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  1. My detecting mate and I have been working a dry gully for quite a while using our 6000’s with 10x5 Coiltek coils attached. We had been finding a bit of small gold but lately our returns diminished and we had almost decided to move to a new location. In a bid to squeeze out a few more pieces, we decided to detect the ground with our 7000’s and try to uncover a few deeper nuggets. We weren’t expecting much as we had spent a considerable amount of time working this area on the short gully and thought that if we could come home with a piece or two we would have achieved our goal. The Six with the small coil really suited this area as there were many potential gold traps and hiding spots for the tiny pieces that inhabited this location. The Zed’s were fitted with Nuggetfinder 12” Z search coils and after a ground balance and tune were running exceptionally well. The hot rocks and noisy ground that played havoc at times with the 6, were ignored by the 7’s so we knew that we had a bit of potential to find that really subtle signal. We moved slowly and tried to get into difficult areas and hopefully jag something for our effort. After about 20 minutes we added a couple of small pieces to the rattle jar from steep banks on the sides of the gully. It was agreed that the shallow pieces would have been picked up easily with the 6000 but were now happy that we hadn’t been “skunked” for the day. Joe was working a stretch of ground that had produced well for us in the past so I decided to move upstream about 50m to give him some space. I started at a rock bar that had given up some treasure about a month or so ago. We had pulled about 6 very small pieces on and around the outcrop and made a concerted effort to cover all the ground in that area very well. Every subsequent trip resulted in a repeat of that process just in case we missed something. The same region was detected today with the Zed and to my surprise, a very faint signal was heard. It was in an ideal location next to the rock bar on the inside section of a bend. You can see the hole in the photo. We had hoped to find a piece of gold at a depth that the Six couldn’t see and it finally happened. It must have been on edge as the signal was initially very soft and only increased during the dig. What popped out was a pleasant surprise. The 6000 has dominated our detecting for a couple of years now and the Zed barely gets pulled out of the cupboard. It was good to get its coil scraping on the ground again and put through its paces. We had forgotten how quiet it could be when the ground suited. We had also forgotten about digging deep holes until we were quickly reminded of its power. Rusty nails and bits of steel with soft enticing signals generally resulted in ugly growls and swimming pools being dug half way to China. We moved upstream and continued to detect some old ground looking for that deeper target. I was lucky enough to get a really faint signal behind a large rock. After digging a deep hole, a small, shiny nugget surfaced. I could see why the Six would not see a piece of gold at that depth. When the hole was inspected with the coil, another break in the threshold told the story of a surprise awaiting inspection. When a piece of gold ended up in the scoop, I called Joe over and we started moving rocks and detecting a small area thoroughly. A bunch of small pieces resulted. We had a lot of fun working that area together. Joe finally moved 20 metres upstream and found another patch of deep, small pieces of gold. The river worn gold was often visible in the scoop or in the ground like the piece shown in the picture. Joe pulled a couple of pieces on the walk back including one that was in a pool of water. Boots and socks came off and a slow and frustrating recovery followed. It’s great to see a prize for all the effort put in. The final picture shows the result of our day out. Quite a few of the pieces were so small that they wouldn’t move the scales but they all added up. It is pleasing that the Zed can still earn its keep on the tiny gold. Most of the pieces found would still be in the ground if we had used the 6000’s on this trip. Having a combination of machines has proved to be a winner in this area.
    32 points
  2. I was less than neutral about Minelab's Manticore when it was introduced. I wasn't negative about it but I certainly did not celebrate its release or the fanfare that went with it. I waited for almost a year before buying one. Thanks Gerry/Gerry's Detectors for making my Manticore purchase happen!!! I only started using it full time for coin and jewelry hunting around the last week of January 2024 when it warmed up enough here to melt most of the snow. We have had small amounts of snow and cool temperatures since with no hard freezes so hunting for deeper targets in moist soil conditions has been ideal and still is now after the 14" of snow melted from a recent blizzard. So my Manticore has been doing great (so did my Deus 2 with 13X11" coil during September and October of 2023) as far as detecting these deeper, challenging targets shown in the photo by giving me enough information to choose to recover them. Sure, I am digging some rusted nails too but my US wheat penny count for the last two months is 128 and I haven't dug anywhere close to 128 rusted nails. All of these silver, gold and copper target finds have been in public parks. All targets were at least 6" to 12" deep and there were no easy, totally isolated, no brainer finds. All were in high iron mineralized dirt that by itself would mask these targets using single frequency VLF detectors and these parks have plenty of trash to deal with and listen to. Plus, I have hunted these same parks extensively with the Equinox 800 and I did not find those 128 wheat pennies or the targets in the photo. With the Equinox 800, I would average 1 or 2 wheats a week, a silver ring or jewelry find once a week and a silver coin and gold jewelry find once a month at these same parks. I am using All Terrain General with the All Metal discrimination pattern and the ATG Preset default upper and lower ferrous limits unchanged, Normal audio theme, 5 tones with tone volumes, tone pitches and tone breaks adjusted for my preferred targets, recovery speed 4 or 5, and sensitivity between 22 and 24 with the stock 11" coil. Basically, I had no idea that this much silver was still left in these parks and I have only hunted 22 times during the last 2 months in parks that are old enough to have these types of targets. Thanks Minelab for the Manticore!!!
    25 points
  3. My son is with me on the island at the moment and we're nutting out the pros and cons of buying an exploration permit in Cape York (see another post).. As we were talking about detector prospecting it struck me the amount of times I mentioned Steve.. As in: 'Steve's timing matrix for the GPX 5000 just about explains all you need to know' or 'Steve explains somewhere about using hot VLF detectors when scrapping away the top layer to find really small nuggets'.. When he asked who Steve was, I was a bit lost as how to explain him.. Somehow I'd made Steve sound like a mate and a guru all at the same time.. So I told him to read what Steve had to say and make up his own mind as to who Steve is.. He read loads of pages I've saved from this forum where Steve explains the finer details about nugget hunting and the technology involved.. As he was reading he mentioned that he now understood much better how his Gold Bug worked.. He's been a bit unconventional in how he uses it as he's mainly a panning and sluicing dude and the Gold Bug is used to scan the ground to get an idea of black sand before he starts carting away buckets of soil.. It seems to work for him.. But it's little things like his moment of understanding that made me realize what an incredible source of knowledge Steve is.. I'm not trying to blow smoke up Steve's arse or score any brownie points but when I think about the amount of times I've referred to his wise words it makes me want to nominate him for nugget hunter Sainthood.. So thanks Steve, your willingness to share your knowledge is very much appreciated - even by the next generation..
