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I went out a few days ago with the plan to detect creek that had a 1800's mine in the drainage. Saw this when I got there I admit that probably wouldn't have stopped me but I couldn't even crawl in the creek bed much less swing a coil. So I decided to drive around to the top of the drainage and try and find the mine. Found it after hiking about half a mile and dropping down 800 feet. I felt good about that because I fail to find mines at least as often as I do find. The advent of Google earth has helped a ton. I really didn't know what to do with it after I found it though. I detected around where the tunnel used to be and dug bullet prices and junk, then dropped down to the dry creek and did the same before the long climb back out. We shoot way to much in Idaho. I find bullets everywhere I go. That's my typical wandering around outing. Its not surprising I don't find gold. I mostly went there because there were no current claims anywhere close. Hard to end up on anyone's claim if there are none!

AllenJ, the air test was conducted with the White's Super Pulse 220 coil. The coil that came with the Tdi SL Special Edition has so far not seen much use. I also used an external speaker, Nokia MD-11 which works almost as well as good headphones. I like the Miner John coils for their weight and performance, but I'm spoiled for choice. Because the Tdi SL has seen mostly beach use I have used the Super Pulse 220 and the Jimmy Sierra 14 x 8 mono that was made for him by Miner John. I don't use the folded mono coils on the beach. Because of the Coiltek Tdi 6' mono and Sadie I rarely use the smaller Miner John folded mono coils. I do like some of his larger coils for their blend of performance and super light weight. That 14 x 8 is good on all sized targets encountered on the beach and is as close to a 'bigfoot' coil I can get. It covers a lot of ground quickly. Karelian

Was a rough week at work and needed to unwind. Have been metal detecting when I could since my vehicle accident in April. Today me and my wife went to a place I secured permission to earlier this year. Not been able to get there until today. The grass was grown up about 3 inches here and I broke out my Tekentics T2 factory coil. It SUCKED. Skipped right over the 1963 quarter in the photo below. I could not believe it when I dug this one. That silver was beautiful. The Cors Shrew is no joke. This little coil has made me very happy. Went on to find a 1939 mercury dime and 1951 rosie silver dime! This is the most silver I've found in the last 16 yrs. The only other silver I found was back in 2003 and it was a single worn mercury dime. I also found a couple buttons, a 1944 or 1945 nickel and a 1926 wheat penny. I love my Teknetics T2SE. It's an amazing piece of equipment. With that Cors coil, it's a beast. Worth every penny.

Heavy Gravel Gary talks about what to look for in the Gravel's when looking for Gold !!!! Video Number 1 of the Two Minute series

Ola Amigos! Just wanted to introduce my self. I'm a surfer who usually MD in the summer because the waves go flat where I live in Santa Barbara. This summer I got an Equinox 800 and have been pretty stoked using around town and on the beaches. I've found some cool stuff. The oldest coin is a 1890 Indian head penny in a vacant lot downtown Santa Barbara. And a nice vintage silver ring missing the center diamond but has two diamonds on each of the sides. Anyways I never see anyone MD in Santa Barbara and just wanted to say Hi! Thanks History Surfer

Hey Steve, any thoughts on starting another poll to see what people are now mainly running in 2019. Would be interesting to see some of the shifts, especially with all the new vlf gold machines on the market. Just a thought.

They asked me to return the. Detector module and would ship a new one on receipt of the original.....I did and they did. all is well

Haha, i doubt it would spit out a big nugget. Its already caught a gram nugget right up top where it should. And yes i try to document everything. It helps with the big picture of whats going on in the area. Below is some of my mapping, yellow squares are pickers, yellow circles are nuggets, and the triangles are colored based on the type of bedrock at each location. Is anyone else tis crazy when it comes to mapping and documenting the area that you primarily prospect?

