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Tried a new area for metal detecting last week, Nothing AZ, it lived up to its name. Spent 5 days and came up with Nothing. Lots of quarts, black sand looks good but no gold.

No big deal! I spent two weeks at a time and couldn’t carry out all the trash I found. But every target could have been a nugget. That’s why I’m not driving the thousand miles and staying home coin hunting. Oh boy how do I miss it. Nothing like a gold nugget coming out of the ground and you the first to ever see that nugget you now hold in your hand . The problem people are dropping coins out of their pockets everyday but that nugget is never replaced by another. Chuck

XP and Nokta are doing deals similar too, guess to spark those potential buyers sitting on the fence. Kruzer and Amphibio have a deal with the pulse dive pointer included and of course how can you go wrong with a hat and plastic shovel tossed in the deal!

Being on the other side of the planet, I have never heard of Nothing AZ so I googled it. Apparently this was on a town sign in Nothing. It gave me a good laugh. 🙂 "Town of Nothing Arizona. Founded 1977. Elevation 3269ft. The staunch citizens of Nothing are full of Hope, Faith, and Believe in the work ethic. Thru-the-years-these dedicated people had faith in Nothing, hoped for Nothing, worked at Nothing, for Nothing."

Well, I’ve got nothing to say about that...... except Happy Thanksgiving to all! Dave

Wow, what a big nugget! Bill https://www.9news.com.au/national/gold-nugget-two-kilogram-160k-specimen-at-ballarat-unearthed-by-prospector-news-victoria/2568e03e-c0fc-4486-98f3-15f331f00072?ocid=social-9news

Hello to all 2 weeks a go i took the plunge and bought the most suitable coil for my needs......its heavier than my other coil but the aim was : How deep can i really dig And how much ground can i cover So i mounted the beast on my carbon shaft after a few rubber washer adjustment i was all set.Tide was good weather was clear but it s dark after 5pm and the beach has mudflats and alone with limited network i won't take risk of getting stranded.Anyway it heavier and after a few adjustment with the SAT ,the gain and the delay i was all set. This coil is blasting targets really hard i pick up the knife at 50cm and dug a real crater ,not many targets except the silver earing and the find of the day a Silver Long cross penny circa ad 1272-1303 nothing really amazing but i could not find anything old about this area........... Next day went back to try the CTX on the right side on the spot and i pick up lots of fishing weights. Can wait to try the coil again maybe next Monday RR

South East a few miles will put you on free milling gold.

Sometimes you come home with your pockets empty..Sometimes you come home smiling... (Seeker)

I hope you wont take this the wrong way, but the comically bad technique, filming and target recovery, combined with the shaking hands with the first hint of gold made the whole video charming and enjoyable. Well done!

Took the ORX to 9,200 feet in the Colorado mountains today. It did really well in a lot of iron, tin, lead, brass, along with ironstone and gneiss/schist hot rocks. One 2.5 grain nugget/flake and a nice 1.5 gram specie. Gold 1 worked really well with frequency at 54 kHz, IAR 2, reactivity 2, iron volume on, sensitivity 90, threshold 10, 9" HF coil. The 1.5 gram specie was 6" deep with a nail and ironstone hot rock within 2 " radius. I could still hear the gold loud and clear. The 2.5 grain was 3" deep. The lead bullet and button back were both 8" deep. I was fairly certain that the iron and tin can shards were iron range targets but there is so much black sand at this location that every target has a little iron response especially in the scoop. Kept thinking I was going to break the ORX in this rugged terrain. No problem. Can't wait to get back up to this location that is NOT known for any gold over 1/2 gram. Jeff

I was Black Friday shopping early this morning. First and last time doing that. i went into Dicks sporting goods, don’t hate me, just to look at detectors. They had the vanquish in stock. I got to take one out of the box and hold one. This is in Maine, so if there are any of their sister stores near your location (Field & Stream) you should check.

Glad I am not the only in that case :) with the CTX I go quite deep but still ,the PI is in another league.If every holes at 1,5 feet were a 10 grams gold ring everytime.................. RR

The AT Max has been $722 discounted since day one. Initially it came with the Z-Lynk headphones which alone have to account for over $100 of the price difference between it and the AT Pro. The addition of the pinpointer came later, no doubt due to increasing price competition. It’s cheaper for a manufacturer to toss something like that in that go lower the retail price. But factor in the wireless headphones and pinpointer and the AT Max is essentially selling for the same price as the AT Pro for people who actually want those two items.

I have used both, I think the ATP is a quieter machine and seems to perform better. Max includes the carrot so guess that adds to the sticker price but think it should be at the price point where the ATP is and ATP should be lower for what it is. I found the Max menu system hard to get used to after using the ATP so much, can't tell ya how many times I hit the threshold way up trying to manually gb it. Threshold also isn't fine enough for me. Lastly still no iron audio volume control!