    24 points
  4. Condor and I met Andy out in the desert during a brief spell of good weather for a little detector testing and nugget hunting. Andy put together some good video footage during the trip of the Axiom in action.
    22 points
  5. I took up a ritual as a pure pastime, devoting a few hours to the shoreline. Some time ago I found with great wonder, a small ring in a really forgotten stretch of a beach, where I could barely find iron and a few coins. This morning, it being stormy and so for the rest of the week, I returned a little further than the spot where I was successful. The only promising area with obvious erosion was about 10 square meters. A very strong concentration of clay and black sand was making Ctx sick, so I immediately opened the pattern and changed separation, given the incredible masking I could hear. What happened next, in a dozen coins, is nothing short of a miracle for me. For the first time I found myself looking for a pendant that might belong to the necklace instead of the other way around, and the little ring had opened a sliver of hope amidst very obvious signals, but mixed with really too much iron. I think the necklace gave a minimal signal because of the knot along the links by the way. Nothing else to record for today, but what a day guys!
    20 points
  6. I've been slow out of the gates for the 3rd year in a row, but hopefully I can follow through better than recently. I do have some ideas for sites I haven't hunted (and if I'm real lucky, no one else has either). But that needs to wait for summer. In the meantime.... A site that has produced modestly (Wheaties and a few silver dimes) in the past has a previously closed area that's opened up. I was able to get out last weekend and give the Manticore a chance. Here's what I found in 3 hours: The highlight is the four silvers, the best of those being the nearly uncirculated 1953-D Roosie. It's a very common date+mintmark but a bonus is that it's from my birth year. Wish I looked that good after 70 years. Maybe being buried in the ground is an advantage! 😁 (On second thought, I'll find out about that soon enough....) The denomination breakdown is interesting but may not be terribly meaningful: three 1-centers (two are Wheaties), nine 5-centers ('nickels), three dimes but two are silver (I'll take that ratio!), no 25-centers at all. Only three of the nickels have dates later than 1964. Has this area ever been searched? And how long has it been 'uninhabited'? Or did someone hunt it decades ago but ignored nickels, not wanting to dig beavertails? Note I found more nickels than imposters (five folded-over beavertails, a couple pencil ferrules, and a misc. scrap of aluminum). The shotgun butt (next to the padlock) is very likely from quite long ago given this area has been settled for longer than I've been alive. The small item left of the padlock is a piece of junk jewelry, probably a broken off pierced earpiece (plated copper with a blue glass 'stone'). I didn't photograph all the trash targets, but that's 2/3 to 3/4 of them. Surprisingly the two Warnicks (1943-P and 1943-S) show the gray patina that is representative of that population which have circulated but never been in the ground. Usually the acid in the soil eats off that surface, leaving the white metal (silver) finish. For one of the two I didn't even realize what it was until I got home and cleaned off the dirt. Only one coin was even close to being challenging -- the Roosie was 7 1/2 inches deep. I picked up a faint but clean signal with the Manticore 11" coil (All Terrain High Conductor mode). While investigating I turned up the sensitivity from 17 to 21, then backed off to 19 for the rest of the hunt. It definitely sounded louder at the higher sensitivity settings. (In my test garden it seems going much higher than 18 smears out the VDI resolution, getting worse the higher the sensitivity. That's why I've been using 17.) Anyway, I'm not done there so hopefully I can show more goodies in the near future. Quantity of hunts has been low but quality of finds the opposite!
    18 points
  7. This one is for the button fan, I dug a 1926 wheat in another field but that was it for the coins. Invited Chase up for one of the last hunts here, a new 100 acre permission that I didn't find much in before, we set out to scout the other half of it that I didn't get to. It's a huge field that had beans on it last year, usually I prefer to hunt in bean stalks but this one is tough, the stalks are too tall. We ran into a farmer friend who told us this is because when they are rushing to get the beans before a rain, they lift the combine collector and don't cut them short. The stalks become really stiff by spring and are very hard to walk on, they chip at your shoes and can go through your hand or foot if you're not careful. 😬 We set out heading to the other side of the field, Chase went ahead and hunted around the old barn, I think he got a couple of wheats there. I walked up the center of the field not expecting anything, I had crisscrossed this field before and found literally nothing. Got a 47 and dug this rolled copper "tinkler" that was traded with the Indians: https://www.nativetech.org/metal/tinkle/tinkle.html It would be a "point" or arrowhead if it had a point, these were hung on their clothing and they jingle. I immediately went into circle mode, making a spiral around the place I found the first object, and hit 3 buttons. By this time Chase was way across the field, so I noted where I found this stuff and joined him to scout the rest of the place. We found next to nothing, I got just a few buckle bits. We decided to go back to this "hotspot" and the buttons just kept coming, I think between us we found well over 20. Small cuff buttons, medium buttons, a couple large, both brass and Tombac. They were everywhere in about an acre or so. What I thought might be a pretty bad day turned out to be a great one, I got all this: 16 buttons and a bunch of other brass stuff. Chase did as well. When things wound down we quit for the day, but there are certainly more there. Here's the trash, only a handful but I got fooled by a few bits of big iron today: I was using Relic exclusively, with the 13" coil on the Deus 2, with reactivity at 1 and Audio response 7. Some of the buttons were over 10" deep! We found other artifacts that deep too. Sadly we found no coins in that spot. We think it was an area where people got together and traded stuff in the 1600s and 1700s, and possibly with the Indians as well. This is a great example of how you really have to search a farm to find the hotspots, it takes a lot of determination and some really good guesses. You just can't give up! There may be another hotspot here, there is a part of the field we didn't go to, but we'll get there. 🍀
    16 points
  8. After the last three days of waiting, with little pronounced swell but enough to make the surf area impassable, this morning I tried to hang on despite the water still being choppy and the visibility really bad. Once again, a pattern with really tight high and low iron limits selected the few signals worthy of digging. I must say that while limiting the sensitivity, I am afraid it is the only efficient way for me to make an effective session in certain conditions. As usual the cam's battery died before the glory shine and however, just sand suspension and fast water it's been the subject for 99% of the dive session.
