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Another great Winter for Northern Nevada and of course it’s still giving this Spring! This is my second trip between Weather Systems this Spring. I decided to keep it simple and hit some sweet spots of old patches with my 6000 with the aide of the little Coiltek Coil. The Hills was alive with fellow Prospectors, we all shot the breeze and caught up on each others life’s. My first 1/2 day, I scored 5 nuggets and was somewhat content. The next full day, I struggled for the next 5 nuggets before heading back to camp. What a workout! I left with many old spots yet to have my detector combo swing on them and one spot I can’t find 🙁. Well maybe next time on another Hunt! There’s plenty of space for everyone at the Rye Patch Gym. LuckyLundy

Tomorrow night the family and I will be going on a camper van trip to New Zealand. It's not a gold trip but I have accepted an invitation to hunt a couple of days in the Queenstown area. That will be in the second half of the trip. I'll be with Simon and JW for a few hours to experience some of the mild soils I've been hearing about for years. There is so much to do in New Zealand before I get to Queenstown and on the ferry return. Seventeen days don't seem like enough now. I was not aware that it is about a thousand miles from Auckland. When you add in a ferry, some hot springs, a worm cave here and there, the Hobbit village and a train ride it eats up all your time. Maybe I'll have to go back but for now my kids have a chance to miss a bit of school here so I'm going. If any of you have some 'don't miss spots' please let me know and we might be able to stop.

I don’t post much, but I thought this might be interesting. The weather has been beautiful the past week, so I hit up an elementary school and a snow sledding hill across town and found a total of 21 rings including three gold, three .925 and fifteen junkers. As pictured. On Saturday the school gave up six rings, including a 2.3 gram 10k, one .925, and four junkers. Someone had cleaned out most of the high tones, but left the copper pennies. That’s where the silver leaf ring was, in the Pennie’s. The top row is from the school Sunday I scouted a small snow sledding hill nicknamed “suicide hill.” Lots of injuries from stupid behavior, like six kids crashing a kayak on the hill resulting in a broken leg. Duh. During the summer kids ride 20 pound blocks of ice down the hill. Sounds like some of the stuff we did growing up in the 50s! Anyway, I hunted the hill and little quarter acre park on top Monday thru Friday and did really well. I don’t believe it had ever been hunted. Rows two thru six are the rings found each day. Monday brought a silver ctr ring and a broken silver earring. Tuesday gave up a 6.25 gram 10k white gold men’s ring and a Versace medallion. Wednesday was all junk. Thursday gave up the 2.8 gram 10k with the brilliant stone flowers, a .925. And by Friday, I finished gridding the hill itself and called it quits with one last junker. i still need to have a jeweler look at the flower stone ring before my wife claims it. Clad count for the five days was $49.30. Wednesday produced $15 in quarters from the apex of the hill along with the six junk rings. This was an unusual week. With clad counts dwindling, I have been focusing more on mid-tones and lower in my daily 2 1/2 hour hunts. I’m at 60+ rings for the year (4 gold, 12 silver), but only $150 in clad. I feel like I’m digging fossil coins. Good sites are rare but still out there. Happy Hunting to you. ”J”

One of the hardest things to do at Rye Patch NV proper, is to find a specimen gold piece attached to quartz. Not sure how many of my Rye Patch NV swinging buddies are left from the mid 90's but we all have agreed on a couple things when it comes to gold at RP. Chevron gold is the most desired and valuable. There have been some amazing high dollar pieces discovered at the patch. Specimen gold on the other hand (gold and quartz mixed) is most rare to find at Rye Patch than many realize, why is that? I personally have found thousands of nuggets and have seen 10X dug up from all the local legends back then. But to see a piece of gold with quarts on it that came from RP, just does not seem to happen. There's big quartz boulders and quartz pockets scattered all over that area. Heck, one of the locals (Peg-Leg) used to dig out some of the pockets to discover massive beautiful clusters and even single solid monster crystals, but he never found any with gold. This is the largest specimen I have ever seen from Rye Patch proper and it was found in 2005/6 by one of my customers (Scott from Idaho) with a GP-3500 right near the burn barrel. As for me and all the thousands of nuggets I've collected in my 30 yrs of detecting RP, I have only found 2 small nuggets in the 2 to 3 gram range that had a piece of quartz attached. Anyone else seen specimen gold come from Rye Patch? Do any of you geology experts know why we are not seeing it happen more often, especially with all the quartz rocks and crystal pockets that are exposed out there? On a side note - My 1st of 2024 Rye Patch Field Training is coming up next weekend. Anyone wanting to learn some real hands on Field Knowledge and up your chances of finding that beautiful and expensive rare gold, contact Gerry's Detectors at 208-345-8898 for details.

