lower shaft fastens to the center of the searchcoil. That goes a long way to help lessen "toe heavy" large searchcoils if attachment is below center instead. We have a global economy, whether we like it or not, and competition is a good thing. We as consumers get what we want at a better price it now seems. Like "phrunt" says, "Good on ya Nokta"!

I'm out of likes just on this post today! We need more pics from you! We know Simon and the others have plenty!😆🍀👍👍

See if you can get lidar imagery of the area. Prospect pits/spoil piles are easy to see on those, but they have the be high resolution imagery. In the US a lot of the lidar is still the low resolution and the prospects are harder/impossible to see on it, I'm not sure about Australia resolutions.

A few weeks back my buddy and I braved a snow storm to get to a site that had an open window of opportunity. If we didn't go now we wouldn't be able to get back in until early June because of ranch activity. When we arrived there at 9 am there was 1" of snow on the ground and the storm had subsided. I had both the Deus 2 and Manticore with me but decided to start off with the Manticore and 11" coil. Manticore settings were AT General, 1 region all tones, recovery 5, sensitivity 22, stock ferrous limits, normal audio with a simple profile. Worst part about hunting snow covered ground is the build up you get on the coil, requiring cleaning every few minutes. We hunted for a few hours and for the most part finds were few and far between. I think I had a few small cuff buttons and a percussion cap in my pouch. At about 1 pm the snow started to fall again, so we decided to call it and work our way back to the truck. As I rounded a bush I got a solid 24 on the Manticore and in my mind I thought this could be a gold coin, knowing from testing that the type 1 $1 comes up 23-24. As I was digging the hole I heard thumping and brush crashing to my left to see a moose running past me, stopping just long enough to take a look at me. Taking out a few shovel fulls of soil, the edge of the 1850 $1 gold coin was visible in one of the dirt clods and came from a depth of about 7 inches. I called my buddy over to take a look and take pictures as I broke it from the dirt and put some water on it. Turns out it was worth braving the elements. For those interested, the ID for US gold coins on the Manticore are Type 1 $1 23-24 Type 2 & 3 $1 20-21 $2 1/2 37-38 $5 50-51 $10 65-66 $20 76-78.

a dip in the ground where water settles more causing it to be greener?

September 23 2002 The Gold Fades Conor and I did the gold cleanup today while Jacob and Clay worked the dig site and hauled pay. The gold weigh was disappointing and surprised us. There were 35.5 ounces. This was about a third less gold than the last cleanup gave us and I was puzzled. However, Jacob told the crew he thought he knew why the gold total had dropped. He said that he was no longer digging at the bedrock level he had been at but now digging at the top of a new area where the bedrock dropped deeper as he had shown me. Therefore, the gravels from this weigh were well above bedrock but still fairly rich in gold. He continued on to say that what he believed about a huge pot of gold in the bottom of this digsite should still be correct. The only way we would know for sure was to find it. Our gold count from this pit now total’s a whopping 419.7 ounces. Our total for the year now sits at 1115.9 ounces. Jacob actually believes that we could double this total when our current pit is finished. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Attended Gerry's class this weekend and did not go home empty handed. Found my first two nuggets! A .42 and a .25 gram. Using my Manticore and the M8. Dime is for size reference only. Happy as could be! - Dave

@Rivers rat,a massive Happy Birthday for today fella,hope you have a fabulous day.

A few more photos of the Aurora Lights viewed over the weekend from various places around the Queenstown area. Very spectacular. I believe Mitchel is heading for Queenstown. D4g