    16 points
  9. Turn down your sensitivity. ”but then I won’t go as deep” Yes, but you will have stable target id. ”I want stable target id but I don’t want to lose depth by turning down the sensitivity” That’s nice but target id stability is directly related to mode choice and sensitivity setting. Going for max depth will in most cases cause target id instability. Nearly everything in detecting is a trade and if you push the absolute limit of depth target id accuracy will suffer. The worse the ground, the more true this is. It’s always been that way with metal detectors and always will be. ”yeah but if I lower the sensitivity of my new whiz bang detector now it goes no deeper than this old model” Metal detectors used to be less powerful and in general manufacturers put high priority on accurate target id. Back in the day you could almost always run sensitivity maxed out with little problem because older models were in effect throttle limited. Now, as we reach the limits of detector depth, manufacturers are making machines that can easily push past the stability red line. Sensitivity controls literally go higher than they used to - the throttle limiters are being pulled off in the name of “more depth.” Yet people in general, not saying you in particular, just users in general, have a fear of backing the sensitivity down. This leads to far more complaints these days about target id stability as people try to run new detectors at sensitivity levels set like they did with some older detector. With all detectors target id stability is a direct detector feedback to you, the user, about the status of your current settings. If the settings are too high, target id will become unstable and the numbers jump around. That is the machine screaming at users “turn down the sensitivity.” So either find the setting that gives you the stability you crave, or push higher and deal with jumpy target id. It’s a choice. If target id stability is the gauge, it is very possible that new machines set to be stable will go no deeper than older machines set to be stable.
    15 points
  10. Here are some pictures of 3 successful hunts using the M8 on the wet salt beach. The little gold pendant has what I think to be a garnet with tiny diamonds weighing in at 1.4 grams. The other picture showing 2 pieces of gold side by side weigh .4 grams on the 10K thin ring and .8 grams on the 10K toe ring. Another picture shows how this coil is hot on finding open earrings of which some are silver. The "gold" disc pendant is plated over steel. That one had me take notice for a minute or two until I put my magnet next to it. The chain was the deepest I have ever dug one, probably 10 inches. I was hoping it was 10k and heavily corroded but alas... just plated copper. Haven't had much time in the water with the coil yet but so far so good.
    14 points
  11. i had a good day with my vanquish 440 3 silvers and 11 wheats thanks for looking Steve
    14 points
  12. Hard to describe the mixed feelings here. From initially seeing it come out of the sand and going.. "GOLD!"...then feeling the weight and being ehhhh, then getting to the car and not seeing hallmarks..but then saw no worn plating..but then it's very light...but also "well if it was brass, it's so cheap, why hollow it out?" "hmm looks pretty clean tho" . Ughh. Went straight to the scrap gold buyer with the XRF and was more than pleasantly surprised to hear that it was testing between 17 and 19ct gold!! Wow what a relief. I was hoping 9ct at best lol. Didn't sell, just holding it for now. The links are hollow and it's super worn, like hanging on by a thread of gold. Definitely for the scrap pile. I was soo thrown off by the weight. Being hollow links I thought maybe 13-12 grams, but not even close, 37.4 grams!! Although there has to be a little sand and water in the links so maybe closer to 35g. Still over 1oz and my heaviest gold to date. Up at 5:40am, left at 6am, got there 6:30am right at sunrise and left by 8am. Made roughly $2700AUD in scrap gold hehehe. Overall, terrible conditions in the water, super rough, 5m vis, very very strong current and big waves. I found a small patch and found a silver 2 shilling coin and a silver ring as well which was nice. Was hoping to snag a gold ring too in case the chain was fake but it was hard going after sunrise so I just left. Tides weren't ideal either. HH
    13 points
  13. I've had the Axiom for a about 2 months now and up to this point have just been testing it against other PI's on gold nuggets. The weather looked good enough to head to the Nevada desert this last weekend, so I asked Steve & Steve if they wanted to meet up. They agreed. Weather was a little cold at night, still in the upper 20's low 30's, but day time temps were mid 60's. Perfect metal detecting weather! Steve has been using the Axiom for quite some time now and has always said it really is a great PI. I have to agree, especially if you're looking for a multi purpose PI to use not only gold nugget hunting but relic or beach hunting. I really look at the Axiom as being a great replacement for the now discontinued GPX 5000. The Axiom is far better on small gold than the GPX 5000 IMO and hands down just a better setup overall. It's real nice to have all the functions right there available at you finger tips. Wireless headphones, rechargeable battery that lasts 2 days and great ergonomics just add to the appeal. One thing that's real hard for me to do it put time in on a new metal detector when you're at a site you've used other metal detectors on the past that have a proven track record. I had the Manticore and GPX 6000 with as well. So forcing myself to use the Axiom for 4 hour stretches at a time was hard to say the least. Especially when there was gold being found by others in the party. But using the Axiom did not disappoint and I can confidently say it will find both small and big gold about as good as any other PI's I've used. I used the 7x11 DD coil the entire trip, my settings for the most part were fine gold, sensitivity at 5-6 and threshold at 15. First nugget I found with the Axiom came on day 2 as I was exploring some new ground I hadn't detected over before. I saw a dirt pile a few hundred yards away so worked towards it. About 10 feet away from the pile I got the first signal I'd heard in probably 20 minutes. Turned out to be a .16 gram nugget at about an inch. The second nugget came on the morning of day 3 about 3 hours before I had to leave. I was hunting some large piles of dirt that had lots of junk in them. Got a loud high tone that I figured was going to be trash, but dug it anyway. Turns out it was a large 4.1 gram nugget. Man did that make my trip. Obviously I dug a lot of other junk targets on the trip. But when you're digging bird shot, aluminum foil and small wire you know a machine is capable of finding small gold. Best thing about the trip is everyone found gold. I'll let Steve and Steve chime in if they want with their finds.
