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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/05/2020 in all areas

  1. I was getting bored with digging stove lids, shovel heads and kerosene tins so I figured I would dig one more target and proceed to a different location. So I did.
    17 points
  2. Hello Everyone, Wow, so sorry to hear about Fred. He was a longtime friend and customer. I had to dig through some very old pictures, but this was back in 2006 I believe. Fred would email me or PM me on my forums and say, Rob, you're always finding gold down there in Arizona. Fred wanted to come down to Arizona, down to Southern Arizona at the time. We planned a weekend outing and 4-5 friends all met up for a hunt. I had some pretty good success in the area over the years, but it was very trashy and extremely spotty when it came to nuggets. If you hunted hard, dug as much trash as possible, sometimes you could come out of there with a 1/4 ounce or better nugget. Most of us arrived Friday evening to set up camp. Saturday, we walked around for a few hours, I showed everyone what I knew of the area and where some gold has been found. The remainder of the day, 4-5 good friend all went their own ways searching for that elusive metal. Everyone was beat at the end of the day, but some decent nuggets were found. I believe 2 or 3 of us found nuggets, Fred and another guy didn't have any luck that day. The next morning, most of us were a bit tired digging all the rubbish and hiking around for miles. The next morning, we all did the same thing, everyone took off to either where they found their gold the prior day, or tried some new spots. That afternoon everyone returned back to camp to eat some lunch. I was lucky enough to find another nugget or two and a few more nuggets were found. Fred wasn't having the luck, but that was typical of this gold placer. I personally seen guys go, weeks and months without a single nugget find, but diggin handfuls of iron rubbish, bullets, bullet cashing and other crap. I told Fred and the others I was going to hunt for about another hour or so, but then come back and break down camp. I had to work Monday morning and had a 2-3 hour drive back to town. Fred was a bit frustrated and said he's never coming back, better yet, he was going to head back to California! I told Fred, get out of the trashy gully bottoms and try your luck for a few hours on the hillsides. Fred said, that is like hunting a "Needle in a Haystack", and I agreed, but sometimes you could nail a nice one with minimal trash on the hillside or slope. Fred agreed to give it a whirl, but I could tell he wasn't too convinced about having any luck doing so. About an hour later, I hear some yelling from a hillside over. I couldn't really tell due to the distance who or what was going on. I ended up walking that direction and finally seen it was Fred. He had this huge smile on his face. I remember asking Fred, "Any luck?" He said, Rob you were right, I got one!" He dropped a nice piece of gold in my hand and I about shit! It was a beautiful 3/4 ounce nugget with some quartz attached. Fred was so happy. We ended walking back to camp and doing the show in tell deal. I remember asking Fred before I left that afternoon.... "Fred, where did you find that piece?" He told me, Rob, I can't remember what hillside it was on.... LOL I think he was so freaking excited he found it, he dug it up and hauled butt back to camp to show it off. He didn't really pay much attention on where he found it! 🙂 I never really followed up with Fred on if he went back to hunt the area real well, I know he spent another day or so there, so I'm hoping he found at least another piece or so. Your friendship will always be treasured Fred. Rob
    13 points
  3. I finally got out this past weekend for a gold hunt. The weather has really been messing with me, as far as being able to get up to where I hunt. I finally got to use my new 15" Evo and I have to say, I really like it. I was only detecting for 5 minutes when I got this nice sounding target, that had a double worble, and I knew it was a nugget. Weather was great Saturday, but Sunday morning it was raining with high winds. Then it started snowing, so I got the heck off of the mountain. I was told by a friend who lives down in the area to be careful because a 800-850 lb grizzly in the upper gulch where I camp and hunt has been very active trying to find food after winter. Luckily I have good camp prep habits with all food and trash put in cab of truck in ziplock bags. I only found the one nugget in the trip cut short, but I had a great time being back on the mountain.