Was at the above spot for labor day weekend. Didnt really detect much as most of the pieces worth recovering with a detector have been found, so now is the time to dredge the area. So i pulled out my homemade 2.5 inch dredge so that i could have clear water while dredging. I probably would have got more gold if i used the 4 inch, but then the water would have recirced and its more fun to be able to pick gold off of the bedrock. The homemade 2.5 inch set up. 10 inch wide box and riffles are from a side sluice of an old keene 5 inch triple. The first days haul. Biggest nugget was about 10 grains. Camping right next to where you dredge, cant beat it. My fiance and our dogs. Second days haul, the two pieces of quartz were in-situ and each have a small speck of gold visible in the quartz. I pulled more out with the intent to eventually crush it. These two pieces im going to clean up and see if more becomes visible. Hammock are so much better then tents. lol

Lets not leave out the obvious ....... price and that 3 year warranty over the 1 year one the Xcal has. Which WILL make a difference. The Nox problems right now seem to be ..... shaft, cuff, coil ears.... and water behind the screen. ALL of which are being fixed under warranty. The Xcal....coil wires, knobs, O rings, battery life.....most of which happen after that 1 year warranty. Thats your dime...... and not cheap. Then many prefer to mod them.... shaft, battery upgrade to lith, PPer, and better headphones..... taking the Xcal price tag to nearly $2000. Im an Xcal fan for simplicity.... basicly once set up you only have to use the threshold and sensitivity knobs. IF you mod it for a PPer ..... its changes some of what was said...... ie ... there isnt that slow NULL recovery you get from disc.... it functions more like a PI. I believe you will find its quieter than the Nox in salt waist deep to neck deep water too. BOTH expect to swap out the shafts. The Xcal has a 10" coil and the Nox a 12. MAYBE a bit more depth..... but wouldnt count on that if you are hunting in PP mode. Why....... because you have to use beach 2... which operates at reduced power.... most times you also have to run far less sensitivity than in the wet sand. Also...... on the Xcal..... not only is the coil hard wired..... but the phones are as well... they are good for diving... but other wise dont respond well to weaker targets. The Nox does seem to do a bit better on smaller gold in the water and without a doubt out of the water than the Xcal. BUT.....depth.... it all gets equal in the water..... Xcal, CZ, CTX or Nox. IF the nox gets more depth its likely from the coil size. The Nox is a multi use machine as well...... i certainly wouldnt take the Xcal park hunting. You have wireless options with the Nox.... TID..... various tones. What i dont like about the Nox thou is iron tends to wrap around in the low digit range.... right where the low gold is...... the Xcal.... well it hates iron. So if i plan on hunting giving beach..... i do it first with the Nox.... then the Xcal in PP mode. All said and done....... the Xcal is always the gauge when comparing water machines........ thou now its lost its edge for wet and dry sand hunting.

I did a coil test some time ago using a Tdi Pro OZ, quite a variety of coils involved. Just a bit of information not wanting it to go to waste. The test area was located in the middle of the Golden Triangle in Victoria, Australia. Looking at the images the test site is located on a area that produced large nuggets. Heavily mineralized to give the depth tests some authenticity. Targets were varied as were the coils tested. The Tdi Pro was ground balanced, gain was at 5, conductivity was in ALL, pulse delay was 10. Frequency was set in the middle and the audio was boosted by a Nokia MD-11 external speaker. Only clear repeatable signals were recorded. All targets were buried in the ground sideway from a miners hole, so as not disturb the soil on the surface or above the target. Only the 1 grain ingot and one 0.5 gram gold coin were buried from the surface disturbing the ground. Not sure how useful this is for Tdi SL users, deduct 10% maybe.. Just gives a sense of what is realistic is this one location at that one time with the Pro with the variety of coils available back then. All the best, Karelian

Since early August, XP have started selling the ORX with the 9" and 11" X35 coils as a stock option for less than $700. The package deal comes with the wired back headphones. Some online dealers that have these in stock are selling this bundle for substantially less than the lowest advertised price or adding in incentives if you ask. Personally, I never enjoyed using the ORX wireless back phones. I have a really big head and those headphones hurt enough to distract me after about 45 minutes no matter what I did. If you are looking at an ORX and the great all purpose frequencies provided on the X35 coils now would be a good time to investigate these deals. Jeff

Looks like the Simplex will be out before October. The Simplex will be featured as a raffle item at the October 5-6 Pound The Ground (Adirondack) Hunt See the Nokta/Makro Simplex at Pound The Ground Adirondack Coast

On the advice of others on this forum, I called Minelab today to inquire about the play I've had in the shaft on my Equinox since day one. When I called back in 2018, they wanted me to send the whole detector in to get looked at. This time they said they would send the three pieces my way, and I just need to send the originals back to them. Has that been your experience for those in the same situation?

