Leaderboard

Most of my finds pale into insignificance compared to some of the great gold that is displayed on this forum, but it is what it is. I got out for a couple of hours yesterday and got this piece about 10 mins after I got there, then nothing. The good thing about this spot is there is not a great deal in the way of rubbish, so I`m going to spend a bit more time there and hope a few more pieces pop up. Dave

first New Zealander I came across was in Saudi - 40 years ago or so. big guy - the ex-RAF Brits on the job had nicknamed him “Boot” Stupid me - I had to ask. Here was the answer...

17 x 12 Spiral, pings tiny .1 gram bits no worries. Pain in the butt digging them but sometimes they lead to bigger and better chunks as was the case for me today. 76 grams at 18 inches, any detector would have heard it, same with the 6 gram bit. 14 gram bit was a different story, 20 inches down and very quite but definitely a dig me signal. With the X running so quiet it was no worries. A bloody pleasure to use, a complete contrast to my stock 14” which is so touch and knock sensitive, it’s had a hard life so maybe just worn out but it never ran as quite as the X.

Just some stats for those who may wonder about such things. In the last year (July 2018 - July 2019) this website had just over 350,000 unique visitors (each person counted once, not every time they post). The top ten countries.... United States 55.5% Australia 13.93% United Kingdom 8.22% Canada 2.45% France 1.19% Germany 1.18% Italy 1.06% Netherlands 0.99% Turkey 0.92% Russia 0.71%

Yep near or across the street from the courthouse...I'm sure Steve has been there...My wood shop teacher from high school lives in Reno half the year the other half he lives near me...he even told me about it so it's no big secret... Now that I think about it I'm wondering what my Ex did with her ring? strick

I've taken a gold wedding band and tied a length of good fishing line to it and purposely dropped it in the surf just to see what happens. What I've noticed, if my feet sink into the sand the ring will vanish under the surface quickly but if the sand is packed, (my feet don't sink), the ring will stay on the surface and be move around somewhat as the surf moves in and out. I know that sound risky but I use high quality, test line, not junk. It can be an eye opener at times.

X still producing on the little run. Didn’t want to take the 17x12 off the Zed and use the 19. Coiltek 18” pinged a fair percentage of these, punches deep.

This is what I was getting at too when I asked JP about Manual last page. Since Manual stays balanced to the ferrite, and the ferrite balance is supposed to be the best, I can't understand what the purpose of manual is at all since Semi Auto also stays balanced to the ferrite and also tracks to the ground as the coil moves which should be the best possible ground balance. I didn't see the purpose for either Auto or Manual anymore, that being the case. The only thing that makes sense to me is when you want to be unbalanced to the ground for some reason. This used to be a technique with VLFs to filter some hotrocks out or make them sound more obvious. The GPZ to me feels like a mega VLF acting like a PI so there might be some use for a technique such as that in hot ground - I'm not in hot ground enough to have really tried anything like that though. The only other reason I could think of is in soil that doesn't change hardly at all - at which point maybe Manual completely bypasses some GB filtering circuitry and in fact does get slightly better depth?

MLs got their finger on the pulse no doubt, X coil & Coiltek SDC coils are probably just an annoyance to them. No massive $s to be made for a big company, but down here at the customer coal face some of us are having a ball. Buh...…... if X coil or whatever coils increases some of our yields, that`s the go for us. Off today for some more Xn………..

