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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/25/2020 in all areas

  1. I found this button a month ago and posted a bunch of photo's with my other finds. I thought it was just another old button, but today I saw some detail in it and started to clean it. After about two hours of cleaning this is what I found. The button has a steel back and a brass front, the back has writing on it that is not legible. I'm hoping GB can help me out with the id. Any button people out there, your help will be appreciated. Mid to late 1800's ? The design is really unique. Stars, snake, infinity symbol, sailing ships, little circles and cattail plant. too fancy to be an average button ( my opinion) Look at it and tell me your thoughts.
    5 points
  2. Hit an area where I had picked up a trime before. This time out I snagged an 1853 half dime, old 3 ringer, bronze wedding band that was fairly deep and 2 large cents that are in rough shape. Probably won't bother cleaning the large cents as they may just disintegrate. Used the Multi Kruzer at 14 khz in 2 tone mode. Had isat off, was manually ground balancing as the ground is pretty tame, gain at 95 and disc at 0. I'm finding it is better to let it do it's chatter and low iron hum once in a while rather than using discrim at all as it disc seems to make the audio bit choppy and hard to follow. Finding 2 tone very easy to pick out good targets even when there is a lot of trash and iron around, just work slow. That stock coil is working really well in the woods.
    5 points
  3. This morning I plugged the charger into the deus and my WS4 headphones were dead, they would come on for a split second when first plugging them in but that was it and the battery indicator was completely nonexistent, I’d run them down last time out and forgot to charge them and they sat uncharged for probably a couple months my bad I know better. Couple years ago the lithium battery in my Cordless drill stopped taking a charge and after researching I found with my drill anyway the batteries had a habit of doing that and someone had found a fix that sometimes worked, trick was to rapidly plug and unplug the battery from the charger and or with the battery in the charger base do the same action at the wall plug in, the intent to introduce little power spikes into the lithium battery controller circuit tricking the battery controller into thinking there was a charge in the battery and beyond my understanding this somehow resets the battery with enough juice so it will accept charging. with my only option sending them in to have the battery replaced and with things kind of iffy right now in the world I opted to try the bush fix, took me a couple tries with 3 or 4 rapid connect disconnects and the battery indicator started responding flashing from empty to full in succession. After about 8 hours time (the first 4 hours the battery didn’t fill past the initial indication) the meter shows a full charge and the headphones seem to be working fine. someone here will I’m sure have a better understanding about this and why it worked and probably several reasons why this is taking a chance zapping the firmware, but it worked and I don’t have to send it in😀.
    4 points
  4. The Yankee Fork is small gold country. I don't think I've ever seen a nugget from that area, definitely not anything bigger than 5/8". Not to say there aren't any but I would personally be looking at other areas for detecting.
    4 points
  5. Do I look like the Weather channel? 🙂
    3 points
  6. A bit further down and the other end of the contact. Virgin area, outside of known districts. poundage 🙂
    3 points
  7. I am buying another NOX,should have bought 2 when i was in the Victorian goldfields will have save a few pence but i had a CTX at the time,as i am always between the Capital(Mudlarking) and the coast (Beachcombing),can't be bother putting it in the car all and i will have spare(can believe i am trying to convince you😆). I can feel this machine as something special for the beach and after seeing Goldrats(from he forum) picking tiny gold in OZ i was sold. The plan is to tested in on the Thames with the 6"coil, fast recovery and .....settings well i need to work on them . Got all the coils now and we are in Lockdown..... The AQ Impulse will be here soon but thats another story RR
    2 points
  8. I’d be getting the coil for a 24K and I doubt you are saying you are using a Hot Foot on a Goldmaster 24K? Presumably you are using it in some other machine like the GMT. At a minimum you would need to change the plug since 24K/GMK coils are not plug compatible with the GMT and earlier Goldmaster coils. But maybe you have done that, and if so it would be interesting to hear about it and how well it’s working. I would think there is a high probability of the Hot Foot overloading at higher gain levels if employed on the 24K or GMK. I would not hold your breath for a review. I’m in no hurry to get the coil and have no idea when I would get around to using it. Since I have the 6” concentric which would be my preference anyway this is just a whim purchase. It would take just the right circumstances for me to actually use it, like deep, crevice and pocket riddled bedrock or some extreme mineral ground. The bottom line is when I have a detector I have kind of a knee jerk thing about getting the available coils that go with it.