And Now the rest of the story by the man that found the medallion, Louis Haynes -- Former Soldier Using a Metal Detector Receives New Orders, Medallion Return When I received the X-Terra 505 metal detector from Metal Detectors 4 Veterans I would have never guessed that I would be assigned a mission to complete, one bound by honor and respect. Discovering the Gold Star Pilgrimage Medallion made by Tiffany & Co. in 1930 for the mothers and wives of fallen soldiers in World War 1, bound me to do my best to return it to the family of the fallen soldier. Although these events took place well before my life began, he is my brother-in-arms and I was honor bound. Even if that were not the case, the courage and love of his mother, that drove her to travel far from Utah to see his final resting place deserved respect and recognition. The soldier was Private Hubert Hyrum Burns from Randlett/Leota, Utah. When Hubert Hyrum Burns was born on 25 February 1895, in Pima, Graham, Arizona, United States, his father, Jacob Armstead Burns, was 31 and his mother, Rebecca Fannie Weech, was 24. He lived in Cove, Union, Oregon, United States in 1910. He registered for military service in 1917. He died on 4 June 1918, in Château-Thierry, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France, at the age of 23, and was buried in Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France. As I read this obituary from over a century passed the mission brief came into focus, for me any way. You see Hubert Burns spent his childhood in the mountains of Northeastern Oregon, in the same small mountain valley that I was born in, in 1966. I was raised 13 miles from Cove, Oregon in LaGrande, Oregon. Coincidence? I will have to let the reader decide for themselves. At the age of 23 he was engaged in combat for our nation on foreign soil. At the age of 23 I was leading a scout platoon with K troop, 3rd Squadron, 3rd armored Cavalry Regiment in Desert Storm. To add a little more to the mix, his family migrated from Oregon to Utah to engage in mining activities including Gilsonite, where my family on my mother’s side migrated, leaving mining behind, from Utah to that small valley in Oregon around the same time. His mother Rebecca Fannie Burns attended the Gold Star Pilgrimage to visit his final resting place and received the medallion with the serial number 2923, that I found, onboard ship as it sailed to Europe in a formal ceremony. To say the task of locating family was daunting is an understatement. I reached out to one of the metal detecting groups I found on Facebook, Utah Metal Detecting and a member there, Brandy Reynolds. (Need Info) provided a link to documents online titled: A LIST OF MOTHERS AND WIDOWS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS SAILORS AND MARINES ENTITLED TO MAKE A PILGRIMAGE TO THE WAR CEMETERIES IN EUROPE. https://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:458977#?xywh=-1591%2C-76%2C5577%2C2999&cv= Without Brandy’s assistance I don’t know if I would have ever made the link to the Burns family. Thank you, Brandy!! Through this list I identified one mother from Uintah County, Utah that requested a trip. In the official record, the County name is misspelled and her name is incorrect but her last name was correct. Armed with this information I reached out to Errol E. and Darlene Burns. As the former Public Affairs Officer for the Ashley National Forest, I had worked with Darlene when she served as a County Commissioner for Uintah County. Must be because we live in a small community that this fell into place, or was it? Again, I must let the reader decide. Armed with a telephone number, and the only thing to lose was sounding really strange leaving a message about a medallion from 1930, and a name that was hopefully a relative. I left the message in hopes that it would not be a dead-end. Several hours following my message I received an excited phone call from Darlene. The name I had was incorrect but lined up with the rest of the story about losing a son in the war and taking a trip. As fate would have it, Errol who is 87 years old is the grandson, and his sister, Ellen Burns Galley who is 90 years old is the granddaughter, of Rebecca Fannie Burns, who long ago traveled to France to visit the final resting place of Private Hubert Hyrum Burns, her eldest son. I was able to return the medallion to the grandson and granddaughter to remember the sacrifices their family has made for our nation, and the strength, courage and determination of a mother’s love to see the final resting place of her eldest son on foreign soil. As we talked about the parallels of our family personal histories the Burns family repeated to me again and again, that I was meant to find and return this medallion. All I can say is, Mrs. Rebecca Fannie Burns and Private Hubert Hyrum Burns, the mission has been completed. May your family, and all who have read this story, always remember your strength, courage, determination and sacrifice.

I just received my new weapon, a 10x6" coil for the Algoforce, and of course the GPX. I haven't weighed it yet, I'd have to take it off to do that and just put it on not long ago so I'll get to that at some point, all I know is its light, and on the light detector like the Algoforce feels like it weighs nothing, at least compared to detectors I'm more used to swinging. X-coils have certainly improved their coil cables a lot on these newer GPX coils over the old ones, the cable feels very nice. They make their own custom cables for their coils rather than using existing cables from the market as they like to do different shielding methods in the cable. As you can see, it calibrates fine. I haven't renamed the slot it's in yet, I just used the end slot as I use that slot for coils I don't regularly use for testing. I will end up using the 12x8" slot for it. I tested on a deep coin I've got in my yard, no problems getting the ID on it, sensitivity was on 24 out of 30, pretty stable on that setting, so the smaller coils helping nicely with EMI. I wound the sensitivity back to 20 and still getting the ID fine, that's pretty good for a 10x6" coil on such a deep coin, well ahead of a VLF with a 10x5" coil or 6" round coil for sure on the results there. The coin is somewhere between 25 and 30 cm deep and has been there for many years now. I tested on shot pellets, a lead 7 1/2 is as small as it will hit, and hits a #6 lead with a nice scream and over an inch depth. Perhaps slightly behind the 10" full spiral X-coil on tiny targets, but not by all that much. I'll have to compare it to my Coiltek 10x5" Joey being the closest coil I've got to this 10x6" in size. All in all, looking good, I hope they end up re-releasing Legacy GPX coils now the Algoforce is out. Please note they don't sell this coil, or any other legacy GPX coil, but it's promising to see them developing new test coils and I hope they make it to market at some point.

Help? It's only 2100 acres 😁

Northern NV. Too much snow for snakes yet. But they will pop out soon.