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  1. Man, what a ride! I got my first metal detector when I was 14 years old, a White’s Coinmaster 4, in 1972 . I was already an avid gold prospector by that time, so I went on my first nugget hunt with a metal detector in 1973 at Moore Creek, Alaska. Moore Creek was to figure very large in my life decades later, but that first nugget hunt was a bust. I panned about 1/4 ounce of chunky gold out of the little gully pictured, but the Coinmaster 4, even with the 4” Gold Probe, simply was not up to the task. I decided there were better ways to find gold and became a serious gold dredger, with my metal detecting reserved for coins, jewelry, and relics. It was not until 1989 that I found my first gold nugget with a metal detector. First try detecting gold with a metal detector 1973 I co-founded a business in 1976 selling gold dredges and metal detectors. I’m retired now but that business is still going strong 47 years later as a premier powersports dealer with three locations. Creating that business with my partner, helping support hundreds of employee families for all those years and eventually converting it to an employee owned company, will stand as one of the greatest achievements in my life. It also was my way to be deeply involved in metal detecting as a profession by being a multi line dealer. That lead to working with most of the major manufacturers first testing, and later being involved on the front end of the development of a number of well known detectors. These include the Garrett Infinium, White's TDI, Fisher F75, Garrett ATX, Nokta FORS Gold, Makro Racer, Makro Gold Racer, Makro Gold Kruzer, plus Minelab SDC 2300, GPZ 7000, Gold Monster 1000, Equinox, Vanquish, GPX 6000, Manticore, White’s/Garrett Goldmaster 24K, and finally Garrett Axiom. Like I said, it’s been a heck of a ride! Eleven years ago I left my home in Alaska to reside in Reno, NV. In some ways I view the few years that followed as “peak detecting” for me. I was deeply involved in GPZ 7000 testing and so had the benefit of being the first to use it on many Nevada and California gold locations. I was in my prime physically, lean, tough, and able to swing a GPZ 7000 from sunrise to sunset without pause. I did just that and spent weeks at a time camped out on various gold patches, and added a couple pounds of some pretty spectacular gold to my safe deposit box. In my prime In the last few years I fell into a fortuitous relationship with Garrett Metal Detectors. I kind of wanted to wrap up my career working with the companies by helping a U.S. manufacturer, and Garrett is about the last left that’s serious about staying in the business. It was a wise decision, as they are really great down home people to associate with and I’ve had a ball working with them. The years are catching up with me though. Severe arthritis in both hips brought me to a near stop a few years ago. Having both hips replaced a year and a half ago has given me a second lease on life, and lead to a lot of reflection and appreciation for the gifts I’ve been given in life. Not least being a wonderful wife and a couple daughters, both here with me in the Reno area. My wife still works full time as a teacher, probably will until they carry her out feet first. As such I’ve settled more into supporting her however I can as house husband and help mate. She deserves everything I can give her at this point for putting up with me and my nonsense. A real gem for sure. Metal detecting is just not what it used to be for me. I admit I’ve been spoiled, and got to live through the very best years that detecting has to offer. I’ve found many pounds of gold with a metal detector, including two 6.5 ounce gold nuggets. I lost count of the 1-3 ounce nuggets I found. Piles of gold and platinum rings. My best coins are from Roman times and into the 1700s. My best relic is a 3500 year old Bronze Age axe head in good condition. I’ve metal detected in many states and countries around the world, and have met and worked with many movers and shakers in the metal detector industry over the years. Yes, quite a ride indeed, and one that I was wise enough to document with stories and photos over the years at Steve’s Mining Journal. My memory for the past is not the greatest, so I wrote those stories as much for me as anything, and I’m very glad now I did. Check them out if you are interested, there is a books worth of stories there. I don’t believe at grasping at things, and long ago decided I wanted to age gracefully, accepting the changes that life brings. I’m of an age and of a mindset where I am grateful for every day I have now, and very satisfied to have lived life well and to the fullest. I’ve seen and done amazing things, and even my darkest moments I see now had silver linings. It was not all easy, and frankly I’m lucky to be here. There were times in the depths of alcoholism when I thought of just ending it all. Yet now, many alcohol free years after rehab I am grateful for my time in darkness, as it’s given me perspectives and humility I never would have had otherwise. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m some kind of super duper person when I tell my life stories. No, I’m just a regular Joe that was pretty clueless about a lot of things, and if I succeeded at all, it was as much despite myself as anything else. Somehow it all worked out, and I’m as content and as happy as I think it’s possible to be. When it comes to gold prospecting and metal detecting though, I am pretty much wrapping it up and putting a bow on it. My focus now is more on my wife and family, my garden and my four lovable wiener dogs, and quite a bit of time spent playing RPG games on my computer, a guilty joy I avoided for years. I’m certainly not done metal detecting and gold prospecting, but compared to the all consuming thing it was ten years ago, now I’d say I’m a casual detectorist just looking to get out now and then. I won’t say no when things come my way, but it’s no longer something I’m actively pursuing. That’s it really. I just wanted to reflect a little, and also explain why I’ll be less visible in the metal detecting world than in the past. I’ll be here, keeping things running, posting now and then. But by and large where the forum goes is dependent far more now on you all than on me. As long as people are interested and keep posting I’ll invest my time and a little money in keeping it going. I want to put up my personal finds gallery, my own little online museum, so will get around to that sooner or later. Other than that, thanks for your interest and posts on the forum as it’s the people posting that will keep it alive. Best wishes to you all. Steve Herschbach Perhaps the nicest gold nugget/specimen I ever found, 1.83 ounces in 2014 with a Nokta FORS Gold…
    74 points
  2. After prospecting in AZ, NV, CA over the last 20 months I found my first big (big for me) nugget on a recent prospecting trip in S CA. Using GPX6+NF 12x7 coil. It was a faint signal from the surface but quickly started to get very loud as I started to dig. It was about 14 inches deep in the bottom of a wash with large boulders. I thought it would be a rusty piece of iron trash because at the end it was so loud but was surprised by a heavy lump covered in brown dirt. A quick mouth wash and it turned yellow. A Eureka moment for me since my previous best nugget was 1.4 grams. On the same trip I also found a 2.5 gram nugget and a few sub half gram nuggets.
    61 points
  3. Not a Sole to be seen! Granted the Weatherman was calling for Winds from a mild Cold Front moving in from the North East. Condor, gave me a call stating he was heading out for a Hunt, I gave him the Weather report for the area and a turn down to join. It brought mild rain to my area of Reno. The next day another Partner gave me a Call, I told him I’ll watch Weather and told him Condor was supposed to be out there. Weather Report was perfect, I text my Buddy…Hunt’s on and to met at the October Patch (a gold patch in Rye Patch) to setup Camp. Perfect weather, Cool and Sunny as I unloaded my RZR and remember all the Bullets of Sweat of the hot Discovery Day of the October Patch. My Trusty Hunting Partner pulled up and geared up as I text Condor asking his whereabouts! He called back and said, he headed back home after his day hunt with limited success. Again, not a Sole to be seen with the perfect Fall Weather! Giving it some thought of where to start on the drive up, I remembered this long Ridge that I found a Patch of Gold at both ends, but few nuggets in the middle. Both of us feeling fresh legged at the Noon Hour we set off to the ridge. I dropped my Partner off at the edge of the well hunted end of Ridge Patch and I’d pull up 1/2 mile with the RZR and start there and head up Ridge and then when he reach RZR he’d pull up 1/2 mile ahead of me and I’d repeat to end the days swing for the Missing Link Patch. Well I’m swinging away, enjoying myself when I feel my stomach telling me to refill it. I turn around to see where my Mobile Chuck Wagon was at! It was at least a Half Mile back and my Partner wasn’t in view below it. I swung back to the RZR, picking up one dink nugget that lead to another One Nugget Patch. Refueling my growler, my Partner comes screaming up the side of the Ridge, like he is running from a Mad Coyote that was chasing him. He had something in his hand, but his Smile gave it away at 20 yards! He plopped one of those Legendary Nuggets into my hand. My eyes and smile matched his! 😳 Both of us with filled stomachs drove back to his 8 Nugget Bonanza! A small drainage feeding off the ridge with a Dink Nugget at the head and a dink at the bottom lead him into the Flats between a distant Ridge. I’ve always considered this a No Go Zone as a No Gold Zone…as I’ve spent more than few hours in that Sage Brush with No Joy. We reach his Discovery Patch, in the Middle of Nowhere! 100 yards off our target Ridge. We named it “The No-Where Patch” right then and there. Partner, found the sweet spot of his Patch and I circled it like a hungry shark extending the perimeter. The No-Where Patch had two gaps that anyone could have swung a coil thru the middle of it without a clue of a missed Payday. The length of the Patch is around 30 yards and maybe 12 yards at the widest. We pounded it with our 6000’s and the next day I went over the sweet spots with a very slow swing with my 7000 with hopes of some deep missed ones, zero missed nuggets. Which indicates the vast majority of this Placer, shallow patches. We did pick up a few on the very outskirts of the No-Where Patch, which may lead to the next nugget patch yet to be named! Wore out, we headed home at sunset of the second day. Partner’s Big Boy at 1.6 ounces and his other big nugget to the right of that was a near 1/4 oz at 4.9 dwts. My Big one was 3.6 dwts on left. The High Plain Deserts still yield its treasures to the hungry seekers! Until the next Hunt LuckyLundy
    55 points
  4. So what sells metal detectors these days? A lot of the market now is driven by “influencers” on YouTube and other social media. There is no requirement that the person involved have any genuine knowledge about what they are talking about. All that matters, and I mean all that matters, is how big their viewership is. That’s the way the media works these days. Truth, accuracy, etc. are completely secondary to how many eyeballs you can draw. In fact you can have a show or channel about complete BS and as long as you can draw viewers in large numbers, you are golden. Metal detector video by nature tends to rely on contrived tests. The most widely seen is perhaps the Monte Nail Board test. But there are endless variations of tests using wood blocks and styrofoam blocks, you name it. These all remove the most important thing about a detector - how well does it separate the target from the ground? Ground conditions (wet, dry, salty, 3D trash density) and magnetic mineralization rule everything from depth to target id accuracy. But that does not matter. What is important is it is popular and people believe it. So the manufacturers do now pay attention to producing detectors that perform well in these videos, and if performing well in the videos means maybe not so well in the ground at the end of the day you do what you need to do to sell metal detectors. Thats job one - sell metal detectors. This reliance on these types of tests and the people who do them go a long way to explaining why recent detectors do well with the YouTubers but not so well with the people that really use them. This forum tends to downplay contrived tests in favor of actual in field use on actual found targets, by expert users. The answers often are nuanced and lack the clear quick black and white the marketers need to sell the product. Finding the truth on the Manticore means reading 100 posts or more on the subject by a wide number of different real world users in different locations. The truth emerges over time, not in a five minute video shot by a guy who has had the detector for three days, if that. To sum up though it all comes back to how important it has become to do well in air tests and the Monte test, with actual stable performance in the ground being a secondary factor. And unfortunately a detector jacked up to do well in the air does not often do all that well in the ground. I relayed this story before. I was at my Moore Creek Mine in Alaska, and a visitor arrived with a Fisher 71 kHz Gold Bug 2. I was swinging a Fisher 13 kHz F75 at the time. He thought I was an idiot as he knew for a fact his Gold Bug 2 did better on gold than the F75. Now mind you, the goal at Moore Creek was 1/4 ounce and larger nuggets. Those were daily finds with 1-3 ounce nuggets common. He was pretty adamant so I said “here, let me show you something.” We took a 1/4 ounce nugget and air tested both machines. The Gold Bug 2 easily trounced the F75 and I could see the smirk on his face from the result. Then we buried the nugget in the ground. The F75 easily hit the nugget beyond the point where the Gold Bug 2 would even signal at all, and not by a thin margin. The guy was astounded. But he simply did not know that high frequencies air test well but fall on their face for penetration in bad ground on larger targets compared to lower frequency detectors. The same error is made repeatedly with PI detectors, either testing them against VLF detectors in the air or in low mineral ground. PI basically exists as a solution for extreme conditions, and testing them outside those extreme conditions is not only inaccurate but highly misleading. The same can be said of any this versus that VLF tests that remove the ground from the equation. It’s just not as dramatic as with PI versus VLF, but it is real all the same. When you are spitting hairs like so many people do these days taking ground out of the equation is ridiculous.