    2 points
  9. I did a small separation nailboard test .... on a 4 gram silver coin ... Vanquish 340 - V10 coil ... gained 5 points out of 8max .. Equinox 800- 11 "reel ... scored in the nailboard test this 6-6.5 points out of 8 points max ... Equinox 800 -11 "has been tested in Park2, ... recovery speed 6, IronBias F2 ... has been set to 5 .... to eliminate false signals from nails ... By default, the Iron Bias F2 at Vanquish. 340 .. guess at value = 4 Equinox ..- ..Vanquish falsifies a little more on nails .. Equinox 800 on Iron bias F2 =5 .....falsifies on nails less than Vanquish 340 ....
    2 points
  10. I think that reverse was used on a lot of 18th Century coinage on both Great Britain and the American Colonies. Here's a post-Revolution example, but of course yours is not necessarily this one:
    2 points
  11. Sure has an Oriental look to it, but that's the extent of my opinion. You USA East Coast guys have 5 centuries of European influenced history to uncover. I don't know how much trade there was there with the Far East (West Coast a different story), but sure is tantalizing. I'm looking forward to reading what others can come up with. With that patina I'm going to be very surprised if it turns out to be reproduction.
    2 points
  12. That lead looks like a minie ball of some sort, perhaps a carbine, but not a 3-ringer. Nice saves.
    2 points
  13. So cleaned them up a bit. Large cent is mid 1800's based off the edge and head facing left. I used a piece of bamboo I had left over from my fly rod building days because it holds up better when wet than a tooth pick. Other coin looks to be a very early King George, front is blown away but back you can make out some lettering along the edge and some character in the middle. Wild guess mid 1700's but not sure.
    2 points
  14. 2 points
  15. Firstly: I am using an aspect of JP's fantastic thread (among others as well), - the way he sets out his posts - because it is so instructional, I decided to give it a try. I had been thinking about why hunting in known areas is sometimes beneficial. Here are some brief thoughts based on yesterdays hunt. I was able to drive to a spot I have been an incalculable number of times, to spend four hours doing what we all love. My only human contact was my son who accompanies me but then disappears to hike and sketch. The area is close to the Los Angeles area so, as you might imagine, it is incredibly worked - I decided to look just on the outer edge of an area that has a similar "look" to where everyone usually goes. This is the geology of the general area. It is strewn with basalt, iron stone and a number of other types of conductive rock. It takes a lot of concentration to pick out targets among the myriad of inputs. I used HY/N, no Smoothing, conservative settings for the rest. I tried Low Smoothing which was nice in one way; it lessened the amount of ground feedback - but it also mitigated the target signals enough so that I switched it off after testing each target with it before I dug. These are not spectacular finds - they are to show two things; one, that working outside a known area sometimes can be successful and two, working carefully and yes, slowly - can pay off. There were a number of dig holes in the 40 yard square area from a long time ago, they missed these. found just beside the basalt stone. this was about 6 inches down and a really faint signal at the start In contrast, this was found after two boot scrapes - but had the same faint tone as the deeper one above -go figure. Below are some other finds from the day. As you can see, these are nothing to brag about, but for sharpening skills this area has been perfect.