This story begins in 1929 - 11 years after World War One. That year Congress authorized government-funded pilgrimages for mothers and widows of American soldiers killed in the war. Leaving from New York, they sailed to France, and visited the American military cemeteries in Europe. In 1930, a grieving widow, or mother, boarded a train in Utah, bound for New York. She left New York Harbor a week later, aboard a United States Lines cruise ship. After two-days at sea, the mothers and widows were invited to the fore-deck for a formal ceremony. Each woman was individually honored with a serialized medallion made by Tiffany & Co. The bronze medallion had a raised gold-plated star and was numbered on the rim at the six-o-clock position. The serial number matched a certificate that was presented along with the medallion. Obviously, the medallion and what it commemorated would have been precious to the owner. Our story now jumps ahead 94-years to present day Vernal, Utah. Louis Haynes, a U.S. Army veteran who suffers from anxiety related to his service connected PTSD, is metal detecting with a machine presented to him by Metal Detectors 4 Veterans (MD4V.org). Since receiving the metal detector Louis has found several silver coins from the early 1900s and, more importantly, says metal detecting therapy is helping his anxiety. As Louis slowly moved his coil across the ground carefully listening to the machine, he had no idea he was about to find a real treasure, an actual piece of American history. The detector came alive, telling him some type of non-ferrous metal was below his search coil. The target was deep, and it took some work to get down to it through the hard soil. At the bottom of the hole was a 1930 Gold Star Mothers and Widows Pilgrimage Medallion! “The opportunity provided by Metal Detectors 4 Veterans has been wonderful. It has gotten me out and moving, and provided me with something positive to focus on,” said Haynes. Louis hopes now that he has identified the serial number on the medallion, he may be able to return it to the family this piece of Americana belongs with. Metal Detectors 4 Veterans Inc. (MD4V.org), is a 501c3 charitable organization that supplies veterans suffering from service related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), with metal detectors and metal detecting equipment free of charge. Research has shown that hobbies like metal detecting can be very beneficial for combat veterans suffering from PTSD, as it provides a way for them to be distracted from negative thoughts and feelings, reduces their stress, and improves mood.

I live on the property of a 1400 acre conference center that also has two summer camps for kids. Up on the mountain behind my house is a former camping area. There’s also an old spring up there where I’ve found old relics and two silver dimes. The camping area probably hasn’t been used in at least 20 years so there’s older stuff mixed in with newer stuff. I hiked up there Saturday afternoon determined to find something good. I’ve hit this area quite a few times, but I never really scoured the camping area that hard. I immediately stared hitting some modern clad and then I got a solid 57 using the Tekkna program. About two inches down was a 1.43 gram 10k ring! Soon after that I hit a shiny silvery looking ring (not silver😧), and then not long after that what looks like an old copper wedding band. Here’s some pics. The pic of the spring was taken back in 2022 when I discovered it.

That last photo was when Simon used to detect without a pin-pointer 😛

Well all my squat exercises came in handy after getting up and down to recover all this bird shot in the Vic. Goldfield this week. I can tell you that the E1500 loves the stuff and will definitely hear the tiny ones missed by others. My first gold with the Algo was a welcome sight in the scoop all the same...😃

I have been trying to put in as much time as I can on my old swim park site as the window of opportunity is closing fast. The last few hunts have been concentrated on areas the D6 dozer has scraped off the top soil in leveling the site. It is amazing what the removal of 4-6 inches off the top changes. I have dug a fair number of additional targets, all at mid depth to fairly deep. So, 4-10 inch targets + 4-6 inch top soil removal = 8-16 inch original depth of these. I thought this to be instructive. What has surprised me is that of these additional targets, there have been 3 separate pairs of coins next to each other. The first, a V Liberty Head Nickle & an early Buffalo a foot apart, the second, an IHP & early Wheat Cent about 8 inches apart. The next day was my third pair, a 1907 O Barber Half Dollar, and exactly 5 feet away, a 1918 S walking Liberty Half Dollar. This struck me as being pretty neat. Then I realized that each pair are consecutive issues. I think that is really neat. Maybe I can find the other 3 pairs.

My best prehistoric find wasn't with my detector. I was a surface find. Early Archaic "Dovetail" made of Sonora flint. (Dates 9500-8000 BP) With a detector, it would be coins/tokens dating to the mid-early 1700s: 1749, 1776 Reales or a Jetton token. All found in middle TN.

YouTube is very problematic for newbies. There is good stuff and bad stuff. Sometimes the boring guy has the best info, and the entertaining guy spreads misinformation, but the entertaining guy gets the eyeballs. If you already know the subject well you can sort out what is what real fast, but for newbies they simply can't spot the bad information as they don't know any better. I can swear to one thing. Nobody taught me how to metal detect. I just got a detector and went detecting. I read the manual. I experimented on different targets with different settings. I learned what worked and what did not. I do the same to this very day. All you need is a metal detector and some hours behind the wheel plus an inquistive mind. It's really not rocket science. Experience is the best teacher.

