Leaderboard

It’s been a year of not doing what I want to do when I wanted to do it due to delays on work and home projects, i.e. little time for prospecting. So when I had an unexpected free day yesterday that coincided with a weather window I jumped at the chance to get in one more day in before things freeze up solid for the year. I went back to a spot in a canyon where I had detected a picker a month ago, and started swinging. I got a loud signal right away and started chopping into the frozen ground with a rock hammer. Thinking it was another chunk of rusted iron I wasn’t working too enthusiastically, but to my shock there appeared flat 1 gram nugget buried in the tiniest crack in the bedrock. I’ve never found anything bigger than .25 of a gram in this area so I let out a choice expletive did a happy dance. Not far from where I found the nugget, I got another good sounding signal in the slate bedrock on top of quartz seam and started hacking away. I was having a hard time pinpointing where the signal was and kept digging deeper and wider into the bedrock, fortunately it was decomposing, but it being frozen made it harder. After spending a half an hour working on this new slate quarry of mine I was surprised when our popped another 1 gram nugget. Omg, best day ever. It was getting below freezing so I was considering packing up but checked the hole before moving on and was surprised with another clear signal. I expanded the hole and after another 15-20 minutes of chipping away bedrock I had finally moved it. I couldn’t pinpoint it by waving handfuls of broken up rock over the coil so I kept dumping the rock into the pan till I got the signal in the pan. Of course I’d forgotten my rubber gloves so I panned it out in the icy water with my bare hands. When I panned back to hr concentrates there was another 1 gram nugget. What?! I was starting to lose daylight so I had to pack it up as hiking out of the canyon on ice and snow in the dark isn’t high on my fun list. Now I have to wait 7-8 months to see else is there!

my friend still hasn't returned with it.. that makes me sure it's diamonds.. 😃

The wife and I spent a few really smoky hours at the gold rush camp site. It has been a little harder to find the good targets. The ground is hard as hell and I had to make a thin custom pick to break up the ground. I was digging mostly old round balls and sprue pieces with the DEUS. She was complaining about square nails coming up as 17 on the Nox. So I lowered the sensitivity and upped the recovery speed a bit which was just a guess? Anyways the next sweep netted a half dime and she is possibly still mad at me for finding it at her feet. Chinese coin was a lucky find on my way out. I can’t seem to take a good pic with this 12 Pro max so this is the best I can do. Thanks for looking.

At the end of the summer we experienced a favorable tide/swell combination but the first 2 beaches I checked out weren't producing. However, as soon as I reached the wet sand of the 3rd beach there were shallow targets every couple of feet. By this time it was already well after 10pm but I could still see that there was a decent cut running up and down the shoreline with lots of black sand showing. There were a couple of other hunters in the area but this was one of those rare times when there were enough finds for everyone to keep digging. It took a long time to find any jewelry but once I did it seemed that they were popping out pretty regularly and even in the artificial light of my headlamp I knew I had some small gold and silver items. As daylight approached I tried one other beach that I was curious about and didn't find nearly as much there but high on the slope I did scoop out a find that got my heart going - a large gem-studded cross and chain with some weight to it. By this time it was light enough outside where I could see that the cross and chain were not yellow gold but I held onto the hope that it could be white gold until I found a .925 stamp on the hoop. Still a nice find! I live for hunts like this and only wish that I had the willpower to keep hunting since these conditions don't come around all that often. Of the 4 gold pieces I found, one was a gold claddagh ring, one a St. Christopher medal and another a gold crown from a cremation urn. I also found over 200 coins on the hunt and probably at least that many pieces of trash. Needless to say, my body was hurting for some time afterwards and I was thankful for the ibuprofen in our cupboard! GL&HH!

The WA side is a lot older and different to the east coast. There are hills here and basically all are associated with harder iron sections in the greenstone belts. Greenstone belts are mostly highly metamorphosed basalt. The weathering profile here in the deserts are a result of a very long time with no real water flow. The majority of weathering here is from chemical weathering and wind, but it has been happening for so long that areas have weathered down several hundred meters. When it weathers like this you end up with the majority of gold patches on the surface, flat ground directly above the source. A bit simplified but typing interferes with my afternoon beer. 🍻 refering to central goldfields, Pilbara is slightly different again.