A week ago I started an informal survey on seven US metal detecting oriented prospecting forums including this one. The survey here is at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1244-if-you-found-a-gold-nugget-in-the-last-year-what-detectors-did-you-find-it-with/ This is what got posted on all the forums. I have been compiling results all evening and it is after midnight so I am calling it a night. However, I will release additional details on this forum, probably tomorrow morning. I would like to post a screenshot of the entire spreadsheet if I can figure out how to get it all on screen at once. Or I may just post a copy of the spreadsheet in the download area for forum members to access. I am proud to say that fully half the responses were on this forum alone, with the other six making up the remainder. There are a lot of active nugget hunters on this forum. The survey was not meant to prove anything per se. I was basically just curious to see what the detectors were that were employed to actually find gold nuggets in the last year. The survey has many shortcomings. It only polls people who were on the US forums in the last week who cared to respond. The forums have tended as a whole to be Minelab oriented and so it is not surprising results might skew in that direction. Still, I got a large number of responses and so some conclusions can be drawn. I eliminated duplicate and joke responses. I eliminated a couple borrowed units. It was winnowed down to just detectors that found gold for their owners in the last year. Everything else was pretty straight forward. The only thing of note is I put a couple Gold Bug SE responses under the Gold Bug Pro because they are basically the same detector. The SE was just a precursor model. Everything was compiled on a spreadsheet and totaled. 114 people responded as having used 220 detectors to find gold nuggets. That is an average of a couple detectors per person but the reality is a lot of people owned three detectors, and then quite a few just one detector. In general you could say many nugget hunters own a couple PI detectors (or a PI and a GPZ) plus a good VLF detector. If you really want to generalize things your could say people own a couple Minelab PI type detectors and a Fisher VLF. The Gold Bug 2 and the Gold Bug Pro were the runaway favorites in the VLF category. Tesoro is conspicuous in their absence. Only one Lobo ST listed. I was a bit surprised to see not one Garrett AT Gold listed. Except for a few ATX units Garrett is pretty much a no-show. White's does a little bit better but still only just over a dozen units out of 220. The TDI PI models are the most popular alternative to the Minelabs with 8 listed. As I noted Fisher totally dominates the VLF detectors with the Gold Bug 2 and Gold Bug Pro. And I was surprised at the very large numbers for both the SDC2300 and GPZ7000. The GPZ in particular due to it being very expensive and out for only the last 6 months. The adoption rate is phenomenal in my opinion. Here are two sets of results. The first is simplified for easy digestion. I have lumped similar models together and not listed onesies and twosies. The second list is the full per model breakdown. Make of it what you will, and thank you for participating! Simplified Results: 51 GPX5000/4500/4000 33 GPZ7000 33 SDC2300 32 Gold Bug 2 15 Gold Bug Pro 13 GP3500/3000/GPExtreme 8 White's TDI/TDIPro/TDISL/SPP 5 White's GMT/GM3/VSAT 5 Nokta FORS Gold 4 Makro Racer 4 X-Terra 705 3 Garrett ATX 3 XP DEUS Full Results: 33 GPZ7000 33 SDC 2300 32 Gold Bug 2 31 GPX5000 15 Gold Bug Pro 11 GPX4500 9 GPX4000 6 GP3000 5 GPExtreme 5 FORS Gold 4 Makro Racer 4 X-Terra 705 3 Garrett ATX 3 White's GMT 3 White's TDI 3 TDI Pro 3 XP DEUS 2 GP3500 2 Fisher F19 2 CTX3030 1 TDI SL 1 White's SPP 1 Troy X5 1 XT17000 1 SD2200V2 1 SD2100V2 1 Tesoro Lobo ST 1 White's GM3 1 White's V/SAT 1 Minelab F1A4 1 Garrett Scorpion

Hello. Good to know Mike Hillis problem is solved and good to know the TRX is working as it should. Very good help from the users here, thank you. When the TRX arrived I had a www search for files about the TRX and down loaded a extended user manual for the TRX, but cann't remember where?? But for those who are interested I'll attach this here. (hope this is legal !?) May be it will help some other users, too. White's TRX_Extended_User_Manual.pdf