    12 points
  4. I sent it home with a fellow so he play with it. Quite talented this fellow.
    9 points
  5. We go gold detecting some/all day in the bush whether it be in Vic or WA ( Oz) away from our 21'6" caravan, and for my other half, a fem with her 65th birthday just a memory, this can have some inconveniences and little privacy. On our recent trip to Tassie ( Bottom State underneath the Oz Mainland) came across a campervan whereby the young couple had mounted a Kickass Shower/loo tent on the side of their Campervan. I have mounted similar on the side of our Landcruiser. I will bring the small porta potty from our 1/2 cabin boat to do the job. Did the Install just prior to the lockdown, ( cannot travel to Vic or WA) so have not used it yet. If you have a 4x4 and detect with a fem or if your Campervan is not fitted out with an inside shower/loo this item may be worth thinking about. Peter
    7 points
  6. Got a call from my Sister yesterday afternoon. "I'm at Goodwill and they have a metal detector here for $7.50. You want it?" "Sure, what is it?" "A Tesoro Lobo" "You bet" "OK, I'll bring it over later". It has a broken arm cuff, but other than that it's really clean. Very Good to excellent condition. Not all my "Treasure Hunting" is done with a detector. Just wanted to share.
    7 points
  7. Thought I’d give a quick update and some photos of the (good) stuff I’ve found so far. I have a little over 40 hours of metal detecting on the Equinox 800. This is the entirety of my metal detecting experience! Thanks to everyone on the forum who has helped guide me. I haven’t included the junk in these photos, but trust me, there is a fair amount! There seems to be less junk dug the more hours I put in though. So far I have found: Currency Two clad quarters Five silver dimes (A Barber, three Mercs, and a Roosevelt) Seven clad dimes Seven Nickels (A V!, two Buffalos, and four Jeffersons) Fifteen Wheat Pennies (Ranging from 1919 to 1957) An old Chinese Coin Jewelry Two enameled pieces (Either broaches or buttons) A Catholic medallion depicting Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and The Sacred Heart of Jesus Tokens A token from an old pool hall Relics A creepy cool stamped metal doll head! Just found this morning at a local park not three blocks from the house! Found the face first, and the back of the head a little deeper. Most of this was found in parking strips in a Helena, MT neighborhood, Except for the doll head… Still looking for that $5 gold piece!
    5 points
  8. On a hot tip from a city worker that lives across the street, I am going to be looking for gold in a city park that is basically twenty acres of tailings piles. I did some recon, and it doesn't look like anyone in town is doing any digging there at all. The dredge definitely hauled some weight out of here, so It will be interesting to see if there's anything left behind. I'll be using the Equinox. Have read a few of the archive threads on detecting tailings, but if anyone has any advice they would care to impart, this noob would greatly appreciate it!
    4 points
  9. 4.79 ozt. gold content. The artist knows what he is doing and lost a very minute amount of Au from the original S.G. calcs.
    4 points
  10. Went out to the horse ranch in Helena with my dear friend today, to do a little horse maintenance, and some detecting in the pastures. She was using the newly arrived Vanquish 440, and I was using the Nox 800. First time I have detected with someone else, and it was her first time detecting ever. It was super fun! We didn’t find anything truly noteworthy, but did unearth a piece of flattened irrigation pipe that had been buried for some time. And my friend found her first relic; and old padlock. Not super old, but she was excited and that made me smile! Afterwards, I hit a new parking strip in the neighborhood with the Vanquish, and found several coins in short order. Lincoln memorial pennies, and three clad dimes. I really like the ease of use of the Vanquish. Pretty much a turn on and go machine. Good times!
    2 points
  11. In Jult of 2018 in a park near my church i ahd my mx7 detector,I came across which seem to be a nickel or ring symbol so i started digging.Low and behold it was a 14kt gold wedding band.Surprisingly it had a date 2-18-50.Also first initial middle initial and last initial going to someone also with first middle and last initials and love always.I went to my church put it on facebook never give out much info let them give you the private info that the owner will only know.No luck with church bulletin board nor facebook.Took it to the police station they kept it for 6 months.No one came to claim it they gave it back to me.I tried googling the initials which you cannot find a person with just initials.Its a 70 year old ring.Always try to find the owners.Happy Hunting Stay safe always carry dog spray!
    2 points
  12. Popped a V-nickel out while detecting tailings pile for gold. It cleaned up pretty good for a dug V. When I used to coin-shoot V's were my favorite to dig for some reason? This is my 2nd V from this area while looking for nuggs….. I'll take it...lol
    2 points
  13. I was given several options by the artist who did the HF and photography work. Sell outright, have it returned and pay for his beautiful work or sell on commission. I was in no hurry for a sale and a commission would produce the best net return. However it sold almost immediately. The proceeds will pay for this years mining ventures.
