Leaderboard

Usually I’m out playing with the Gold Monster up here near my cabin, but decided to do something different on a beautiful day. A particular decomposed granite bedrock area amongst some old timer handstackings had been productive with the Monster, so I decided to take some buckets of material down to the nearby creek to sluice. Probably 8 or 9 partial buckets with some pretty nice results! Enjoyed the scenery, the sounds, and the solitude…will have to try this more often!

I received my Legend and some other accessories for it a few days ago. I put it all together and did the update to 1.11 this morning. Decided to go searching for everything/anything so I set the search mode to field, set the frequency to M2, and selected A for the discrimination pattern. I have 35 acres of reclaimed coal strip mining. I hit my front yard (I have 3 acres fenced in with 6’ chainlink surrounding my home). I dinked around for about 30 minutes and found junk. But it was so cool to do so! My female Chesapeake was by my side the entire time…”helping” by poking her nose into the holes I dug. 🤣 It was such a cool feeling to find a freaking 1” long rusted wood screw buried 3” below the surface. I mean talk about the proverbial “needle in the haystack”! The can top I found is stamped with “Dispose of Properly”. 😂😂😂 I don’t have anything to compare the Legend against, but I’m extremely satisfied with this purchase. Sooo many setup options…I’m just gonna stick with the very basics for a bit that’s for sure! Y’all be safe!

Hope I am not too far of topic. Some remains of the 1930 mining on Bougainville (Crocodile gold). Photos taken 50 years ago. The machinery was carried from sea level to about 2000 meters above, on the backs of the local natives. Not an easy route back then. By foot. The crew.By Bike The easy way I hope those photos get you back on the journal soon.

This is an early result of a guy using the 32" Coil, I would hate to dig holes this deep, but I'd love it for the finds just the same. He's still making the full video and I'll put it here when he's finished, he just made a little preview video.

The Rye Patch Recreation Area exit is one of a few exits off of I-80 where you can find patches of gold. Rye Patch State Recreation Area | State Parks (nv.gov) The burn barrel about 12 miles from the exit is considered to be the quintessential location for many finds and many stories over the years. It has been Gerry's training ground as well and the site of many pushes. My first time there was in 2010 and people were saying it was hunted out then but I had a new 5000 and there have been several detector revivals of the gold since then with the 6000/Axioms being the latest. Locals found many pounds off the area but most of it was not commercially viable but there are a few small gold locations where the ground was processed as dry wash. Across the lake and freeway from the burn barrel is a massive heap leach formation. I'd be curious to know how many ounces that has produced from microscopic gold. Here is the website for Florida Canyon. Assets - Operations - Florida Canyon, Argonaut Gold Inc.

JCR, one other critical item that would be imperative in the case of this 75 year old Cav guy is a strong 20 year old to dig the dang holes!!! 👍🏻😂

Out on an old local pasture in the UK, that's off the beaten track and has been heavily detected by myself and others. I had the Manticore on All Terrain General - Low Conductors, sens 27, stabliser 3, the ferrous limits opened up a bit top and bottom. I hit a scratchy but repeatable 35, not a belter of a signal but enough to make me dig, so glad I did, as at the bottom of a pinpointer deep hole this beautiful gold ring appeared! There are no date or makers marks on the ring so I'm unsure of it's age, it has a nice weight to it. I've had a look through UK National Antiquities database but can't find anything that matches it. The British Museum in London is currently looking at pictures of it to ascertain what age it is to see if it should be taken under the Treasure Act. One specialist has indicated he thinks it's medieval and a couple of people have suggested it may have had Niello inlayed into it. Still a bit of a mystery, but if anyone could help with an ID i'd be very grateful. Kind regards Stuart

This is an excerpt from the old Gold Fields TV show, now being posted on YouTube over six years later by the GPAA. Fun little gig. I have not seen Kevin in years, guess he has a new show chasing Aztec Gold. Geez, I look like a fresh faced youngster - gained a few pounds, wrinkles, and gray hairs since then! “GPAA's Kevin Hoagland meets up with detectorists Steve Herschbach and Chris Ralph at Rye Patch, Nevada searching for gold nuggets with their Minelab metal detectors.” Here is the full episode which actually features Chris Ralph a lot more than me:

June 21 2002 Part One Hot and dry weather again. Over 100 degrees and the ground is parched. Jacob says this will likely be the case until sometime in September. Jim is healing up nicely and able to pull guard duty while Vern and I shovel gravels into the tom. Jacob never seems to mind the heat much and keeps a bandana tied around his head along with a brimmed hat to block out the sun. He cleaned up the gold by early afternoon and showed us the jar containing 4.1 ounces. This seems to be extremely rich ground we have stumbled upon. It’s almost as if Jacob can somehow smell the gold in the gravels. Jacob came over to the tom after the weigh and helped us shovel until dusk. We processed 38 yards by dark. At supper we all had hash and beans and washed it down with cold beer. It never tasted better after such a long, hot, and dusty day. After the sun set the temperature was quickly down into the 60’s and we got relief. After several rounds of beer the crew retired for the night and I took the first watch. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Doesn't matter whether it was filmed 6 years ago or yesterday, it is a timeless account about the excitement of metal detecting. And good to see the magic three in action 🙂 . Just too bad that Kevin and Chris did not end up filing a GPAA claim. At least GPAA does not currently have any active claims in the La Porte mining district from what I know. But I would have been very surprised had they even been able to get a claim. The entire Southeast area of La Porte, including the Spanish diggings, are absolutely off limits for prospecting and littered with private placer claims since decades. They must have had permission to film on one of the many existing claims, at least that's my guess. GC

Love getting out in the wilderness here in Idaho. River and streams around the Treasure Valley are starting to slow down finally. That’s some beautiful scenery there where you are. Wife and I want to get out this Sunday for her birthday.

This is another teachable moment from the Gary. I won't give away the twist. Enjoy! 😎

How many decades have I been saying this?

The first photo is a WW2 German/Nazi Wound Badge, it's the equivalent of the USA Purple Heart. https://www.militarytrader.com/militaria-collectibles/german-wound-badges https://www.icollector.com/BLACK-NAZI-WOUND-BADGE-HELMET-SWASTIKA-CROSSED-SWORDS_i11346704 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30078864

A couple of years ago X-coils discontinued older legacy model GPX coils, however demand has been large in their part of the world by relic hunters and big deep gold hunters for a large coil, so they come up with the goods with a 32" Spiral wound GPX 4500/5000 coil. It's an absolute monster of a coil, I can't imagine this being sold into the international market due to shipping a coil this size, hopefully the people in Europe can find some good deep relics and gold with this thing. It's good seeing some life brought into older models with all the excitement and talk these days of the newer models.

There’s an old ww2 POW camp in the town I live in in Oklahoma. German prisoners were housed here on what is now the county fairgrounds. I’ve been going over this place for about three months now, found quite a few 1941-45 wheaties and an American coat button with the eagle. I found this last week and just got it cleaned up enough to see it. Can anyone tell me more about these things? Thanks for any information!

the research I do is usually for objects that are at great depth, this particular bronze helmet seems to be close to a meter deep and can be easily located even with a 12*15 mono command. The large coils on the gpx 5000 can actually go much deeper if the metal alloy favors them.

Nice gold. Looks like fishing would be good. Nice photos.

Thanks fellas for the information. I have changed the unit I bought from V 1.0 back to V 7.1 and also the WS6 to V 7.1 . However, before I changed it I checked the WS6 that was on V 1.1 at the time and it will work with the V 1.0 unit I bought. Thanks, again.

Congratulations on a great gold find. And being so deep in the earth makes me believe it has been there for centuries!

Thanks for the beautiful scenes and I love the gold from that area. Glad you have a great spot to find some nice size gold when you sluice, and I bet that creek has a lot of it in there. I would be taking some bigger equipment to that spot to find a lot more of that gold. Don't get me wrong when I say big equipment as I am talking about a small personal tractor with a bucket on it and a small trommel. Good luck on your next hunt and good going on the gold.

Swing low and slow. By the time you have 20-30 hours on it you’ll start finding some surprisingly interesting finds. Hit some public areas where a lot of people get together. Volley ball courts are good for jewelry and coins and can be hunted in a short amount of time. Happy hunting.

That's great. Just wait until you get on some original ground that has some old in it. You will be really hooked then. Keep posting. Your enthusiasm is contagious.

Yes. My fault by posting about my new bike. I promise to get the journal going again tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Thanks for taking the time to post that. That is awesome.

The “Equinox Essentials” is a good example of a machine specific sticky. There are a couple others on the forums, Impulse AQ and Axiom off top of my head. Then there is my Steve’s Guides that collected my main general information posts. But obviously there are more, like Chase’s excellent post, that could create another collected resource. I’m traveling at the moment, but when I’m home I’ll start a process going to locate the best of the best with the help of the general membership, a scavenger hunt if you will. An easy way also would be to sort posts based on the most likes attribute.

Okay, I updated @Brad Plohman's great D2 program spreadsheet for the V1.1 update. The Custom Slots (15-24) are blank to fill in with your own settings. Enjoy! 😎 DEUS II Factory Programs Settings Spreadsheet-V1.1.zip

"100th's of a gram" that a very tiny $1 Aus at today gold price. Do you have to buy a magnifying glass with the scales. 😉

x2. And just have to add that Mr Steve Howard (the detectorist on the 2019 cover) is a very fine and helpful man. There wasn't left much he couldn't get straight. It really hurt to see them go.😢

Outstanding, it looks ancient. Congratulations on the excellent find.

