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Nuggets from the Poseidon Rush. Left: "The Christmas Box" - 18 December 1906 Middle: "The Poseidon" - 18 December 1906 Right: "The Federal" - 12 December 1906 David Gordon Collection. Poseidon Nugget. This is the actual hole from which the monster nugget came to light in 1906. Looking west down the course of the lead. David Gordon Collection. The above images are from the excellent Tarnagulla.Org website. Well worth a visit. Found only a few small pieces here personally, but was following up on Jim Stewart, Reg Wilson and John Hider Smith. These guys didn't miss much!

The Poseidon Nugget’ was unearthed in the Parish of Waanyarra. The huge nugget weighed 953 oz gross and 703 oz net. Woodall and party found the nugget 10 inches underground, 2 inches above bedrock with much quartz. This find began the last of the big rushes to the area.[1906] On private land. This [Poseidon] was the last great alluvial rush in Victoria. 3000 were camped here in 1906 with store established catering for all the miners’ needs. One storekeeper was charged and fined for selling sly grog. The reef above and opposite the gully had been rushed in 1859, but this side neglected. It was nearly fifty years before John Porter testing the ground with a hand auger, found wash and sank a shaft onto nuggets. From its size, more large nuggets have come from this lead than any other in the world. 703 oz, 675 oz, thirteen others over 100 oz, nineteen from 50-99 oz, fifty two from 20-49 oz and two hundred and eight from 1-19 oz. ... the Premier awarded [James Porter] £500 for the discovery. He was the last man to receive a reward for the discovery of a new goldfield in Victoria.

Between work and projects I've managed to get out on a few hunts. I bought my buddy an equinox 800 since he has been kind enough to let me run all around his ranches as if I own them myself. He has showed some interest in detecting...he thinks he's going to find a 1 pound gold nugget . After spending some time showing him how it works...I'd mark a target and then have him go over it and then dig it...he started to get the hang of it. So on our second outing he goes and finds a 1855 seated quarter (like Deathrays) but not in nearly as good condition. He was stoked and I wish i had brought my camera with me so I could get a pic of him smiling and holding the coin. Been hitting some other locations near where I live. Old homesites and street tear outs. Day before yesterday was a quick but pleasant hunt. Dug the standing liberty and put it in my pocket so it would not get banged up in the pouch. I never look at items much in the field but wait till I get home. I was glad I put this coin in my pocket. I'm going to have to get it looked at just to make sure but I think it's the real deal. If anyone knows what the sun god thing was? kinda cool digging it and have that smiling back. HH to you all strick

Because of heat waves, vehicle trouble and well, almost a complete lack of motivation, I have done very little detecting this year. In the early days of the 5000 I got the bigger speci at Moliagul and it`s got about half a gram of gold in it. Since then I have gone over and over and over that area with the 5000, 2300 and 7000 for no result. Yesterday I was out there again and about 15 feet from the first specimen, I got the smaller one with the 7000. Very faint signal that just broke the threshold and about 6" deep. The bottom picture is the only bit of gold visible in it and is almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but the signal it`s giving off says there`s maybe a half a gram to a gram of gold in it. Once the better half has seen it I`m going to bust it open to see what`s inside but I think with this one I`m going to end up with a heap of small bits of quartz with a little bit of gold in them. Dave

Busting bedrock hasn't panned out that well, so I decided to heed Bill Southern's advice. I broke down the crust on the first pile, and started swinging the EQX 800. 15 minutes into it, and "bingo", nice little 3.2 grain nug, all rough and course like it hasn't traveled far? "This is going to be an EZ day" I'm pretty sure ran through my mind, since there were plenty of tailings' around? I guess the penny is somebody's idea of a "cruel joke"? At least it was shallow. Brett

We’ll see how cheeky you are when your chain breaks!,? Last time I let you watch me dig out a 3 ouncer!!

"need for removal of components and special tools required to revert back to original....." OK..... Im gonna catch it when I get back to OZ for this one....but i cant help myself.....? Special tools????-----------what? ---A Hex driver and a flat head screwdriver....... ? cmon mate... lololol----- Sorry it's my day off and I couldnt help myself!!!

Just locked in 5 days off from the 24th - 28th of May. Would be great to catch up with you somewhere in there Mitchel. I will not have any real set plans so will follow your trails during your first 2 weeks in Oz and firm something up a little closer to the time. Be great to catch up with Reg, JR, Geofjunk, Jin and others that might be around at that time ?

Clark thats good advice and I think I'll take it since I'm on a streak right now. Funny thing is I don't consider myself lucky. My mom on the other hand is always winning at bingo.... seems like every other week she's taking home over 1k in winnings lol. Me I don't gamble....even if theres a fifty/fifty chance I usually come out on the short end of the stick. I've always had the "hard work gets rewarded" type of attitude. When I told Lisa what the coin appeared to be she got a serious look on her face said I deserved it lol. Now if you believe all that I got an Island out in the middle of the desert I'll sell you. My Gold fox is supposed to be here tomorrow strick

The lesson here is this, hunt where gold has been found before, move rocks, rake the ground a little, they didn't get it all.....