I am not worthy.😩 My reflection in the mirror is probably the oldest relic I've come across lately.😝 My oldest find is probably a piece of rusted iron,,,,,sorry , best I could think of, probably threw it away. No pic.🙄 WAIT ! When did they come out with those Playboy rings ?

As I told last week, I was preparing the Manti for today's session on the seabed. In a few words, "damn it works"... Even if I abused the machine using underwater the beach LC program, I however managed to take with me three pieces. The second attempt will be with surf and seawater, which I think it is the proper way to use it when diving. Not bad for the day one💣

TEKKNA FOREVER .. Two days ago we went out for a militaria outing with my cousin on a 1stWW German camp. We had hunted this area in 2012 2013 and never been back again . Curious to see if we could still find things there 12 years after .. I have my trusty Deus2 WS6 set on Tekkna , my cousin has a Deus1 WS5 with a slightly modified Basic1 program. This camp is quite large , the Germans have built many wood houses here, probably several hundred soldiers were living there .The ground is infested with irons of all sizes, it should be ideal for the Tekkna program. Not very lucky at the beginning with just a few basic buttons . Tekkna works very well though and it filters very well the ferrous . Half an hour later a clean high tone signal and a big button . It is a sergeant major button with a Prussian eagle on it , wow what a nice find ... 🙃 When detectecting you very often find unexpected things ... A few minutes later I hear a medium tone , probably a 1st WW rubbish .. No it is a Roman coin lol .. An other very nice find .. 🙂 My cousing will find a splendid helmet eagle a little later with his Deus1. 😇The D1 is still an excellent performer in the iron trash .. I will find 3 other coins , a French 1920 , A German 10 pfennig 1876 and a very nice French Revolution coin dating from 1800. The Revolution coin was deep with a faint high tone signal and my Quest Xpointer Max helped a lot to locate it at the bottom of the hole. I have used my Xpointer Max almost all the time during this outing btw .. After 3 hours detecting its time to go home . It was a great outing in a very nice area during a sunny day of Spring .. Looking forward to come back here again .. 1) The wood : 2) A Prussian sergeant major button : 3) A Roman coin : 4) A French revolution coin located with my Quest Xpointer Max : 5) My cousin with a Prussian helmet eagle and his Deus1 WS5 : 6) The sergeant major button after cleaning : 7) the roman coin after cleaning , Aurelianus , date around +260 8 ) 10 pfennig 1876 : 9) The French revolution coin after cleaning ( AN 8 , 1800 ) :

Yea, NZ maybe skinny, but it's long. We are in a gold area down the bottom here, but there is gold all along the West coast and the top of the South Island, and the North Island has probably the biggest of the gold mines where JW used to live. Maybe one day when the golds run out, they'll let it fill up with water and those houses on the edge of the mine will suddenly be worth multi millions as lakefront properties 🙂

Just a few US buttons I've framed. I need to get more framed ASAP. Keeps them protected as they are fragile.

My oldest coin is a 1792 German Pfenning, found in a farm field in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The Weaver Mining District, Arizona, gold nuggets are probably good for a few million years, and the pieces of the Gold Basin meteorite I recovered, are estimated to have arrived on Earth 14.3 thousand years ago.

We ended up with some good rain last week and some minor flooding resulted. Joe and I were keen to get back to the gully with the hope that the rocks and gravel would have moved around and hopefully provide some new opportunities. When we arrived, it was obvious that the changes were only minimal but there were areas where some erosion had taken place or deposition of material had occurred. We decided to use the Zeds as they would be much quieter in the wet conditions. The six can be a real pain when the mineralised soil becomes damp and can, at times, be unusable. The Zed also suffers from the same disease but not to the same extent and can mostly be tamed. When we arrived we noticed that water was still flowing which restricted our movement. We thought this would be the case and knew that we would only be able to work the shallows and edges without filling our boots. Joe picked up a piece fairly quickly and got the monkey off his back. We have always said that once we have a piece of gold each, the rest of the day is a bonus and we don’t go home skunked. Don’t get me wrong, we still have enjoyable days where the rattle jar just doesn’t rattle but having a piece of gold in your hand puts the icing on the cake. After moving upstream, I decided to inspect the pool where a good nugget was found on a previous trip. The water level was obviously higher than a couple of weeks ago but there was evidence of erosion on the steep edge below the water surface. After a couple minutes a good signal was detected and Joe came up to help get the target out. This meant removing snake gaiters, boots and socks and then rolling pant legs up above the knees in preparation for the extraction. I noticed a leech had attached itself to my leg and had begun to draw blood. He was quickly dispatched and I climbed into the water to dig the target while Joe guided me with the detector. After a couple of minutes a nice little nugget was recovered in the scoop. Joe suggested that I should check the remainder of this pool while I had my boots off. I continued detecting and thought I had a target in a deeper area of the pool but it turned out to be a false signal. We both found that the Z Search coil would false in water once it was submerged over about 12”. Perhaps it’s the pressure compressing the top and bottom faces that makes it a bit more bump sensitive. This combined with the mineralised material was probably contributing to the issue. After slowly detecting most of the pool, a broad, faint signal was picked up. I dug down about 8” and by this stage, the zed was getting pretty excited. It was already quite difficult as I was in about a foot of water and every dig saw the pick head and much of the handle totally disappear below the surface. Digging continued until the target finally moved location slightly. The scoop was then used to recover what turned out to be a nice piece of gold. With no other signals found, it was time to get out of the water, kit up and move on. Two more leeches had found me while I was walking in the water and needed to be encouraged to find another food source. That was my final contribution for the day. Joe found some more pieces near a patch that we had worked recently and made the tally look a little more respectable. The final drama occurred late in the day. I had been walking through some thick scrub and somehow dropped my radio. I didn’t notice it until much later and thought it was lost forever. It must have got caught in some bushes while I was pushing through the dense undergrowth and snapped the catch causing the radio to drop. Joe and I retraced the path and used his radio to call up the lost unit. We eventually heard the other radio and were able to follow the sound until it was recovered. That was the signal to call it quits for the day. We didn’t end up with a huge number of pieces but we were happy with what we had found. We may visit this spot again when the water level drops.