    2 points
  14. It is always risky to rely on messages like "will be soon available" , this with no exact dates given … On the other hand Nokta should have provided a 9inches coil as a standard coil for the simplex , instead of the big ( and a little heavy ) 11inches coil. A 9inches coil would be have been more polyvalent than the 11inches coil . Probably they understood this and they now work in urgency to provide new coils , but this takes time ... Minelab has had a better approach to me , the Vanquish serie was designed since the beginning with 3 coils available the V8,V10,V12. This was a great idea , that ML probably learnt from the Equinox experience that has only 2 coils usable on the field , the 6inches and the 11inches coil, this with an intemediate 9inches coil missing . These 3 Vanquish coils were available at the begining of this year at the same time as the 340,440,540 range of detectors. So with the Vanquish you can choose exactly the detector/coil that you need , depending on your needs and budget , and this is really appreciated by the customers I think … And MLs were lucky to finish the Vanquish design and start the production just before the corona ...
    2 points
  15. Just to make sure Bashin understands, the {0,1,2} TID's are the very small nuggets ('pickers'?), meaning those in the neighborhood of 0.1 g (or less). Bigger pieces will give higher TID's. There are two factors here -- the size distribution of the original virgin material and the efficiency of the dredge to remove them. Large pieces (again, if they were there at all) may have been rejected by the screening process. Small pieces (which the dredge was mainly concerned with) may have escaped due to either improper operation or just the limiting efficiency of the dredge itself. Wish I had options like yours in my neighborhood, Bashin. The good news is that there appears to be plenty of ground to cover!
    2 points
  16. You can go to any version of the firmware at any time, just use the software and install the one you want.
    2 points
  17. Awesome post Doc. That is pretty much exactly what I do. But I still like the saying 'Gold is where you find it' as it has encouraged me to think outside of the box and I have found heaps because of it. What I am always trying to do is keep my detector in the most productive ground for as much time as possible. Research, knowledge and plain old hard work all add up to gold in the poke.
    2 points
  18. Thanks for the words guys.....!!!!! I had to post this V after your "best looking so far".... The 1892 is about average or a little better looking after cleanup than the usual dug, turd brown, highly pitted, V's or Buff's...imo. But this V is by far the BEST looking dug V that I've ever popped and it was another turd brown V before I cleaned it up....but talk about good condition and cleaned up well. it was found in a pile of needles under a Spruce tree and somehow avoided all the usual pitting when dug from the dirt. PS.... been a member of the V club for many yrs and dug a few
    2 points
  19. I just read this and to say I am shocked and bewildered is an understatement. He just purchased a new bungee cord a couple of months ago. Fred was just a great guy and a good customer. From time to time I would send him a new prototype to test. He was always very straight forward, honest and helpful in his recommendations. Damn, he will be missed. Fred I know you will still be out there with us where-ever our travels may take us. You will not be forgotten friend. My prayers and thoughts are with your family. Doc
    2 points
  20. i just recently today tried to turn the equinox on with a quick press of the power button.You are right it brings you back to where you left off.My mistake .
    1 point
  21. I am not familiar with the dfx so I can't help with settings. First of all, after a year, I would not necessarily assume it is sitting on top of the grass. I am assuming this is a mown lawn or similar ground cover? Rain and other forces associated with the grass renewing itself, frost heave, and other natural forces will almost definitely cause it to be sunk and buried perhaps a few inches not to mention people and wildlife walking over the site, this happens over a period of just a few days or weeks for similar size and mass coin targets. If the bullet did not sink into the ground before the grass was mowed, then it could be chewed up or spit out elsewhere on the site as a result of lawn mower action, so if that happened, then the bullet would have suffered some physical damage. I would not reduce sensitivity much but if you could get an identical bullet and place it in the same ground perhaps buried and inch or two to get an audible and visual ID reading, then you can notch out anything but a narrow swatch of target IDs to include the bullet ID you recorded in your field test. Also, I would use the largest (or longest if an elliptical) coil you have to maximize ground coverage while still enabling you to see a shallow bullet. Copper jacketed lead projectile in a brass casing should ring up higher up on the conductivity scale, not as high as silver but perhaps higher than a copper penny. Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Be careful upon recover too. Take a big plug around the supposed pinpoint spot to prevent damage to the target from your digging tool. Good luck.