I have an RTG scoop with the wire basket that is on the short side. Wasn't a big deal when I used a VLF as I wasn't going that deep but the PI is a different story. I could be going at too much of an angle which doesn't help as the angle of the scoop is almost 90° to the shaft.

all the places I detected for nuggets should be calles "NOTHING" not just in AZ but I'm not giving up.....comes next March I will be going back to AZ together with my friend Joe from CA. Hoping to find the spot called "EVERYTHING" (everything we dig is Gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!) We are hoping for some help from the nice people at Stanton Camp and others who might read this and want to help a German nugget hunter to find his first piece of gold. AU2U all.

Ever heard of the song lyrics, "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing"? Could have been the tune you were humming as you left . . . All the best, Lanny

Phrunt, do you mean gold-coloured 1 and 2 dollar coins? Surely not solid gold? We have one and two dollar coins, and my son is finding lots of them with a detector I gave him this summer--quick way to grab some cash, better than chasing dimes and quarters . . . All the best, Lanny

The recovery was quite painful to watch (you'll get better at it) but in the end you got it....and a nice one at that!!!!!!! he's got friends...go get em!!!😉

I already bought the Root Slayer Mini. So far I like it. Digs a nice clean plug and is a convenient size. I "may" have liked the Nomad but it seemed too long for what I wanted.

That is a heavy coil, did you try running the shaft shorter so the coil is closer to your feet? I did that with my 3lb nel and found it easier to swing rather than a harness. Harness I got was awkward and hurt my neck. Beaches here are difficult to dig more than 14" or so because they fill in so fast, really need a monster scoop to get the find in one or 2 shots. I recently snagged a 10x14 and find it does better than I thought in nail infested river bank. Taking me some getting used to for pin pointing. I have been using the nose of the coil to find the edge of the target then approach at an angle then dig from there. Is there a better way to pinpoint with a mono? Lastly I stuffed a couple rare earth magnets from some old hard drives in the bottom of the scoop I have and seem to snag those nails pretty easy.

Very cool ring that was found 2016: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7691793/Amateur-metal-detectorist-finds-gold-Medieval-ring-tipped-fetch-50-000-auction.html

I have this as it came with the equinox in a package deal. It is definitely sturdy and works fine, although I dont have much to compare it too.

I run them through the coinstar machine! I love the crunchy sound they make! 🤣 And buy scratchoffs next to machine with the one's that dont get rejected! Last time got $100 scratchoff!👍

I'll use cash till the day I die! No plastic for me. Drives the cashiers mad when I give them odd cents to even out my purchase not to get pennies in change. They often give me more back in change then I was supposed to get originally. GaryC/Oregon Coast

Heat treating should be done last as once it is heated again you lose the temper and can't get it back. I cold form the parts from annealed and normalized. stock so it is easy to work with, then weld then heat treat. For the tip shape this model is intended for groomed grass. The spade point makes it easier to pop out the plug or cut a flap with fewest passes. spade point makes it easier to scoop the dirt out. Something I found the bayonet style a little annoying to do. I am working on a larger model for field and relic which will have a narrower blade, etc. I'm just waiting on the pat office to finish up and hopefully there won't be any silly gov shutdowns to slow the works so were talking Jan/Feb. For orders outside USA I think Amazon can handle that the easiest. For USA sales I hope to find a dealer.

Entertaining. Digging their enthusiasm, would have thought ol' Sparky was just released, not almost 2 years before this video was made. My favorite quote: "So what did Garrett do with the AT Max to improve on perfection?" Oh brother.... Love the big boys' hype machines. All manufacturers are guilty of throwing around impressive sounding terminology and pseudo tech jargon. That's why I'm glad for sites like Steve's where the tech information is provided without bias by cutting through the hype so you can do the research yourself and make up your own mind.

Nice find, I will have to check out some of those types of areas.

Clear and cold today so headed out and took my saw to cut some wood as I expected a skunk on gold. The dredge tailings I've been scratching around have pickings that are between slim and next to none. I figured I'd at least come home with some wood if nothing else? I cut a jag and got in about 2-2.5hrs tecting and scared up this little guy! Wood and gold....better than the skunk! Have a good weekend guys & gals!!!! Got another dink today and for some reason this place seems to only give up one at a time....to me anyways? I'll take em anyway I can get em though....lol Can't believe I'm still able to hunt in late November. This will most likely be the last hunt as snow followed by artic air is in store for us next week. Enjoy your Turkey day…!!!!!!

Shoulder needs to be rebuilt, trying to hold out until the end of next year.