**** TRIP 2 **** The main purpose was actually to test ferrite balance in saturated ground, but I wasn't going to drive back to the first areas I spoke of. That is way too far for some simple testing. I have another area where I found my first gold patch. Strangely enough it was on a GPAA claim. Who would have thunk. Those claims are beaten down and squeezed dry, right? Me and a friend both laugh about this place. We very often go back to the general area to beat down the skunk. After getting out to the claim at midnight, I set up the detector. Surprisingly, ground balance was fine and so was the ferrite balance. So much for testing that. Next best goal for testing is to determine if the 10" coil gets gold missed by others. Well this place has been hit by every machine you can think of, including the VLF's. Well after checking the main hillside area, I had nothing. Only one boot tack I found that everyone missed. Then I headed down to the stream where I had found gold before. Lots of pieces had been found here. But the area had been worked hard by drywashers and detectors, too. My buddy with an SDC2300 basically cleaned this place out. Last time I was here, I got the skunk. It was starting to look the same this time. But then after hitting the sides of the wash, I got clear signal. And by the way my rule for this hunt was that I wasn't going to get down and dirty and make the gold appear by using the tricks of the trade like digging out areas and moving rocks. I wanted to see if got what other machines had missed, not what other techniques had missed. But nobody should have missed this signal. There actually seemed to be a couple signals. The first two signals were the biggest pieces. But I kept hearing more and more signals. I dug down another 4-5 inches through the schist and pulled out another 4pcs for a total of 6 (all of which in a 2'x2' area). I had hit this specific spot before and found gold about 10' away. But here I am with more. I am not really sure how the larger pieces were not heard with the GPX5000 I used previously down this wash. So I still have no conclusion on the ferrite ring other than I know I can use the other coil to lock in the ferrite balance, so I am not too concerned. Does this coil find what other machines cannot see, well that is hard to say. I know SDC,GPX and GPZ's have been over these areas. I think a lot of the gold on the hillside patch was gone over. I may have just been lucky on this spot. But it *is* strange that it was not far under the bush or hidden or difficult to reach. Anyways, not much to conclude with this test other than this coil operated smoothly at this location and still finds gold. I do really like the small pinpoint accuracy of this coil and how light it is. Not very big gold (total of 2 grams), but I am only showing it to give an idea of its capability in the states. It does seem to add an inch or two depth on the .1g pieces. This is what I would expect for a 10" coil.

Well we finally got thru obligatory rehab work, and we dryblowing work. Drove the backhoe to the next area and decided to scrape a little while we were there... Glory be!!! 10grams right off. Most were in the dirt above the cap. Did a repeat the second day with 16grams? Got most of the gear ready to go... piddling today...enjoyed Sunday with a couple of mates. Getting my camper all ready to go bush... I repaired some tears and old loose seams yesterday with a Speedy Stitcher... handy tool to have if you ever have to sew canvas....works like a charm Built a new battery/propane housing frame on the tongue so I can boondock with 2 propane and 2 deep cycle batteries on hand. Also got a Yagi antenna from Trent that should give me Internet... that will be crazy out where I’m going... I already took the water trailer with 250 gallons down day before yesterday. Hopefully this area will keep producing well for us. Picture of me below shows how I love dryblowing.

Nice piece! No rubbish is a good place to be.