    48 points
  5. Here's some of the gold found and also a mine tour. Unfortunately due to health I was forced to stop early this season. I did manage 129 bits this year and that helped put me over the 3,000 piece count. Five seasons total was 17.5+ ozt. from Montana and Idaho. Gold pan and jar pic is the same gold minus 1.5+ ozt. that has been given away and not in pics. Long story but I managed to hook up with the Co. and got permission to prospect on their ground. The Co. has never asked me for money or gold except for small samples to be analyzed but I have done the right thing and paid some cash and also gold. All they've ever asked for was information, keep an eye out for float, quartz outcroppings, etc. They have pretty much let me runamuck. They have treated me like I've been there for ever, best bunch of folks I've ever been around!!!!! In that 5 years I've only dug 1 nuggie over an ozt., and it was the world famous (my little world) "Butterball" nugget that weighed in at 3.55ozt. Here's a few shots from a mine tour the boys gave me and my neighbor last Wed. It was the coolest thing and literally ended with a BANG! We came across the boys setting a charge so we backed out probably 50yrds around a corner, then a side x side hauls by us and one of the Geo's says "there goes the guys that lit the fuse" then 20seconds later...BOOOOOOM. That was the neatest feeling that can't be described...Thanks guys!!! I gave the 15.5+ ozt. jar to the Co. as they've been so good to me over the years and the gold won't do me any good where I'm going. They tried to refuse the gold but I persisted they take it. Sad sack looking guy with the blue hard hat is me weighing in at 138lbs. Pic with me next to old cabin is from the beginning and one of Reeses' spots over by Helena, think I found 2 dinks that trip? Here's a couple specimens from Co. property. Shot of the buggy we all rode around in. Anyways...some random shots from the last 5 years doing what I love to do.....ENJOY it while you still can.....!!!
    48 points
  6. My last trip of 2023 to Northern NV was everything I expected and then some. On the last day, I was able to break the 1 ounce bar I had set. I actually had 2 goals for myself, at least a 1/2 oz and if the gold gods were on my side, then hopefully an ounce. After soaking my Nevada gold to remove caliche, my weight was 31.4 grams. Soaking results shows some totally unique and different variations of Au. Some nuggets with crystallized characters, a few weathered and smooth pieces, 5 leaf gold types a few bigger chunks and many smaller picker types. Even have a triangle formed prize. My biggest nugget of the trip was 6.6 grams and has a bit of chevron pattern. Majority of gold recovered was with a GPZ-7000, but I did find gold with 3 other models of machines (EQ-800 with 6" coil, Manticore with stock 11" coil and GPX-6000 with stock 11" coil). I took in trade while on the trip the 7 from a DP member, as I didn't own one (too heavy). One good thing about winters is early morning temps are too cold to hunt and the amount of light in a day is cut by 5 hrs. So with my thinking of starting to swing around 10AM and finish around 3PM with a lunch break, is about all my body can take of swinging a GPZ-7000. Plus I needed to test the detector before I sold it. Pics show just how interesting a small area of the region can have different gold patterns. Below is the gold right out of the ground and showing 32.9 grams. Has not been cleaned. Next pic is after CLR soaking to remove the Caliche (Calcite) that seems to form on many of my NV gold nuggets. Final weight was 31.5 grams so I only lost about a gram. Not as many chunky nuggets this trip (getting smaller each time) This next 2 pics are front and back of the biggest find and also my deepest dig a 6.6 gram at 15". Leaf gold is more rare than typical nuggets, but I still think Chevron is even more rare. Solid dense nuggets are always a treat as they are usually heavier than they 1st appear. The biggest of these is only (half a corn kernel) but weights .9 of a gram. The Triagon type nugget (in center) is really cool and collectible (only if it was a gram or more). Notice it also has a darker gold color to it. When I see those black cubes, I really start paying attention to my detector. They are Limonite cubes and come in many sizes. Last pic is all the gold again and showing a token I recovered in Nevada. It says NATIONAL, NEV. Wonder when the abbreviation for Nevada changed from NEV to NV? Well, I hit my goal for the trip and am proud of my efforts considering how hoard these places have been hunted. Actually, one of my good friends had asked if I found new locations that had not been detected and the answer is no. All gold was recovered from the same places I have known about and hunted. Sure I walked a couple washes I personally have not swing, but my staff have. If you are going to hunt Northern NV for gold, a great resource is "Placer Deposits of Nevada" by Maureen G. Johnson. Yes, each of the sites I hunted is mentioned in the above book. There's your "Nugget" of knowledge folks. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone across the globe this week. Gerry
    47 points
  7. As explained elsewhere my metal detecting is winding down from my glory days. I will never quit detecting, but it is a more casual close to home thing going forward. With that in mind I just don't need the dozen detectors I usually have had banging around the house for most of the last couple decades. I had already weeded things down pretty well but job one was to stop getting new detectors. The last new detector I added to my mix was the XP Deus 2 a couple years ago. After disposing of other models, like the Tarsacci for instance, I was left with the following: Minelab Equinox Garrett Axiom XP Deus 2 White's DFX For what I do I'm pretty satisfied with the Axiom as a general purpose PI so that's settled. The DFX sports a Bigfoot coil, and I own the machine as much to run the coil as the other way around, so it is not going anywhere. In fact it might become my most used VLF soon. So what to do with the Equinox 800 and Deus 2? The Manticore was really looking like a replacement for both. I can't really get enthused about the XP way of things. People rave about the light weight being a real factor for them, but I don't consider weight to be an issue for me with any detector weighing under three pounds. At the end of the day coils are a big deal for me, and I don't like proprietary limited coil options. Wireless coils leave me cold. People can argue with me all they want but they are wasting their time. I like wired coils, and I lean to detectors with third party coil options. So it is the coils that decided it for me. Minelab took too long with Manticore coils and now I just don't care any more. I'm also peeved XP has withheld the 5x10 coil from Deus 2 owners. My Equinox 800 I have a 6" round coil, the Coiltek 5x10, the stock 11" coil, and the Minelab 12x15 coil. XP has nothing similar to offer in way of coils. Nor does the Manticore. Plus I have custom rods for my Equinox perfect for both compact backpacking and for beach use. I even have an S rod that I have yet to use. The icing on the cake is a set of custom Tony Eisenhower underwater headphones I really like. Would I get rid of all that and keep the Deus 2? No. Would I trade all that for the Manticore as it exists right now? No. So I think I have after ages finally weeded it down to three detectors. The Deus 2 will find a new home. And I am left with... Garrett Axiom - my most used detector for gold prospecting and beach detecting Minelab Equinox 800 with full accessory set - do it all coin, relic, jewelry, gold nuggets, you name it White's DFX with Bigfoot - Park jewelry use almost exclusively Maybe, just maybe the Manticore will tempt me again in a year or so, once the software bugs and coil drought get straightened out. But after 50 years I feel like I have got off the new detector merry go round. There really is something to be said for using a machine you know inside and out, and fact is my Equinox talks to me. The Deus 2 still speaks French and frankly I just don't care to make the effort to learn French. Too old to learn new tricks? Maybe. The main thing for me is I won't waste any more time thinking about this machine or that machine and instead just focus purely on using what I have to best effect. Compared to what I started with 50 years ago I'm drenched in fabulous technology I once only dreamed of, so now matter how I look at it I'm thrilled with the detectors I have now. Minelab Equinox 800 with 6" coil and telescoping rod White's DFX with Bigfoot coil Garrett Axiom with 7x11 coil Equinox 800 with 12x15 coil and steveg counterweighted rod The perfect pair? Axiom 7x11 and Equinox telescoping 5x10
    46 points
  8. Hi Guys, Happy Australia Day!! Kind of cool to have another Aussie developed PI raising some eyebrows today. I should start by saying that unfortunately, FCC testing has not been done yet, so the product cannot be sold to the US at this point in time. But is available to NZ customers - so ignore my email Simon 😉 I have done a little testing on the E1500, and a few of my features/suggestions were added in, but the detector was already quite developed when I was approached for some feedback. There was a software update and then the user manual needed to be updated to include the changes. I've only had limited time on the latest version, but here's some info that will get you up to speed a little bit. 1. First of all, performance wise, this thing sits between a Gold Monster/Gold Kruzer and SDC2300. It is extremely sensitive to tiny targets, but depth won't match a 5000/6000 on large targets. I think the SDC2300 will remain superior in really bad soil conditions, but the E1500 is quite adjustable (broad sensitivity range), and obviously with different coil options, e.g. round/elliptical/semi-elliptical and flat wound/bundle wound, you can kind of dictate the performance a little bit. 2. It is for mono coils only, but works very well. Coil calibration feature is a nice touch, and optimises the electronics for any slight variations between coils. It will also tell you if you need to calibrate or not. 3. Current wise it draws about 700 ma on average, so a 10 AH power bank should run for about 13-14 hrs. Great for guys hiking into remote spots with no power. Just carry three power banks and you're good to go for days. 4. Tested on a 0.05g bit of gold and the E1500 was better than a 4500. With a Sadie coil it is super sensitive, and the tone modulation is very sharp. With an older Minelab 11" super gold search coil, depth is improved, but signal sharpness is not as good, but runs extremely stable. The 14x9" Evo seems to be a great coil for it. I think a Detech 8" mono, Minelab 8" Mono and NF 12x7" Advantage would be the pick of the coils for really hot ground, as they are bundle wound. Possibly add in the old Coiltek 11" round terracotta, and Minelab Commander and earlier Super Gold Search. But in average mineralised conditions, the Evo coils work great. 5. Hotrocks. A 6000 with 11" Mono is a little more immune to hotrocks than the E1500 with Sadie coil in Ultra Fine timing. With a slower timing, and larger coil, hot rocks are far less detectable as you'd expect. But, being a PI it is vastly superior to a VLF. 6. The shaft and hand grip feel great. 2 arm strap sizes is excellent and should cater for most people. 7. Buttons feel really nice. They have a very positive click about them. 8. The Auto ground balance works great, but is on the slower side. Slower than 4500. This is a ground balance reset only, i.e. after it has ground balanced, the ground balance is locked - just like a GP/GPX machine in Fixed. It is not continuously tracking like the SDC2300 or 6000. However, you can see when the ground balance is going out with the Ground Drift function - so it is sort of tracking in the background, but it's up to the user to reset it. 9. Interference with other detectors - I've only been out once with another prospector who was using a GPZ7000 with a 12" NF coil. We found that I needed to be about 10 metres away, that's with a Sadie on the E1500. Any closer and the GPZ would start to pick it up. 10. The Sensitivity range is great. I expect most people are going to run it in the low 20's, but in super quiet conditions, 26-30 are kind of like boost. I've got a lot more testing I'd like to do, and still playing around with headphone options, but having independent threshold and volume controls as well as adjustable tone, it should be able to adapt to pretty much any wired or wireless options. The target ID feature was demo'd to me, and appeared to be quite stable, but I haven't played around with it much at this point. So what is? It is a very well built PI machine, with a collapsible 3 pc shaft, has the benefit of being compatible with legacy 5-pin coils, a very well thought out user interface with a simple menu, and all the important functions you need. It is not waterproof, and doesn't have built in wireless, and comes as a bare bones kit, but all these things have allowed it to be offered at an attractive price point. It is not a deep machine. If you want depth on a budget, get a S/H 4500 or 5000 with a 20" mono or 25" DD. If you want to find small gold as well as specimens and reefy gold, then the AlgoForce E1500 is worth a look. Hope that gives you a bit of a better understanding of its capabilities. Yes, I plan on doing some videos so you can see how it behaves and what it sounds like.
    45 points
  9. I haven't posted much in the way of finds the last year or so. It's not that I don't want to share with others what I've found. It's just that a lot of the time it ends up compromising a site that me and my hunting buddies have spent hours and hours researching, getting permission and making multiple recon trips to. Now that I feel like we've pretty much cleaned this site out, I think I can safely post some of the finds for others to enjoy. It all started in April of last year. First trip we made I used the Equinox 800 and 30 minutes into the hunt I knew it was going to be a great site. Literally the 3rd target I dug ended up being an 1852 $2 1/2 gold coin. Below are some pictures of my finds. We made about 4 trips to the place in total and I'll make some other posts at a later date showing what else I found. That's about all the information I'm going to give about the site.