Customs have been warned, what day are you flying in...……………….

We call that a fishing tool.

When I found my largest nugget I still remember my first thought: "Finally..." Don't give up Julie I can almost promise it will come out of nowhere. It will sound perhaps like another birdshot hit, or a piece of junk, but instead, there in your scoop, will be a beauty.

Be nice if they posted something on their home page on what is going on. They had so many loyal customers they just walked away from. Certainly not how I would do business.

From the perspective of just a guy just swinging his detector the effect of obsolescence and general market depreciation is a far greater threat to me than risking the warranty on a well engineered adaptation that increases my use and enjoyment. Warranties expire and nothing short of some miracle will get all your money back selling a used machine and if anything we may have missed the boat picking up a good deal on a used 2300 if these coils prove out as it looks, certainly got to be good for the folks that own one now.

Competition is a great motivator Steve, as a detector user that bodes well for my passion. ML have been alone in the desert doing their thing for a long time now yet they still continue to innovate and provide real improvements in their new products on a regular basis. BBS, MPS, FBS, DVT, FBSII, MPF, ZVT and Multi IQ with multiple model releases associated with a few of them. Maybe competition would be a good motivator to see more coil varieties? JP

Not exactly gold, but needless to say the Gold Monster went crazy! No problem picking it up at 18" deep. 28 lbs. Neal

Up in the foot hills there are some areas where the ground varies every 5 feet and the machine needed to be re manual ground balanced every 5 feet! so I gave up and switched to tracking and the machine ran better. Not perfect but better. In the ground down here in the bay area I do a manual ground balance as needed and the machine runs nice and smooth. When I get into a bunch of nails sometimes it's hard to find a clear spot to to a manual ground balance so I'll try the turn on and go method and just forget about ground balance.......sometimes ignorance is bliss as they say strick

Gerry- me thinks Wade needs a GPZ...but what do I know

Hahaha ... quit it... I'm already in trouble, ?

Special fishing tool

And that chain thing to wire your 8" back through the shaft

100% agree that use of 50 tones is situational. It is what I use most of the time, but I have no problem just switching Park 1 on and going with 5 tones and the other settings defaults for a casual coin shoot on a ball field or going with Field 1 on a dry beach and trying to cherry pick deep high conductors in 2-tones. For the same reasons Mitchel points out above, the limitations of the site (manicured lawn - meaning more precise/selective digging) or time available at a site will determine your approach (e.g., grid it vs. cherry picking vs. canvassing it with more than one mode or detector).

I already have all the Tesoros I need, hopefully they will keep finding me jewelry as long as I can keep digging!!! I just happened to be looking for a certain coil and noticed that the Compadres seemed to be out of stock on the dealers websites that I usually deal with. I live in the US but am currently traveling in OZ, NZ and Japan for work. That’s why I wasn’t sure about Tesoros website not loading, sometimes US sites don’t load properly from foreign servers. But alas, it appears to be down and inventory appears to be quickly running out. Ive said it before but I am so glad that I learned detecting with a Tesoro. I can confidently take a Mojave or Compadre into a playground after watching someone hunt it with another machine and know there will still be targets that were too close to the posts for them to find with anything else. Just a shame that Tesoro never found a proper way to market their machines and educate the users.

Thanks fellas. Once i looked it up i just wrapped it in tissue did not even rinse off the dirt so i guess ill send it in to be cleaned and graded by pcgs. Never did this before so its all very interesting and fun. I hear if you join then you get something like 2-3 free evaluations....

It would be great if Coiltek or Nuggetfinder made a waterproof potted coil for us California Motherload prospectors. 5x10ish size for chasing bedrock cracks. A lot of guys use the sdc in the creeks here as they are an absolute gold getter.

Old post but in case anybody is reading it. Please check out the Stealth Scoops from Sunspot. i consider them to be the perfect beach scoop. I use the 720i with a Carbon Fiber handle.

Gerry, Np at all my friend. I appreciate your assistance on the effort. Yeah I try to be resourceful and just use the info you gave me and got hooked up with him. I will let you know for sure once it arrives and how I like it. Hopefully I can fit this into my case without having to break down the detector with this new Shaft. James

Well, we need to remember this is still a prototype, not a production unit. Personally, I have mixed feelings about knobs. I like them from an operational aspect. I dislike them because they collect grit and are an inevitable failure point - the more knobs, the more chance of one failing. There is something to be said for a seamless sealed pod from that perspective. I prefer something like Garrett did on the ATX myself, but that’s just me. I don’t see the point in the shaft attachment design unless there is a possibility of the cable running up the rod, which might be the case. Again, this is a pre-production prototype so we don’t know for sure on anything.