    13 points
  14. It can be only one thing...Girl friend Number..? Sometimes we forget which is which and what better way to keep track.. You forget which she is......... you move in with the hand kiss.. You see the number and it hits you,, AAAaa yes, Athena.. 😍
    13 points
  15. We've added a new mapping layer to the Land Matters Mining Claim Maps. You will find the new layer under the "Claims" mapping group on every mining claim map. It's named "Mining Claim Fees Paid". The mining claim maps start without the new layer displaying so you will need click the checkbox next to the layer name to begin using this map layer. This new map layer shows the total amount of maintenance fees paid to the BLM for each Section since annual Maintenance fees were begun in 1993. These fee totals are for annual maintenance only and do not include filing or locating fees or the costs associated with State recording fees. Mining bonds and permit expenses are not included. Each Section that has had claims during the period from 1979-2024 are represented in green on the map. The more fees that have been paid for the section the darker the green. Some sections may have $0 in fees paid yet show several claims. These are Sections where all claims were closed before the maintenance fees began in 1993. As you zoom in the amount of fees paid will be displayed in the section. In this example the Fees Paid are displayed between the normal active mining claims display. To get Information at any zoom level you can select the information tool and click on your area of interest will return a window with the number of claims and the total of fees paid in that section. As with all our mining claim maps the current or prior existence of mining claims does not mean that the area is now open to new mining claims. What are annual maintenance fees? Until 1993 all Mining Claims were held by completing a minimum of $100 worth of development work per claim per year. This was known as the mining claim labor requirement. If you didn't perform work on your mining claim each year before 1993 they became invalid. In 1993 Congress, at the request of the BLM, enabled claim owners to pay an annual fee of $100 instead of completing their annual claim development work. This brought in funds to the BLM to administer the program as well as relieving them of their responsibility to check existing mining claims for evidence of development work. No longer did the BLM need to do field work to administer mining claims. Since 1993 the annual claim fees have risen to $165 per year for each Lode claim and $165 per 20 acres for each placer claim. Placer claim fees can be as much as $1,320 per claim. Unlike other government programs the mining claim case administration system at the BLM is entirely supported by claim owner fees. These annual mining claim maintenance fees are paid directly to each BLM State office to offset the costs associated with administrating the mining claim case files. No public monies are used. Here are the totals by State of mining claim fees paid for the years 1994 - 2023 Arizona $507,229,955 California $385,681,600 Colorado $380,865,975 Idaho $307,600,865 Montana. $224,791,660 Nevada $1,523,212,855 New Mexico $190,491,505 Oregon $99,909,290 South Dakota $107,769,290 Utah $556,540,015 Washington. $53,075,435 Wyoming $468,886,230 Total $4,806,054,675 Nearly 5 Billion dollars have been spent by mining claim owners to support BLM mining claim administration. The BLM is now collecting more than 83 million dollars in mining claim maintenance fees each year.
    13 points
  16. Thanks Erik. I’ve never been very comfortable with praise so I’m squirming a bit at the moment. The fact is I learned a great deal from others and did well, and this website was designed as being a way to give back. I taught a lot of people how to nugget detect giving classes in Alaska and nothing gave me more pleasure than seeing those people find their first gold nugget. It’s great that you and your son are able to connect via gold prospecting. So while my first instinct is to blow this off with a self-deprecating joke, I think in this case I’ll just say thank you.
    13 points
  17. Not my video. Just thought I'd share
    12 points
  18. First time out with the XP deus 1, 9 inch x35 coil, found 2 sterling silver rings with CZ and a tungsten carbide ring with a very very small diamond I'm saving up for the high frequency coil I heard it's much better, I was getting EMI with the x35 coil Hope this is a sign of things to come with this detector https://youtu.be/Lbg1r4fAJUw?si=7JGqLBJ0kACY-1up
    11 points
  19. Everyone is all over the moon about the GPX6000. I know it has it's place, but not when you put it up against the Zed. I have not given up on the GPZ7000 yet and I doubt I ever will unless they make it lighter. I have found all size of gold at all kinds of depth and it never fails to amaze me. 1/10th of a gram at 9 inches, another at an absolute 8 inches. I was taking only a 1/4 inch of soil off at a time because I didn't believe the first 1/10th was actually at 9 inches. I figured it had fallen deeper in the hole as I dug. So when I got a second target 2 feet away I thought I'm going to go really slow so I know exactly what kind of depth. Another was a 2.1 gram nugget at 21 inches in a crack in bedrock. So yeah, the GPZ7000 is still my machine, but you have to know how to make that detector float like a feather. Doc
    11 points
  20. So, after using so many different detectors in the last 50 years, some things never cease to amaze. There were so many fan boys when the D2 came out and how it was going to RULE small everything. Well, we know that did not happen. YET, the Equinox never falters and excels at small bits. Got this pear-shaped diamond surrounded by many small chips. It looks like a setting that came apart from a ring. Nothing has been tested nor certified. I suspect from the look and quality it is real. Rang a solid hard 8 on the Equinox in Beach 2. Had big waves and lost it through the scoop on the first try. Was lucky to reacquire and run it up the beach to find. Interested to see how others are doing on small bits!!!
    11 points
  21. Got a new permission yesterday, a nice older gentleman approached me while I was digging in a small field I call the Jewelry Box. After talking to him for an hour (really more listening), I asked if I could detect his farm and he said that would be fine. It's a big place, 100 acres but only about half that is field. The coolest thing is that there is an old blacksmith shop sort of on the property, but the landowner doesn't own it. There were also two older houses far back on the farm, now gone. There is a much newer one there now where the owner lives. I went there today to scout it and see if there are any hotspots. I managed to find about 3 things, but man that place is clean. It was probably detected in the past. I walked for 3 hours and other than a buckle, a clad dime and a small pin on watch, all I find there was buck shot and shotgun shell ends. 😢 I only searched half of it today, it was warm but the wind was blowing about 20mph with gusts to 35. It was absolutely brutal, walking on bean stalks and getting blown all over the place. I finally gave up and went back to the small field next door hoping to save the day. I had both the 9" and 13" coils with me, and ran Relic most of the day but switched to the new Tekkna program when the trash got dense. This also prompted me to switch to the 9" coil. While the 13" has pretty good separation, the 9" really sees so much less ground it can pick targets a bit better. Ended up with some pretty good stuff, the last 3 hours I searched my small field and scratched a few more good finds. Here's what I dug: Some sort of famous person spoon, a large brass buckle used to hold a strap on the pin, a General Service button. Got a 1937 wheat and the small gold plated watch near the shop, the brass buckle in the back of the field. The 1943 war nickel, the incredibly detailed buckle among other things came from the small field, it was a tough but decent day. Trash in the small field was horrendous: Got a little toy cap gun, sadly broken in half near the barn.
    10 points
  22. With my recent use of the Manticore I was concentrating on high conductor targets first, and then, low to mid conductor targets between target IDs 10 and 30 due to the high levels of aluminum trash in my area that has target IDs between 30 and 55. So far, all of the women’s jewelry that I have found and tested which is mostly smaller earrings, smaller chains with pendants, small engagement rings and small bands have all had target IDs between 10 and 30. Larger men’s rings will definitely be between 30 and 60 or so. Modern silver jewelry seems to start around 60 to 65. I owned a CTX for a while but only used it on land. It was similar to swinging a heavy double barreled shotgun! I imagine it would be a different story submerged. The biggest improvements on the Manticore compared to the CTX for me are the much improved response on low/mid conductors, faster target separation, better unmasking in iron, better handling of mineralization, better ergonomics, better user interface, much easier to read screen and the audio enhancements. I do not like the expanded target ID system and the 8 hour max battery life. For you, the vibrating handle for a secondary underwater target alert and the onboard flashlight may be helpful too. The 2D target trace will display multiple targets immediately and simultaneously which for me has been very helpful. CTX kind of did that but at a much slower rate. The Ferrous limits are somewhat similar to the CTX patterns but there are upper and lower ferrous with non ferrous in the middle. As far as Deus 2, I really like mine but I don’t have to look at its screen under water. I have a hard enough time seeing it in daylight. I also dont’ like all the extra hassle of setting it up for hunting with it under water or having to charge up more than two things in order to hunt. Yes, the 25 to almost 85 low and mid conductor target ID range is a bit much. If you want a less expensive option with a good screen, only 50 total non ferrous target IDs and solid underwater performance, the Legend is also a possibility. I have two of them and they are fantastic. Is the Legend as fast as a Deus 2 and equal to it in iron trash and depth……No. The Legend is also not as deep as the Manticore. However, for the money the Legend is still a great bargain and it won’t miss much.