    1 point
  22. Tom - is that why you had to wear that Halloween costume that one year? BTW - You might not remember, but I met you at a DIV dig a few years back. I think you were testing a souped up TDI for Whites there and you gave me the relic shovel you were using as you were leaving the hotel because you couldn't pack out on the plane back to the west coast. Thanks for that and I still have it as my backup. It was nice chatting with you there.
    1 point
  23. I have found way more gold with the AT gold then with my Xterra 70.That was because it would go in the water.I would choose the xterra and the 9inch concentric and 6inch DD both in 18KZ over the AT Gold any day for turf gold.I could interpret the xterra much better for that situation.Metal detecting is a thinking game.Do things that help you do better and always have fun.
    1 point
  24. Hi Chase.Skip sh13 from Friendly Metal detecting forum in Stories and pictures of finds posted it on march 20.The thread was called-Sometimes a new area can really pay off.He seems to be a gold legend over there.Have a good day.
    1 point
  25. Sadly I have the found the best option for this is to leave my fem at home. This came after suggesting that she could nag the rocks instead of me as they'd be more sympathetic listeners.
    1 point
  26. I found a spare brown Tesoro Arm cuff in my detecting stuff so It's back to original.
    1 point
  27. I’ve returned a number of high school rings over the years . Some you get a big Thank You but others just show what they are a big butt . The thing is you done the right thing thank you are not . Chuck
    1 point
  28. Don't forget to fill in holes, best of luck to you !!!!!
    1 point
  29. Good luck cant wait for the clean up
    1 point
  30. Hey I wanted to thank everyone for the input. I'm looking forward to getting back out there and hunting some more. I'm also looking forward to them easing up restrictions on park access, and beach access here in California! HH
    1 point
  31. Your camp setup is more advanced than mine... may be why noone camps with me any longer? Nice to get a nugget even at that size. It's the experience!
    1 point
  32. They also just released new firmware that reportedly ensures compatibility with the to be released accessory coils.
    1 point
  33. I wish GB! It's just a 1980 that I scrubbed a bit. 😇
    1 point
  34. You're killing it! Is the Jeffy on the far right a Warnick (1942-45 with large mintmark above the Jefferson Memorial)? If so those contain about 80% as much silver as the dimes. Keep it going.
    1 point
  35. Trust me, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought something along those lines. Visions of Chucky from the movie "Childs Play"!
    1 point
  36. Good finds so far, It only gets better with time. As for the creepy doll head, You need to toss that thing out before it steals your soul Ha Ha.
    1 point
  37. West-central, about 45 minutes southeast of Minneapolis-St Paul. I live in a rural area outside a small town, and the traffic on the county road past the house is at pre-pandemic levels...everyone is pretty much going about life as normal. I think people are going to do what they want to do on Memorial Day. I don't think anyone will hassle you anywhere you may go.
    1 point
  38. I'll be taking this to the park in the morning! If it wasn't blowing like 30mph out there, I'd go now!
    1 point
  39. F44 to the Equinox 800. That skipped a lot of tech and you don't know what you don't know. I'll point you to look back to the Minelab Etrac, or White's V3i, and even the Fisher F75+. All three are Flagship detectors that offer different and varied feature sets and performance gains in different scenarios. So before looking forward, look back and get some bench marks. Good luck, HH Mike
    1 point
  40. Quote, "Do we process more dirt? NOPE! Our secret is we spend our time processing dirt that is more likely to have gold, than other dirt.". That statement right there is the secret sauce. HH Mike
    1 point
  41. I snipped three quotes from your post, all of which I consider warnning flags. 1) 150 hours doesn't sound like much. It took me 3x that long before I felt like I was really communicating with my Eqx800, and there's a lot more room for improvement. 2) You can always find a detector that does one or two things better, but often you lose something in the trade. Only way to get much more depth is to go with a pulse induction (PI) detector, and then you lose TID and much of the discriminating power of an IB/VLF. 3) If your five year budget is equal to one CTX-3030 (~$2500) then for sure you don't want to blow it right now. Get more hours on the Equinox and let it teach you what it has to say. If/when an affordable breakthrough detector comes along you'll be in better position, especially if you read this forum on a regular basis.