I took a trip out to Rye Patch last Wed. Packed the whole family, CEO and herd of Doodle Dogs, towing the 5th wheel toyhauler with RZR aboard. Weather was awesome on day 2, almost needed a hoody at sunup, but that changed quickly. Day 2 I did some quick recon with the 2 big Doodles riding shotgun. Clearly, Rye Patch had seen some significant rain in early June. The roads were rutted and the gullies showed a lot of erosion, with bedrock showing here and there. I detected some places that had produced gold in the past for no joy. The next morning my big Doodle dog was really feeling out of sorts from a recent vet procedure. We made an appointment for Fri morning, so that shut down my detecting. Fri, we hauled her to Fallon and got some medication, then opted to take the Boss and Doodle Dogs home to Fernley. I drove back out to Rye Patch Fri evening, leaving the Doodles and Boss at home. Turns out to be a good decision since the weather turned hot quickly. Sat morning I got out early and detected a long line of exposed bedrock. Since mine were the only boot tracks, I decided to cover a lot of ground looking for the sitting ducks from the recent erosion. Surprisingly, the freshly exposed bedrock was barren, but I managed to get the bigger nugget in a newly exposed cut in the gully side wall. It got hot by noon so I surrendered and sat out the heat in the trailer with generator going and air con on max. Afternoon cooled down some and I went back out to another gully with exposed bedrock. Again, nothing in the exposed bedrock, but I pulled 2 out of the freshly cut sidewall. Sun morning I was out early. No breeze and a promise early hot weather. I put in nearly 3 hrs of detecting exposed bedrock and fresh sidewalls with not much but trash. I did a complete loop, ending up back where I had found the nuggets yesterday. 10 ft from one of my dig holes I got a faint whisper of target tone. I should mention the atmospherics were jumpy and the 6k with 14x9 Coiltek was sparky, I lowered the Sens down to 5 and that seemed to help. The nugget was flat and way down in the bedrock. I'm glad I kept my Dave' Gold Australian pick which makes quick work of the soft bedrock. I was sweating buckets by the time I got the nugget out and decided to call it a trip. Rye Patch is a tough place to score nuggets these days. All the washes I was working have been detected 1000's of times. The freshly exposed bedrock was never all that deep so my only advantage was I was first to detect the newly exposed sidewalls. If you are planning a trip mind the weather, and as always it's a tire killer out there. I saw 2 trucks on the road fixing flats.

Hi Doc! you're the best, thanks for all your hard work on stuff. I have used the "Quipple" for a few years now, great product, it is so easy to use and adjust on the move, saves my back after a few days of detecting.

more info about the key: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-cray-research-supercomputer-1843247985

I helped rebuild a Cray 1 supercomputer in 1999 for the Computer Museum. We found it in a dump in New York and it took nearly three years to restore it. The hard part was finding an operating system. I think today it's the only working example of a Cray 1. I know when we did the project it was the only one It originally cost 8.8 million dollars and weighed five and one half tons. It required 115KW of 400 volt power. We were pretty thrilled when we saw it boot up after all those years of work. Some of the Cray models had a key slot for the power supply and wiring boxes that went around the base of the computer. These boxes were called benches and served the bench purpose well. Each Cray was individually built to order. If the buyers wanted keys they got keys. The keys I've seen were your standard office file cabinet key. I seriously doubt the key shown was designed to fit a lock. Cray was originally a research and development company established by Seymour Cray. Seymour designed many of the early supercomputers including several of the UNIVACs. Cray was a major contributor to the biggest and most powerful computers in the 50's and 60's. Cray Computer was founded in in 1972 because Seymour got tired of business managers getting in the middle of his computer designs. Cray computer still exists today and is still building the most powerful computers on earth. Seymour passed away in 1996. HP bought Cray out in 2019 but the name and the company were left unchanged.

Thanks Captain! Buttons have always been one of my favorite things to detect. Coins come pretty hard at some of these sites in the Northern part of the state as the people were awful poor.They had money but were very careful with it.Nothing like the gold rush camps to the east or missions and spanish sites to the south.