    45 points
  10. I've been detecting for gold nuggets for several years without finding any Au. As many of you know, almost everything else is found: bullets, fragments of bullets, fragments of fragments of bullets, bullet casings, nails, hob-nails, foil, lead sinkers, lead shot, and the list goes on-and-on. We'll I finally found some Au! The first time out with my new Garrett Axiom after some backyard and nearby gulch practice I went to a southern Arizona location with a local detecting buddy. We have both been on a quest to find some gold. On a steep rocky hillside and after finding several lead bullets and a big jacketed rifle bullet I thought I found another when a large signal was heard. About three inches down was a flat dark dirt covered rock that was unusually heavy. My first thought was "that's a funny piece of lead." I called my buddy over to take a look at it. He hollered and identified it as a specimen piece of a gold vein! After all of our searches we were finally on the gold! After hundreds of hours of detecting my only hope was to find some small or tiny piece of a nugget....anything. What I found was about 3.6 ounces of specimen. I'm not certain how much Au is inside but I'd guess about one-half of it. I've scrubbed it with dish soap and also liquid Bar Keeper's cleaner but the gold is not clearly visible except on the edges. The piece is about 2.2" long, 2" wide and 1/2" thick, so it clearly is a piece of mineralized vein. I may consider cleaning it with Muriatic or hydrofluoric acid to remove everything except the Au and quartz, but it is such a nice example of a thin gold vein it I'd rather not damage it. I'm most impressed with the Axiom. I was using the 11" mono coil on a steep brushy and rocky hillside. The detector is well balanced and easy to use with only a little practice. My detector settings were Fine, Slow, and Manual ground balance. Unlike my past VLF detectors the Axiom virtually ignored the mineralization and hot rocks. This meant I could detect almost continuously with only an occasional manual ground balance. I'd guess compared to using a VLF machine I covered twice as much ground with far more confidence in hearing targets. For all of you still searching for your first gold detect I say stick with it. Perseverance pays off. One of the best suggestions I've heard from an experienced detectorist was to first be sure I was detecting in an area of known gold. Good luck and keep detecting. Az_Ed
    44 points
  11. I find the speculation that the E1500 will somehow outperform detectors costing much more money to be, well, how to put this nicely… questionable at best. If this detector was GPX 6000 class it would be stupid to sell it for one quarter the price of a GPX 6000. I don’t think Alex is stupid. Here is the current price structure in Australia as of today after Garrett just introduced the lower priced stripped down Axiom package: 1. GPZ 7000 $10,499 2. GPX 6000 $8,999 with two coils 3. Garrett Axiom $4,999 with one coil 4. SDC 2300 $4,399 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery $2649 6. Minelab Manticore $2499 7. Gold Monster $1299 I have pretty solid information in hand indicating that you are going to get what you pay for. The E1500 is a very affordable option at close the price of a top end VLF and will outperform said VLFs on gold in mineralized ground. Time will tell but I think the E1500 will fall short of SDC 2300 and Axiom level performance, essentially being a bridge between VLF detectors and those models. The 6000 and 7000 will continue to rule the roost but at twice the price of the SDC/Axiom level you are not getting twice the depth. Pulling a number out of my ass I’d assign a very debatable expectation of about a 15% increase in overall performance at each major step up in price. People can of course argue that number all day long but I think it is very important to give newbies some sense of reality. Twice the money does not get twice the performance. Gains are more like 10% - 15% - 20%…. pick your number, but it’s not double, triple, quadruple. If I was still selling detectors I’d explain to this new customer that they can go find a gold nugget with a Gold Monster or a Manticore. I’d explain that for not much more than a Manticore they could get an AlgoForce E1500 and be able to deal with mineralized ground and hot rocks that will give the VLF models real trouble. I’d tell them that for substantially more money they could get some very solid bang for the buck in the Axiom/SDC range, a step up from E1500 but still not top tier. Finally, I’d tell them that if money is no object and they simply want the best performance they can get, to look at the 6000 or 7000. I’d comment that out of the box with provided coils the 6000 would have the edge for smaller gold, and the 7000 the edge on larger gold. Adding aftermarket coils (and more money) to the 7000 can close the gap between it and the 6000 on small gold, but nothing you do to the 6000 will have it hitting the big stuff as deep as the 7000. That would be my short and sweet sales presentation and I offer it up as the most simplified big picture no B.S. look at the scene as you are likely to find. My somewhat educated opinions only, feel free to toss in trash bin if you don’t agree. In the States this would be the situation if the E1500 could be had here: 1. GPZ 7000 $8,999 2. GPX 6000 $6,499 with two coils 3. Garrett Axiom $3,995 with two coils 4. SDC 2300 $3,599 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery under $1999 6. Minelab Manticore $1699 7. Gold Monster $799
    43 points
  12. During a recent detecting trip to the Rye Patch region of northern Nevada, I was intent on searching for the ever elusive large nugget at depth, wielding the Minelab GPZ 7000 equipped with the GPZ-19 coil, set to Extra Deep Gold Mode in Normal Ground Type. This combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type handles the local alkali ground very well, allowing the faintest signal responses to be heard; and good thing, too, as I would have certainly missed a couple of nice bits had the threshold been variable due to ground noise or EMI masking. They were buried at a depth of 18 inches and recovered from cracks within the weathered shale bedrock. A friend who was detecting with me swung over the undisturbed target zone with the Minelab GPX 6000 and 17-inch mono coil and there was no discernible response, so that added to the anticipation of deep, chunky gold…not exactly the large gold I was looking for, but at 3.3 grams and 2.2 grams, I'll happily put them in the poke any day!
    43 points
  13. This is what I am finding with my 5000 in the Gold Basin/ Meadview area with my Gpx5000, three different days out detecting, recently.
    42 points
  14. I was called by a successful client old pupil of mine and he was telling me to start a new thread as I had posted this to a recent post. Only reason I even wrote the reply was one of the forum members had asked the questions. I realize there are many states, counties, areas and minerals in the USA and not all tailing piles are the same. But in all honestly, I've probably hiked of while swinging more than most of you and in many different areas. Heck I even wrote an article many years back in a magazine (when they existed) about how I hunt such piles. Not sure where it is, but many new machines I've tried since then and I still come up with the same conclusion. So here goes and I hope others will chime in with their experiences. Heck, I even know of a few of you who have found your biggest gold with a certain detector, even though you had a bigger one...and yes you also took our 3 Days Field Training. Hopefully some of you newer folks will learn from this and who knows, maybe an old salty member may as well. The majority of my bigger gold finds have come from tailing piles. I've detected dredge and hand placer digging piles in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Nevada with success. If I were to hunt California, Arizona and Wyoming tailing piles, I'd do what I've learned in the 30 years of chasing bigger gold and do what I usually do, I'd run Discriminating VLF's and find even more. Yes I have used PI's and even ZED with Success at such locations, but I run out of energy much sooner, as shovel heads at 3 1/2 feet are Ball Breakers, grease buckets over 4' are heart attaches. Here's the funny thing about the bigger machines. I've yet to actually find a bigger chunk of gold beyond the depths of my VLF's capabilities. I'm sure it has been done by someone, but my Success speaks for itself. I run into folks in the field on occasion and they swear up and down, those said sites can be PI'd. OK, then why is my VLF Success 10X of theirs???? Sometimes a little Success with a PI in tailing does not mean that's the best way to do it. Problem is, some folks are happy with a little bit of Success and too hard headed to learn and or teach themselves a new style. OK with me, as I'll keep doing what works for me and they can keep doing what works for them. Not all tailing piles are the same and many are not even in good size gold nugget/specimen country. Many folks forget this fact. In many of the tailing I detect, the highly mineralized soils have already been removed, so the VLF's capabilities are optimal which = a closer performance comparison of said VLF vs PI. Again, different parts of the country in the US, the piles vary. It's just that in the regions and states I've detected tailing piles, I've been able to get best results with the Discriminating VLFs. - A lighter and faster VLF detector can be used for longer periods of time - The Iron ID VLF's save time in identifying ferrous and non ferrous targets. - Today's newer discriminating VLF's with target Identification can be taken a step above and helps me separate the nonferrous targets and saves me more time not having to dig certain non ferrous targets. - In many tailing piles, the mineralized dirt has been removed and performance of VLF vs PI is not as big a difference. - Very important and not mentioned by most. Invisible gold - It's out there in way more places than most realize, but you don't know as your detector can't see it. Many older PI detectors and even a couple current models can not see or will respond to such gold. I have numerous multi ounces pieces a VLF responds to and bigger detectors can't or do it but not as well at a depth as the VLF. I love detecting tailing & hand work placer piles. I highly recommend to those who have not done so to try it and be open minded when doing so. There is no right or wrong way, but do what seems to work for you. If you have a bigger PI or ZED and don't own a VLF, I know you're missing gold and in some areas, you could be missing the best gold. No sales pitch, just what I have learned from being in the field for many years. Heck I couldn't believe my own eyes when I 1st witnessed this 25+ yrs ago. Now I take a big machine and VLF everywhere I go Here's some pics of finds with a variety of detectors that I have been successful with and all were from old workings.
    41 points
  15. Had to post something so I wouldnt get deleted---this is some stuff found in Northern Nevada --2009-2011ish. Mostly with the gpx4500
    41 points
  16. ok one last comment before I let it go…… The thing is seven years ago I laid out a challenge for a decent built reasonably priced PI detector for people who frankly are not a lot of the forum members as far as I can tell. If buying a $900 multi or maybe at most a $1200 multi is a stretch for somebody, then these $4000 plus options are out of reach for these people. If I can buy a top notch VLF for $900 -$1200 then in my mind I should be able to get a top notch PI for no more than twice that or $1800 to $2400. I sold detectors and trust me, you talk to a guy with a $700 detector and tell him he needs this $8000 detector and he looks at you like you are insane. I have been and always will advocate for power at affordable prices, and the nature of technology means it is inevitable. I’m just trying to help it along. I emailed AlgoForce the day I saw this pop up and got a very nice personal response from Ruifeng Huang, or Alex as he asks to be called. I’m a fan for sure based on the way he thinks he needs to respond to us to give us what we want. Refreshing to say the least. I hope he won’t mind me sharing this tidbit…. ”Believe it or not, our E1500 was inspired by your “Under 4 Pound, Under $2000 Gbpi Challenge” about two and a half years ago.” That is gratifying because that thread was made knowing that it would be seen by every company out there. I’ve been around a long time pushing and shoving and holding my breath until I’m blue in the face to get what I want, and I have learned that consistently expressing my desires in a respectful and logical fashion for long enough does actually make a difference. I’m proud to have moved the needle in the right direction in many small ways, and this is the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned. So yeah, I’m a fan and I’d be crazy not to get an E1500 after asking for one for seven years and them finally delivering on what I was asking for. A decent performing ergonomic PI at a decent price. That’s not shooting for the moon, it’s just a reasonable request, and I never thought it would take seven years for it to happen. But it has, and I do think we finally have a winner! Now if it prompts other companies to respond with their own offerings, that also was the goal. I believe heart and soul in competition being the way forward and so I hope very much that Nokta, Garrett, Fisher, and yes, Minelab and others decide to play in this game also. Because whoever builds the next $2000 PI will have to build one at least as good or better than the E1500, or why bother? Fully waterproof? Why not? But the bar has been set and the future is bright for affordable PI now more than ever.
    40 points
  17. Out on an old local pasture in the UK, that's off the beaten track and has been heavily detected by myself and others. I had the Manticore on All Terrain General - Low Conductors, sens 27, stabliser 3, the ferrous limits opened up a bit top and bottom. I hit a scratchy but repeatable 35, not a belter of a signal but enough to make me dig, so glad I did, as at the bottom of a pinpointer deep hole this beautiful gold ring appeared! There are no date or makers marks on the ring so I'm unsure of it's age, it has a nice weight to it. I've had a look through UK National Antiquities database but can't find anything that matches it. The British Museum in London is currently looking at pictures of it to ascertain what age it is to see if it should be taken under the Treasure Act. One specialist has indicated he thinks it's medieval and a couple of people have suggested it may have had Niello inlayed into it. Still a bit of a mystery, but if anyone could help with an ID i'd be very grateful. Kind regards Stuart
    40 points
  18. My Algoforce arrived a couple of hours ago, I had a quick refresher flick through the Quick start guide that came in the box and had a play around, to my surprise I could use it inside my house on default sensitivity and it was quite stable, I was able to test some coins on it for target ID and mess around learning the menu navigation. It's a puzzle at first as you need to remember the irons purposes, most icons are a giveaway as to what they do and the screen even tells you which ones to press on certain screens. So far first impressions on usability is for a detector with settings like this, it's very easy to use. I was able to configure my 10" X-coil on it in no time without the need for the instructions. It quickly calibrates to coils, a couple of seconds if that and you can store their size in there so you can easily go back to them, it comes pre-configured with a few common coils. It comes with this cool bag to lug it around in, I shouldn't say lug it around as it weighs nothing, it's super light and makes the 6000 feel heavy. The 6000 in the picture is shrunken down a bit for storage but was put there for a bit of a size reference. This is the contents of the package. All very professionally made, the look and feel is a long way different to the more homemade feel of the QED, a similar priced PI machine. And it all assembled with the 10" X-coil on it and configured. It's really easy to assemble, It takes a bit of getting used to the coil connector, it's different that's for sure, I'm sure if someone didn't like it they could put a GPX 5000 one into the shaft as I'm pretty sure you can buy the part but it worked fine and once, I knew what I was doing it did the trick, it doesn't use coil rubbers, a different design entirely but it does work and is probably perfectly fine, I'm just not used to it and with X-coils have very solid ears they don't flex out to fit it between them, at first I didn't think it fit the X-coils but I worked out if you slide them in from the back they fit, trying to get them in from the top of the ears is impossible. Maybe X-coils need to adjust their coils for an extra millimetre or two of width on the ears to make it an easier fit. I'll discuss this with them as they are resuming production of their GPX coils due to this detector hitting the market. Now, I filmed some video, it is very raw, my usual style of no editing and what you see is what you get, in the video you're seeing what I saw the first time doing it, I'd not even tested the nuggets I went over prior to filming. I'd just checked a couple to ensure it even worked 🙂 I'd used the detector for about 10 minutes at home in total before filming the video so be gentle, I'm just learning it. I will say for a fact it's more sensitive to small gold than the GPX 5000, some of these nuggets I used in the video the 5000 can't hit on at all. It's also more sensitive than the QED by a significant margin. I tested on a $1 coin, and had the target ID then I went into my yard where a couple of $1 coins are buried, and it was able to ID them very well, with a stable ID, I was quite surprised by this and I have to go back out with a VLF and double check it all and get some video. This is all very early days, but I'm certainly happy with it, it handles EMI so well for a PI , better than anything I've used before, and I think even for someone that just has a GPX 4500/5000 it would be a big compliment to it being more sensitive and picking up the gold the 5000 misses due to it being porous or just generally weak on, and for anyone not wanting to pay the crazy Minelab pricing for a 6000 or 7000 it's a bargain. On lead shotgun pellets it's similar to the 6000, neither will hit the #9 pellet but as the sizes increase both are the same with the pellets they will detect. I've not checked depths or anything yet just ability to hit them comes in at the same size pellet. I have so much to experiment on it yet, but happy with it for sure. The videos currently still processing by Youtube to HD but the SD version looks available now. I haven't even watched the video myself, this is raw as it gets.