As Norvic said all terrains are here. These shots are were I got my first ¼ ounce of gold by myself once I got my wheels, over 55 years ago. Walhalla is the start of Alpine Walking Trail. The Australian Alps Walking Track winds through the high country of Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT. It traverses rugged remote alpine country and bushwalkers must always be experienced, self reliant and have good navigation skills. To walk the whole trail can take between 5 and 8 weeks. Food drops or a support crew are necessary, as the trail passes through no towns, although it passes close to the ski resorts of Mt Hotham, Falls Creek, Mt Baw Baw, Thredbo, Charlotte Pass and Perisher. The 650 kilometre track generally follows ridges and high plains through some of the highest country in Australia. In many ways, it is the grandest and most difficult of all the long distance tracks in Australia. It is not the longest but with over 27,000 metres of climbing and descending it is indeed a tough walk (equivalent to more than 3 ascents and descents of Mt Everest!). This equates to between 550m and 800m of climbing and descending each day - definitely not a flat walk! It also crosses a lot of Australia's best alpine scenery making it a very scenic varied walk. The start of the walk at the towns rotunda. I have walked solo over the first 200 Km both ways as well as some of the other sections all of which has Gold mining history. Note the start of the track heading up from the right of the rotunda. Walhalla's gold value at only $600 a ounce. As you can see not flat like the shows you see.

Nah, OZ has rugged mountainous gold country, has flat gold country, desert gold country and varying gold country in between these extremes, OZ is a big Island that in area is not much smaller then the US in area and we have have similar varying gold country I suspect. Tis just that the flat gold country is where the gold shows are at. My backyard gold country up in FNQ is not too far off the equator thus we zip around fast but tis rugged billy goat country where you need one leg longer than the other ie. has not eroded greatly since its last upheaval. Like the old Irish saying "gold tis where tis"..

Bad luck is a form of luck too right? Sure things will pick up for ya, happens to all of us but most of us don't get a gold ring or diamond bracelet 🙂

GB, I was wondering where you were, for a lockdown on this coin! I had to beat Chris with a stick, to get a decent pic of the backside!! He used the old "I'm at work" excuse, just to aggravate me!! The nerve!!🤣😂👍👍

I tried to grade that half dime (great find, BTW) and had trouble tying it down, but somewhere in the high fine to mid very fine region. Half dimes are tough to get with an MD but you nailed this one!

That's the fun of treasure hunting, one week is great. The next your a lost puppy! I had a spot a few years ago, unreal, totally spoiled me. Nine months of living the dream, then Boom! It was gone.. totally covered, reason.. 35mph winds blowing into shore....Very Sad. My saying is, one door closes, another opens. You just have to find it. Good Luck!

little bit nicer stuff today.... 5 with the 6 and 6 with the Monster, 8.201g

Not too long ago one of the local TV channels started showing Aussie Gold show . What I started to notice almost every episode showed flat ground ? So wondering how that works , from my understanding of geology [ limited ] we need generally plate tectonics / movement , heat , pressure , mountains etc. So some guesses on my end , Australia has some of the oldest land masses , so all the high spots have worn-off ? But then the river valleys do not seem to be there / deep ? Is that more of the coriolis effect Hell I can't afford to get back to CA etc. , otherwise I would come down there to play 😉

The corn is harvested here, time to get out in the fields. I've been wanting to search this particular field right next to an old farmhouse where I dug some silver coins. Right up next to it I dug one IHP and a colonial button, figured there might be more in the field. I'd say it's about a half acre, don't know why they bother but a field is a field I guess. Yesterday was one of the last hot and humid days we can expect here, so why not be miserable for a few hours? 😀 The end of the field the photo was taken from is where I dug the coin and button, as you get closer to the hunt club building it's mostly beer cans. They haven't tilled this field and they probably won't, most farming here is "no till". They may run a bush hog around the edges but that's it. Used the 10x5 coil as usual, it's especially good in corn stalks. I found that swinging it ahead of me on an angle is better than back and forth. I made a short video but don't see .MP4 uploads. In 4 hours I got some clad, one coin spill gave me a quarter, nickel, and Zincoln. The other quarter was up near the hunt club. On the "good" end of the field I dug a 1944 wheat. Near that I got a 25, thought I'd get another IHP but to my surprise I dug an old brass ring. I know it's a ring because of the crown on the metal, doubt it's a compression fitting ring. Sad there was no makers' mark or inscription, but I don't want to scrape all the crud off. As it is something put a nick in it. It does not bend. Here is a closeup of the ring: And here is the trash, one iron relic looked interesting, kind of a hook with a loop. I threw all the beer cans and slaw in the handy dumpster. The shell is a high power .17 caliber. Not sure how old the ring is, so I thought I'd post it.