Rained me out of work close to the f.o.d. so I manned up and went swinging! Wooded area super thick but never explored by me. Super hot alabama humid and rain led to complete run through of h20 and my everything. Had a rain coat but upon putting it on realized sweat and rain do the same so wore the hood to protect my ws6 and tied arms around my chest! Lol 😆 haven't swung 1.1 much except 1 baby outing so kept filters high so nail bit didn't cause me to fight a tree or worse! Happy with results and bc really can help with flat rusted tin like stuff ( usually run it 2,3 but less then 5 those things sound amazing). Happy 4th fellas be safe

Me thinks it is a medievel or slightly post medievel " Posy Gold Ring " , if you search google you will find similar. Your do not have engraving so may be worn out or to old. Here is a link to one and Mr Potter of all names is the finder. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9760071/Treasure-hunter-digs-17th-century-gold-posy-ring-engraved-two-hearts.html

I’ve lived in my town for the past 60+ years. Four years ago I picked up my first metal detector and would detect every local park and over to the beach. Never did I go to the local community center that is walking distance from my home. The property houses several buildings that were built as a school back in the late 1900’s. Well, I went by last week and see that they are scraping the soil between buildings to update the landscaping. I decided to detect the areas that have been scraped and in it I found two 1946 Rosie’s and one 1945 liberty dime, along with nine wheats and 27.12 in clad. Also a few marbles (I thought I”d lost them 🤪) This place is gonna be my go to for a while.

Obverse,didn't see that I failed getting it up

Oh speaking of unlisted I dug a good for 5 Smith community exchange smith ky I cannot find anywhr.. if anyone knows please let me in on it

I hope that I am not being out of line here by offering you some friendly but clearly unsolicited advice.But be careful with the tokens that you find because even in dug condition some of the rare or unlisted ones can command and are easily sold for enough money to pay for your D2 with all of the current accessories.

I haven't got the weight yet as all the prototypes are in the hands of people using them, X-coils don't have one on hand however it's unlikely to be all that heavy, the stock GPZ 14x13" is about 1300 grams from memory, the 22" Concentric coil for the GPZ from X-coils is right about on 1500 grams including skid plate so my guess is under 2000 grams. I'd not be surprised if the Minelab GPZ 19" coil weighs more at 1830 grams especially seeing GPX windings are lighter than GPZ. It would work on detectors like the GP3500.

The old adage, "Patience is a Virtue" really applies to new detector availability. I'm checking on the Rutus Versa most everyday.

Save LOTS of money and buy a used Equinox 800. All you will ever need!

Rye Patch is a real area. Many folks, including myself, call any area detecting in the vacinity, though it may be miles away, Rye Patch just because it is the most identifiable area. Just because people call detecting in Rye Patch, it may not be the actual place. patch

Dave Johnson (who worked for several of the USA detector companies -- Fisher, White's Tesoro, First Texas) -- at one time or another, designed the X5. Troy didn't build detectors but rather came up with the concepts and then outsourced the engineering, design, and production. There is a ton of stuff about Tesoro (especially) and Troy detectors on the late Monte Berry's AHRPS forum. That forum has a user-friendly search capability to help you find hours of reading on the subject. Monte was an encyclopedia of knowledge and (IMO) likely knew as much about Tesoro detectors as founder Jack Gifford.

Interesting times for sure. Nokta has played a big part in changing the playing field to users benefit. Now, where is that bad dirt Relic hunting PI I am waiting for?

It's a ridiculously low price for a selectable SF detector. Then again, Minelab had to do something because Nokta and XP were gouging into their empire. Plus, now there is Quest to throw into the mix. With that said, after using a SMF detector that also has selectable frequencies from low to high, I would prefer not to use a fixed single frequency detector ever again. The only negative for me about the X-Terra, is that its highest frequency is only 15 khz. Reason being, in my high EMI area, it's not until 20 khz that I can fully eliminate EMI and run at maximum gain. In addition to that, I find that 20 khz and higher is notably better than 15 khz on small gold, nickels, and small targets like coins on edge.

I purchased this detector truck toy for my nephew a few years ago for Xmas. He loved it. He would bury coins in the sandbox and find them. Matchbox Treasure Tracker Metal Detector Truck https://a.co/d/bx8wAvO

i'd start a kid on coins with a good discriminating VLF. I give my daughter the Vanquish and tell her only to dig 21/22 ID's if she just wants to find the good coins which is all she wants to find, that's our $1 and $2 coins. She finds quite a few and it keeps it fun especially with the high accuracy of the Vanquish target ID's. Put her in spots where coins are easy to find and she has some fun, put her in a place where coins are harder and she doesn't want to do it anymore. Trying gold is a big ask for a kid, few would have the patience as a huge percentage of the stuff they dig likely won't be gold, probably more likely to get lead poisoning by eating shotgun pellets something like the GM1000 would find them, young kids stuff weird things in their mouth. 🙂 Coins are easier and once they're hooked then try gold. A Mini Hoard or Go-Find with it's little smiley faces for non-ferrous or whatever are a sure fire way to make a kid hate detecting as they dig so much crap and rarely find a good target as all they're doing is digging pull tabs and bottle tops. I tried the Go-Find thing on my daughter, she hates it.