Hi Brian… and welcome to the forum!!! In addition to "no tide" you didn’t mention whether you are anticipating detecting small freshwater lakes with little or no wave action or larger lakes with wave action. So I’ll address both scenarios to supplement what has already been said above. Success at the small lakes will depend on day-use bather numbers and on the type of bottom substrate. The bottom substrate could range from a hard clay or hardpack gravel bottom that will hold targets, to some combination of soft mud, silt and sand mixture that allows targets to quickly sink out of detection range. If the latter, and bather usage is reasonably high, you may need to detect these on a regular basis while the targets are still detectable. Try these sites and your experience will dictate whether they are worth your time and effort. Many freshwater pond and river “swimholes” have been around a long time, and may or not see much present day usage. It could very well be a case of cleaning it out on a one-time basis and moving on to other productive sites. Again, your on-site experience will help you with that decision. We search generally larger lakes here in Ontario, that do have good wave action as a result of the prevailing winds and of course from summer heat that develops on-shore breezes. These factors facilitate the creation of a series of sandbank-trough-sandbank-troughs in the lakeshore shallows, sometimes extending out to shoulder depth, but that also conveniently run parallel to the shoreline. The sandbanks tend to be hardpacked such that small rings remain detectable for several days to several weeks, whereas coins and tokens typically remain within detection range for a much longer duration. The troughs are normally clay-gravel hardpack swept clean by water action, hence all targets remain detectable for many years subject of course to any sandbar movement over extended periods of time. We hunt these troughs routinely because they’re wonderfully productive for gold and silver jewelry at high day-use beaches, and incidentally freshwater is much less aggressive with silver coins and jewelry than saltwater. Even nickels lost nearly a century ago surface looking quite presentable as per the photo below. Most of my jewelry finds are recovered in knee-to-shoulder deep water. Lakies’ rings are more commonly found in shallow waters due to playing with their small children. Men’s rings are much more widely distributed. Sandbanks and the shallows are areas for throwing beachballs and frisbees, and other horseplay. The bottom substrate can play a role too, for example if there are rocky formations near or at the shoreline at a popular beach, those rocks are magnets for men’s wedding bands. Now just a word of caution. Stay alert to small storm drains and creeks entering unfamiliar beach areas where you search. Summer flows normally are quite low or non-existent, but immediately after storms or in the early spring these discharge points can be raging torrents that over many years may have hollowed-out quite a steeply-banked underwater channel running out into the lake. Perhaps no issue for bathers, but for a detectorist loaded-up with gear the channel slopes can trap and pull you quickly into deep water. Water hunting for coins and jewelry as pictured below can be very rewarding particularly if you have access to countless inviting freshwater beaches that exist here in Ontario. But all you need is one good, productive beach that gets a lot of day use bathers and you can return at regular intervals and do quite well. Good luck Brian, and please don’t forget to post about your adventures to this forum..................... Jim.

Pam, you didn't say where you were hunting, turf, beach or what. Here is my advice. Pick a program that you like the way the audio sounds. Lower the disc to -30. Nothing notched. Put it in 3 frequency correlate mode. Set the Correlate setting to somewhere between 5 and 10 points. The default is 20 points and that is too big....10 is good, try for 8. 8 will give more trash rejection. And then just dig whatever gives a good repeatable response. You should be able to cover ground and get your coil over more likely ring targets and skip a lot of trash. Remember that Correlate is comparing the two strongest reporting frequencies. Due to the nature of the frequency selection, one of those frequencies will always be 7.5 kHz. It is easy to correlate high conductors because 2.5 kHz is close to 7.5 kHz, however.... For low conductors, there is a greater span between 22.5 kHz and 7.5 kHz. This means its harder to correlate targets between these two frequencies. So when you use fewer correlate points it removes a lot of low conductive trash. Rings conduct a lot better than most low conductive trash so you can keep most rings responding in a narrower correlated window. Bottom line is that you cover more ground and are only hearing and digging signals that have better chances of being a ring. Hope that that helps, Good luck, Mike

This month in 1979 I bought my first metal detector a Bounty Hunter RB7, took me almost 3 years of pure frustration to get my first nugget,(pic below) after many 100s of hours, I know now I sure went over heaps of detectable gold, and still do, but not the heaps I went over then,...…...I hope...……... Below is some photos, I wish to share with DP members to celebrate, unfortunately I did not take many photos, straight into the crusher smelted down and off to the mint, have scanned what I could find from the old "shoe boxes". Plus a couple of recent ones, the specimen last is highly magnified, gold in limestone, and although no weight is probably the most valued by me, not just because it was my first piece (found with that RB7), but because of its uniqueness. Consider myself very privileged to live in this era, it has enriched my life not just in its monetary value, but given a challenge and still does that I suspect has no equal. MN I`ve gone and done it and not even close to the 30th of February.

Steve this is a great well run forum, I like reading the posts from all over, I really like that folks here share info willingly hoping to help someone just getting started.. We both know it would have been a lot easier to learn if places like this site were around in for instance in the 70s when we were novices..I bought my first unit in 1972 and I learned by basically digging everything." I can say I've met some very interesting folks including yourself in this hobby..Years ago I used to travel to Nebraska to attend the Treasure week, I was fortunate indeed to have met some folks there that were really into Treasure hunting...A lot of them are gone now, including my Mate... What an adventure it has been... Norma June and Van Fossen. Houston Texas in the late 80s

On this Forum, what the New Zealanders lack in quantity of posts they more than make up for in quality of posts.