Yeah, if this ends up being over 2K I will probably take a pass and wait for more models to appear.

I am pretty interested in a nugget version of this AQ, initial tests show this AQ is near on par with depth of a gpx with a 15" coil. Due to the 7 usec timing it would make a killer small nugget machine once setup with AUTO GROUND BALANCING for the desert. I want something like this to keep tuned just for small nugget hunting, its so lightweight compared to a minelab big gold machine I could see owning one maybe if it pans out.

I baby my equipment, should have it for quite a while. If it fails and I can't fix it i'll bronze it and hang it on my wall ?

ah but there`s the thing Lunk. I have never been able to solve a rubix cube in my life. The only reason I own that rubrics cube is one day, on a completely unrelated search, I came across a site that claimed to be able to solve any rubics cube in 19 moves or less, and I bought the cube to see if it was true. It is ? http://rubiksolve.com/

There a some very knowledgeable experts here on all kind of rocks so thought I’d ask if anyone here was familiar with this type of quartz crystal and what the host rock and inclusions might be? In the close up’s the gold color is a bit washed out and pale, but under a loop it’s at least interesting looking and crystalline in structure with a pleasant goldfish color. My wife bought them 10-15 years back although I’m not sure who she got them from she said the quartz came from Brazil, I don’t know anything else on their origin or value. They are cut and polished in a way to magnify the little bit of host rock matrix and little inclusions inside the quartz crystal.

Wow! An 8 over 7 Standing Liberty!!!!! I would love to find any year date of a standing liberty. Wonderful relics also!

nice looking set of specimens.

I can attest to that. Great design Steve!

I didn't see this linked anywhere else yet - if it has been then please delete this Steve. Anchor from the richest shipwreck in history, supposedly in around 300 ft. of water. I'd be tempted to take a few weeks off and do some technical diving if I was any closer. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/anchor-found-cornwall-fresh-clue-14080977

Strick, Awesome hunt, awesome finds and even more, awesome photos! Thanks for the huge look!

Wow!! Strick......amazing finds! Congrats!

I'm gonna quit going on-and-on about this find someday, but not today! Take a look at this recent auction result: https://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/item/1918-7-s-25c/5726/708416142091251220 Compare the stars on the shield and especially the date. A lot depends upon how your coin cleans up, but if well then yours blows away this one in terms of attractiveness. Your coin has such a strong date.

Smart man, and even more patient and disciplined. Lots of people rub the heck out of the coin in the field and then rationalize "I knew it wasn't going to be worth much...." This is an example where they would have been wrong, wrong, wrong, and very costly. You did well and you deserve whatever it turns out to be worth, whether you keep it, sell it, whatever. I'm still in awe that you found this coin. If someone told me s/he read a post on a website that someone found a 1918/17-S quarter in this condition while metal detecting I wouldn't have believed them.

My first nugget (.3 g or something) was found on the BlackJack claim out there. It has since been reduced in size and the dry washers have hit it hard in the last 7 years since then. I found a specimen out there with the 800 last year on open ground. It is hard to figure out the claim status out there now because there are a lot of lode claims that are only paper messing up the system. There is still gold on the surface and other gold too.

At Yorktown we fought back with a French army - our oldest ally. There is a memorial at yOrktown to the 600 French soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in the cause of American freedom at Yorktown and the naval battle of the Virginia Capes which made the siege of Yorktown a success.

It’s always nice when manufacturers pay direct attention to their customers. Good job Trevor and thanks!

I recall a big nugget found in California a few years back. It was called the 'Washington' Nugget, and sold for $460,000.

I now have one on the way to me. Excited to get this worked out ?

I was one of the contributors...and being here in England didn't receive my cheque for a couple of articles till much later...then when I paid it in, it was returned to me! (As well as bounced fees) Of course I haven't lost as much as you folk who have subscribed to the magazine, and I certainly am sympathetic as well as sharing that feeling of a kick in the nuts! I hope fate balances it all out by giving you a 20 Dollar bit on your next hunt out, and a nice gold Guinea for me! All the best, Darren Clarke

JW, looks like Simon had some essential information that cleared up what seemed to me to be somewhat ambiguous, so now I have to rethink what I rethought and that might help me to re-image my previous confusion . . . All the best, Lanny

Hello, everybody! My name is Bill Burke. I have been participating in a placer operation in the Melozitna district. With 5 members, sometimes it feels like the tail is wagging the dog. I'm still wet behind the ears, but seem to learn a thing or two each season. I want to learn about using a detector to evaluate overburden and tailings piles. It also seems to be a good idea to vacuum each cut with a suction dredge before turning it into the next settling pond. It's a good time of year to spend time on the internet. Bill