    10 points
  23. Close to 20 yrs ago about this time of year (There was an incredible wind storm in the Anchorage area that day. Even had to evecuate the control tower at the airport) I took one of Steves detecting classes at AMDS. Steve was a great teacher. Summer found a friend & I at Crow Creek trying to find our first detector nuggets. Ran into Steve & he gave up the next couple of hours of his personal hunting time to help my friend & me each find our first nuggets. It was an incredible display of his generocity, and proof that he does indeed find great joy in seeing that smile on someones face when someone not only finds their first detector nugget, but also understands why it was there & how to do it again. Thank you Steve!
    10 points
  24. Ok, figured out the spoon guy, as best as possible. Used some 0000 steel wool. Meet Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia prior to World War 1. The stem says "Deutschland", and the Germanic eagle is at the top. The back would depict two soldiers and the German Flag at the time, but no matter how much I steel wool this spoon it won't come out. This spoon was made by the "Oneida Community" pre-Oneida Limited of New York. The "Community" was disbanded in 1881, an odd story in itself. There were two commemorative spoons made possibly to celebrate the second marriage of the Kaiser to his wife pictured above, or as an earlier tribute. This puts this spoon at the latest to be 1906, but it was probably made before 1881. Fun stuff!
    9 points
  25. Wondering how many out detectorists here while out looking for gold also pick mushrooms, berries and such when in season? I'm always looking. I look for Morels and Bolet mushrooms, goose and elderberries. What do you look for in your neck of the woods?
    8 points
  26. They have not said anything to get excited about, just "new model." So what? New high end competition for Legend, Deus 2, and Manticore? That would get people excited. Another mid range detector? Not so much. Given the lack of information and the way people got hyped up over models like the Apex, only to be disappointed, I can fully understand a lack of excitement at this point. Especially with the hard core detector junkies that hang out on this website.
    8 points
  27. After having seen others paint the keys on their Legend I decided to try something totally different. I used Glow Paint. It was tedious, and I can probably get another coat on it but this is how it looks both day and in darkness. I like it. Again, it was tedious due to how the paint is. I used a bamboo skewer to apply the paint inside the button indents. Wiped excess off. Found out it was easier to just coat the button and immediately wipe off excess. This is what it looks like after 12 hrs cure time. The paint used is Glow-on. I had some Neon Green on hand from another project but I'd prefer it to be blue. The stuff isn't cheap but a little goes a long way. https://www.amazon.com/Super-Phosphorescent-Sights-Concentrated-lasting/dp/B00GUA92RQ?ref_=ast_sto_dp Again, this stuff works best in multiple coats. What you are seeing is just a thin single coating. Will probably apply at least one more layer. But giving this 24 hrs between applications works best. Thought you might find it interesting. EDIT: Oh, I also installed a Skinomi screen protector to the display. In the picture it has a blemish but I have since wiped that off. I cut the piece to fit. It's a Matte version of their clear model. Really cuts down on glare in the sunlight.
    8 points
  28. I really like that guy, wow, he makes good honest videos and puts a lot of effort into doing it. I've never seen one of his videos before. @Tyler should consider watching this video even though it's not to do with his detector as what it demonstrates is how much better spiral coils are over bundle coils, a larger spiral coil really shows a smaller bundle coil who's boss, the smaller coil should be the most sensitive to small gold based upon size, but the larger spiral virtually keeps up on the smallest gold while providing much better depth as the gold gets bigger. For me, if I were in Australia in those soil conditions, I'd not touch the Sadie and stick with a larger spiral coil of either 10" to 12" round or a 14x9" Spiral. The Sadie would only go on if I needed the smaller size due to rocks and bushes or the like. There is very good reason most coil manufacturers have ditched making bundle coils. At the 33-minute mark he gives a great demonstration of why difficult on the 6000 is risky business, the Algo did as well as the 6000 on that nugget when the GPX was in difficult I thought, I've seen this myself multiple times even in my mild soil where a target is hard work for difficult but screams in normal with the 6000, and the GPZ is an even better example, much of the gold I've found with the GPZ I'd not even find if I wasn't in normal. Yes, you have to have soil suitable, which is why I suppose the final frontier for the GPZ and future PI's is handling soil better to give normal like mild ground performance in difficult ground conditions. My Algo experience isn't quite as defined as his in this video being in milder soil the gap isn't so far apart between the two which I guess shows the GPX 6000 loses less depth in bad soils than the Algo does. The only reason I'd use the Target ID on the Algo gold prospecting is to check for surface pellets, they always come up 00, gold on the other hand will almost always come up with a number. The harder to hit spherical shape of pellets drags it's numbers down to 00 when for gold, even bits weighing the same as a pellet will generally have slightly higher number with that number increasing as the gold gets bigger. This video also shows why I keep saying GPX 6000 owners don't need one, unless they want to use it for something other than gold prospecting.
    8 points
  29. Doc put these fellas minds to rest quickly or we are all gonna end up sharing a padded cell🤪
    8 points
  30. September 10 2002 Part Two After lunch I helped Conor get the pump going and told him I was going up to the dig site to have a look at the area Jacob was working. I jumped in my truck and headed up the mountain. When I got over to the area where Jacob was digging I got a good look at what he was talking about. I was amazed. He had started into a section of mountain with a long trench and then was widening out the dig and descending his work down and forming a kind of rectangular shaped hole that was a good twenty feet in width and just as deep. He had backed out of the trench and reset his operation to form a deeper but less steep ramp which had increased his footprint. That allowed him to go deeper than the twenty feet his excavator arm was limited to. Jacob saw me and gave me a grin and climbed down off the machine. We were looking into a big hole where the entire north or back wall as well as the east wall was bedrock. I went down the ramp and got into the bottom of the hole with a pan and personally took out a good sample. Then Jacob and I walked over to a water tub and he watched me pan it out. I could hardly believe my eyes. There in front of me was a pan half full of black sand and the other half heavy gold. Pickers and coarse gold like I had never seen. Clay was in the truck waiting to be loaded and came over to have a look. He let out a soft whistle. I looked at Jacob and told him I was having a hard time believing what I was seeing. My hands were shaking. Jacob just chuckled and told us it just kept getting richer as he got deeper into the cut. I asked him how deep he thought it could go before bottoming in bedrock. Jacob flatly stated he was not sure but if it held up for another several days it was going to get pretty interesting. He said the rich ground might also extend to the west as well because it showed no sign of being contained to the twenty feet of lateral area. He said it was something like the 1936 strike but actually might be much larger. How rich the bottom might be was anyone’s guess. TO BE CONTINUED ...............