Recently @steveg asked for volunteers to test a new RCDIGS mount for the XP Deus 2 WS6 headphone puck that doubles as a Deus 2, often called the WS6 Master. I got the first prototype and am very impressed with it. I wish I had a photo of the mount before I installed it on the XP Deus "Lite" shaft I bought for it, I wanted the opportunity to create the lightest possible configuration, and I'm glad I did. The mount consists of the shaft mount portion, and a screw down cover to hold it in place. Here is the mount before putting the puck in, it has a slot at the bottom to hold the puck in position. The headphone adaptor when attached will also fit. Screw the bezel on and you're done, in this case you have a metal detector that weighs 1.8 pounds, and does most everything the Deus 2 RC can do. I took it out for a field test, and found a bunch of buttons, which was my last post. I had a few suggestions for Ryan, the creator of the mount: 1. The angle of the mount is the same as the standard XP mount, I thought for better access to the buttons it should be tilted back more toward the user. 2. Water/heat mitigation - the original mount is a solid enclosure. The WS6 might get hot in there, and if one got caught in the rain enough water might build up inside the mount to "drown" the WS6. It hasn't been warm yet on any of my hunts but I recalled when I first got my Equinox I put a cover over the control box, and at the beach it got so hot it blanked out the LCD. 3. The wired headphone adaptor - the enclosure is deep enough to fit the adaptor, but there was no exit for a cable to connect wired headphones or a transceiver to use other wireless headphones. Ryan changed the mount angle and just recently sent me a photo of the improved mount which I was very impressed with. He wrote that I could review it when it went live on his site, today is the day. 🙂 As you can see the back of the mount is now similar to the top of the RC RCDIGS mount, a hexagonal mesh that will allow air flow, and water will go right through it. 👍 Also note the notch for attaching a cable from wired headphones. It may also allow a transceiver to be plugged in. These mounts are very well made, one does have to consider that anything that is printed like this might be a little more fragile than something that is injection molded. I love my RCDIGS mount for my Deus 2 RC, and can't wait to get my hands on the V0.3 mount which I purchased from Ryan, I'll be taking it for a week at a beach where I will put it through a rigorous marathon of detecting. You can order it now on his website: https://www.rcdigs.com My apologies to Ryan for posting his prototype photo, but I don't have mine yet. Coming soon! 🙂 Here's another idea I came up with, I bought some 20 mil vinyl and a cheap circle cutter, and cut a 65mm circle to install over the puck when I screw the bezel on: It fits nicely and keeps me from scratching the WS6 face. GL, HH 🍀

My earliest coin to date. 1608-1609 Philip III Kings Monogram 1/2 Real Cob.

In the relatively "short" time I got to personally know Charles Garrett, he was all the goodness people long praised him for. I began metal detecting 4 years after Garrett went into business. I started using Garrett metal detectors in 1978 and I've looked up to Charles Garrett as my mentor ever since... But not just for his metal detecting adventures, but for his willingness to teach others and just be a friendly, unassuming, down-to-earth kinda guy. I miss that era when I would get a secret phone call to test a new detector. He once offered me employment at Garrett, only to be turned down because I loved where I live so much. I often wonder what my working life would have been like had I accepted. I used plenty of other metal detector brands in my lifetime as well, but I find it personally comforting to be now using only the brand I started with. Like everyone else I'm anxious to know what Garrett will be introducing. If it is as good or better than the Apex I currently use, I can't wait. For me, the Apex has been a really well thought out performer, because for me, sophistication is simplicity... I like to hit the field swinging! I have always enjoyed Garrett's careful engineering and rugged construction. Testament is their solid 60 years in our hobby/sport. Since Garrett is celebrating their 60th Anniversary, I find it fitting they possibly introduce a new detector this month... Charles Garrett arrived and departed this world in the month of April. But like everyone else, I can only guess at what the newest Garrett will be like and when it will arrive. To me, "A Storm Is Coming" says the new detector will hopefully follow in their "All Terrain" tradition. I hope they keep it lightweight, ergonomically sound, and for those of us over 70... A large, simple display! This all is akin to being young again! Bravo Garrett!