Abenson. you are right. The F11, F22 and F44 replaced the F2, F4 and F5. And the F5 is still being made basically as a private label for MetalDetector.com. The F19 LTD camo edition is being discontinued. Fisher had already stated that once they (camo) were gone they were gone. It is my understanding the plain rod F19 is still available. The F70 is the Tek Patriot. The CZ-3D ......I suppose that this is most likely the last survivor of the era of the depth demon coin machines and now its gone, too. Well, we all knew it was going to happen someday. HH Mike

Maybe she is blinded by the light off of all those diamonds and can't find her way back. 😄

My wording is not as great as my humor, yes ask my wife I’m very inappropriate and love stupid humor. I try to be good on here as to not offend anyone. In person you couldn’t keep up !!

I barely nailed it. I was in pretty thick iron. Thanks GB!

not to much of a big deal for me, ill straighten it out maybe once per hunt. however, if you use the wireless headphones be careful with that charging cord, as mine just stopped working. i had an extra power cord so not a big deal either.

It's weird how your luck can change week by week.. Last week started off great with a gold ring and finished even greater with a diamond bracelet.. But so far this week it's been nothing at all.. except a 5 cent piece and a load of bottle tops, pull-tabs and aluminium foil etc.. But this is not what makes it weird, the weird thing is that this week comes at the end of the school holidays and a long-weekend public holiday.. It's been a long time since there's been so many people on the island, you couldn't wish for a bigger crowd.. And yet, nothing.. 😬

I spent several years prospecting for diamonds in the Green River basin in Wyoming. never have found one. Last time I was there I left a couple of 8" x 48" sluices in two dry washes. Went back to check them last week. They were completely covered by sand/mud/gravel, so no longer working as sluices...LOL. But I cleaned them out and reset them, and in one, in an area that has produced the most diamond-indicator minerals, produced some nice gem quality chrome diopside, including one 1.46 carat piece, which is pretty rare for Wyoming. Thought you gem-heads might enjoy the pics. Also a pic of some other diamond indicators that were in the sluice, including ilmenite, and spinel.

Some knows I broke a couple of toes a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday is was attempting to put a TV stand with a very heavy thick glass top on it in a dumpster. That glass came off…. and dropped straight down on those toes. Man that hurts like heck. Well I was determined to do a little hunting anyway. Long slow walk tot the water. It was really moving pushing me a round. Managed to check the transition points with some success. If you get there at low tide you can clearly see what the beach has been doing and where the deep cuts are made. Wend was out of the SW and pushing the waves. Good many coins considering the guys hit it last night. One SS, a silver earring marked Jordan and the small 14k gold 3.9 grams. After today …. Man I’m taking a few days off again

We finally got a couple of days of decent rain here in Central Texas. It's been dry as a bone for the last few weeks and the ground was getting pretty hard to dig in. The wife gave me her blessings to go hunt all day long, so I headed to one of the parks that has been producing very well. When I arrived I could tell that this place had received a fair share of rain. With hopes riding high I began my hunt. This was my first hunt in some damp soil, I was in for a rude awakening! This dirt is the stickiest gooiest mess I think I've ever dug in. After almost 2 hours all I had to show for my efforts was three or four pieces of clad. My spirits were sinking faster than the Titanic. My plan was the grid off areas until I got into something good. After about an hour and a half of that and only four Wheaties to show for it, I decided to do some freelance and just wander around aimlessly and head to my car and call it a day. I got into an area that I haven't spent much time in and the first signal I got was a big old aluminum token from a chamber of commerce. About 30 ft from there I get another signal hitting in the mid 30s dropping down to 30 but jumping back up to 33-34 on the Equinox. Usually that means sprinkler head or a large piece of aluminum. Cut a plug, took out about six inches of dirt, stuck my pinpointer in the hole expecting to hit the target. I started scanning the dirt that I had dug out and almost fell over backwards when I saw some big shiny in the dirt ball :-) This was the very last thing that I expected to find today. Good thing nobody was around cuz all I could do is just sit there and laugh like a madman as I was taking pictures of it. I spent about another hour wandering around the park and decided to call it a day.