    39 points
  19. ...is what keeps us going, Golden Friends... We enjoy being around like minded folks. We share with our friends to help make each better at what we do when together. Friends are important in many ways and on a rare occasion, we need help from a friend. A friendship goes both ways and especially with a gold hunting friend. There's times when we need them and or they need us, a friend. My last Field Training trip for customers in Nevada for 2023 was memorable for a variety of reasons. I managed to get away before the start of class to do some detecting with friends and to compare coils/detectors when chasing gold nuggets. Having friends to compare undug signal response is a great way to learn. On a particular day one of my Nevada Friends and I were hunting older productive sites trying to scrape up a few nuggets missed by old technology detectors and while doing so we discovered the exact same site some of my other friends recently hunted. Alaska Steve from Nevada, Condor Steve from NV was there with Andrew from Utah doing a video sharing Manticore knowledge for all of us members across the world on Detector Prospector, for our friends. Anyways, about 30' from their campfire ring my NV buddy makes an incredible discovery. He hollers at me about his find and so I start walking towards his direction to investigate what's got him so excited. Now I know how hard this area has been detected previously for many yrs so I'm sure it's not a big gold nugget. I'm actually thinking an old coin or trade token from the Depression era as that's when many people were camped near by. During the Depression, many folks had no job, no money and no place to live. It was said that people from across the country and states flocked the area trying to find enough gold to make ends meet. We were detecting such site and quite a bit of old-timer trash was around. As I walk up to my buddy, he explains his Nugget of a find and holds out a fat weather worn brown leather wallet. What's even more amazing is the wallet is stuffed with cash. We eagerly go through it and see the driver's license, hotel card keys, credit cards, a piece of paper with what looks to be passwords, a card from a college university, photos and more. Interestingly was a pair of GPAA Membership cards. This must be why a stranger from Indiana was in the Northern Nevada gold fields, he was doing what the rest of us enjoy, looking for gold and probably with Friends. Well the $151 in cash and all of someone's personal credentials didn't help us find gold that day, but we did find a friend. Of coincidence this friend from Indiana just so happened to be in Nevada with another gold hunting friend back in June of this year when he lost his wallet. Detector Prospector is what I consider a friendly site. We enjoy sharing our detector experiences, sharing our thoughts on detecting gear, showing a few nuggets on occasion and sometimes making new friends. It's amazing that everyone I mentioned in this little story in one way or another, are friends and just like near 100 yrs earlier, we all had the urge to congregate to that Sawtooth area in search of gold. Would you believe each of us is also a member of the best Prospecting/Metal Detecting Knowledge site on the net, even the friend who lost his wallet. Yes Detector Prospector, you are indeed a Friendly Site and brings us together for a variety of golden reasons. Chuck from Indiana, you know you're gold hunting friends have your back. For you my friend....and the rest of you on DP reading this....You're in my circle...the circle of Friends. Merry Christmas my Friends. PS, Sitting in a rainstorm in Cancun trying to type this up on my phone. Sorry for any errors and hopefully my Friends will forgive me.
    39 points
  20. Some of you may have noticed that the Cpt hasn't posted recently. He underwent surgery Tuesday for the removal of a brain tumor and is now in recovery which might take some time. He's a great Detectorist and a wizard on operating his D2. Each time we detect together he always finds twice the stuff that I do. He's also the Newsletter Editor and member of our local detecting club, The Pikes Peak Adventure League, here in Colorado Springs. Keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.
    38 points
  21. Hello all. Jim would be humbled by the kind words and comforting sympathies for him and to his wife Linda on the forum. I traveled over the Klamath / Siskiyou mountains yesterday for the graveside service for Jim Foley. It’s about 100 miles from my house to Happy Camp, providing a quiet early morning drive through beautiful country, allowing me to remember Jim. It was comforting. Jim was laid to rest towards the top of a gentle slope overlooking the small local cemetery in Happy Camp, Ca. It was a small ceremony with folks from his church in Yreka, his family, including wife Linda, daughter Nicole and husband, son Jim Jr. and 4 fellow prospector/miners. The simple casket was made by a friend out of local pine with natural rope handles and a cross on top. Six of us unloaded the casket from the back of a pickup and carried it to the burial framework. Family and friends spoke fondly of Jim and his life. Some fine recollections were said about his mining/prospecting in Alaska as well here in northwest California. The minister then spoke of Jim and his commitment to his church and faith. It was really nice, informal. Dave McCraken and I were chatting quietly as we all gathered around the casket. I said to Dave, “ look at that pile of good red dirt from Jim’s grave, what do you think?” Dave says, “well, it’s hard to tell, you can’t see the grey layers where the gold would be with it all shoveled into a pile like that.” We were kinda smiling at each other when a young man sitting with Jim’s family (son in law) said, “what do you guys think, paydirt?” Like I said, it was real nice, Jim would have liked all of it. Mike
    37 points
  22. I had a couple of hours to detect today after another mini blizzard. I decided to stay close to home and hunt next to a curb at a local park that I have hunted with Deus 1 and the Equinox 800 in the past. The area I was hunting is absolutely loaded with aluminum trash and steel crown bottle caps with various states of rust unless they are recent drops. Very iron mineralized ground on top of the thousands of trash targets. Knowing this in advance I was thankful that I have the Deus 2 (and the Legend and Equinox 900) which do not have half of the regularly found aluminum pull tabs ID's landing right on top of the most common gold ring target IDs and the US nickel target IDs (Equinox 600/800/Vanquish models) both of which I really enjoy digging. In the past I have tried Deus 1 at places like this and quickly became super frustrated with all of the silver target ID range responses that could easily be US copper pennies, clad dimes clad quarters, silver coins and silver jewelry but instead were lowly pull tabs and bits of aluminum along with steel crown bottle caps that were showing up in the upper 80s to upper 90s target ID range due to severe up averaging if they were deeper than 3" or so in this iron rich dirt. Deus 2 using its multi modes based on the Fast program simply does not do that to all of that aluminum and steel trash unless it is right at the edge of detection in the dirt around here, so I had no hesitation picking it for detecting this super trashed area. I was using a saved program based on Sensitive, with 5 tones Square Wave audio, disc on 10, iron audio ON, reactivity 2, Silencer 1, bottle cap reject 1 and sensitivity on 95. Deus 2 was a bit jittery but consistent which is how I like it. The US nickel medium pitched tone was set up to sound on target IDs between 59 and 63. The highest tone for clad dimes and up was set 90 to 99. So, I concentrated on the gold and silver range of target IDs specifically any good sounding target with a consistent ID of 59 to 63 and any target with a consistent target ID of 90 and above and was basically cherry picking for US nickels/medium sized gold rings and US coins above zinc pennies with any silver thrown in. The 1.9 gram 10K ring had a target ID of 62/63 just like the nickels and square tabs in the photo. These targets were in the 3 to 6" depth range. There has been a lot of chatter about using single frequencies for detecting and how they are just "better" especially in reference to the new Minelab X-Terra Pro. I deliberately checked the target IDs of each of the low to mid conductor targets in the bottom half of the paper plate photo before digging them. I used default Deus 2 Mono set on 17 kHz. All of those targets which are normally 59 to 66 had target IDs above 85................. I'm very happy to use Deus 2 FMF simultaneous multi frequency tech, that's for sure since I can at least call the non-ferrous conductivity of targets before I dig them for the most part. Thanks for reading.
    37 points
  23. Today I took the Algoforce for a gold hunt, it wasn't the location I was wanting to go to as the one I wanted to go to I had more confidence of finding something, its temperature was going to be too hot, then I saw a closer spot right near JW's house was cooler when I checked its forecast, I couldn't resist and decided to go, although I had little hope of finding anything, being so close to home for JW and his uncanny ability to find all available gold he doesn't leave much behind. The first thing I did seeing this area has powerlines right through it was to test the Algoforce under them, results can be seen here, I must say though, very impressed! I had a hunch it would be good, it's one of the few detectors and only PI that I have that I can use inside my house for testing. I next found a 22 shell, pretty typical here and generally screamer targets, sometimes I'm lazy and reject them, risky move but I can get lazy in the heat. Seeing I was digging it all, the general rule for a new detector I dug it up, pretty neat video, a 22 shell comes up with a Target ID of 22 😛 I later tested the same 22 shell on the Sadie, and was pleased to see it came up 22 on an entirely different coil, a 10" Spiral vs a 8x6" bundle wound. You've probably heard me whinge about the green hot rocks in the past, so I wanted to see how it goes on them, the 6000 can't balance them out in normal but does to a degree in difficult, not completely gone but better than normal, The Algoforce on the other hand, bang.... gone! bye bye Green hot rock! To top it off once balanced out I put a little shotgun pellet I'd found on top of it, a giant big green hot rock and it still was able to detect the pellet as if the rock didn't exist. I notified JW I was there seeing he lives very close nearby and he popped down for a detect and to catch up, he had his 6000 and 10x5" Coiltek with him, a good combination for the area. He was also kind enough to bring along an assortment of GPX coils that I don't have to try including the Sadie (mine still hasn't arrived from the NZ Dealer) and a 6" Coiltek round mono. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test out the mono which I'll explain later but quickly swapped over from my 10" X-coil to the Sadie to try it out, seeing it was the manufacturer tested coil on the detector I wanted to see how it goes. The Sadie is very light, quite nice to swing such a little coil in the rougher areas, knowing it has hot edges is a nice attribute too. In my first video up the top with the 22 shell I explain about the coil cable and how the Algoforce detects it when you pick up and put down the detector with the 10" fitted, I even accidentally left pinpoint mode on when sitting it down and the detector screamed, it was sitting there pinpointing the coil cable and had an ID for it 🙂 Seeing the pinpoint mode doesn't need motion it just screamed on the cable. I later discovered when switching to the Sadie the coil cable doesn't get detected near as much, those with a Sadie probably will barely notice when lifting up and putting down their detector, whereas with the 10" spiral it screams. Pinpoint mode will obviously behave the same with the non-motion. The 10" spiral is much more sensitive than the Sadie, but I already knew this, if someone's after maximum sensitivity to small targets size doesn't matter as much as windings do, the Coiltek 9", 10" X-coil or 12x8" EVO will likely be the most sensitive, never used the 12x8" EVO only owning the 14x9" Evo but I'd likely give it the tiny target sensitivity over the Sadie too. That's not saying the Sadies a bad coil, its edge sensitivity will give it great benefit over the far less sensitive edges of the spiral coils so if golds up against rocks it will win, it's also good for poking and prodding with the sensitive edges and it may handle some bad ground better too. I found a little bit of gold under a rock not long after putting the Sadie on, It wasn't detected from above the rock, I was just lucky enough to flip a rock that had a little nugget (flake) under it. JW had also recovered a little nugget, one he had detected some time ago in the schist bedrock with the GPZ and I think it was the 15" CC, he ended up not being able to find it, thought it was lost and moved on, the coil was probably just too big and awkward for his little dug hole in the bedrock or something to get close enough to it, but it was gone, today he managed to get it with the 10x5" Coiltek on the 6000 smashing out more rock. It was smaller than the one I'd just found, quite a bit smaller. Time went by and nothing for either of us, so I explored further and climbed down a bit of a ledge and found a target, I was trying to get it out and it sank down into a hole in the rock of the ledge to the next layer below, I was trying to get it out learning right over hoping I don't fall into the prickly briar rose bushes below, I'd be in big trouble then, and I kept poking the Sadie in under the layer and it kept sounding off so I thought I was hitting the target, so I'd slowly slide out some soil and it would keep sounding off the same, it turned out it wasn't sounding off on the nugget, it was sounding off as the coil cable was getting crushed down and touching the coil. It is vital with the Algoforce to have a nice secure coil cable that can't go near the coil, it just shows how sensitive it is, the GPZ with small coils like the 8" and 10" is the same especially lifting up and putting down the detector so I'm a bit used to it. I gave up that method and risked climbing down to the bottom of the little ditch in among the prickles, sadly 3 of them stabbed into my hand, I plucked them out one by one but by the 3rd one I had a problem, it had stuck straight into a vein, when I pulled out the rose thorn a big squirt of blood shot out like a jet, then it swelled up rapidly like a balloon under the skin, it got quite big, about half a golf ball, then in a seconds the swelling went down a fair bit to a blackish lump, and its stayed that way. I felt quite sick at this point, really dizzy, so I just used the Sadie from down there where I could get into the gap between the rocks better, retrieved the target and climbed back up the ledge leaving my detector and pick on the ledge to collect from half way down from the top, I climbed up with my scoop in hand with the target in it. Once at the top I was so dizzy I just sat down for about 10 minutes with the scoop sitting next to me hoping it wasn't some junk. Once I recovered enough, I climbed down and retrieved my detector and pick and climbed back up to recover the target from the scoop. I was so pleased it was a piece of gold after all of that. Here is the video of it all, I quite big bit for what's left in this area, that's for sure. I felt really weird sort of dizzy sort of drunk but it could be a combination of heat exhaustion along with the weird injury so I walked back to JW and told him what happened and showed my nugget, he suggested I had a sit down which I had planned to do, I sat another 20 or so minutes and just felt worse so I call over to him that I'm going to head home cutting my day short, I stopped for a snack on some wild black berries on my walk to my car as I hadn't yet had lunch. I felt horrible the entire drive home, almost vomited half way home going around the lake which is a very bendy road for about 30 minutes along the side of the lake. I'm coming right now, no longer dizzy that I've cooled down and had a long cold shower and plenty to drink, I had run out of drink very early in the day too so perhaps I was dehydrated. Next time more drink bottles coming than just the one little one. So here is my hand now A bit black and swollen still. I really like the Algoforce, it's an incredible detector for the price, a real game changer for people that don't need the absolute best of the best yet still want a very high-performance PI machine with cool features and at a very cheap price. The more I use it the more I like it. I really hope I'm the first paying customer that's found gold with the detector, that'd be pretty cool.