Found this copper culture point some years back. Estimated to be around 4,000 to 6,000 years old. Not native to Massachusetts. Likely traded in from Great Lakes. I remember pulling it out of the hole along with a handful of dirt and thinking it was just a stone point, I set it aside. I kept rescanning the hole looking for that screamer of a signal that had mysteriously disappeared. 😁

The Legend Beast Mode Demonstration FB: https://www.facebook.com/noktadetectors/posts/pfbid02FoBkfoE1LcNycut7ttJGorTMvVEjJ26PWrAfQ9DrPy5dH7ogUdwL2EkCD6NaRGjCl?__cft__[0]=AZWFP5TjsgWR-2-p2CgU58PvXg3OYaMVrETfyTYFVpoPZUT4Uu0kg51-Xa1_SXZtLnVt-LNAR370Zo-3EBFyNSmc4Lm50MPEAgz8FVybnnLo0PiVRuszjPkI84KJvNJYOpAyJbtWnhXPVzuDHWtRqFjkyPSxgFh-ZJI8UtAjrbXHYZSN4GWUMUX14Ld_FIYIrUUYDLpvxhe0pN-P5AZyzAJ_&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R YouTube:

I'm sure most of you have seen this by now, but thought I'd bring it to the attention of those who haven't. There's a new cable available with a simple push-on plug for the remote. It works well. It may not seem like a big improvement at first since you can just push the original plug on without screwing down the nut, but this one actually goes on a lot easier. When you pop it on, the cord will always be facing downward, which eliminates the issue of having to rotate the plug until it finds it's seat. Got mine from Serious Detecting for about 15 bucks. Money well spent IMHO. Sometimes its the little things that make life easier.

You used the right word - belief. Dowsing is a belief system backed with nothing but anecdotal evidence. Everyone wants to have super powers. Believe what you want, but you are on the wrong forum if you want to promote the supernatural as being scientific fact. It’s not up to me to prove dowsing does not work, it is up to even one dowser on this planet to be able to pass simple scientific tests showing that it does. Nobody ever, ever, has been able to do so. People have been offered a million dollars to show that dowsing works, they can’t do it. The excuses why that is are endless but that’s the way it is. These are the facts, so believe what you want, but take it to some other forum for discussion. And good luck.

I found this on a cold April day two years ago, it warmed me up and I hunted till dark.

The most amazing one I seen from RP was a 1 ozt. Stood about 1.5" tall and was a triangle with 3 sides and a bottom. Most amazing chevron on all 3 sides. The finding was an old friend from Reno area that used to stay down there weeks at a time in the 90's. The amazing piece in the pic below was recovered by one of my Field Staff just a few miles down the road. Beautiful gold has come from that country for sure. This is a pic looking from top of the rock, notice the hole. Pic below is the bottom of the same nugget. Most interesting, there is a hole right in the middle that goes all the way through. Left is 1.5 ozt and the right one is 1/2 ozt. Glad you enjoy seeing something different.

That's the 15" Concentric coil on the GPZ for you, it goes deep 🙂

September 18 2002 We got back to mining this morning. Conor and I got the tom set up while Jacob and Clay started digging and hauling pay gravel. The weather is sunny and warm and things are beginning to dry out. The creek is still running fast but the water is back within its banks. I test paned the first load of gravel before we started processing and the gold is there in spades. We let Clay bring down three loads before we started running at 10:00 AM so as to give a cushion for the transport of material and we won’t run out or have to wait on him. One of the Forest Service people came by this morning as well and checked on us. I showed him the repaired road and he also took a walk down along the creek to check the waters and floodplain. He seemed pretty impressed that we had already repaired the haul road and were ready to mine so quickly. He said there was a mining operation along the creek about ten miles west of ours and they had lost their small trommel in the flood. We had a good day and were able to process 70 yards of gravel. We are going to run until around noon tomorrow and do a cleanup. Jacob has gotten deeper into the dig site with still no sign of bedrock. The gold seems to keep getting better. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

My oldest object with a date on it found in the United States is a 1689 cob minted in Lima Peru