    2 points
  16. Well today I had the rare chance to get out for a sort time and do some hunting. Just as I was walking out the door my wife tells me to take the dog with me. This is a small dog who is hyper as a butterfly in a wind tunnel. All the way to the ball field I wanted to try Rusty was being very good the whole time, and I am thinking that just maybe he was going to be good. When we arrived at the ball field he stayed close to me as I retrieved the old Tracker IV out of the trunk. I started to head to the field and he takes off like a rocket. I let him run for just a couple of minutes while I got the detector ready to start swinging. I called him over and to my surprise he came running back, and I am thinking that he is finally going to be good. I start walking in the direction that I had been wanting to search and get a wonderful tone sounding in my ears. I start digging my hole and look to see where Rusty is and he is on the other side of the field. I call him back again, tell him to sit, and start digging again. I pull out a dime (1967) try to show Rusty what I found and to my surprise he's gone again. Once again I look for the darn dog, and now this time he is on the opposite side of the field, so I call him again and he comes back. Fill in the hole and stand up. Now where is that dog? Yep he is on the other side of the field again and it wasn't 20 seconds since I last saw him. This time when he gets back I really scold him and I thought he got the message. Nope he didn't, just as I have another target to dig, so I stick my sod cutter i the ground to mark the spot to dig. I get Rusty to come back to me and we start walking back to the car so maybe I can find a leash for him. I look down at him and in his mouth is my sod cutter. Yep he pulled it out of the ground and carried it back to the car. I put him in the car with the windows half way down and walk about 30 feet away from the car and hit another good sounding tone, another dime about 6 inches deep. This one was a 1983, but in usable condition, nothing special about it just dirty and slightly tarnished. Within another 6 feet a really good sound that I had to dig, but it came out to be a Falstaff beer bottle cap. By this time Rusty is crying so bad I let him out and he really tried to stay by me until I found another target which turned out to be a soda can. Needless to say it was a very short hunt as I gave up after only 25 minutes. Lesson of this story is that never listen to the wife and never take the dog again. The old tracker does find good targets and junk so you never know just what will show up. Bounty Hunter Tracker IV metal detector Bounty Hunter Tracker IV Owner's Manual
    1 point
  17. I haven’t been getting out as much compared to last year. This is my first gold for the year and first silver (1858 seated dime). I got to the beach at 5 am for low tide and surprisingly I was the only Detectorist out there. Maybe the slight rain and the lack of sand movement kept everyone else at home. There were almost no targets on the wet sand but somehow I managed to snag this 14k bracelet. The silver dime, Indian head and most coins were from a spot that has given up a few oldies in the past. Good luck out there and HH.
    1 point
  18. My 3D deep separation test was the answer to this YT test ... Of course, properly set up Equinox has no problem to pass such a test. as well as many good detectors on the right coils. , because for this test enough detector with a frequency of 6.6 Khz ............. Over time, I have made this test even more challenging ... and more difficult ... it's a 0.6gram 9KT gold ring ... but you can also use a 17mm -0.6gram silver hammered as the same equivalent .. Here, it will be necessary to increase the frequency of the detector ...- but only increase the frequency ... here is still not automatically guaranteed only a good result .. This demanding test can handle only two of my detectors so far .. Equinox 800 at multi frequency and Rutus Alter 71 at frequency from 14khz -18.4khz ... Vista Gold Gain 30khz gives only partial and also and quite irregular signal ....- but it can already be considered a success .. in separation..
    1 point
  19. Yes perhaps I should have opened a new thread named "testing the vanquish 540" , actually I did not find the way to do it in this forum and I was short in time I decided to join this vanquish 340 thread ... Otherwise you conclude in your last post that the 340 is an excellent detector , it does not surprise me because its electronics must be very close to the 540, so you are right, for sure the Vanquish 340 at 240e is a bargain ... Your 3D test yes very interesting also. Actually I had an other idea about this 3D test. Why not reuse the box system , simply filling a box with ground mixed with old nails , and a coin in the middle? Doing this it would reproduce almost exactly the field conditions . Probably I will do this when it is possible in a few weeks , filling a box with let say 20cm height of ground containing old nails , with a little coin buried at say 10cms depth , and see what happens with the detectors .... Up to now I was just using the boxes filled with ground with no iron in it, just for pure depth perfos . I do the separation tests on the field and with the experience I can quickly see after a few hours the differences between the detectors in high iron trashed areas, just comparing the numbers of targets found by each detector during a given detection time. Again clearly the minelabs even the last Equinox and Vanquish are not the best, they are a little too slow to locate the targets among the nails probably due to the calculation time of the multifrequency algorithms , and on such areas a monofreq like the Deus at 30khz is much faster , then more efficient for finding the targets amsong the nails. However I use the XPs since 2007 ( goldmaxx ) and 2013 ( deus ) , so I am very experienced with these machines , that helps a lot ….