    36 points
  24. It had been nearly 5 months since I found my last piece of gold jewelry but I had only hunted a few times due to trips, volunteer work and being sick. My life finally returned to normal and I was able to start detecting again around the 4th of July. On one hunt, the targets were few and far between in the wet sand and after about 3 hours of detecting I had only found 4 coins. However, the second target I recovered was a ring and 4 more rings followed during the rest of the hunt along with about 20 pieces of trash. Most of the hunt was in the early morning darkness so I didn't know if any of the rings I found were any good. More often than not the rings that I find at night are not nearly as good as my imagination expects them to be and this was the case for 3 out of the 5 rings. The last ring of the morning felt heavy and smooth and I was optimistic that it was a gold comfort band even though tungsten carbide had broken my heart more than a few times. In my car, after the hunt, the warm glow of 18k yellow gold confirmed that my gold drought was over! As I looked over my finds, one other ring caught my eye as I recognized the familiar pattern of the Cartier Love Ring "circles". Over the years I have found many fake Cartier rings and at first I thought that this could be another. This one did seem different and it also had a small diamond that all my fake Cartiers were missing. An 18k acid test at home was positive so confidence is pretty high that this is the real deal - another bucket-lister find for the year! GL&HH!
    36 points
  25. Hopped out to the beach after work since the weather was immaculate today. Tide was mid range which is meh but I'm getting too fat and needed to get a good walk in. After about 5 minutes i see a very pretty girl walking toward me with intent! Not that "I'm curious about metal detecting walk" and I've yet to get picked up on while detecting so it could only be one thing... she lost her diamond ring! About 100 feet from where I was she had been sitting with her mom and dad and flung her hand to the side... watching as her ring flew off. After frantically searching for a bit, her knight in dorky armor arrived. I was able to nab the ring in about 30 seconds and she was visibly relieved! She tried to pay me, which i absolutely refused but asked her if we could snap a photo so i could share it with my online friends 🤓. I'm doing fine financially and wouldnt ever sell a ring i found so it was way more rewarding making her doomsday into a good story for us both. Photo shared with her permission.
    36 points
  26. My Buddy LuckyLarry’s little 9x5 coil has been on Fire, since the No-Where Patch Story! We both swing this little guy on our 6000’s. It’s very sensitive and has fair depth, for Northern Nevada’s shallow placers. But, in open Country it’s like Paddling your Life Boat in the middle of the Ocean. This hunt we started hitting the old Horse Dung Ridge Patch. It’s a Mile long Ridge that I never swung the entire length only stopping at its first patch. Larry, has some legs I’m about to the end of Horse Dung Ridge I pulled my second nugget about 10 ft apart. I turned to signal Larry of the fast two nuggets and head my way. He wasn’t on the ridge hunting the left side as I last seen him. I dug up 4 more nuggets very fast and looked for him again. I just caught a glimpse of him swinging over another Ridge way out of voice range! Back to digging nuggets and it seems like the next thing I know someone’s voice scares the hell out of me. It’s Larry with a big smile on his face. He said, looks like you found a patch as I settled down from the scare of being lost mind and tuned into my detectors sound for the next nugget. Larry, said he thinks he found a patch too and produced some very nice Quartz with ample showing of Gold. We walked back to my Buggy leaving my little patch to hunt the newly named Big Specimen Nugget Patch! Upon arrival he showed me the shallow hole that all the pieces came out of and we set off grinding the area. We swung that Ridge for 1 1/2 days with little joy! We know and inch is a Mile in this Hobby and haven’t giving up on this depleted Quartz Vein. Larry’s Specific Gravity weigh in for these 3 pieces was over 45 dwts. Mine on the left received and honorable mention 😂 But, when Two Lucky’s are on the hunt, finding that Needle in the Haystack is possible! Until the Next Hunt LuckyLundy
    35 points
  27. Well this year’s hunting is about done, and I had a great time searching for all kinds of good stuff from the past. Picked out some photos of my favorites to share. First is that thing we couldn’t figure out if it were piece of a pipe, or gas lamp fixture…likely the latter, but still cool. Here’s some coins and an old gold scale weight, as well as an arrowhead found up near my cabin. Look how nice the dime cleaned up. A trip to Lemhi Valley a few hours from me had amazing pictographs and gave up some wonderful artifacts from the past inhabitants. My oldest coin find was 1861…a British penny. Found it near some old porcelain from England that dated late 1800s . Ended the season with some really beautiful points! I always thank the Spirits for sharing their gifts with me. My hunting partner made these really awesome pendants for us….we found the arrowheads and gold while hunting together, and he found the blue Native Americans trade beads years ago. Pretty cool. I’ll be heading to Arizona next week for 2-3 months…looking forward to nugget detecting, rock hounding, relic&artifact hunting and exploring new areas…maybe meet up with some Arizona forum members.😊
    35 points
  28. when you are on crack in Montana
    35 points
  29. I got the 15 inch concentric X-coil onto a patch today and 6-7 hours later I had a new personal nugget record at 14 for a day. My previous high was 12. Those were a bit bigger found with the stock 7000 coil. The depths ranged up to 6 inches or so but most of the small ones were easy to hear at 3 inches. The sizes from left to right are .44 (far left), then 2 x .2+, 6 x .1+ and finally 5 nuggets less than .1 g with the small one at .03 grams. It was also a nice sunset.
    35 points
  30. There is a long thread about issues I have been having with new members here. Long story short there are spammers who can evade automated spam checks by setting up endless new email accounts. They often join, post once, then edit the posts later to include links. This means I spend way too much time now reviewing new members who only post once or twice, going back for months. More obvious have been the spam attacks where we get hit by a bunch of new members who post dozens of crazy links in very short order. So here is my plan. I will create a New Member account. New members will not be able to include links in their posts. They will not be able to download from the Downloads area, or post in the Classifieds. They will have a limit of three PM messages a day - enough to contact somebody with an ad in the Classifieds who has not included contact info. I am looking for feedback on this. People may only want to be contacted by longtime members, and don't want to hear from some person who just joined. If you want that, well, then include contact info in the ad. But maybe you don't want to put your contact info out for people to know? Not sure, but allowing a new member to PM while limiting the number keeps them from spamming the entire forum with junk mail, so works for me. The system allows for automated promotion, so after ten posts and 30 days, the person will automatically be promoted to the full member account. So this is easy to set up and requires no ongoing work on my part. It will get rid of both the sleeper spammers, and the massive spam attacks. Very few spammers are going to spend a month and ten posts when so much easier marks exist out there. One might argue this penalizes lurkers by not allowing them to download owner manuals or use the classifieds. The simple reality is those are rewards for participating members. It's the people who post regularly and help answer questions that make this forum what it is. People who join just to sell stuff or download stuff are using the forum while not contributing anything in return. That being the case they can't be missed since in a way they really are not here anyway. I've not done this yet but the more I think about it the more I like it, and just wanted to toss it out one last time for review or suggestions before implementing it. And I will use this as an opportunity to thank all of you who do post interesting content for others to read, and most especially thank those of you who answer questions for those that have them. That is what the forum is all about, and it is you all that make it happen. Without you, there is no forum, so again, my heartfelt thanks.
    35 points
  31. I think my last days detecting for 2023 is now done. Gotta head off to catch up with Family for the next 2 weeks and take stock of what I'm doing next year. Single again, homeless and unsure of what direction to take. 2024 is gonna be interesting! But, my gold take has been an eye opener....almost exactly the same weight as last year, around 5.25oz but the number of pieces of gold has skyrocketed! Last year I managed to find 774 pieces...this year its 1604! Over double.....no doubt attributed to the GPX6000. Next year, I'm gonna dabble with getting a Legacy Minelab PI modded up and using CC coils or anything else that gets me depth on the big stuff. By this time next year, I'll see how that has panned out. Think I'm gonna need the money somehow lol. Just putting up a few pics of just some of the gold I've found this year. How has everyone else done? December is 'pic time' 😉 Merry Xmas everyone, and here's wishing you all a golden 2024!
