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We'll i finally got to join the 1oz+ club!! My buddy Dave and i headed to Gold Basin for a half day trip. We hit our usualy spot and split up. I headed to a wash that i found a 5.4 gram piece a couple of weeks ago. I didnt hit the whole wash, so i figured id start where i left off. A bit later, i get a nice signal by a bush in the middle of the wash. It turned out to an 8 gram specie with some dark host rock mixed in. 10 feet away in the bank of the wash i get another screeming signal. This was the flat nugget, also about 8 g. I radioed Dave to tell him the good news. The next couple of hours there was nothing except a couple of meteors. I decided to hit the bottom end of that same wash on my way back to the truck. After a bit i get a nice signal in the wash, it was the .8g flat piece. The wash had widened out, and the bedrock was deeper, so i wasnt detecting to slow wgen i got a slight sound. I thought it was just ground noise because i was running the GPZ hot at 18 sensitivity and high yield and normal ground. I did a scrape and the sound was still there. I took about 6 inches off with the pick and the sound seemed more distinct. I fugured it wasnt mineralization but rather trash because the dirt was silt, not hard pack. I kep widening and deepening the hole and when i got to over a foot it was screeming. I was figuring tin can ir something. After about 6 more digs and around 2ft deep. I get it out of the hold. I did reach bedrock so i was feeling hopeful. It turned out to be a 1.41 (OZ) nugget and a pretty one at that, with a bit of quartz. I finally joined the club. I feel like i deserve a patch or something lol. I radioed Dave to tell him the good news, and he was eccited for me. (He was already a member pf the club) a bit under 2 oz for the day. I took Dave to the wash, with his big coil on the GPZ, to try to score him a big nugget, no luck. We packed up and headed home. oh and i finally paid for my GPZ in nuggets ...and some. thanks Chris

I had 4-days for a hunt at Rye Patch which really ends up being a good 3 days behind the coil. My goal for this many days is always 1/4 ounce in the poke! First morning I, added 4 nuggets to the poke, but nothing all afternoon! What's up with that, not much weight but well over a pennyweight. A good nights sleep and off I went the next morning, which fell into late afternoon with only 4 more nuggets, but one was over 2 dwts alone. After soaking them in CLR, I tossed them on the scale 4.2 dwts! My goal was in site, as I plotted my battle plan for the next morning before I fell asleep. The next morning, I put my thoughts into action. I figured I only needed 1 dink nugget 2 at the most. Well I ended up with 3 and was happy that my scale didn't let me down, settling down at 6.57 dwts. No easy duck nuggets on this trip, all well earned with intense concentration and extra slow coil swing. The GPZ, is and amazing machine, but you still have to get that coil over that nugget...and there's the struggle! I hope my next trip is a no-brainer and the nuggets just jump on my coil. Set a goal for yourself and work hard to achieve it...Until the next hunt! LuckyLundy

Hi all, some of you have known me for many years as Mlgdave, owner of Goldbay.com and now I also own The Colorado Quartz Gold mine in California and ramping back up to run and mine 140 and 180 feet underground. This week me and my partner worked an old stope and found and extracted a killer piece! (more to come) I am living at the mine full time and should have some good stories and finds for you guys over the next few months/years Mlgdave

I applaud his effort, I will sit through anything to learn something about gold and how to better to find it.

he is too hyper for me...but, there are a few nuggets to be found in his show...you just have to mentally shovel a lot of overburden ...or not. That is why we get to choose... fred

Nice finds! You and Lunk are human vacuum cleaners at Rye Patch - kudos.

Beautiful! I want a tour too :) Some nice pics here of the Colorado: https://collectorsedge.com/pages/the-colorado-quartz-mine-mariposa-county-california

Hi Diggers Pieter and Debra was visiting me and my family today, he is on his way to France now. Go And visit him in France soon to do some detecting for the old stuf, like celtic and roman. Regarts from Holland Gerrit He stil lives in Quatszite

Just wondered if anybody here in the US knows of author and prospector Pieters whereabouts? Some old friends and I had a lot of fun prospecting Western Australia with them back in the mid nineties, while he and Debbie were living at Gwalia WA. As far as I know he left years ago. Steve: Apologies if this is off topic or in the wrong place, please feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate. Thanks! Juvenile fun in the "outback" Left to Right: Me, the late Jim Stewart, Debbie, Reg Wilson, Pieter Heydelaar, John Hider Smith. Pieter with a fuel tank off a Soyuz spacecraft. He had a good meteorite collection as well. A much younger me (with camera) and Australian detecting legend and prospecting buddy Jim Stewart:

Well done, congratulations. I bet you will wake up during the night a few times and give your container a rattle, just to make sure it's real. Maybe tomorrow night as well.

Look at that magic stuff. You beauty.

Congratulations Chris!!!!! that is a spectacular nugget.

One of my early vlf prospecting detectors , it's a minelab but I can't find any history on the unit . It was one of the first units to offer a high and low mineralisation switch and a ten turn GB but not much else , it was converted to hip mount hence the fox like plug where the handle would normally be , there's no information on it on the Minelab site. So if any body remembers it they might be able to fill in the gaps on specs etc.

can't take it for 27 minutes....

Lunk, is Awesome! Brian, the ground is perfect...but, had to work hard for this poke! I like easy diggin's, lol Rick

Congratulations Rick, nice pile of nuggets.