    1 point
  20. So far, I've tested some of my detectors in this 2D "Monte-style nailboard test" ... but I'm going to continue testing the 4g Silver Coin and test Teknetic G2 .... and Tesoro Mojave ... and more detectors I own .. An essential element in my separation tests is also the Deep Separation 3D Test of this type .... 2D nailboard and 3D deep separation test excellently show the separation capabilities of Detectors and coils of various sizes ...Because 2D nailboard tests and 3D depth tests have conflicting requirements for optimum coil size .. 2D nailboard Test -small 4-6" DD coil its better. 11 " DD coil is still significantly worse ... 3D deep separation test -11 " DD coil works great here .. Small 5-6 "or ellipse DD coils .... I work very poorly in this test ... or I don't work in general.. An excellent compromise here could be a 9 "round DDcoil... - and it also lies in the magic of Deus ,Golden-Mask detector ..excellent 2 and 3D separation, excellent sensitivity, and sufficient depth range in one 9 "coil of powerful detectors. This test is a bit less demanding ... assuming a good combination of detector setup and appropriate coil size ... this test can pass many "good" detectors. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another 3D test is already very demanding ... and perfectly shows why some detectors are exceptionally in 3D deep separation ..0.6 gram 9Kt gold ring is a very demanding target ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But we depart from the main theme of the MINELAB VANQUISH 340 .... IT IS A EXCELLENT DETECTOR FOR THAT VALUE FOR WHICH IS SALE. AND THE MULTI ID ACCURACY AT THE BORDER OF DEPH DETECTION ... IT IS UNKNOWN IN THIS PRICE CATEGORY ..
    1 point
  21. Woods hunting for me is more interesting than a field or park so even before the virus breakout it's been relatively quiet. Think they closed the parks here and saw on the news how empty Boston Commons where. Was so tempted to go there but if anyone say ya and word got out it would be packed with people like seagulls at a garbage dump digging it up.
    1 point
  22. I work without swing. There are very strong man In Russia! 😉
    1 point
  23. Thank you all for the added info in this thread. Information is power. For my urban coin/jewelry hunting locations, this setup so far works perfectly for me. I don’t deal with littered iron, so it’s a non issue. As far a recovery speed, I really don’t feel the need for anything faster. All targets are very close together. I had zero issues picking out a good tone. I guess someone could use another machine right beside me to show me that it did better in some way. I don’t see the need for that. In that time I could have dug up 15-20 targets lol. Someone told me about a year or so back to stop analyzing every little detail about what does what and just have fun and dig. This setup for me just feels right, and fun.
    1 point
  24. Great finds while this virus thing is going on, glad to see you staying away from people and having fun at the same time.
    1 point
  25. Chase you're probably right on the minie ball, I have other styles I found in those parts. GB you got a great eye on that coin, back does look the same. Good news is that is much older than most the coins I find in that area by at least 50 years.
    1 point
  26. Yeah Fred, the concept of not ganging together doesn't seem to have caught on quite yet. It's starting to come tho. Hope you are doing okay.
    1 point
  27. I can try to wash up the large cents a bit more, one that has more detail looks like head is facing right so maybe a flowing hair 1790's??? Other is in tougher shape. I think if they patina falls off there won't be anything left below, usually what happens to those old coppers. What really makes this detector is the combination of power in such a small coil. I have hit that area with my ATP and many times with the Tejon. Tejon does really good in that area with the smaller coil but I get some EMI there. The ATP did fairly well with stock DD and found the trime with that but the ring and 2 large cents would be out of range on both those machines. The larger 10x12 dd on Tejon tends to get smothered from the old iron around. Make matters worse there was a boyscout camp there and a fire pit that people love to burn cans and toss the slag all over. The half dime was in the mix of that and I got just a hint of a good target. Wasn't deep but enough trash around to cast doubt. I am finding that 2 tone very effective in those conditions. If your digging shotgun shells that is a good sign, keep looking and should be some pocket change around as people lose change when reloading, especially those old side by sides. Found many of my old silvers on hunting trails.