    34 points
  32. The great debate of DISCRIMINATION, Iron ID and Target #'s when detecting for Gold. The war of words is about to begin. So lets try to stay on point and be courteous of others ways/ideas or skill levels for those who are newer to the game. This is an open end post and all who respond, reply, ask questions, disagree and or partially agree is 100% totally fine and discussion desired. So many times I’ve heard from the Experts who detect for gold, they say “Dig It All” and to never used Discrimination. So I guess there really is no debate? Just do what the Experts do and live with the results. Is that such like good advice from so called Experts. So if this is the case, then why do the detector manufactures offer it (discrimination or ID) on their machines? VLF Gold type detectors have had Iron Identification on some models since the 1980’s and I also know earlier General Purpose detectors offered DISC as far back to the early 70s. I imagine those of you who have been around for longer than I could even know of detectors with such capabilities go back before the dates I mentioned? Heck, even Minelab Pulse Induction detectors in the 1990’s provided Iron DISC feature. So are all those manufactures and variety of detector models, just selling us bells and whistles? Remember what so called Expert says, “dig it all”. The manufactures have to know something? Maybe there are times and or locations that Discrimination and or Iron ID is indeed a needed feature? Maybe the models with such are for dummies who know nothing as they have never spoken with an Expert? Could said Expert who does this for a living be wrong? Well most certainly not in his mind anyway. I’m going to give you my reasons why I end using detectors with the Iron ID or Discrimination features and I’ll even go into detail of using both the traditional VLF’s and the more robust Pulse Induction power detectors. I’m not an Expert and I do not do this for a living (well I do not hunt gold for a living), but I do sell detectors as my full time job. So since I’m not an Official Full Time Prospecting Expert, does that mean the knowledge I have of various detectors not count? That is to be debated down the road. I will say this though and those who know me for many years know I can back up my words with the amount of gold and the sizes of gold I have recovered. 1st off, when you are out there detecting, I want you to do what you are most comfortable with and what has provided you success on previous trips. I’m not here to make you change your ways. In fact, those of you who are just as happy with your results and not using DISC., I totally understand you are not about to change your ways. That’s totally fine with me…I’m happy for you. It’s the rest of the folks who are newer to the game of Electronic Prospecting for gold and or even those who are experienced hunters that have decent success…but you are wise enough to realize at times ..just maybe there is a better way at doing it? This article is for those folks. The average guy who goes detecting a few times at the same locations with a little jingle in the pouch. Your success at those sites tell, you’re doing it correctly so you’re quite pleased, happy and not willing to change your ways of thinking or doing things. I’m fine and happy for you. But, sorry that is not me. I’m all about Adventure and Travel with detectors in hand. I enjoy new detector technologies and trying to find ways to make them perform better for the task. I like gold and the varieties of gold I pursue is quite varied when compared to many other folks who chase it. I don’t know if it’s because of my knowledge and skill level of gold detecting or just that others are stuck in a pattern and don’t know any difference? My travels in pursuit of gold have guided me to more states than most (NV, OR, ID, MT, SD, WY, AZ, AK) 8 to be exact and 2 different countries (Australia and Mexico). I’m not counting gold jewelry and coins/artifacts (my list would be much larger), just natural Au gold in it’s raw form. All the states and countries I mentioned, I have had success with my metal detectors. In fact, I have yet to hunt a state and not find gold with a detector. CA, CO and UT will eventually get checked off my list. OK, back to the Discrimination/Iron ID discussion and why I want it on my detector tools. Why I feel DISC and Iron ID are of desired features on a metal detector and there are many times when they need to be used. Those features save me time and energy. Both Time and Energy are something I desire more and more each year and seem to get less and less of. A detector with the features of DISC and Iron ID can save me Time and Energy when digging. When I use a detector with such features, I get to SELECT the amount of targets I want to dig. Here is a typical situation I experience many times in my hunts. I hunt gold where gold has been found and I like to detect in such sites. Here are the main sites I prefer to hunt and use DISC and or ID machine. Old hand placer workings, Ore dump piles, and Dredge Trailing Piles. These golden grounds were proven producers at one time and they leave plenty of targets for us. Old hand placer workings (6 pics below of Au digs using PI DD coils with DISC or VLF's with VDI Readout) In OR, NV, ID, MT, and SD. The problem is most of the targets are trash and many of the trash items are man made iron. My DISC and Iron ID capable detectors save me time/energy in these gold rich locations. Using common math to show. How many times will that person dig in an hour? How many hours a day will that person hunt? How many days on that trip will they swing the detector and dig targets? Let’s say a person can dig 10 targets an hour and 6 hrs a day = 60 targets for the day. On average, average site produces 15 non ferrous targets and 45 iron targets. So of the 15 non ferrous targets, lets say 20% are gold (3 pieces of gold) of the 15 nonferrous targets and of the total 60 digs. In Eastern Oregon those numbers are pretty close. Here is where I like the ID. I can save Time and Energy by not having to dig 45 iron targets. I now am digging more non ferrous targets than the average guy so my gold count goes up. Say I saved T&E on those 45 iron targets so I still get the 15 Nonferrous, but the extra T&E allows me to dig 15 to 25 (not 45) more targets that are Nonferrous. I’ll be extremely on the cautionary side and say I only dug 15 more NF targets. That ends up 2X my gold count for the day and also still saved me T&E. Plus as well all know, the extra boost of finding more gold seems to earn me a little more Energy. Ore Dump/Hardrock Piles- (5 pics of success using VLF's & their Identification systems) Many areas I hunt in NV, ID, MT, OR and I’ve seen many in AZ have such hard rock ore dumps. Do you know the preferred detector for this kind of gold? Do you know if you take a target identification VLF and use it at such sites, you can recover more desired nonferrous targets. I select only certain VLF type detectors for these sites. Iron ID is nice and if that is all I have then most certainly, I use it. But I know (from previous testing) that certainly VLF gold capable detectors can go a step farther and provide me with even greater odds of Success at gold and saving me T & E. Dredge Tailing Piles – (8 pics of gold using VLF's & their ID features) Love hunting these locations and my success in Tailing Piles of ID, OR, AK, NV is golden. Some of my largest gold recoveries are from such piles and the funny part is most all of them were recovered with VLF detectors using Iron Discrimination. Why you ask? Because in dredge tailing piles, even a VLF detector can pick up a rail tie spike at 12” down. Even a VLF can hear a rusty prospectors tobacco tin or smashed sardine can at near a foot and a half deep. Even a VLF detector can hear at depths of 2 feet down for a rusty grease bucket or lid to a 55 gallon drum. How about the 55 gal drum itself…well I know for a fact some VLF detectors will respond pushing near 4 feet down. Are you man enough to dig those monster holes in loose rocks and gravel? If you have never attempted it, good luck. The material you are digging keeps caving in as you go down and the next thing you know…after 45 minutes, you have a 4 foot wide and 3 foot deep hole. Only another foot more to go. Oh those days…can kill an old mans ego for the whole trips…I’ve seen it happen. As you can see from the Success pictures, the ability to use Iron ID on Pulse Induction & VLF detectors has proved golden. Now, taking today's newer Identification ID machines a step further saves me much time on pursuing only the best and most probably signals to dig. No, there’s no magic to it, but I’ve learned a lot more than most about different kinds of gold and how it reads on these ID machines. So many of the sites I currently hunt, the bigger solid nuggets are gone and have been for 10+ yrs. But there’s still some of that specimen stuff the older technologies missed. Sites I enjoy detecting are the trash areas most others try for an hour or 2 and then they walk away is discuss. They’re tired of digging holes and finding iron nails, boot tacks and shovel heads. Sure, I dig a few of those shovel heads, but not as many as most others do. I’ve spent the time in the field and learned. I’ve purchased most of the newer technologies and tested/compared each to see how they stand. No one detector does it all, but I know this. I quality PI and a new technology VLF sure does cover most bases. After all, I can tell you with fact, that the last 5 yrs, my gold finds are better than most and the majority were recovered using my techniques in the locations I mentioned. It’s hard to beat what works and puts the gold in the safe. Knowing where and how varying gold finds register on your VLF detector is crucial. Here’s an example of what most folks encounter when in the field at an old gold producing site. Ore dump piles, are full of rail tie spikes and blasting caps. Also seems to be a beacon for lead bullets of a variety, but usually .22 and 9MM slugs. Many of my gold recoveries from these sites, the newest of VLF gold detectors can ID the difference between such targets. Also, the majority of gold specimens in a certain pile, seems to ID the same #’s or very close to it. Yes it does take practice and time to learn, but in the end, you have knowledge to be selective and save time/energy. Hand working placer digs has a bigger variety of trash items and one some of my locations, the gold is thicker, more dense and reads different. I usually use VLF ID’s to help identify and ignore the high conductor targets while concentrating on the lower ones. Most gold (not all) will read in the low to possibly medium range. Even using a Pulse Induction detector with Iron DISC is possible and quite rewarding. Dredge Tailing piles are a lot like hand placer workings, but they provide even a bigger variety of trash. These piles are the hardest to learn and use a PI detector. I prefer a VLF for most of the tailing pile hunts I do, as the machine itself is much lighter and easier to swing on side hills all day. Besides I don’t want to dig 2’ or 3’ deep holes and those occasional 4’ ones will practically kill you. On the rare occasion there is big thicker gold (Ganes Creek, AK). I recommend if you swing a PI, you better have a quality VLF detector handy to help ID as you dig. So many varieties of gold and the areas, terrains and methods they were minded in the US. Australia and other countries of the gold bearing regions are different and those of you from there may not see any use in my techniques and style of hunting or the detectors I use. That’s totally understandable and I have no issues. But if you do have hard rock ore dumps and hand placer workings with trash, it might be worth the time to swing PI and DD coil or a VLF with good target identification. I look forward to hearing from those who use my techniques and I also want to hear from others who might have things to add. What is most important about this post and discussion is the actual discussion and sharing of knowledge. After all, that’s why were on here right? Thanks for your input and reading.
    34 points
  33. So, I went back to a club claim that had been pounded for years with virtually all detectors imaginable, including countless times with the GPZ 7000, and that was essentially left for dead. It was a beautiful day, around 60 degrees but with fairly strong winds. There was not a soul out there, something that made the majestic landscape even more impressive. I decided to use my GPX 6000 with the NF 12 x 7 and to do some slow scanning of an area where I recovered quite some gold over the years (mostly by using the GPZ). My settings were: Auto +, normal, threshold on, with ML headset. I was pleasantly surprised how stable the machine was with these settings, something I would not have expected in this area. I should mention that I did the audio fix as well, which I now believe contributes for sure to the overall improved stability of the detector, even when just using BT. One of my first targets was a thin flat piece that was obviously pounded by the force of moving mass including lava rocks. Always nice to see it at first all dirty in the scoop, a feeling of joy that never seems to go away, doesn’t matter how many nuggets you have found before, small or large. After some "spit cleaning", the shiny yellow came out. I am actually surprised that this nugget was not picked up previously. I would certainly expect that most detectors would have been able to see it, also considering that it was fairly shallow, about 2-3 inch deep. So, the day started good, and I continued to scan the close vicinity around my initial find. One thing that I noticed was how incredible sensitive the machine is, something that I was of course aware of having used the 6000 quite a bit, but that again came to my attention. One challenge is that the whole area is littered with bird shots, and I must have recovered at least 20-30 within just a few hours. This is clearly less of a problem with the GPZ 7000, even when run at full bore. I then decided to change tactics and once a target was heard to remove about 1 inch of surface material with my Hermit pick (one end with wide blade), and to only recover if the target would then still be there. This actually worked quite well, and my next “piece” was a super small, tiny flake at about 2-3-inch depth. The flake was so tiny that it was almost impossible to pick it up with the fingers, and of course it did not register on the scale. But the fact that the 6000/NF12 x7 picked it up with a clear high/low signal at about 2-3-inch depth is truly remarkable, and shows once more the power of the 6000, combined with the excellent performance of the NF 12x7 coil. Would the 11-inch stock or the Coiltek 9-round have picked it up, perhaps. But I did not make a cross comparison of all three coils, as I wanted to focus on detecting. But I really have to say I am super impressed by the NF12x7. It is highly sensitive, not a bit less than the 11 stock, but with a more balanced response signal, smoother and it also appears more stable. All targets that I recovered that day were high/low signals, with only some hot rocks or areas of high mineralization giving a low/hi response. I picked up two more pieces, always by using the “1-inch scrape/discard technique”, something that really worked well for me and that I can recommend using for bird shot infested areas. Can you see the one in the next pic? 😊 I picked up four in total that afternoon, and I am sure there is more on this claim, considering that I only focused on a small area around my initial nugget and thoroughly scanned only in the close vicinity. Overall, a great day in the desert. There is something magic about being out there, and every time I come back from it I feel I have been on a meditative retreat. Finding gold is an added bonus to me, and even without any I enjoy my trips every time! Here is the general area where I hang out. Go get some. 😉 So long, guys! GC
    34 points
  34. I recently been invited to hunt this colonial farm. After digging about thirty modern bullets. I found this 1823 Spanish 8 Reale. Still cant believe someone actually lost this coin. Never imagined I would find one.
    34 points
  35. Five days of heaven and its not done yet. It was a nonstop adrenalin rush and I cant wait to get back on the site. My favorite is the silver buckle with a makers mark of silversmith Thomas Shields, he has a cool history and his works are in museums. All the silver buckles I have found have been busted up by the plow so this find was very speciaI. Dug 7 King George II coppers one was clipped, 4 George III coppers, 2 Connecticut coppers, 1 New Jersey copper, a 1723 Woods Hibernia halfpenny, French Louis XV 1 Liard [1719-1723], Spain 1724 2 Reales Madrid, Spain 1723 1 Reales Segovia, and a 1853 seated dime. A bunch of cuff links all of which I have found multiples of at other sites, they were sold on cardboard displays in general stores, I love finding them. Lots of buttons and smalls. Also found a similar Oak Island trade token whizzer.😏
    33 points
  36. I went for a little weekend trip back to the Mojave desert, and spend this afternoon at one of my favorite places. The landscape is just breath taking, and makes me forget the busy life that I am usually having. Prospecting to me is much more than just finding gold (or not...). It is like being in a meditative retreat, where I can just enjoy the beauty of nature and disconnect from the day to day routine. I went back to one of my favorite places, and after several lead pieces and bird shots I heard an extremely faint warbly signal which caught my interest. The signal could have easily been overheard had I not swung really slow. My settings were treshold on, manual max, difficult (in the video I say 13 but I think max is more like 10 clicks). I started to dig and to my surprise the target turned out to be rather deep, next to a buried hot rock. It was a small flat 0.15 grammer at about 13 inch depth. I was stunned to find such a small piece at this depth, and with a rather small coil. This once more shows the excellent performance of the 6000 for small gold, even at depth.
    33 points
  37. New members now have limited access until they reach Full Member status. There is no ability to include links or to edit their own posts until they have made 10 posts and been a member more than 30 days. There is no access to posting classifieds until after 10 posts and 30 days. Finally, the PM function is disabled until Full Member status is attained. To many scammers joining just to PM people junk. Any account that has not posted at all in the 30 day period will be deleted. Anyone with more than one but less than 10 posts will simply remain in the regular Member account status indefinitely. The accounts that make at least ten valid posts and have been a member at least 30 days will automatically be promoted to the new Full Member status. This will give access to the Classifieds, remove the PM block, allow links and post editing, preset "signatures" and more. This does not affect any existing accounts!! Any current members with less than 10 posts etc need not worry as all accounts as of this morning were promoted to Full Member status. Anyone with no posts however should at least post once or lose your account after 30 days have passed. This was done to stop the excessive spammer activity after consulting the current membership over the last month. It should pretty much put a complete halt to that sort of thing, while also encouraging new members to be more active. Lurkers are welcome, but will need to post at least once. Thank you everyone for the valuable feedback on this subject. I will monitor the new setup but if anyone experiences anything odd due to the new setup, please let me know. I changed quite a few forum settings and hopefully got it all right. Finally, I want to say why I am doing this. It is to protect the core participating members from spammers and scammers. It is to help insure that you are dealing with good people on the Classifieds. The idea of this forum has never been about having lots of members, it is about having high quality members. In that I think it is succeeding - kudos to you all.