I've been to that claim site and seen those strange piles. It's an interesting place for sure.

That would be worth filling more buckets and running them at home. I just got back from a trip to Az. The trip had nothing to do with gold, just visiting friends. But I could not help being amazed at the vastness of the landscape. I wouldn't even know where to begin. I was in the area just north of Phoenix in Camp Verde. I don't know if there is gold there or not, my friend that lives there didn't know either.

Not only big but it has the looks as well..that one ought to fetch top dollar for sure. strick

Wow, one retiree refired big time. Makes you shake just thinking of it, imagine digging it...…….

Ballarat. Isn't that the Ozbloke word for "gold?"

I honestly feel that this Is the most underrated machine in its class. It is hard to write about this machine with any brevity because there's so much that needs to be touched on. What were intended to be its strengths actually became its drawbacks in the mainstream of detecting. I believe the intent was to create a kind of ultimate do it all machine that would outclass anything on the market in terms of target information and user access to customizing operating parameters. To me, it accomplished that. But that is not your average metal detector consumer's preference or how the average joe is accustomed to detecting as we saw with the success of competitors with machines that work in a more automated or simplified fashion. Most guys would rather just get on about the business of detecting. I say all that to say this...if you're not committed to learning each feature that makes a (multifrequency) metal detector tick, and if you're not willing to invest significant time on the academic aspects of this machine, it's not for you and you will not get the most out of it. You'll jump into a rabbit hole or quicksand to be quickly overwhelmed with each change. When it comes to the more technical aspects of the hobby this machine is a lesson in humility. From the beginning I decided I would try where others have failed and that is in resisting the temptation to blame the machine rather than my own ignorance of complex interactions and lack of patience or discipline. Resisting the temptation to settle for the easier, automatic, good enough of other platforms. To me it was important to put that out there because I often see user shortcomings being projected onto what is almost a blank slate with a powerful set of tools. In the world of general detecting (relics, coins, jewelry) in most conditions this machine is what you make of it and will parrot your technical skill, knowledge level or lack thereof back at you in its performance, whereas other machines are more forgiving and supplement more for that. Don't get me wrong, there's a persuasive argument to be made to reject the V3i for not being user friendly and not doing more on its own. I continue to believe that it provides an edge in conditions ranging from mild to moderate, that there is especially no better machine on isolated targets in those conditions if you want to use a machine like this for what it was intended, and that is finding valuable targets while digging the lowest ratio of trash to treasure to get to such targets. No machine has more data points and tells to learn from. There are features on this machine that can be used in ways probably never intended, to gather information on target composition and the presence of an adjacent target that tone and VDI are not able to capture alone. In this last season particularly I had a paradigm shift about how approaching this machine with the dogma of traditional methods of detecting can limit you. In any case, in terms of its ability, The Pros: it is well balanced across the spectrum of metals. It can hit anything from deep silver down to fine gold thanks to its true simultaneous, broad 3-frequency approach to multifrequency with single frequency options. No other machine to this day that I'm aware of shows you in color how each of its frequencies are actually reacting to a target and in so many ways. I've found more jewelry with it than I know what to do with. Contrary to some opinions, it can be a deep machine. The ability is there, but does seem limited by stock or in house coils to a bit above average. Detech coils, particularly the ultimate 13 turns it into a depth monster even out of proportion of what you'd expect a 13" coil to do for it. That coil brings it into F75 LTD depth territory albeit with a bit larger coil, but with far more target information and disc ability. The wireless headphones are a plus and bring added features to the platform as well, like mixed stereo for disc in one ear and all metal in the other. This machine is durable. The membrane buttons on the machines I have, some of them near 10 years old are still responsive and springy for lack of a better word. Pinpoint trigger has never failed and LCD shows no signs of going anything soon. The V3i is no exception to Whites legendary durability. For now, my summary is this. This machine is the very best I have used in the specific set of conditions I described. But you must earn it. If you're not willing to invest time in academics and experimentation you will be better off with a machine that makes more decisions for you. Stock programs on this machine will perform at an average baseline level with above average target information. The strength of this machine is to be able to dial in the parameters with more latitude than has ever been given to users. It operates on a philosophy of trusting you with all the fine tuning normally left to blanket algorithms hoping that a bit of knowledge combined with human senses will know better what adjustments to make to give it an edge. You have the ability to create or even copy a virtually unlimited number of programs because of the storage space available. Even the VDI system can be altered and tailored by the user. Do not be put off by the age of the platform. This machine was ahead of its time and still has what it needs to be a top shelf metal detector. Metal detectors are not very hardware intense to start with compared to phones, tablets and computers. I would argue most advances have come in the form of software and programming, and integrating more compact, energy efficient circuitry. The cons: it is heavy by today's standards. It is not waterproof. That is a shame because of its potential in freshwater lakes and rivers. It is not the fastest machine on the block even when recovery is maxed out, but being a hub of target information and analysis, you wouldn't expect it to be. That is not its greatest strength. This is one issue that can be overcome in time as you acquire small coils, and learn to integrate alternate methods of adjacent target interrogation that take advantage of a visual on frequency reaction in manipulating the pinpoint trigger, and even some temporal analysis in some configurations. The ground balance system on this machine is the biggest disappointment and limits what this machine could've been in more circumstances. Getting a good ground balance on this machine in rapidly changing terrains can be challenging. Autotrac does not keep up as well as you'd like, so you must locktrac with offsets, which works, but is not optimal on a machine that is all about optimization. In other words it will do well enough on a salt beach, but that's not where it shines. It is important to make a point about this though. I have 2 V3s and 1 V3i that I compare and contrast and run experiments on. I've been able to confirm prior reports that the V3 is able to ground balance and track harsher and rapidly changing conditions better than the V3i. Software changes when the V3 became the V3i shined a light on its ground balance system in such conditions. It was reported that Whites reduced tracking parameter in order to get a better target ID. So there are some advantages to owning a V3 and not upgrading it. Including the ability to communicate wirelessly with other V3 users to exchange programs and settings on the spot. But there are some things you give up when it comes to target analysis. It's a trade off. As an aside, In 2018 these machines have some untapped potential and capability as well as yet to be discovered hidden menus that would be interesting to access and explore, maybe even more tracking access. Although this platform has its weaknesses and limitations, I'm giving it 5 stars because there is nothing like it on the market that can satisfy the geeks and egg heads of the hobby to experiment and push boundaries like this one can. There is a reason even guys like Steve H, who would likely describe themselves as more of a prospector, keep coming back to it. It is hard to get the general potential of this machine out of your head once you've had it and have the level of information that tells you there ought to be some pretty wicked combos that could be assembled if provided enough time. There's still a lot of room for user development and contributions. V3i is both an instructor and a powerful tool in all things metal detecting if you have time to dedicate to it. It is unbeatable as an inland relic, jewelry, coin, and cache machine. Even the things it's not the best at it can do competently. Combine it with a machine like an Equinox whose strengths and weaknesses are like a lock and key, and you'll have the deadliest duo around. In presenting the V3i as I have I'm not necessarily saying that it is the "best" at more things than any other machine. Just that there are fundamental things it can do best in the hands of a learned user. I'm an arsenal detectorist and appreciate all our technology. But I feel comfortable saying because of its complexity many of the best detectorists in the world have not realized it's potential and it's rightful place among the very best general application machines. As a result it has suffered a lack of the level of professional user development that other major platforms have gotten. Whites may have been wrong about how many people would be interested in a machine like the V3i, but they weren't wrong about what it could do if they were. (I have somehow managed to end up with different font sizes. I wrote this up on my iPhone and not sure how to correct that with its limited tools, but I will correct this {I'm too OCD to accept it} and continue to edit for the sake of brevity and being as concise as possible on my MacBook where I'm more familiar)