    1 point
  28. Do you want depth or discrimination? For depth I'd be using a GPX 5000 with an 18" round mono coil. Discrimination I'd be using a Equinox with 12" x 15" coil or Gold Racer/Gold Kruzer with 13" x 15.5" coil. Just my choices... there are many others that would work also.
    1 point
  29. These will blow your mind.... https://www.christies.com/features/A-collectors-guide-to-meteorites-8231-1.aspx?sc_lang=en https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/arts/meteorites-collectors-auction-christies.html?
    1 point
  30. Yay, good for you! I do believe I will round one up for myself.
    1 point
  31. We're talking about metal detectors under $400 here. So the topic is getting off track, I'm partially to blame. I will say the Vanquish 540 is an excellent machine and it comes stock with the V12 coil not the V8, that's an accessory coil. So with that in mind you're pretty limited on the sites you can hunt successfully. Great beach machine for depth and stability also a great coin machine for parks. Take it to a trashy relic site or ghost town and it's going to be out of it's element. Get the V8 coil on any of the Vanquish detectors and it will perform a little better. Entry level machines give entry level performance. Although some are clearly better than others. As for all the Fisher Garrett, Minelab and Whites machines I've used in this price range, I'll take the Vanquish hands down. Site selection is going to determine what you use. If you just want to hunt modern coins almost any metal detector can find them. If you're going after older coins, relics, and gold nuggets then you just might have to consider spending more than $400. Sure you can find some old coins, relics, jewelry, etc. with a low priced detector. I know lots of people that have. If a metal detector that costs less than $400 is all that's in your budget, then learn it well and enjoy your time outdoors. Also, visit this section often, there is some great advice from very knowledgeable people.
    1 point
  32. Another very rare and interesting coin, the Celtic Obolus. Notice the dimensions and weight of the coin. It is very difficult to find this coin. Celtic tribes lived in the territory of present-day Serbia, as well as the Illyrian tribes.
    1 point
  33. I have to admit this has been bugging me.... Waterproof up to 1 meter... wow, the coil is waterproof. Water Resistant “with included rain cover?” So not water resistant without? Seriously? In this day and age? My 40 year old detectors were also “water resistant” when I put a bag over them. It appears to me the folks in marketing were pushing it a bit on this one.
    1 point
  34. Have you run the exposable lithiums long enough to measure operating lifetime? Amazon USA price is about $1.37 each ($5.50 to load the Vanquish).
    1 point
  35. Jeff I will have to disagree with you on the F19, it's actually a very fast machine and separates quite well in trash with the 5 x 10 coil compared to the Vanquish wearing any size coil. As far as target ID goes I do agree there, it is very stable and accurate.
    1 point
  36. How about they make something of interest first and then we buy it? I'll save my charity for the local food bank. VX3 in an MX Sport housing would be a good place to start.
    1 point
  37. Be better to replace the wireless module with Bluetooth but if the processor and display are gone also no real point. Looks like I’d better hang on to my V3i. I ditched a lot of machines but had to keep the V3i as I doubt we will ever see anything quite like it ever again. A detector nerds wet dream if there ever was one, with a stunningly vibrant display.
    1 point
  38. The V3 & VX3 are/were living on borrowed time. The main processor, wireless module, and color display have all been obsoleted by their manufacturers. Probably the VX3 was killed first since the V3 is more profitable.