    33 points
  38. I’m typing on my phone at the moment so won’t go in to too much detail but I’m absolutely gobsmacked. In the last 2 weeks I’ve found 69 rings at this spot. I won’t count the 2 hunts 2 weeks ago because consecutive days sound better 🤣 but I’ll put the pic below anyway; during those 2 nights I got 2 massive chains as well. I sold the smaller one for 1.10 aud per gram, and kept the other one and wear it daily now. I went out for 4 days in a row this week. From 6pm-11pm roughly for our lowest tides of the year. It just so happens that all of the recent winds have uncovered a massive section of clay bed directly between 2 spots I’ve always had heaps of luck at. Well… the first night I think I beat my pb, at 19 rings! I couldn’t believe it. Then the next night, 17, then over the next 2 nights another 20 rings. Funny enough, while waiting for the tide to drop I actually did a different section about 50m away and got a nice chunky 18ct band right up on the wet sand. In all, 56 rings, a couple of thin chains, 7kg of coins and sinkers, and a dozen keys. I would love to go back tonight but I’m buggered, and it’s starting to get a bit sanded in now. It’s also about waist deep and bloody cold. Now as the tide comes back up from the .1 low it’ll probably sand back in within the next 2 weeks as it’s previously done. The highlights might have been the gold chain and plat ring. I recently posted about the heaviest platinum ring I’ve found, being 15 grams and only found 100 meters away. Well this one is 13 grams, so I’m really happy with that. The chain hallmark has worn off but it looks like 22ct to me. Very thin and weights 7 grams. It actually had the cross pendant and a small gold signet ring on the chain as well, which is how I found it. It was also a surface target and I just barely saw it through the water sitting on the clay. also got a couple of 8-10 gram gold rings and my first 8ct ring. All up, 60 grams of gold, 189g silver (not including 2 weeks ago) and 13g plat. There’s also 2 half gold half silver I didn’t weigh. unfortunately, though I don’t mind, another detectorist friend also got to the spot a day before me and got 6 gold rings! Oh well 🤣 I’m still stoked. I only knew this as I saw him there last night and had a chat. He also got a bunch of rings last night and my partner got half a dozen on the shore on the first night. This puts my total rings for this year at 208. I’m a month ahead of last years 200 tally. enjoy the pics below! top left/right is day 1/2 bottom left/right is day 3/4
    33 points
  39. Today I wanted to get out for a whole day hunt at my oldest permission, it dates to ~1640. They cleared the half that hasn't been hunted since I got it. Unfortunately they planted winter wheat on the other half 😀 It wasn't a bad day at all, started out about 43 and went up to around 50. I invited Chase down to hunt it with me, he got there later and did well himself. Today I walked nearly 8 miles, it was pretty rough on me, and in the afternoon the wind came up. It got colder pretty fast. Here are my relic funds for the day: Got a nice newer brass buckle, a couple of horse tack decorations, some other interesting bits, and 10 buttons or pieces. The most interesting relic was the odd shaped brass object next to last on the top row, it had decoration on it. Not sure what it's from but it is curved. Got a pretty big pile of trash today, lots of lead, a few pieces of iron, and some other junk. But the day was made by the coins! We hunted a road that went about a mile or so back behind the farm and I got this: A beautiful 1916 Mercury dime. Haven't got much silver lately so it was a relief! Sadly it's not a D 🤔 This is how it came out of the ground, I didn't need to clean it at all! But the real thrill of the day was getting a 96 and digging this coin, it's my first one of these. I had to sidelight it to get the date to stand out, it's a 1798 Draped Bust Large cent. The reverse is pretty good too, enough details to show. I dare not clean it any more than I have. I also got what I think was a wheat penny but it's horribly toasted. I hope Chase had as much fun as I did today. 🙂
    33 points
  40. I recently spent a couple of days with ---- ----- ----- and ------ at the famous ----- ---- mine in ------- county, California. We all found some nice gold, but I found a bit more because I was willing to dig a little bit deeper. The gold was mostly in a strata of ----- ---- rock and was very course and there were few small bits, even using a 6000 to check behind my 7000. If any of you should go there be advised to say to the left when you get to the --- ----- ----- or you will definitely get stuck for hours, and if you camp out be sure to ---- - ----- ----- because there are numerous -------- and ---- --------- teeth and will tear you apart with there claws. Oh, by the way don't try to get to the mine by going -- --- ----- ----- as the map is incorrect and you will ---- ---- ------- and there is no place to turn around
    33 points
  41. I took a trip out to Rye Patch last Wed. Packed the whole family, CEO and herd of Doodle Dogs, towing the 5th wheel toyhauler with RZR aboard. Weather was awesome on day 2, almost needed a hoody at sunup, but that changed quickly. Day 2 I did some quick recon with the 2 big Doodles riding shotgun. Clearly, Rye Patch had seen some significant rain in early June. The roads were rutted and the gullies showed a lot of erosion, with bedrock showing here and there. I detected some places that had produced gold in the past for no joy. The next morning my big Doodle dog was really feeling out of sorts from a recent vet procedure. We made an appointment for Fri morning, so that shut down my detecting. Fri, we hauled her to Fallon and got some medication, then opted to take the Boss and Doodle Dogs home to Fernley. I drove back out to Rye Patch Fri evening, leaving the Doodles and Boss at home. Turns out to be a good decision since the weather turned hot quickly. Sat morning I got out early and detected a long line of exposed bedrock. Since mine were the only boot tracks, I decided to cover a lot of ground looking for the sitting ducks from the recent erosion. Surprisingly, the freshly exposed bedrock was barren, but I managed to get the bigger nugget in a newly exposed cut in the gully side wall. It got hot by noon so I surrendered and sat out the heat in the trailer with generator going and air con on max. Afternoon cooled down some and I went back out to another gully with exposed bedrock. Again, nothing in the exposed bedrock, but I pulled 2 out of the freshly cut sidewall. Sun morning I was out early. No breeze and a promise early hot weather. I put in nearly 3 hrs of detecting exposed bedrock and fresh sidewalls with not much but trash. I did a complete loop, ending up back where I had found the nuggets yesterday. 10 ft from one of my dig holes I got a faint whisper of target tone. I should mention the atmospherics were jumpy and the 6k with 14x9 Coiltek was sparky, I lowered the Sens down to 5 and that seemed to help. The nugget was flat and way down in the bedrock. I'm glad I kept my Dave' Gold Australian pick which makes quick work of the soft bedrock. I was sweating buckets by the time I got the nugget out and decided to call it a trip. Rye Patch is a tough place to score nuggets these days. All the washes I was working have been detected 1000's of times. The freshly exposed bedrock was never all that deep so my only advantage was I was first to detect the newly exposed sidewalls. If you are planning a trip mind the weather, and as always it's a tire killer out there. I saw 2 trucks on the road fixing flats.
    33 points
  42. Split from another thread so don't blame Ned for the title - that is mine. Yeah, I know Simon and probably others have found gold already, but this from Ned is more like what we want to see and so worth a thread of it's own. Congratulations Ned on a good start! - Steve H I've been out probably a dozen times with the E1500. Mostly testing a variety of coils the first few days. Then settings and combinations. I also rigged it up with a wireless set up and a sp-01 enhancer and headphones. After all that I got in some detecting time and managed to find my first gold for the year. 7 pieces all found with the E1500 and coiltek 9"round elite. Biggest bit went 2.7g and the smallest 0.13g. The heat's a killer here at the moment, if I didn't have a new toy to play with I wouldn't be out there.
    32 points
  43. Manti, NOX, Legend, Cuda, Impulse AQ... cjc
    32 points
  44. I spent almost 400 hours in my cold shop this winter. I rebuilt a "COOT" ATV I bought in Utah last fall. When I bought it, it didn't steer. One kingpin was frozen, and the other 3 were very stiff. The engine had a stuck valve. The wheels needed new u-joints at each kingpin, and the worm gearboxes, and transmission needed seals. Wiring was shot, and the body needed prepped and painted. The wife and I decided we wanted to offroad together rather than wrestle individual 4 wheelers, and not wanting to spend big bucks on a side-by-side, and being a handy guy, this is what we ended up with. It's 4 x 4, articulated, 12hp, amphibious, and has a cargo capacity of 1,000 lbs. Top speed is 20, and in low range top end is walking speed. Will climb a 32* (70%) slope fully loaded. Should get us and our gear wherever we want to go, though slowly...LOL Jim
    32 points
  45. Man I haven't posted a hunt in a long time...been doing lots of projects and just haven't been going out at all. I was able to secure a M8 coil the other day and that amped me up to go out and see how it performed. This morning I hunted two different basket ball courts in two different parks. It was raining and hardly anyone was out... I got wet and muddy but I had a good hunt and I'm happy about the M8 coil it performs really well. The gold ring is 10k and rang up a solid 31 which is where some pull tabs tid...so dig those tabs! I was hunting in all terrain general sensitivity below 20 most of the time , all tones 5 bin. with disk on most of the time...nice easy digging and back home by 11AM strick
    31 points
  46. Yesterday, JW and I went for a bit of a hike to a remote spot in the mountains, I hadn't been here at all since my GPX 4500 a few years ago, and JW had been a small few times since trying out his GPX 6000 and found a few bits. The hike in is what puts it on the backburner all the time 🙂 It's a close drive from JW's house, but a big steep uphill hike, and from my house it's about an hour's drive so by the time I get home I'm stuck to the car seat, man it's hard to stand up after a massive hike and an hour's drive home after a day's detecting with the hike back to the car, at least the hike back is downhill all the way. I ran the car's seat heater the whole drive home to help the muscles recover! JW has a few years of age over me, but he is certainly fitter. It's a really cool place to go though, with great views of the surrounding mountains, unfortunately I can't put up scenery photos for fear of revealing the location to prying eyes, as you can work out the basic location by using the bigger mountains to get an idea of where I was. There has been a bit of mining in the area, and reworked in the depression years, but the earlier mining was done with a lot of work and water monitors (canons) blasting water at the hillsides to recover the gold. The Chinese hit it pretty hard too, staying longer than the other miners going over it again. It's interesting how they get somewhere, then just stop. The soils an interesting colour, almost white. Quite the drop off here down to the ground below, but oddly at least I think you'd be crazy not not to detect these high areas, as gold often pops up in the most unusual of places. My first bit of gold for the day was a bit of a surprise to me, it was a fairly faint signal, yet it was very shallow, I thought it is more likely a pellet although this area barely has any pellets at all, in fact it barely has any targets, if you get a target the chances are high its gold, aside from the occasional old bit of miner's junk like cans and a few nails most targets are gold so it's certainly a dig it all location. I took a little video of the target, so weak of a signal for the size of the gold I thought, although I'm more used to using the 10x5" Coiltek which is more sensitive but still, I was pretty disappointed. This is the little scrape of a hole it came from. The piece of gold. And its weight, quite a reasonable size piece for me, anything over .1 is pretty decent size for me 😛 I was so taken back by how weak the signal on it was I tested it this morning with the Algoforce to see how well it would do, even though it has the larger 10" round coil on it, I thought the Algoforce gave a better signal response on this particular piece. It's a bit of rough looking piece. The other interesting thing is it was right next to someone's previous dig hole, probably JW or I, we were likely using older technology at the time, as I'd only been here with my 4500 which no doubt would miss this piece of gold. It's very unlikely this person didn't go over the nugget and they missed it. The joys of newer technology. Next piece was in the path you walk on to hike to this area, there are tracks all over the place, mostly from old miners I guess however now they're hiking trails and go all through the area, you can even walk from one of my favourite ski fields to this area on tracks. This is it's dig hole, another very shallow target, an OK signal. This is the little guy Smaller than the last bit, but a much better signal. Just ignore the shaft twist in this photo, it's a feature of the 6000 🙂 After that I was walking along detecting the path, but no other gold to be found in that particular area, I did find old boot tacks though which is pretty cool, one spot had a bunch of them in one hole so I gave up recovering them, that miners boots must have fallen apart at that spot 🙂 The gold spot is the dig hole just above the pick in this photo. Here is a little video of it, I haven't watched the videos back yet but it likely shows this one had a better target signal than the previous bigger bit I found. It was pretty easy to film gold finds here as there is so little junk about, so filming bits of digs is worthwhile knowing they're likely gold. Next piece was on top of a little ridge It was my biggest bit of the day, had trouble carrying it for the hike back to the car. Deepest of the holes too. A smooth bit. This is its spot. And a little video of it, the second target next to it was one of 2 pellets I found all day. That was my last bit for the day, the day felt like it went really quick though, we finished up detecting about 7pm, but both of us didn't realize the time and thought it was about 5pm I guess. A benefit or a negative depending on how you look at it coming from the GPZ and GPX 5000 is the 6000 can have the pick so close to the coil it's not funny, it always surprises me how close the pick can go, even when you lay it down recovering targets so while using it I have a belt attached pick holder and in this location I am glad I did, as sometimes its half an hour between targets so nice to holster your pick. The super strong magnet I've got in my pick handle makes life easy too, if I'm using it more regularly, I can just attach it to my pick holder using the magnet to save the effort. It stays there when walking around as long as the pick doesn't bottom out on the ground. So other notable things from the day, this piece of quartz was so weird, it doesn't show up as well in the photo but its flat smoothed off and much like a tile or bench top, and really glossy, so weird. You can see the shine on that one side, but the entire flat surface of it is like that, and its smooth and flat although the photo doesn't show that well. It's like someone's cut it smooth and painted it with polyurethane. And my junk for the day, there was also a nail which I left behind and you can see why I say it's a dig it all location. I'm used to digging hundreds of pellets on the farm land locations, this spot, 2 🙂 Both big pellets too. And last but not least, some old miners' tins I found, I left them where they were, a bit of history. I think this tin can was never opened. This one looked like a giant sardine tin. I think I'll get a bit fitter so the hike and day of swinging a detector around going up and over hills and mounds of soils doesn't wear me down so much and go back to this spot more often, I do really like going there, it just takes it out of me. It's very difficult to E-Bike there too as much of the path is on a cliff side with a big drop and very skinny path no more than 40cm wide in many spots, I've done it before but ended up walking the bike much of the way as I wasn't crazy enough to ride it through the steep drop off areas. Today I'm completely jelly legs and walking is a challenge 🙂 JW doubled my gold count, he came away with 6 pieces, pretty small ones too, he was using the GPX 6000 and 10x5" Coiltek coil, a better choice of coil for the day, I think. I only had the NF coil on as it was left on there from a previous time. It was good to take the 6000 out though, leave it much longer and the old motor may seize from lack of use.