Funny, Andy Benson and I were just talking about this yesterday. Since day one I have repeatedly said that with the Manticore, less is more. I don't pound my chest over being an original prototype tester on the machine but I was running this detector way before any of you ever heard of it. I tried to pass the knowledge won there on to early users who kept having difficulty with the detector. In every case the main problem in my opinion has been running settings higher than would be ideal. From this thread in 2023: "Basically Manticore is a high strung Equinox with a graphic display and main way to tame the beast is reduced sensitivity until you get a handle on its high performance engine. This would be directly via the Sensitivity control, or through the use of lower power modes, or both together." and "I can only repeat so many times that the Manticore at 1/2 to 3/4 settings is like a maxed out Equinox. The Manticore has extra headroom, but only for locations and situations that allow it. Anyone with a mindset that they can drive a Ferrarri with the pedal mashed to the floor anywhere all the time is going to crash and burn with Manticore. It is imperative that people back it down and then work their way up. Again, target ID stability is a great tool for determining when you have good settings, and above that, well, yeah, it's going to get squirrely." Getting more depth by using lower power modes and reducing sensitivity may seem counterintuitive but it is a reality when running in bad ground. The main benefit will be better target id stability and less false signals. When I say lower power modes I am referring specifically to ATHC as being the root cause of many problems. ATHC boosts the transmit power, which can create blowback in adverse conditions. This can result in less depth, target id instability, false signals, especially ferrous false signals, and reduced target separation. Long story short is people tend to think that maxing out settings gets more depth, reducing settings gets less depth. This might be true in air tests and pure white sand or loamy conditions. Adverse ground and salt conditions changes everything and taming the beast by avoiding ATHC and running lower sensitivity levels will benefit many users. The use of small coils like the 5x8 can also really aid in the worst ground by reducing the amount of ground seen by the coil, which improves the ground to target ratio in favor of the target. Very often, less really is more.

All with the 14x9 mate....super sensitive on the smallest lead shot and punched pretty deep on some larger junk targets. I think it is the ideal all rounder for the Algo.

Thank you Bill! I am also a former field test contributor like yourself. I did my best to always write a "read between the lines" report! I think the Apex "suffered" from being introduced as part of the ACE lineage and not under its own stature. People probably assumed it had medium performance as a result given its price point. There were a few glitches in the beginning for some users that probably scared potential buyers away as well. I purchased and have owned the Apex since its introduction and have done very well with it. I only had one problem that was my fault... I was doing the update and accidentally knocked out the USB cable during the firmware transfer which caused the screen to "brick"! Garrett repaired my unit, updated it for me and I could hardly wait to get it back. Matter of fact, if the new Garrett coming doesn't appeal to me, I plan on using the Apex for as long as I can, it has been that good to me. You are so correct, it is a fun detector to use. It does not kill your arm, especially using the MF Ripper coil! The well designed display is amazingly good and it is at it's best in direct sunlight, hard to believe. The tactile control/menu system is very thought out and is a non-fiddler's paradise. Right now my opinion says it is the "best bang for the buck" for me currently. Here's one of many good finds using the Apex made three years ago...

Hi Steve, JCR, and Everyone, Normally I don't frequent or join forums, but yours has shown itself to be a good informative community where its members respect each other... A nice place to be! Wow, thank you for the compliments on my books and their continuing relevance. That was my impetus for writing them long ago. Fact is, my close friend and co-author of MDA&T Joe Patrick is responsible for introducing me to your community! Sadly both books are long out of print, but I'm still pleased to hear people find them helpful, even noteworthy. While I may not be current on many detectors anymore, I still enjoy giving advice and opinions on metal detecting, yesterday and today. Steve... Your own intelligence, operational savy and sense of community hasn't gone unnoticed! Well done, I'm glad be to onboard and to help if I can!

September 20 2002 The weather was in our favor once again today. Conor and I really like running the tom. There are no moving parts to worry about breaking on us. The downside is it will only process about one third of the gravel the trommel is capable of and it is not catching as much of the fine gold. However, it is doing its job and we may build a bigger one for next season. It would be something like a Pearson Box with a big grizzly and hopper capable of running much more pay gravel. The only issue is the fact that you aren't breaking up all the clay. If you are not in heavy clay it would work fine. I plan on getting some good opinions on all of this during the off season. We got a good start this morning and worked until nearly dark to get our 100 yards washed. Tomorrow will be another cleanup. I went up to the dig site this afternoon and Jacob has got himself quite a pit going. He’s down about 35 feet in depth and slowly widening the diggings towards the west. There’s lots of rounded river rock and the bedrock seems flat. He’s having to send upper gravels that are not as rich along with the bottom bedrock gravel. We are definitely on the gold with no end in sight. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Hello Old Miner Don & good to hear from a reader I hadn't seen here before. Early on it was determined that each crew member would receive his share of the gold after a gold weigh was completed. Then it became their personal responsibility to take care of it as best they could. I did not put this in the journal but we dealt with several gold buyers and some of the crew converted part of their poke into good old U.S Dollars. Some held on to most of their gold. As you have read previously, there was a turnover of the members of the crew and Jacob considered the ones who left weak links in our mining machine. I'm not convinced of that and every man must make his own decisions under difficult and sometimes dangerous times. I still have gold from that season & right now I wish I had kept it all but sometimes you need to cash some of it in to live on. Cheers & thanks for reading the journal.