    1 point
  39. Think of it as the gold having a lot of country move past it rather than the gold moving around the country🥴😎. In high volume water environments (volatile areas) the gold is always extremely worn and rounded. I think the exception is when the gold is locked up in specimen form, the specimens can get quite mobile because the gold weight too quartz ratio does not dictate the specimen to go to the very bottom so can remain with other rubble being transported about shedding gold as they weather away. JP
    1 point
  40. OK, Steve has very kindly split the thread up so now I can focus on showing off my gold finds in this thread and doing interesting audio/visual material in the other. Yesterday was jolly good fun.😇 I returned to my “Sunbaker” patch and initially with a slow start kicked into a much higher gear pinging gold all over the place. I approached it with a different mind set gear wise this time but basically the main advantage was going steady and digging everything. First cab off the rank...deep deep deep. 🙂 For the next hour I just continued on working the area and being more thorough, some of the targets were shallow and sounded like trash so it required what I call an “Emu Parade” approach where your constantly squatting down retrieving tiny lead shot and bits of other trash. I’m pretty good at picking the buried non-ferrous targets over shallow ferrous, here’s a little tip to help you get better at it yourself. Non-Ferrous only reacts to one aspect of the detector Rx creating an Eddie current which when the detector coils Rx passes over causes a signal to be created. Ferrous does this too but ferrous is attracted to a magnet and seeing how the detector is magnetic in nature there is a bit of extra signal created on ferrous items that blends in with the Eddie current signal. This causes two things, one is a brighter harsher more aggressive signal on ferrous objects (Especially tiny ferrous stuff) and secondly due to the over exaggerated discordant signal it makes it very hard to pinpoint the target when your trying to retrieve it. If you find yourself flapping around in the dirt swearing a lot it’s more than likely going to be a ferrous object that is refusing to be where it sounds in relation to the coil. Non-ferrous on the other hand will almost always sound nice and mellow relative to distance from the coil until the coil is coupled right into the loudest response right on the winding. Almost always non-ferrous will provide a nice smooth sounding mellow response especially if it has a bit of depth to it. I will post up an audio video on the other thread at some stage to demonstrate the non-ferrous signal aspect when I have time. Also just as an aside in-situ gold has a halo that adds an extra layer of smoothness to the target signal, there is a distinctive mellowness to a long buried piece of gold. Using conservative settings is the key here with the audio, too much volume and too much sensitivity kills this information due to the subtle nature of the tonal/volume variation in relation to coil proximity. Pics of a lot of the pieces found during the session. I always try to think about why gold is present in the environment, there is always a clue if you look, unfortunately it is often after the fact and not so noticeable when you are walking the area trying to get onto the gold in the first place. But occasionally you see a clue then target the area and bingo gold, I find this incredibly rewarding when this happens. Trying to piece together the gold story in an extremely altered environment is often hard but essentially its all about alteration, gold fluids, depth, iron rich rocks, heat and pressure and metamorphosis. Gold zones have a story but unwrapping that story is the challenge and sometimes due to weathering and alteration and tectonic plate movement things get jumbled up into a coagulated mess that is hard to unravel. In this instance the clue is really obvious and goes to show how gold is in the environment, especially the length of time it is in the environment compared to erosion and weathering of the present day surface. In this instance gold is moving slowly down slope, gold is also weathering out of parallel structures upslope but the majority of the weathering of the gold is happening in a vertical fashion In combination with downslope movement. The next pic is of a section of iron rich indicator country rock. You can clearly see it is very iron rich and has weathered accordingly, it is also very hot to detect and is extremely magnetic and high in X signal. A GPZ coil that does not X balance well will sound very noisy here and also get lots of loud hot rocks that do not sound usually off on a correctly X balancing coil. Downslope the ground is quite noisy and variable due to the material that has weathered out of the contact. Iron rich indicator The next picture is of some shear associated with the contact and is a sure sign of gold being present, this is quite different to regular slate that has been upended. In this case you can see it is quite localised and mainly associated with the indicator. It is these contacts that produce the nuggety gold but they are quite often hidden by overburden and vegetation. Rest assured they will be present though. Shear The sticky-up-rock that is twisted and tortured is caused by compression and folding along the fault line, at great depth and under extreme heat and pressure they provide prefect channels for gold fluids to flow along. The contact with the iron rich indicator is a perfect spot for gold to drop out of solution causing the formation of nuggety gold. It’s been theorised that gold drops out of solution when there is a pressure change like during an earthquake, even mild ones, whether it happens all at once or little bits at a time over long periods is the interesting question. Finally near the end of the session I was rewarded by a deep mellow sounding low/high and a bit of cream came my way in the form of a 6 gram chunk, happy days😎. Watch this space there is more work to be done.😇 JP Pics of the big boy and the days total
    1 point
  41. The old Concentric coils were very good. I bought one to use with my GMT, and where I could run it, it outdid the DD easily on tiny stuff. I've still got a GM 2, and GM3 as m y backup units. Really like that GM3, though they're a little noisy while adjusting the gain, and GB. I think the 3 is better than my GMT. Jim
    1 point
  42. These posts are even more to-the-point than videos, we can ask a specific question and get a specific answer. Very impressed...