I own a TDI Pro in stock mode without any modifications,dont plan on changing anything anyway,about 70% of the coils that i own and use on the TDI Pro are GPX ones upto 18'' dia,the largest that i use on the TDI is the 20'' Mone that was made for and marketed by Jimmy Sierra before he lost his Whites dealership. Mine is not use for nugget hunting as the bottom line is we dont have them here in the UK,but mine is solely used for deep artefacts/hoards.In my personal opinion a very underrated Pulse,not saying its perfect but does everything that i want from a Pulse detector.

I'm suspicious, but that's typical. 😁 Old ivory is usually yellowed from age, but I suppose if it were in salt water that could affect the color. (New ivory is illegal to own, as I'm sure most here know.) Here's a decent set of tests that might help: https://www.wikihow.com/Tell-Ivory-from-Bone

Most all the coils designed for the ML GP, GPX series of detectors will work well on the TDI. Before you buy you should try to find out if the detector has been modified with some of Reg Sniff's design changes. If so the stock TDI dual field and other dual field coils may not run properly. I have a "quiet run" and "small gold sensitivity increase" mods in both my TDI's and the dual field coils no longer run properly with them. I believe it is the small gold sensitivity mod that caused the dual field coils to no longer run properly. In my opinion the asking price for an unmodified "original" TDI is about right. Mike

The White's Super Pulse 220 coil was intended by me for beach use only. I was surprised that it performed so well on the goldfields. Quiet and stable with good performance in hot ground. If you can get one it may be an excellent alternative to the 12 OZ mono. Good size and not bad on smaller targets. No bump sensitivity or issues at all, very good all rounder. I remember White's sold these off at bargain prices in a sale, so there are some very lucky individuals out there who scored a bargain. I like it. Karelian

"Old" and "ivory" are very nice words 🙂

Jim in Idaho, very soon I've got a week long trip into the Golden Triangle here in Victoria. Both the Tdi Pro and SL have space in the boot. For the first time the MXT is staying home. There is a reason White's chose the 8 x 12MJ coil for the Limited Edition and I look forward to trying it in the goldfields. The new battery pack and a good supply of batteries will allow me to give the SL a good run. Generally the Tdi SL is my loaner machine and 'urban PI' (Who coined that phrase?). I suspect the Pro will see the most use but curiosity demands the new SL gets a workout. Jim in Idaho I did a quick air test on the Limited Edition when it first arrived in the mail. Used the standard battery pack loaded with cheap disposable Lithium batteries for a total of 14.7 volts. I did record the results, as always.. Karelian 1 grain ingot 8cm 0.5 gram gold coin 25cm 1/2 Sov. 34cm US 1/4 30cm

Today I stopped by a different jewelry store. The lady at the counter didn't know anything about the bear or the other items but the guy there working on repairs came to me and looked and said the bear was ivory and the piece was very old. He said the clasp was silver but the wire was just wire that strings it together. He said I needed to go to an antique jewelry store to get more info. They both thought I was there to sell it because the jeweler was near an area with pawn shops.

That 8 x 12 MJ coil that comes with the SE is a very good coil from the tests I've done. Jim

Did you notice the two prospect pits west on the hillside from most of your pickers? Might want to detect that too.

JW, won't you please come home??? You've been gone toooooo long! and I miss the pic's fred

You typically don't need a respirator for small plating unless you plan on planting your face 2-3 inches from your work. There are modern alternatives that are much greener and safer if you plan on getting into it. One supplier I use is Contenti and other is Casswell. Contenti used to sell some environmentally safer plating materials. Usually you would clean the part ie ultrsonic cleaner, rinse, pickle, rinse, copper plate, rinse, nickel plate, rinse, finish plate ie gold etc. then rinse. Spot plating with a pen is pretty cool, I did a little bit for kicks. My accuracy was limited to the wad of bandages wrapped on the supplied squashed copper tube. The pen system you got looks like a high end unit.