Went out there this morning and found a 1916 D penny, it was on top of the ground. Really wish these people had lost more silver🤬

It's not too bad, got my balance down hunting over soybeans last year. Just can't swing much unless you're on a wheel track. Just giving y'all something to read while working! 😀

KDOCAC, Depending on where the show you saw shoot the view is where the answer to your questions are. Australia, as mentioned above, has various geology of various ages depending on location. Here in the US much of or gold geology is pretty much dependent on young and tectonicly active geology, thus rugged and mountainous area's are where gold found. Australia's geology is much more stable and much older. Australia's tectonics are more pronounced and younger on the east coast and their west is stable so much of the land is effectively flat there. The way one aussie explained it to me in the West is that the mountains have essentially eroded away and left the iron and gold behind. A similar process occurs in our own western deserts. Having detected WA's gold fields many times, yes much of it appears flat. Especially on camera. But there's a lot of rolling out there as well as some steep hikes.

I just had to read up on "no-till" as I really had no clue! Where I go in Georgia, everything is still tilled! That's how we find arrowheads and pieces, usually every year! "Maybe" environmental sound, but sucks for detecting and sight hunting!!👍👍

Typing interferes with my afternoon beer......Now , THAT'S A song waiting for a tune ! 🤔

That was pure luck!

Ok get on a plane and come out here! You can be my color commentator. A coworker says who needs oak Island when we have you so, maybe I should make videos like Cal Cobra? What do you think? Tom_in_CA could be the technical advisor and script writer.

killing it up there. going to start a gold rush or something.

I try and laugh, and get laughs, while learning from you guys!! Make's it more enjoyable! Steve gives us enough room to be us; for the most part!! That's why I'm here most days!! Had school been like this, I'd have a PHD, instead of a GED!!👍👍

Rich I cannot get good pics with the new phone, Apple lied. My old 8 took better pics than this 12 junk. I’m trying though.

Aww Man, I was hoping for a laugh out of you!! I'll try harder next time!!😔👍👍

Thanks F350. Here is a back side with some light and I added the front

I’m 52 and still hard at it. Here are pics through an old loupe.

Sorry Chris, Us "older" and/or "retired" guys sometimes forget that most of you "younger" guys are still working!🤣 Who knows, you may be older than me, and still working! Nothing wrong with that either! You know what I mean!!😁👍👍

Currently I'm using André pencils. If the coin is really cool I'll clean it completely, might use 0000 steel wool. I tried washing coins and didn't like how they came out. Now I'm thinking of getting a tumbler. There doesn't seem to be a clear and foolproof way to clean coins and relics anywhere.

I know I sound like a broken record*, but 5 months into the hobby and I’m still amazed at the quantity of coins people manage to lose in parks! Especially something like your silver half-dollar. First, it’s a substantial item. Wouldn’t you notice if you dropped it? Second, 50 cents was a significant amount of money 100 years ago. Even 55 years ago, I could have bought 5 ice cream cones for that amount. Wouldn’t you get down on your hands and knees until you found it? I suppose it could have fallen out of some young man’s trouser pocket while he was sitting on the grass, pitching the woo to his sweetheart, and he didn’t notice. If those old coins could talk! * I’m showing my age. How many people today know what a broken record sounds like?

They didn't "lose" it! It's all buried in Mason jars, too deep for your detector! And not being hit by plowing!!🤣👍👍

Well I think the F2 F4 and F5 have been replaced by the F11, F22 and F44 but I could be wrong. I'm surprised the F19 is no longer available, that was one of my favorites. F70 looks like it is going too, as well as the CZ 3D. That doesn't leave much. I hope they plan on releasing some new models soon, otherwise they may be on their way out. They can't live off the F75 models they are too outdated and lack performance compared to a lot of what is out there.

Hey Phrunt, I agree, we kind of went off subject, rather than addressing the question that was asked. I still remember when I was swinging my GPX 5000, my favorite timing was Special/Sensitive Extra, Fixed Ground Balance, Normal or Quiet Audio, Gain in the range of 12-14 for the most part and other settings I would just toggle around from time to time. Most of your settings like Threshold, Volume and such shouldn't change much after the initial setup. My favorite coil for general prospecting and exploring new ground was the NF or Coiltek 14x9 Mono Elliptical. I also ran Doc's Goldscreamer Power Pack Li-Ion Battery system, Signal Enhancer volume around 1/4 and a good quality headset, such as Sun Ray Pro Gold's or DetectorPro Black Widow's. What's really nice is the GPX 5000 is like an equalizer, you can raise/lower any of the settings at any point in time, allowing for a lot of experimenting over various targets. If you got a target, loud or faint, you could change the timings and see what responds better. You could change the audio settings and see if it sparks up the target response, check to see if Auto Balance or Fixed gets a better response. I found on deeper gold, max depth stuff, Normal or Sharp worked best. For small gold or bedrock hunting, I was 99% of the time in Sensitive/Extra, but a few times when the ground was really hot, I would try Fine Gold. Just some thoughts on the GPX 5000 and some of my settings. Keep in mind, there are so many combinations, I remember reading or hearing with all the timings/settings you could have hundreds of different combinations. Rob