    1 point
  43. The reality of naturally occurring gold nuggets is that the smaller nuggets are more common than the larger nuggets. The larger nuggets are also easier to detect. Unlike jewelry, natural gold except in active placers does not replenish. That means that in order to sell metal detectors the ability to find the small gold that is left is becoming ever more critical. However, if you are prospecting for an actual income, either full-time or more often part-time, as is true for small numbers of people in Australia and the U. S. and in far larger numbers in the third world, there is the reality of diminishing returns. I have run my prospecting as a business licensed for profit operation since 1979, and turned a profit in nearly all those years. I have only shown a loss a few times, typically when making large equipment investments in a single year. In most years I have all my equipment and costs are merely food, travel, etc. Since I work for myself there is no labor expense per se. Yet the hours do matter to me. I am only willing to devote so much time to prospecting and only if it makes a reasonable return or at least breaks even. My cut off point has declined over the years as the price of gold has gone up, and was last set at an average of 1/2 ounce per week or about 2 grams a day, figuring at least 50 hours of detecting in the week. To make this happen I need to be seeing at least half gram and 1 gram nuggets (or larger) turning up now and then. To make it on sub-grain gold I would have to be parked all day in one place using the detector to find tiny bits at a fairly constant rate. I once detected nearly 100 nuggets in one day, all under a few grains, in a 10 foot area. That made my half ounce for the week. The thing is, if that is the situation a washing device like a high banker or dry washer usually makes more sense. There are places where there is a lot of small gold, and rules make using anything but a detector difficult. I have no doubt in Africa some people exist on just the tiny bits, but they live on nothing compared to us. When full time detecting one has to be searching for new ground constantly. There are many days with no gold. So when a few nuggets do get found, they need to be good enough to cover all those non-productive days. Hobbyists on the other hand just want to find gold, any gold. They will spend a great deal of time and money to find a few tiny nuggets. That’s who buys most detectors in the U.S. The problem for me is I am one of the older hard core more serious types. If all I want to do is find stuff for fun I’d as soon go to a nearby park or beach and look for jewelry, and be home for dinner. Real prospecting for me means weeks or months in the field at a time, and lots of work. I have found many pounds of gold nuggets over the years, so simply finding a gold nugget is no real challenge for me. I almost never come home empty handed if I go nugget detecting. However, I am finding it hard to justify the time spent to use a metal detector to find gold nuggets and am slowly shifting more to doing it for fun. Long winded explanation but the bottom line in my opinion is there is a place in the nugget hunting world for a detector that can handle alkali conditions, and that by default means small gold will be lost for reasons we have already covered. Tune out the salt, you lose the small gold anyway. But many gold nuggets do hide in alkali conditions. The other lesson there is that having a salt compensation mode would be very useful on the gold prospecting version of the Impulse.
    1 point
  44. Click for larger versions.... White's Goldmaster GMX Sport metal detector Introducing GOLDMASTER GMX SPORT Waterproof to 10 feet Finds sub-grain nuggets XGB ground balance Frequency Shift VCO & tone ID audio Multiple coil options 40 hour battery life (8 AA) Large, backlit LCD Iron discrimination Pinpoint mode Made in USA Introductory Offer FREE 4" x 6" DD Shooter Coil - offer ends May 31, 2020 White's GMX Sport Data & Specifications
    1 point
  45. White's GMX Sport Control Quick Guide
    1 point
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