Hi Mitch: On of my favourite places en route to the Victorian goldfields is Kiandra, Australia's highest goldfield. Located high in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, it was briefly "rushed" in the 1860's by 16000 miners before they were driven out by freezing alpine winter weather, never to return since the easy, fabulously rich nuggety shallow alluvials had been largely worked out. The area was later reworked in the early 1900's by Australia's first large bucket dredge "Enterprise" My winter Image is of one of its frozen dredge holes. Note the water channels originally feeding sluicing claims on the far hill:

Completed product, the carbon fibre arrived so some cosmetic changes only. No danger of using this by accident in my MXT or XL Pro. A nice project and I am satisfied with the outcome. Karelian

.485 gram.. without the pickers..... BUT there is some really fine non magnetics that I just couldn't get panned out. So I'm gonna say there is probably half that weight is good stuff and the other will just get glassed in the smelt.... That super fine black material is just a mother to try and separate........ but all things are cleansed with fire,....LOL Not a very good image and the impurities kinda hide the good stuff.... But like I said it will all cleanup with the burnout.........

https://www.riogrande.com/product/midas-one-pen-pen-plating-system/335136 https://www.riogrande.com/product/midas-starter-plating-system/3353003 https://makezine.com/2013/01/08/tool-review-rio-grande-electroplating-chems/

Welcome History Surfer from SoCal. Paddled into few myself. When I was in the line up, I would see the older guys (dudes, lol!) on the sand MDing. Back then I thought to myself, when I get old and can no longer surf, I’m going to try metal detecting. Boy did old come fast! Lol! May you find the gold and the “Green Room” many times over. Good luck!

A buddy of mine and I went to whiskey run yesterday and did some diggin.... Man it was a hot day on the beach especially with no breeze. Anyway Whiskey run has a pretty rich mining history both inland and on the beach. There were a couple inland mines close by as well One of which was a chromium mine. The beach placer that was discovered was a huge black sand lense.. The actual production is a little unclear but let it be said it was very lucrative until a south wester pacific storm hit and completely change the beach... Mining was halted after that. While a few still hit the area it is not easy work since most are now working the Whiskey run creek. The gold is fair with an occasional picker which is almost unheard of for beach mining ... I haven't cleaned up the cons yet but will let you all know how I did after running about 20 gallons of sand. Meanwhile here are some pics of the area.... Whiskey run is about 10 miles north of Bandon , Oregon. The first image is from Google maps and in the bottom right corner you can see the coordinates if you want to look into this further.

I sent a picture to one online. He just happens to be Navajo. He gave me an idea that many of the heishi beads can be purchased from a couple of wholesalers. This would make some sense as they do require some handling to make them uniform. I looked and the beads are sold by the string. I could find lots of that stuff at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show that I've been to a couple of times. I looked up the process of making the beads and I was surprised but I guess it was something that was developed by the trading Indians in the southwest for a few hundred years. The techniques have now been shifted to Asia so while natural substances are used the raw materials are available through dealers. The most helpful guy told me about stabilizing the mother of pearl. He said that it would normally not be flat but it is taken in thin sheets off a shell and then glued to a backing that makes it flat. I guess those components can be purchased separately also. The parts of this necklace are quite nice. That is what makes it 'stand out' from a lesser piece. I could see the maker asking a premium for it if the story is told properly. Zuni jewelry is much the same. The maker makes a lot of difference in the look and the value.

I can't answer your question, but thanks for the story. Reminds me of pawn shops -- everything they have is worth an arm and a leg. Your stuff? Peanuts. Maybe you already mentioned this, but are their any (real) Native Americans you can communicate with? They might be up on this kind of thing.

Our beaches along the east coast have been heavily replenished and coupled with no significant nor’easters, finds from the 1715 fleet have been rare as hens teeth. When conditions improve, the EQX will do just fine!!! Having said that, come on down and give it a go.

No thanks needed, now I feel like I earned my lunch break today.

The video was what I needed. Thanks Tom. Evidently I was experiencing an ID.10T error. I didn't know what I was doing. I'm now back on vibrate and good to go. the TRX is working fine, its the operator that has the problem. HA. HH Mike

Hey Mike, best bet is to call the factory and ask to talk to a repair tech - 541-367-6121. For reference here is a YouTube video that goes through the menu system -