I have and use a MXT Pro, it still is pretty much on top of the vlf pile for coin/jewelry for me, I have tried some of the latest machines and gone back to the MXT Pro every time so far. Most my park finds are in the first 5" of soil, not worried about the latest and greatest, its very good on gold jewelry due to the khz freq, even with the 5.3 eclipse coil I can hit 10" on a coin if needed. The gold mode works well down to about 2 grain wt nugget, is limited in depth due to vlf but is a decent gold machine in some areas. Very wide range of coils makes the MXT very versitile.

Over a decade ago I would have given the White's MXT a five star rating, and am only giving it a four star rating because it is showing its age. The MXT was one of the first detectors to really leverage a microprocessor design in a metal detector by having a switch that made it like owning three detectors in one - Coins & Jewelry, Relics, and Gold Prospecting. Yet it stuck with an analog knob type control interface that is one of the best examples of simplicity and ease of learning I have seen in any detector. The controls are not only clearly marked with "cheater" settings but an abbreviated set of instructions is printed on the bottom of the control box! The MXT also has one of the best coil selections of any VLF detector ever made. The only real weakness is that as a non-waterproof single frequency detector the MXT is not the first choice for saltwater detecting. The MXT 14 kHz circuit is one of the best of the 20th century and the machine is already a true classic. There are newer designs that make the MXT look a little old fashioned but the fact is that it is a very capable detector that would be hard to go wrong with to this day. I have moved on to other units myself but will always consider the MXT to be one of the best metal detectors ever designed. The fact it is still selling almost twenty years later is a testament to that. See my detailed review for far more information than I can present here.