Brilliant Coota! So looking forward to butchering my 14"s lead and joining the ranks of the Xmen. Just have to think up a new super hero name

Hunting lakes and rivers I'm assuming thats what you are talking about? the depth a target sinks depends on the density of the soil under it in these areas. Soft mushy bottom obviously targets will sink beyond the detectors capabilities over time. However you have the advantage in these areas because there is no tide or wave action to bring sand in and cover the targets. I have good luck in fresh water rivers and lakes and I would not overlook these areas. Detecting salt water beaches when the beach has eroded is what most of us are looking for. Hunting after a big storm can sometimes provide great detecting opportunities but you need to be ready to drop everything and go when this happens. You dont need a storm to provide erosion however so look for places where the tide has been pounding away making a steep slope or a cut in the beach. Good luck! heres a guy that got on it... strick

Metal Detecting is such a thrilling hobby, and there are so many different styles of hunts. I imagine those guys can't hunt the fields and forests in the heat of the summer, as chiggers, tics, snakes and poison ivy. Most farm fields are in crop too and the temps are sweltering. What better way to tame your detecting desires, than to drop into a cool relaxing slow flow river and find more treasures. They guys are showing the variety of detecting pleasures possible. Hey Steve, You know there has been many gold rings tossed into the Truckee and I imagine 100X silver coins as well. Wonder how many folks playing the casinos, hit it big and toss a couple silver dollars in the river for some more luck? Have you tried the river yet? I've detected our river here in Boise and found coins, keys, glasses, cell phones and occasional ring. What better way to cool off when the outside temp is in the 90's. Thanks for sharing.

I decided to hit a hammered colonial site where the last several times there with the Nox 800 no significant non-ferrous items were found. Every couple trips I might find a cuff button. So was running the ORX with 9” round hf coin in coin fast 28khz, but switching to coin deep at 54 kHz., reactivity 3, sensitivity 94. Found 1792-1812 period American naval button ( undetermined variety as yet). With 13 5-pointed stars and Philadelphia back mark.Also found cuff link, outside of large 2-pc ball button. Thesewere all found within 45 minutes, and other targets were going to be found for sure. I’m totally impressed with the machine. So much so that last night I ordered a 9” XP X35 coil, because folks? The XP ORX is a keeper with a long future. Deepest target ( squarenail ) at 1 1/2. Punpointer lengths. (15”-16”)

Found this barber and a soap jar early 1900's from nearby hunting trails that aren't marked on maps. Lots of land to poke through but these were pretty much on the trails. The jar's info I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodbury_Soap_Company

After much research and mapping, I believe I have narrowed down the area where the old timers found ounce sized nuggets back when my creek was actively being mined. Two areas in the creek fit the description. I had to piece together info from multiple reports and geologic descriptions, then use property boundaries, court house, records, geologic maps, lidar maps and lots of hiking and scouting to find these two areas seem to match. Only time and lots of dredging will tell if i got it right or not. Hope you all enjoy the video and stay tuned for more.

Thanks Rick. That is interesting. And very different looking

Here is a photo of the internals of a 17 inch super D X Coil. Two ferrites included in this coil. As you can see, vastly different to the Minelab coil ! Cheers, Rick

Lovely speci Dave , are you popping it into acid or leaving it as a speci . Then you can find it in 4 years time .? Cheers goldrat

Now that is the little jewel I was looking for. I don't know why I have not heard of this before. Thank you for clarifying.

The 7000 mate. It was only a couple of inches down and a very iffy signal, but once it was directly under the coil it screamed.

Beauty! Which detector and how deep?