Definitely not my style.

They're the exact 4 controls I'd want on a v2 SDC2300 ....and maybe tone as well. I think the Eldorado's were about 8 kHz, same as the Goldseekers. You can still download the Goldseekers manual here: http://www.minelab.com/__files/f/4108/Inst Manual Goldseeker 15000 Website.pdf

I dont prospect but the ID is so good for single frequency I think I'm gonna snag a G2+ to pair with my omega for those spots emi shuts it down or rare relic hunt. I think this is only a sales move. Nothing new but a pin pointer coming out this year that I know of.

Wow, that’s a smoking deal for sure - $300 off the G2+ - may need to upgrade my G2. Except it sure makes a guy wonder why all the deep discounting. New machines in the wings? Or sales just lagging? I love the series but I always thought the G2+ and F19 were overpriced compared to the T2 and F75, and that was before those detectors went down in price. Right now before this sale kicked in the G2+ ($699) was $200 more than a T2 Classic ($499), which makes no sense to me. The G2+ at $449 seems more in line with where it should be. Got to be tough on dealers like you Craig - glad I don’t have to sweat stuff like that anymore. My favorite was Minelab loading me up with a “great deal” on the GP3000 then immediately coming out with the GP3500. Never made much on that deal!

Speaking of blowing out. G2+ and F19 are $449 MAP until 11/30/17!

I am a little overdue but just finished my latest update to Steve's Guide To Gold Nugget Detectors. The main changes: The 15 kHz Nokta FORS Gold was discontinued in January and replaced in the Nokta product lineup by the 19 kHz FORS Gold+. Dealer shelves should be empty by now so the model has been deleted from the listing. The Garrett AT Gold dropped from $679 to $639 changing its relative position on the list to a better position (best bang for buck are lower price units). At this price it is a real alternative to the Gold Bug Pro, especially for those wanting the detector to be waterproof. I fleshed out my "opinion" of the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 based on the latest information. White's discontinued the old basic White's MXT in favor of the MXT All Pro. The problem is this boosted the internet price from $729 to $823 and shifted the unit quite a bit higher in the listing. There is nothing about the added features for the extra $100 that makes the Pro a better nugget detector than the old version (though the ground grab is nice), so this ends up hurting the relative rating. At this point there are better options at lower prices and so for those looking to White's for a prospecting detector I would now lean much more heavily in favor of the $699 GMT. In theory the MX Sport at $749 is the better option than the MXT Pro but as far as I can tell the MX Sport has had no acceptance in the prospecting world, being marketing much more to the coin, jewelry and relic world. The latest ad in the ICMJ shows that White's now considers the GMT and TDI SL to be their two prospecting models. The Minelab Equinox 800 having a dedicated Prospecting Mode running at up to 40 kHz has been added to the list. Too early to know how that will shake out. I somewhat upgraded my opinion of the DEUS based on the prospecting capability added by the new HF coils, but in the end this still is a VLF detector selling for well over a thousand dollars that can find gold nuggets no better than much less expensive detectors. The main reason to own a DEUS is because you want the overall capability and like the way it is configured, not solely for its prospecting capability. I hope a HF coil as stock version is sold in the future at a much lower price. The White's TDI Pro was discontinued some time ago but I left it on the listing due to dealer stock still being available. They appear to be gone now, so this is another model retired from the list. I somewhat downgraded my opinion of the Garrett ATX based mostly on the Minelab GPX 4500 now only being a few hundred dollars more in the U.S., and actually less expensive than the ATX in Australia ($3999 ATX vs $3550 GPX 4500) Finally, my three Steve's Picks remain the same this year as the Fisher Gold Bug 2 (specialized tiny gold sniper), Fisher Gold Bug Pro (general purpose detector hot on gold), and Minelab GPX 5000 (versatile PI performance for all conditions).

It's funny Steve, because you know how we get charged a premium over here for stuff, well my Dealer sold me my MXT All Pro 2 years ago for about $719.19 and I got one for someone the other day ( just over a week ago) for the same price, other dealers are charging $915.69, and I only paid $786.00 for the GMT, And you are right about the MX Sport, to this day I have never seen a person using one, the trend seems to be for the Nokta/Makro GBP and GB2 etc and of coarse the new ML machines, but even with the limited offerings it's a fun time to be buying VLFs because there is something for every budget. J.

Heck! You've got me blushing with those kind words Reg! Not in the same league as you though. Off topic, but for those who like gold pics, Here's the real "Proof of the pudding" and no prototypes involved!

Ditto Lunk, we re gonna light up the DetectorProspector guys! Mlgdave

Well, the biggest problem with the list is it reflects more of a Yank perspective. Aussies would see things a little differently no doubt. Time to start your own list Nenad! I will delete the GPX 4800 reference and look at incorporating the AU Gold Finder into the list - basically just a Gold Racer variant. I clean forgot about it even though I still have one. It has had minimal visibility on the market here so it’s easy to overlook. Frankly Nokta and the Gold Finder in particular suffer a little from the Kellyco association as not everyone is a fan of the company. That and Kellyco now charging $999 (up from $749) for the dual coil package when the Gold Racer Pro Pack sells for $899 is not helping either. Thanks for the feedback!