    8 points
  31. September 9 2002 Big Time Gold Again The morning finally came. I didn’t sleep all that well. I kept thinking about the gold weigh. What if we were wrong and were over estimating how much gold was in the concentrates from 100 yards of washed gravel? Today we found out. We finished the cleanup just after noon. It was a good one. We had 29 ounces of gold. Nearly 9 grams to the yard. Jacob was right, we are onto something special. If this holds up we are going to end the year on a high note. Big Clay was dancing around camp at lunch time like he was a new millionaire or something. Everyone was in a good mood. We finished lunch and got back to mining and worked straight through until dusk. The tom had processed 60 yards of gravel and we could see the pickers practically jumping out of the sluice. Jacob said we would run another day and then do a cleanup. The morning couldn’t come fast enough for us. TO BE CONTINUED ..................
    8 points
  32. The Legend was my first SMF detector, and it has really impressed me with it's performance, especially on my mineralized relic sites. These are red dirt sites that I had worked over hard with Single frequency machines, to the point of seeming worked out. The Legend made them seem like new again. Now, 2 years later, the same sites seemed to be getting thin again. A second, different SMF detector, the Rutus Versa has shown that there were still good targets to be found. These have mostly all been small to very small, but a few larger surprises. It is amazing to me how different machines "see" targets/ground & report in their own way. This tells me there is no ONE BEST detector, and a site is never completely worked out. This is a good thing to me, because I like fooling around with detectors and learning what works & why. I have been experimenting on & off with ways to make the Legend perform better on smaller coin size targets in my red dirt minerals. One that shows promise is taking advantage of the Legend's adjustability to set up a special 4 tone audio profile. This profile is to capitalize on the fact that the Legend actually sees a smaller/deeper target in my mineralized soil, it just sees it, and calls it as a Ground response of TID 1. The special audio profile puts TID 1 in the first tone bin by itself, with a medium high pitched tone. The second tone bin is for iron, with the normal low tone & breaks at 7. The third tone bin is a normal mid tone, and the fourth the normal high tone. This works quite well, at least on my test bed. I have had some success with it in the field but need to do more hunting with it. What I really think @Nokta Detectorsshould consider is adding a Hot Rock control to the Legend. The Rutus Versa has this feature, and it makes a big difference in bringing out non ferrous targets that are being swallowed up by the Ground mineral response. By adding a positive adjustment, the TID scale is shifted slightly to bring targets back around to a non ground/non Iron TID/Tone. I demonstrated this in the first video I posted several weeks ago on my channel Red Dirt Detecting. Here is a video of the Legend, running thru the same test as the Versa previously. Please forgive the crudeness of my second only video attempt. I will try to improve in future.
    7 points
  33. I just got permission to detect a large piece of land in a well known gold bearing area. It is private land that nobody has been prospecting for many many years. Everything around it is claimed up tight. It's hard to describe how excited I am about this permission. I will have miles, not acres to hunt. 😁😁😁
    7 points
  34. We ended up doing good on this low cost plan. At one of the trenches on the operation we hit a honey hole that we got pretty excited about. I was at a creek about half a mile away running concentrates through a spiral wheel (Gold Magic) while my partners were running gravel. I saw my partner pull in with his truck and told me I needed to come check out the area they were digging. I had him stay with the cons while I drove up to the the dig site. They were test panning from the trench and were pulling pans of coarse gold like I hadn't seen there before. This stuff ended up being in the ounces to the yard. We all thought we had struck it rich but as soon as it started it faded away. It was a hot spot but it didn't last long. Mining can be cruel. However, sometimes I think running the small and inexpensive plans are the best ways to go. You have little to lose but your time and if you have done your homework on the ground you should make some money. For me it's not a fever any longer but a business. I like to get paid for my work. So do my partners. However, it will always be a thrill to see gold in the pan. It's something that never grows old. I just got smarter about how much money I spend to get it.
    7 points
  35. While I understand funds are not unlimited. Here is something to consider. It's price vs. cost. Now you may not have the $400 price or whatever someone charges for a day or three of training. However, when you start detecting for gold and don't have the knowledge that a day or three of training will give you. The cost is going to be staggering. I once ran into a person metal detecting for gold. I came up over a ridge with my ATV and there was a person just halfway down a small gully. I stopped said hi, and we exchanged some pleasantries. The person said, I'm just going to finish this last 30 yards and then I've got another place I want to go. He too had an ATV sitting at the foot of the gully. He said I can save you some time though, I haven't found anything in this gully, not even trash. I said "No worries." And I acted like I was looking through my storage container on the back of my ATV. Actually I was watching this man finish the rest of the gully as I thought to myself. "Well partner if there were any gold there you would have never found it." All he was doing was detecting the bottom of the gully. Not the edges of where the bottom of the ridge met the gully, not behind the bushes that lined the gully, he didn't roll any boulders over and detect under them. And his coil was about 8 inches off of the deck. Apparently he didn't want to get his coil dirty. This man was giving a training lesson on how to do everything wrong. He could have written a book called, "The Secret Key to No Gold, No Treasure, No Holes Metal Detecting" by NADA KLU. He waved goodbye and drove off. I got my metal detector off the ATV and I swear as God is my judge as I am walking down to the gully I get a target behind a bush, a 1 gram nugget. I get into the gully and I hit another 1 grammer 15 feet down from the first about 12 inches out of the gully. Half way down the gully there is a bunch of broken quartz about 4 feet out of the gully on a small flat bench. There are a couple of boulders that I roll off the bench and I find a 4 gram nugget! 4 grams! I thought for sure it was a bullet. I head down to the foot of the gully and right in the middle of the gully about 3 feet from where it emptied into the wash, where the other prospector's ATV was parked, another large signal. A two gram nugget 6 inches down smack dab in the middle, a child could have found it with a toy detector. But not this guy! Because about 15 feet before he got to the foot of the gulley, where his ATV was parked, he was busy turning off his detector and waving goodbye to me. I ended by checking all the sides of that gully and found 5 more little dinks. totally close to a gram. OK so I know without a doubt this person never had any training, so he saved the $400 of the PRICE of a training class. Now being he was not trained and didn't have a clue, the COST of not being trained was approximately 9 grams of gold. Or at today's gold prices approximately $635, and that was for just 1 gully and about 40 minutes of detecting. I spent over 5 hours working that gully and everything that fed into it. So INVEST in yourself, because the payoff will be well worth it. Call Gerry at Gerry's detectors. He has one of the best training crews around and he is a Marine, so he will BOOT CAMP your butt and make you find gold. You will never be sorry! Doc
    7 points
  36. We didn't bother to take very many pictures in 2002. However, I will look around or see if anyone else has any. I am not much for taking pictures & didn't even own a camera back then. Even today I do not own a smart phone but have a chrome book for occasional pictures. There are some pictures taken on the mine from much later yrs that were taken by one of my partners but by then that 2002 project was completely reclaimed and buried. The bond was huge for the 2002 project because of all the ground we were disturbing. Cheers.