September 19 2002 The Gold Vault It was a beautiful morning. The sky was clear and the temperatures were warm. We ran the tom until noon and shut down for lunch after having run 30 yards of gravel. That put us at 100 yards which is what we like to run now before doing the cleanup. I could see visible gold in the black sands and there was a load of it. More than we had ever seen. Jacob told us he had finally hit one area of sloping bedrock as he worked the pit north. Then he backed the excavator back away from the sloping wall and got another five feet deeper and hit bedrock again. He was around 30 - 33 feet in depth. He said the wall looked to be traveling across the back of the pit to the west and he would start following it tomorrow and see how far it went. He had a good feeling about the dig site and so did the rest of us. Conor and I finished up the gold weigh while Jacob and Clay dug and hauled pay. We finished the cleanup around 6:00 PM and set the pan on the table near the scales. There was a lot of gold in that pan but we waited until Jacob and Clay finished up for the night around 6:30. Clay’s eyes glazed over when he saw the pan. Jacob gave me a smile and a wink and said to weigh it up. There were 77.4 ounces. Conor suggested we name the pit and I came up with a name that everyone liked. The Gold Vault. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Northern Nevada does have some of the best specimen’s. This was found north of Rye Patch.

I'm going to brag up a little project I have been working on. As the AMDS nerd I have single-handedly been building a new website for the location. Got the domain name, chose the hosting service, chose the software to run the store on, then set it up by customizing it for our use, and then the tedious part - adding all that product. I got most of it up in a month of spare time work, and now add bits and pieces when the mood hits me. Funny looking at this old thread, but reminds me I should get the Banjo Pan added to the site. You will note that the site has no prices or buy buttons. It is basically a catalog site. This is for several reasons. First, it makes my job way easier. Second, it is being realistic about a new reality. Shipping costs from the Lower 48 to Alaska and then back down to the Lower 48 are so much higher than they were 20 years ago mean we realistically can't compete with outfits based in the Lower 48 on price alone. Free shipping on a gold panning kit to the Lower 48? Are you kidding? It is more than we make on the kit! It also means that if we charge that shipping people down south will just buy somewhere else, so we are not going to waste time (money) chasing a market we can't realistically serve. There are some higher price smaller size items like metal detectors where it might work, but for now we are trying to do what we do best - serve the Alaska market. If people down south see something we have that they want, then they can contact us for a quote. For me as the web head though implementing a system that will update price increases, current inventory, and shipping is more than I want to tackle being off site. At a minimum I'd need to tap into the company database and script the solution to that can of worms. Long story short a catalog site at least shows what we have while avoiding a lot of maintenance headaches. I've set it all up so they could add online sales later if they want to but pretty much told them it will have to be somebody else doing it other than me. With that set of parameters it has been a fun project as I enjoy building sites. I like them clean and simple as possible and I like good photos. That has been a challenge given a lot of the crappy imagery outfits like Keene have available. Luckily new AI upscaling tools are available now that let me do way more with what is available - plus the fun for me of playing with those new tools. Topaz Gigapixel AI is truly amazing it what it can do and constantly improving. Just eliminating backgrounds has gone from hours long work to seconds now, and free in MS paint instead of a fortune in Photoshop. Anyway, doing what I can with what I can legitimately lift from vendor websites, and will fill the gaps taking photos on my next visit to Alaska. Enough of the nerd talk. I'm really only posting about it as I have and am putting a lot of work into it and am proud of my new baby and want to show it off a little. Check it out if you are interested at https://miningsuperstore.com/shop/ and do not miss the stuff we have you don't see in most shops - mini excavators, trommels, the Sierrablaster, etc.

The pictures are of nuggets I’ve found in VA using the gpx 4800 and the gold monster 1000. The gpx finds were all on hill tops and hillsides at location in and around old gold mines. These locations were found by a good friend of mine back 10 years ago or so. I’m just picking up scraps compared to what they found. The gold monster finds were in creek finds at a property that I mainly dredge. Only a few areas of the creek have produced any gold to detecting. While dredging this creek it produced up to 12 gram nugget so far. I’ve detected all around the hillsides around the creek with the gpx and haven’t found any gold. It’s been frustrating lol. the vast majority of my nugget collection not shown in the pictures has come from dredging. Nugget shooting in VA is more of a winter activity when I get bored lol. I’d love to give a gpz a shot as it may be able to detect small gold deep enough to punch through all the leaf litter organics and topsoil But I can’t drop that kind of money on an unknown

Wow that is a spectacular piece of gold. Thank you for sharing Gerry.