Although the Chinese cashe coin might not be worth anything, yet I still love finding them. Because like your post shows : They are indicative that old key-date stuff is close behind 🙂

That's some great stuff Chris! If you're only coming back from a hunt with 2 finds those are about the best I could imagine. The Chinese Cash can be very old. Each one has the name of a ruler and where it was minted. Try "lensing" them with Google Lens. For me the problem would be which way is up? 🤣 You are lucky finding the more valuable coins. 👍

Yup it was a killer deal, the 18x12" might be a decent beach coil too. So the Americans understand, it was $1250 USD for the GPX 5000 with 3 coils including a Coiltek Elite, 18x12" Coiltek and the 11" Commander and 3 months warranty. A pretty good deal.

Sure did and I accomplished my goal of my 5 year old daughter finding a token to win a detector. Now she has one her size.

The X-Terras I owned all had jumpy and unstable target IDs in discrimination modes here on targets deeper than 3”, very much like the Apex. So I mostly used my XT 70 and 705 with the 18.75 kHz elliptical coil for gold prospecting and relic hunting in all metal prospecting mode. The Apex having the SMF option gave me some hope that it might do better here. Didn’t happen. Abenson’s embedded video earlier in the thread showed the same behavior that I experienced with both Apex detectors I tested. In a “dig it all” scenario the unstable kaleidoscope of tones and ID numbers can be excused. If “dig it all” is not an option ……………….. not much fun. This interesting paragraph is from page 9 of the APEX User's Manual. The second sentence definitely applies to my situation and Abenson's too especially if you substitute the word deeper for the word small....targets: "Target ID can vary widely based upon the target’s size and thickness because small, thin pieces of metal cannot conduct electrical current as well as thicker pieces of metal. In addition, mineralized soils can cause Target ID errors, especially for small targets." I have been very impressed with the Apex as an emergency/alternative gold prospecting detector. Its sensitivity to .1 gram sized and larger sub gram sized gold is better than my former AT Gold even with the Viper coil. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for near surface gold prospecting IF the ground is not too mineralized.

Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine this morning 😁

I have 2 equinox units...first one dunk after 10 months of intense use, but very few times in the water. The second (brand new too) dunk yesterday, after heavy use 6 months in the sea water, until chest, almost every day. But this time happens after 2 rest days from water, and in the dry sand...after just 1h hunting under the sun (35°). No matter if u make a bath test, sooner or later your NOX will pass away. I always thought that good units were the most, but now i maybe changed my mind. There is something "weird" in the assembly or whatever. The project itself must work, because was developed by minelab engineers...but someone didn´t calculate the stress events (heat, salt, water...) or someting goes wrong in the assemply process. My first flooded unit has battery pod very flabby. My second was so tight, that i couldn`t get it out!! So what`s the problem?? Goretex membrane? Speaker? battery overhit? phone jack? USB? I don´t really know. Anyway, my strategy works better: 2 brand new units, just one in the water. When it dunk, i send to ML for cpu replacing, and i can hunt with the other meanwhile. When it comes back, i put the other in the water...and so on. After 3 years, i will sell both and buy new, like an "extended warrenty", in loop :)

The 600 is great and is likely all you would need (one forum friend here kills it with his 600, so from a performance standpoint the 600 is great), but do enough research to convince yourself that you can live without the features that you might be leaving behind with a 600 purchase vs. the 800 including: numerous non-ferrous bin tone pitch and volume adjustments/customizations (600 only allows ferrous tone adjustments); the two higher single frequency options (20 and 40 khz) which can be useful in circumstances of high power line noise or micro target detecting; the gold modes which have some advantages jewelry hunting in dry beach sand and parks; greater range and presets of adjustability on recovery speed and iron bias; manual noise cancel adjustment; and the addition of a custom user search mode memory slot that allows you to instantly call up a favorite custom adjusted search mode of your choice independent of any other on-the-fly mode changes you have made. HTH