Since this was posted, I have determined that most of these hits are a reaction to the ground. Specifically, the wave patterns in the sand. They are gone when the coil sweeps away the little ridges and do not give a signal in Field 2. Have seen this with several VLF's in a few lakes here.

I was thinking the same thing myself... but make sure you leave a price tag on each one so they don't get screwed and all your hard work is for naught strick

Have you ever dealt with hot rocks/big iron? Most detectors if you run to much sensitivity will pick those up near the surface because of minerals/iron/rust in them. Try putting the targets from - to + in a circle......there is a point where targets go from say - (iron) to + (large can). If you have a rusty large piece of iron or hot rock.... they tend to JUMP into that very high digital range..... which is called wrap around (going from - to a + digit). Most detectors do it ...... but the Nox tends to do it jumping in the LOW positive end as opposed to the high. The Nox tends to pick up a lot of surface minerals.... mostly bits of iron/black sand/hot rocks causing falsing in the say +2 to +6 digit range. IF you set that second bin wrong... you are going to waste a lot more time checking false signals because you have but one tone giving your information.... a dig it all tone. 50 tones can spread out those tones giving you a little more information. Hopefully i explained that somewhat right lol.

Especially when that old hoe is a real gold digger...

Thanks strick! I plan on just leaving all my finds to the kids/grandkids someday....they may sell them but it won't matter to me then.lol

pay him no mind Paul i know what it's like to have a relationship with a old hoe .

Hey Paul, I swear I didn't tell Brett anything about your love interest. Calling her a hoe is kinda cruel.

Lets see more gold and you on the hoe

Nice! she's a beauty...you gonna sell it? strick

Maybe when it cools down. At 112F, not many people are getting out. Very few go out at night like me.

You are the reason why everyone is reading here ... 'What the hell are those Kiwi's up to?' What does it take, 10 Kiwi uniques to be above .2 percent of the population? ?

Very nice.

Lots of great answers. Unfortunately gold, lead, and aluminum overlap. In general, the smaller they are the lower the VDI number and the larger they are the higher the number. Women's rings tend to fall in the foil area below US nickel. Men's rings tend to read above US nickel up to zinc penny and possibly higher. I often block out zinc penny and higher and just dig everything under that. If really cherry picking I look for targets that hit hard on a single VDI number, no jumping around. To get more insight on the VDI scale and gold see this article.

Welcome! Now go to the Tesoro factory located there and ask the owner what the heck is going on?

On ya Coota, exciting stuff.

I don’t normally revive old threads but I thought I’d chime in with my recently purchased MX7. Pros: Consistent Target ID, especially with the 6” concentric coil. Lovely crisp audio that White’s does so well. For me, really well balanced. Great menu layout and sharp display. Solid build with no creaks or wobbles. Strong performance in different ground types. Cons: Nothing so far. The MX7 is a killer unit on our Australian $1 and $2 coins with a TID of 69 and 65 respectively. Most screw caps were 70/71 (which are our nemesis down here). Yes I could have purchased the Equinox (which I have tried) but the MX7 just felt like it suited me better. I will report back if I discover anything I don’t like. How does White’s make detectors sound so good! For me, this is one of the most important aspects to any detector purchase. Tony

Aquachigger and his trusty mokai, whats not to like!

Hi Horst, If you do make it over to the UK you are welcome to attend any of our digs in West Yorkshire / Lincolnshire we have digs on Sundays and Fridays the same invitation is open to any overseas member of this forum visiting the UK

If your gonna buy used, I always try to buy with some warranty left.

A couple of weeks ago I was hunting a permission that has persistent, harsh EMI. All of my typical tricks failed to reduce noise sufficiently to hunt. I went through multiple noise cancels, sensitivity reduction, single frequencies, factory reset, etc. What finally reduced the interference enough for me to hunt was to switch from my 11-inch coil to my 6-inch coil. The machine still had some interference, but it was manageable through the techniques mentioned previously in this thread.

The Gold Monster does not work on wet sand.