Steve Herschbach

We now have four coils for the White's Goldmaster 24K and GMX Sport. The two models have coils with different labels, but they are all compatible between the two models. White's GMT and MX Sport coils ARE NOT compatible with these two models. There are: 8" x 14" DD 6" x 10" DD 6" (actually closer to 6.5") round concentric 4" x 6" DD This is not perfect but it gives you a pretty good look at the relative size of these coils. Click for larger version. Search coils for White's Goldmaster 24K and GMX Sport metal detectors

Thanks Keith for the great and very detailed commentary, and glad to see you back. Your report gives people who want to take the Tarsacci off the beach a much better idea of what to expect.

I’d have done a factory reset in a heartbeat. If you’ve not done that way too early to be even thinking about a return for service. Far from holding off on resets mine gets reset fairly often, just about every time I make a major location change or even just change coils. I have no real evidence to back this up, but in my opinion the longer you go without a full reset, the better the chances of a glitch occurring. Especially for people that fiddle with the settings a lot.

You are not reading it right. It’s not that Minelab does not consider North America a sales target for gold detectors. What they are doing is reporting what is selling and where they are selling, and it’s that gold detectors sell far fewer numbers in North America. How many people in the eastern U.S. nugget hunt? It’s just a small niche market here and always has been. A market that frankly has peaked and is in the decline, though gold breaking over $2000 could change that. That’s not Minelabs fault, that’s just reality.

Completely different than the one pictured earlier, definitely looks more like a true GPZ coil. Hopefully questions about the connector situation will be resolved soon.

I’ve never seen anything anywhere about anyone actually taking a GPZ battery apart.

Another thing to do... speculate about what Minelab is releasing next!

Well, I have to admit I am disappointed Dimitar has never shown up on the forum to answer questions about the Tarsacci. When we talked he mentioned he might but so far no show. I hope it’s because he is too busy working on a gold prospecting version of his technology!

That’s a heavy duty endorsement. Newbies should however take note also of what he says about the learning curve.

Very similar to a CTX 3030 pack... instructions on that here.

You mainly get better ground coverage. Depth depends on the target size and ground mineralization. First off, small coils get better depth on the tiniest nuggets over the larger coils, no matter the ground situation. Using a larger coil may get you less depth on the smallest nuggets in any ground. This Gold Bug 2 chart illustrates this well.... Coil Size vs Depth Fisher Gold Bug 2Source - Field Testing the Gold Bug 2 by Gordon Zahara In addition, a large coil "sees" more ground than a small coil and so is more affected by ground minerals. In low mineral ground you will see an obvious depth advantage on larger nuggets, maybe 10%-15%. As the ground minerals get worse, you will experience more feedback/overload and have to reduce sensitivity/gain to compensate, so you hit a point where there is no depth advantage at all. In very severe ground, a smaller coil may very well punch deeper even on larger nuggets, and especially on smaller nuggets. All coils are trade offs and none is perfect across the board for all situations, which is why you need multiple coils. There is no free lunch.

If Garrett came out with a multi tomorrow and priced it right, even if it did not match a Minelab exactly for performance, people would buy it because it's a Garrett. Garrett owners want a Garrett Multi, not a Minelab. Otherwise they'd already have a Minelab. Never underestimate brand loyalty.

I guess I never answered. 1) What detectors you have purchased in the past couple of years? None, but I earned a Goldmaster 24K doing a test run/review of the final product. Been a serious lull in my getting new detectors once I got an Equinox. 2) Where you happy with your purchase(s)? Very happy with 24K, kept it and let my Gold Monster go. 3) Have you had to do a warranty claim on it, how'd that go? Nope, unlike my previous White's MX Sport, which was a disaster. 4) If you had your time again would you still buy those detectors or do you regret it? I'd get another 24K in a heartbeat. 5) Do you still use any of your other detectors, if so why? Equinox 800 for almost all uses, 24K for gold prospecting, White's V3i for jewelry detecting. last but not least...... 6) Your favorite detector of all time Hmmm, that's a very hard one. I have owned many detectors I liked but not many that stayed around more than a couple years. For general use I'd have to say Equinox 800. The Gold Bug 2 has been one of my most used/longest owned detectors. There is a reason they still make it after 25 years.

I don't think the concern is leakage, the concern is operation/performance characteristics and results in deeper water.

Very unlikely you have anything but rocks. Your photo collage images were not useful so I deleted them. You can edit your post to add individual photos or add them as extra posts in this thread. The bottom line is everything looks like a meteorite to beginners, and lunar and martian examples are the rarest of all. I doubt you just walked out and picked up a handful of them.