    7 points
  37. If you want to meet up some time in May ... after May 8th, hit me up and we'll set something up for a swing. I've found that when you are helping someone find some gold, I happen upon some gold myself! We are in the 'same' area based upon detectable gold is concerned. This is the best thing you can do in early April. Kevin Hoagland will be there. I'm going to be in Texas for the eclipse. Placer Petes (placerpetesgoldcamp.com) http://placerpetesgoldcamp.com
    7 points
  38. As someone who has done all three: 1) Gold clubs (GPAA being one, but where you live I suspect there are local/regional versions as well) are good in that they provide places to detect (claim access) as part of their membership. Getting advice on how to use a detector, though, while possible from the right person (such as Kevin Hoagland of GPAA) is not always that easy. Oh, you'll get plenty of people who think they know what they are doing, both in this regard and reading the land, etc. Cost: $50 to $100 per year (ballpark) which in the case of GPAA includes a subscription to the bi-monthly Gold Prospector magazine. 2) Getting face-to-face instruction from an experienced person (such as Gerry and his crew) has a lot to be said for it. Not only will they get you off on the right track but give you the confidence that you are going about it the right way. And since the classes are (in Gerry's case anyway) taught in a location where gold has been found you have a good chance of finding your first nugget. (I did.) Cost: several hundred dollars but can be discounted if you buy a detector from the teacher. 3) Books such as Chris Ralph's Fists Full of Gold are also helpful, particularly when you get to the point where you want to find promising spots on your own, but also when you are on a claim and want to find the spots to give you the best chance of finding gold. Cost: $30 (for Chris's book, and that puts you in the ballpark for others as well). Bottom line is that 1) and 3) are of quite reasonable expense and 2) is worth it, IMO, to get you off and running. You mention you aren't in a hurry, so you can probably get away without personal instruction, but I tried that for half a dozen trips West before I took Gerry's class. I don't regret paying for any of the three as I think they are worth it to me personally (I've been a GPAA member for 10 years now) but if given a do-over I wouldn't have waited so long to get the personal instruction.
    7 points
  39. Thanks for the excellent summarization of your experience with the Manticore Jeff. Mine has been much the same. I've had mine for, 14-15 months or so now. While park hunting is not my favorite type of hunting, it's what is available on a daily basis. And I do like it, quite a lot. Just not as much as ghost town/coin relic hunting. But I can't hit a ghost town every day after work or any weekend morning . So I do a ton of "trashy park hunting". The Manticore has "opened up" to "coin" a tired cliche (or two!), so much productive clad and .925 hunting in spots I'd tried and give up with the Nox 800. EMI handling is a large part. But the immunity of the Manticore to bottle caps, to include the dreaded Corona cap, compared to the 800 is night and day. The 800 was very good at calling nickels from aluminum tabs, but the Manticore is on another level. And the Manticore just likes to "jump on to" a high conductor amongst aluminum trash. It's like a chicken on a Junebug amongst modern park trash when it gets over silver or a high conductor clad coin. Even with the stock 11" coil, it will just go from machine gun tabs to "locked on" to a higher conductor and not letting it go in a way that makes sniping good from trash just, "easier". My parks are poor in silver coin. Most are just too new to even have any. But they seem pretty decent in .925. My overall silver count with the Manticore is close to 30 silver coins and over 40 pieces of .925. Only four gold items though. I probably ought to dig more trash 😁. But speaking of trash. That's the most impressive part of the Manticore to me, over the 800, for so called trashy park hunting. I need to be selective in what I dig. In a park setting, I'm generally very selective. Very. And my trash ratio is just astonishingly small when I am that selective. The 800 was very good too, in this respect, but again, to me, the Manticore as at another level. Not long ago I dug over 100 coins in a park, in a super trashy area I'd previously started to avoid with the 800 - and only about 15 trash targets. But your finds, given the restrictive digging conditions and tools at your disposal, are a testament to skill! - Dave
    7 points
  40. Working in Iron trash is not a straight forward task. There are multiple variables and endless combinations. There also seems to be differences in terminology. Separation seems pretty plain to me. It is a matter of distance/ coil/recovery & coil control. Masking is all that and more. No matter what you call it, desirable non ferrous targets are influenced by the relatively “fat” signature of co-located iron. The co- located positions can be same plane 2D (rare), or some degree of 3D (common). They are both a matter of relative Signal response. The 3D factor is exponentially more crippling. You certainly can’t see these co-located targets in the ground, but you can make an educated guess based on digging a fair number of the iffy signals and some of the obvious small iron/nail signals. You can also successfully approach the site’s conditions by using techniques that are effective to some degree. If you want to have success, read & look at what competent iron sifters do. They learn, they test. They know detecting basics and they know their individual detectors like an old companion. Then, they dig those iffy hits you may very well walk right over. They also dig that big & mid size iron to get it out of the way. As far as “testing”, it is invaluable to me. It is how I come to know a machine/coil’s capabilities and limitations. Air/above ground tests are easy to setup and easy to visualize. They teach the basics plus things like down averaging of targets & audio signatures. In ground tests are more realistic. The more mineralized your soil, the more important they are. Target up averaging may show itself. In ground test targets are harder to set up but not too much so. You can visualize them with a diagram. This is where the post graduate education begins. Digging those iffy sounding compromised signals in the field, on your own sites, is the Internship that morphs into a career of being a successful hunter in the iron. This is from a relic hunters point of view, but applies to any type of hunting if the site is worn out. Digging some iron does not shame me. I don’t keep target ratios. I do find some neat stuff that surprises me almost every hunt. Tekkna, or any other specialty program can be great in the right circumstances, but they are special circumstances. I have used them myself. Now, can anybody give me some tips on hunting in Aluminum trash?🙃
    7 points
  41. A glory hole. Without an excavator we would have never found it. And on top of a faultline. A bit unusual. Kind of like walking down into a secret gold vault. I still get the chills. I found another in a remote area 2000 ft to the south on top of that fault line back in 2020. Completely mined out by the old hydraulic crews. They left me very little. But those old boys missed the one we found in 2002.