    31 points
  47. Those who know me well, realize I enjoy many aspects of swinging a metal detector while chasing gold. Here's another way some of you folks can add a little weight to your collection of heavy metal. Forum boss - if you need to move this thread, I understand. Merry Christmas followers and friendly competitors. Boss said it’s time to check out and get on board. Lesson as we age. Take a picture of your luggage before you check it all in. It's amazing how so many bags look the same. It’s the holiday season, what better way to wrap up the recent Caribbean work trip my Secretary booked us (my wife, Manti, and I). She’s pretty dang good at her job and when she schedules these conferences, it’s mandatory Manti and I show up. Even though we have more priority things to do, making the boss happy is a must. Cancun in Dec is usually pretty nice weather as it’s typically not the rain season and the humidity isn’t at peak. Yes I’ve detected there in the off season (better resort rates) but the humidity is tough to handle when coming from Southern Idaho (we don’t have any). After spending an hour at the bar enjoying drinks and hors d’oeuvres for the meet & greet with a new hand of Servers/Bar Tenders and explaining the importance of clean beaches, proper disposal of trash and why Manti/I would be helping protect the visiting guests and Sea-life, I was assured most of the work agenda has been checked off. Interestingly only 1 remaining bartender there who remembered me. Seems MX has the same issue as the USA, most folks are not interested in working. Now time for the hunt- 1st day grid plan in place and a quick chat with the lifeguard assured me nobody had recently detected this area, or at least what I could gather from him. He did point direction he seen other detectorists down the beach though. I jumped in walked out to waistline and powered Manti up for a hunt. Not much time and a few normal targets into the trip and I was hearing/seeing “chatter” as I have never in my life pulled someone’s dentures from the depths below. I stood out in the water laughing so loud it caught the attention of the gawkers who’s always watching every minute and target retrieve. One of them actually ask what it was and so I proudly showed the bystanders. Half of the retired folks immediately grab their mouth, which made me laugh even more so. Sorry, but I guess you just had to be there…. because I was laughing so much… it actually threw me off my game for another 20 minutes. The one good thing of this find, I was expecting the actual metal would be white gold or platinum. I’ve since been informed many modern dentures are not precious metal, but made with Cobalt. I need to get this one tested before I just assume. OK, now over the chatter, bite me, tooth fairy, all I want for Christmas jokes by half a dozen bystanders and I’m back to chasing low tones and finger gold. I get a few more targets through the day and finish with a total of 7 rings, a fake gold with diamonds bracelet the chompers, a nice dainty and dirty sterling ring with green stone (it tumbled up sharp), a pair of sunglasses and a few coins. Total gold count was 3 rings with the best of them having a solitaire diamond on white gold. The other is a small 14K band with a little religious cross and then a really thin worn out band that’s been in the ocean forever. Usually my trips start out strong and then slowly dwindle as I clean up the targets below. Day 2 started with a full breakfast at 7AM and 2 tall boy bloody mary drinks to celebrate the gold on the 1st day. I’m in the water today trying the backup set of headphones. They have the best volume of all headphones I have tried and actually got them with a trade. Well they lasted 1 dunk below surface and as soon as the headphone earcups filled up, I had no sound quality what so ever? Time to head back to the room and get the other headphones. I guess I should have “properly” tested my back up headphones. Now I realize it’s only day #2 and I only have my 1 pair of WP phones. I say to myself “just be careful Gerry” and be sure there’s a loop tied off at the end (stress relief) going into the detector. Back in the water with my proper gear and on the hunt again. Still chasing low tones (the majority of gold), I was able to find 4 rings before lunch, but none of them gold. After a quick lunch of fried fish, fruit and fries, I was back in with Manti gridding the last part of my section. That afternoon I only scooped 2 more rings with one of them being a small 18K yellow gold with diamond chips, it weighs only 2.1 grams. The other is a really cool religious ring with a cross. Sadly it’s is not white gold, platinum or even sterling for that matter. Towards the end of the day I was running out of low tones and started after a few of the high tones (less chance of gold) when I hit a really cool sterling bracelet. After getting home and running the bracelet through the tumbler, it really started to shine up and looks stunning. There’s 2 pieces of opal inlaid in the bracelet as well. The maker is a well-known Silversmith company, JS and these type sell for $350 to $600. So even though not gold, it was a nice score. The take for Day #2 was a total of 6 rings with only 1 of them gold, a tungsten wedding band, other cheaper modern bands and also was the usual stuff including 2 pair of sunglasses. Day 3 – Cooler temps are predicted to come in today with some undesired winds. I start the hunt an hour earlier than yesterday, just in case of the winds. As soon as walk in and only 2 feet depth of water I get strong repeat low tone Signal. I must have walked past this one the previous hunts as it’s shallow water and could have been during low time, which would have made it even more shallow. Swinging Manti over the target I’m able to glance down and see the #38. Normally I like upper 30’s and all 40’s on the readout of a Manticore. From many ring digs and testing if it’s actually a gold ring, it will be of decent weight. I easily scoop the ring and when I pull it up, I’m quite shocked at what I see. It’s a monster gold ring and so big I immediately thought it to be fake. With so many people around, I quickly drop the ring into my pouch and proceed without an hesitation or change of facial expression or body language. It’s interesting how some people are so keen to know when I find something different. Back at it and nothing else exciting until it’s lunch time. During lunch I hand the ring to my wife to read the inside of band. If I don’t have my glasses, it’s impossible for me to read such fine detail, and especially when out in the water. She confirms the makers mark and appropriate inscriptions inside. I’m totally flabbergasted at such a score. This ring to me is the nicest I’ve recovered (without being hired) in the wild. Folks, I’ve recovered a few dandies in my time and probably a dozen of more weight gold or platinum, but usually class rings or big wedding bands. I’m just amazed and quite happy. After some discussion with the wife and telling her to take it to the room after lunch, I mentioned, it will easily be the best find of the trip and so now all pressure is off. She’s optimistic though and tells me, “you really never know”, which is quite true at these higher end resorts. Some of the things I see the tourists wearing while in the water is just jaw dropping. Side note. My Field Staff, their wives and I were in Bahamas on a trip. One night we were hanging in the casino and my eyes kept catching this guy wearing a monster gold chain. He seen me checking it out, so I told him I had never seen one so big. Right there on the spot he took it off and let me hold it. It was 9 ounces of 18K gold. He made a comment about, I bet you have never held that much gold in your hand at one time. I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise and just shook my head. The next day I’m out swinging my CTX and there he was with some model lady in the beautiful tropical waters and not only was he wearing the chain, she was decked in gold as well. Why??? On that same trip through, one of my Staff did find this 14K Jesus. Interestingly Celo Green was wearing the exact stunning piece when I seen him on the TV show “The Voice”. Back to the present - I only dredge one more gold for the day and a bracelet. Interestingly it’s a decent size 9.3 gram white gold wedding band and stamped 19K. Research shows it to be from Portugal. This is my first ever 19K gold. Has anyone else every found a 19K? Total treasures for day #3, 4 rings (2 of them gold), a pearl necklace (probably fake), a pair of sunglasses, a few coins and another ankle bracelet. That night, we had an enjoyable steak filet dinner and wine. One thing about the steaks in MX, being I’m from Idaho (meat & potatoes state), my standards are much higher. MX steak (even the filet) is just ok in my standards. I like my beef and or venison... When I got back home, one of my Facebook followers mentioned a find I was not proud of. Seems the silver colored bracelet is a “CD”. I had no clue but Christian Dior is a French luxury designer and this bracelet sell for $500 to $700. Anyone interested, I’ll certainly let it go for much less. That makes 2 high end luxury finds in the same area at this resort and in the same day. to be continued. Merry Christmas.
    31 points
  48. How many of the ubiquitous pull-tabs do you need to dig before finding gold? I'm sure that the answer depends on what type of detecting you are doing and with what machine. On a recent hunt at a fresh-water lake I was using my Excal and noticed that someone had been there before me. I was finding lots of undug pull-tabs (and other trash) so I figured that they were skipping those targets and maybe just looking for coins. I decided to dig all the high and mid-tone signals to see if that would lead to something good and after about 2 hours of detecting, dozens of pull-tabs, and a sterling silver band later, my efforts were rewarded with a gold ring. At first I thought that the ring was stamped "10k" but later I was surprised to see that it was actually 8.6 grams of "18k" instead. Inside the ring are 2 sets of initials and a wedding(?) date from over 50 years ago. I would like to find the person who lost it but doing so could be a big challenge. In about 5 hours of hunting I wound up with 166 pull-tabs and the one piece of gold jewelry. It tried my patience and was a lot of work but totally worth it to me. I also found lots of bottle caps and foil along with about 70 coins and 2 silver rings. Since that hunt I tested the ring on my Equinox and its TID read around 20. Pull tabs usually come in around 13 so maybe I could have used the Nox and saved all that extra digging?
    31 points
  49. Recovering from a record breaking Winter of Snow, now we are suffering from near daily Rains. My Theory is there is so much moisture in the Sierra’s coupled with warm Spring days turns it into afternoon Thunder Storms. Anyway a person addicted to our hobby has to get out and search for their fix. This story is about my 3rd trip and just like the first two trips knowing that the ground was subpar for detecting…but, it’s the hunt and hunt we must! Met my Pard Lucky Larry out of Elko, NV we quickly hoped into my RZR and hit the trail. Notice I didn’t say Dusty Trail. We hit several old haunts with limited results at each. We ended up hunting some new ground, I dropped Larry off on one side of the hill and I drove over it to hunt the other side. Hour later, I went back to my RZR to pick up Larry and my trusty machine would not start! During the over a mile hike back to my truck, I figured it was my Fuel Pump…of course no Shade Trees out in the high Desert to confirm my diagnosis. Lucky I have a winch on my RZR as we would have never got her loaded up, didn’t bother trying to crank it before loading as I knew I’d need every bit of my battery to load it. It rained on and off as we drove back to camp and continued thru the night. Next morning we drove to a nearby patch and pulled a few more dinks before I loaded up and left with rain drops just starting to fall. Back home with my newly Amazon delivered fuel pump, I hoped in the bed of my truck where I left my RZR. Let’s see if the battery recharged itself, the sucker cranks up! I unload it and take it for a ride in the back 40. Cranked every time I turned it off too! Still no shade trees, but in my garage I thought maybe it was Vapor Locked? I read up on it and it’s not uncommon…so if you see my little Red RZR way out in no-man’s land laying in a puddle of oil, know I shed a tear! It’s Memorial Day and according to Weather report 3 more days of afternoon thunder storms. Rye Patch area will need a few dry days to get the ground settled down to hear them dinks, but there is always some shallow ducks to get your coil over until better conditions arrive! Here’s our loot for the day and a half trip…yes, my poke is on the left. Both Larry and I used the 10x5 Coiltek on our 6000’s…great coil. Until the next hunt! LuckyLundy
    31 points
  50. I've been busy with some other detecting lately out in the deserts. I like those nuggets and meteorites. You can kind of target those and know what you'll get. When you go to the beach (just like a park) you can get coins, relics and jewelry. Today's best finds were a couple of rings. The first was a stainless steel ring found after a couple of hours of mostly nothing except those tent stakes. My beaches have been very stingy the last few weeks so I was glad to get it. I slowed down with the 11/800 and began to find 'patch' stuff. I like patches. I grid them and just enjoy having a few targets together rather than long walks always. My clues were that I was out on a pretty low tide and things were seemingly deep for the 11. I'm normally a 15 user but the 11 was on and I didn't expect much and was back to where I started when I got the stainless steel ring. It says 316L and weighs 6.7g. I continued on just above the black sand line and found other coins and stakes and then I heard a faint 'penny' or it could have been. I made it down a full scoop (6") and it was still in the bottom of the hole. A couple of more scoops, around 10" I got it out. It was a nice shine for the early morning. This is a 10K with lots of little diamonds. It weighs 7.8 grams. My first gold ring in quite a while and first one with the 11" in even longer. I'm ready to take the 3030 out this week with the 17" and see if I can renew a liking for it and look at some of my old find points.
    31 points
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