    1 point
  42. 1 point
  43. Here's a couple of Ethiopian fire opal specimens, that my wife and i found last year here at Reno's Gem and Mineral show. Hope you enjoy the colors! ht
    1 point
  44. Generally I like to have my sensitivity at 22, then do a noise cancel. Set the detector down with the coil, vertical to the ground and check the air distance using a dime. If I can only get 10" I'll do another noise cancel and see if the noise cancel numbers change, then I do the dime test again. At times I'll change to different programs to see how things change. Sometimes it helps and sometimes the noise get much worse. I will add, I don't always check the dime because I'm going to hunt either way. All this is really strange when I move 50-70' away and all of a sudden I can get 12" on the air test without changing any settings.
    1 point
  45. I would use 4 wheels in open terrain. Rokon excels in two other terrains. First, dense forest or large rock terrain where trails narrow to the point where a 4 wheeler cannot pass. Second, goat trails in steep mountainous terrain, where a 4 wheeler will simply roll over sideways. Where the 4 wheelers stop, the Rokon keeps going.
    1 point
  46. DO NOT USE lemon juice, catsup, vinegar, etc. on OLD nickels... it REALLY brings out the pitting!!!!! First off, your DUG nickels will have envirenmental damage as they just don't holdup well in the ground like silver and chances are they have no real numismatic value because of that unless a major key date so don't worry about cleaning dug nickels. Chances are they ain't worth squat over 5 cents. On NICKELS ONLY take some steel wool and scrub the piss outta them. Usually the steel wool is all you need but sometimes I'll take it a little further and also use an abrasive like Comet or Bon Ami on a nickel depending on condition. Lots of nickels are almost too far gone and heavily pitted to justify any further attempts to clean...they're shot, period. The steel wool scrub will allow you to see actually how bad, pitted wise, the nickel is. The 1892 above was only cleaned with steel wool....the 1910 was NOT cleaned with steel wool because I saw no damage, pitting wise, and I didn't want to chance damaging a good condition coin so I just rubbed it by hand with Bon Ami to clean off the brown....but this is the ONLY nickel I've cleaned that WASN"T scrubbed with steel wool first. DO NOT use the wool on war nickels or any silver coin or penny. I use other methods for silver and copper coins. If you have a bunch of modern nickels then you can use the vinegar/salt method and throw then all together and shake em up. Always clean coin types separately....pennies with only pennies, clad with clad, nickels with nickels...never mix em up. Certain coins I use chemicals on if the above doesn't work but rarely and I won't go into that now. Always remember that once you start to clean a coin you can't unclean...so be careful not to take it too far. Here's my last season of cleaned "keeper" nickels from my coin shooting days 5 years ago. You can see a lot of pitting on many of those but some cleaned up nicely...imo????
    1 point
  47. Now that's enforcement of social distancing! And the planet thanks you for not killing the messenger. Back on topic -- 4 g sounds like a pretty juicy nugget to me. Thanks for showing us they're still out there.
    1 point
  48. I would like to thank everyone of you who read this post and especially the ones that left comments. For me it has been like attending a celebration of life for a dear friend. I never get up in front of a crowd and say the things that I would like to share about good people and I know that I am not alone. I am going to encourage Freddy's family to access this forum to read all of the nice things that people have shared. I am adding a picture of our last hunt together in Northern Nevada last October. Left to right Jonni and Fred, Mike G. and Michelle, My wife Heather, myself and Louise. (she goes by Lucile on the forum}
    1 point
  49. I'm deeply saddened by this news. Fred has been a main stay on the forums for years. I'm meeting up with Chris Gholson tomorrow morning at the Q and I will let him know of this sad news. We will remember Fred with a toast around the camp fire. Dean
    1 point
  50. Great Book but theirs always a But the problem is the on-line reference guide is no longer available so I can't get updates or use it for tool that stays current as some of the book is outdated. Received the book 3/15/2020
    0 points
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