    7 points
  42. I got it! Me: create a gold collecting device named Dalas that I put together with a screwdriver and a drill that is green, has rotating blades, is round like a pizza, goes left and right and has a paddle. Bing Image creator AI:
    7 points
  43. Well, I accidentally found one of John B's business cards while doing some house cleaning:
    7 points
  44. September 10 2002 Part One Staggering Prospects Clay fired up the old Mack and he and Jacob rode up to the digsite as the sun was coming up. It was fun to watch them in the truck. Jacob was in his element and the two of them were becoming good friends. I got the pump going and Conor and I started processing pay gravel. I was looking at the sluice and the concentrates were showing some nice gold. We were on a real pay streak that could turn our season into a big time strike. We will have to wait to see if the ground holds up over time. Around noon Jacob rode back down the mountain with Clay as Old Bulldog delivered us another lode. We decided to stop for lunch. Over some sandwiches Jacob was talking with us about the pay he was digging. He said he had stopped twice to take some pan samples and he had one with him. It was absolutely brimming with heavy gold. I had to ask him if this was just from one of his pans he sampled and he said yes. Jacob went on to say that this was starting to remind him of the big 1936 gold strike which was just northwest of where he was digging. He said our current dig site was just a little east of the faultline but he had a suspicion that he had started to uncover a big pot hole or kettle at the top of the fault where gold may have been trapped before it traveled along the ancient river another 100 feet and tumbled over the old waterfall in that area. He said the strike of 1936 had occurred at the bottom of the old falls. The gold had piled up in a pothole and was buried over time. He said he was butting up against a rim of bedrock that was dropping straight down. That, according to him, was the first signs of discovering a kettle or natural gold trap. Jacob told us that depending on the size and depth of the kettle there could be the potential for big gold. I asked him what he meant by big. He looked each crew member in the eye one by one and softly said maybe 1000 ounces or even more. TO BE CONTINUED .............
    7 points
  45. The truth is that for VLF all the top detectors are quite capable. The main difference will be the operator expertise and most importantly, the quality of the location being hunted. Since the machines are fairly close in performance it is things like weight, or tones, or control layout that make the difference. In other words, personal preference. People often think their personal preferences are superior to other people's personal preferences and that the machine they have picked is therefore somehow "better" than the other persons pick. It can get to be an ego thing so people can get pretty heated over something as inconsequential as a metal detector. But it is fodder for discussion sites like this forum as people endlessly compare the finer points of various detectors so I am not one to complain about it. Well, within limits of course.
    7 points
  46. After all these years of detecting I'm considering adding gold prospecting to my game. I've never started just because my location did not make it seem like a fruitful thing to do given the beach and parks are always close by. It also hurt because the wife refused to allow me to put a wash plant in the backyard so I could pretend I was a miner. So that being said where to begin? I have my Manticore and Equinox but beyond that I have no clue how to read the ground or tell if something is going to be gold bearing. If you were advising someone just starting out what would the path be? Would you advise them to join and organization like GPAA? Pay someone like Gerry to take you into the goldfields and get a crash course in prospecting or take a more cerebral approach and digest as much of this forum and books as possible? I have time and in no hurry at the moment. The current economy has put a damper on some of my pursuits so funds are not unlimited. I gotta be smart as to how I get going on this and I figured this was the place and the group to ask. I'm located in Ventura County and I know at one time there was gold in our hills but maybe not so much anymore. Thanks in advance! Skate
    6 points
  47. The Legend gave me a couple happy surprises this evening during a 40 minute hunt by a park shelter. It's a park I frequently detect, but this particular section was new to me. First good target was a 1988 Kennedy half, followed immediately by a Lincoln $1. Never hit a half dollar before, and the only dollar coins I'd found previously were Sacajaweas. The two coins were within a foot of each other and 3-4" down. I'm wondering if they were the same drop from somebody keeping a couple special coins in their pocket, because I've never run across a presidential dollar coin in circulation around here, and haven't seen a half dollar in over a decade. The half was a solid 53/54 in Park M1, and I was pretty sure it was going to be a bottle cap. The signal wasn't as jumpy as other bottle caps, however, nothing on the ferrous meter, and it otherwise sounded tight and clean. The Lincoln dollar hit just like a quarter at 50/51. I had the LG30 on this time and was pleased with the ground coverage and separation. Pinpointing was working out better for me with the coil this time around, and I had nearly all of the coins targets in the plug or centered an inch or two beneath the initial plug. While I wish the half were silver, I'm still please to scratch a couple minor league items off the bucket list!
    6 points
  48. I was thinking it might be interesting to take a look at our mining equipment & supply information from one of our exploration & mining seasons. I will see if I can post something later. This would give anyone who is interested in starting a small operation an idea of what it takes in costs to get started. The latest yrs I have are from either 2019 or 2020 so you could figure to adjust the expenses at least another 20%.
    6 points
  49. September 10 2002 Part Three We ended up the day stopping with 100 yards of washed gravels. The cleanup will be done tomorrow with Conor and myself while Jacob and Clay continue to dig and haul pay gravel to the processing site. It actually started to rain as the crew was getting ready for supper so we went into Jacobs camper and ate. We were all eager to get that cleanup done tomorrow and find out if the gold values were getting even richer. Jacob figured they were and I thought so as well. We were all talking about gold and mining. Jacob told us that this glory hole was something for all of us to remember. He said we would be able to tell our kin about it someday. He seems to think that there is over 1000 ounces in the hole but possibly much more. There is a big drop in the bedrock there for sure. He is down about 25 feet and also widening the dig to the west. We all want to see the bottom of that pit. We finished supper and hit the sack. Tomorrow will give us more answers. TO BE CONTINUED ................
    6 points
  50. Currently pouring in Carson City. If you ever get stuck in northern NV post on 775 Off-road or NV4x4 on FB. People go above and beyond to rescue people that are stuck. They are pay it forward groups. No $ for the help.
    6 points
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