Here’s one of my Buddies Poke from a Hunt at Rye Patch. I’ve only found like 3 Nuggets with Quartz attached to them out there. But, he found a little Nugget with a Quartz Crystal attached…I think he still has it? Rick

At the Battle of Murfreesboro (Tennessee) or Stones River as the Union called, there was an area known as McFaddens Ford. The small arms fire became so intense that several collided bullets have been recovered including my onw example. It was another murderous blunder by Confederate General Braxton Bragg, sending many southern men to their death. I recommend reading part of the battle which took place from December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863.

Thank you Joe!... I got to thinking about what I wrote above and the photo attached and you all are probably thinking... Garrett plant! 🙂 No not really, I assure you I'm not. The obverse/reverse photo composite is real and found nearly 10" deep in sandy loam with the same Apex I've used for the last four years. For the last 14 years I'd been struggling to find a detector that suited me. When you are used to publicly field testing a myriad of detector brands over the years, you see a lot of features, strengths and weaknesses, which furthers your indecision to find something that works for you. I won't mention the other brands by name, all of them very good, but for the most part all were unnecessarily heavy, overly complicated, and got you to wonder how much do the CEO's take home! 🙂 It had been awhile since I looked serious at Garrett again and around 2013 I bought the Garrett AT-Pro. Wow I thought, this isn't bad! I could slosh around in the mud on rainy days, come home and give us a bath with the garden hose! The audio reminded me of my analog old Garrett Groundhog which I loved. But the depth just wasn't as deep as I thought it could be and the display readout was too small for aging eyes. Then came the AT-MAX with a more complex shift menu, greater depth, slightly larger readout, a little more weight, digital audio, but not tethered by a headphone wire and wireless probe audio.... WhooHoo! I was getting closer! Awhile later, my pal Joe Patrick calls me and says, "Have you seen the new Garrett?!" I think I was in love at first sight! Sleek low-center of gravity control housing, a lighter 2D 11" elliptical coil, redesigned display and menu system - large and small enough to match my age, a wireless system with no discernible latency, integrated lithium charging, firmware updates, single/multi-frequency operation.... Yahoooo! OK, I lost my slosh and rinse capacity, but I never really cared because I never was a water hunter to begin with. But it is nice not to worry about water incursion. In short, a detector I could spend my time hunting with and not playing menu roulette. In the interim I saw some good American metal detecting companies leave us. It got me to thinking how good and secure it was to be back with my roots and more satisfied than I have been in years.... Nut shell! OK, I have made a couple of mods to the Apex for comfort reasons and that is an AT-Pro foam handgrip and carbon fiber rods with camlock adjustment! Ha, always a "tweaker", but that's another book in itself!

Forgot to add the others.

Good luck on the trip and let our friends know that we enjoy their input on this forum for us. I just want to know just how big are those water wings are that attaches to your camper van and how long is it going to take to drive there. Hope you don't sink if a shark bites one of the floats on the van. Good luck and safe journey.

Well, I did a few air test swings over some of the lead shot sitting on my mild backyard soil. I was in the fine gold setting. The shot ranges in weight from 0.1 to 0.5 gms. The smallest wouldn't ID at all, but over say 0.3 pretty much all registered 00 with the exception of the only Iron one on the magnet which came up as 18. The two boot tacks were 21/22. Similar sized nuggets ranged around 14-20. As this was just a air test on the ID capability of the Algo, it goes without saying that the same targets buried in high mineralization may give ID'S like I experienced in the field. The steel shot and boot tacks you will definitely dig.

I got back to the site for a couple of hours after work Friday. I took the Legend with the LG15/6inch coil to work into the root tangles & depressions that the 11 inch coil on the Versa had to graze over. I did dig another "pair" of Wheat Cents, 1920 & no date, 1 foot apart from each other. Also 2 singles of Silver. On a pad of dirt sitting on top of the brush & timber that had been pushed in to fill the swim pool a first year, 1916 Mercury Dime in very nice detail. No D mint mark. I have had no prior luck hunting what has been pushed into the pools, you can hardly walk on it without your foot going thru and digging in it is impossible. That was a lucky find if there ever was one. No telling how many good targets & nice coins were pushed into that tangled tomb. The second single Silver was on the skinned off walking path. I must have just flat missed it the day before. A very worn 1901 Barber Half Dollar. That makes 4 halves from this site. I will go back this evening. Got to get some chores done & tend the garden a little.

Sometimes you just have to laugh!

Thank you everyone, I feel very welcomed here. I apologize for the thread going off topic and pointing to me, I tend be a "little" verbose answering questions and commenting if you haven't noticed 🙂... But that's the writer in me I guess. I hope I can live up to all your high praise. To be honest, I just want to be among friends, make new ones, and relive some good times I've had in a hobby I love and helping anyone when I am able. I'm sure all of you out there are very knowledgeable and talented in your own right. I will be away for a couple of days and I didn't want anyone to think I am ignoring your post. I look forward to participating in this forum. What a great bunch of people and a nice to place to be. Thank you again.....Bob