Steve Herschbach

My first post in this thread had been converted to a Treasure Talk blog at http://www.minelab.com/usa/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/pro-gold-panning-kit-introduction along with a few more photos of Chris and I posing with the pans. I can say without doubt I have a newfound respect for models - holding poses and smiling for hours on end is actually work, especially for aging bones!

We are so used to companies delivering the same detectors for 10 - 15 years we don't know what to make of a company company coming out with detectors so quickly. The thing is they only had a couple models and are trying to fill out an entire product lineup. Each model is not replacing the last - just occupying different niches in a complete catalog of detectors. I would expect when they get "caught up" things will settle down. Nokta/Makro has got nothing on First Texas (Bounty Hunter, Fisher, Teknetics) when it comes to having a zillion flavors of vanilla to choose from.

Well, we are looking at a 0.6 grain and 3.6 grain gold nuggets. Of course a 56 kHz machine slays a 14 kHz detector for tiny gold. I want a Racer 2 specifically for jewelry hunting first, coin detecting second, and actually think it will be a good nugget hunting alternative to the Gold Racer. Everything in metal detecting involves trade offs. The Gold Racer is obviously hotter on small gold and would be better than the Racer 2 on single post ear rings, thin gold chains, and other micro jewelry. However, it will also love tiny aluminum bits. For nugget detecting, the Gold Racer pays a price by being more reactive to bad ground and hot rocks and so can be challenging to run in disc modes in that type of ground. My interest in the Racer 2 involves the fact it will be on par with most of the 14 kHz units, which means still very good on gold, especially gold rings. Just not on micro jewelry or tiny nuggets, but also not on tiny aluminum. It should also run smoother in bad ground than the Gold Racer, and in theory at least perhaps have an edge on 1/4 ounce and larger nuggets in really bad ground. There is a point where high frequency fights you in mineralized ground for sheer penetration as you get too much blowback from ground signal. In low mineral ground I would always expect the Gold Racer to have the edge however on gold of any size. These are the trade offs you always see in VLF detecting. The Racer 2 should also be a better high conductor (coins and silver jewelry) detector than the Gold Racer although maybe not quite as good as a detector running in the single digit frequency range. Toss in all the vastly superior tone settings and I have to have a Racer 2. But my Gold Racer is going nowhere. I am actually very curious to see how they both fare as jewelry machines and just where the lines get drawn in the gold jewelry versus aluminum battle.

I posted in the Racer 2 thread several days ago that it is shipping to distributors March 4 so you did not see that I guess. MX Sport only in a couple dealers hands so far, none at Vegas show. I figure I will be hands on with both by mid March. Whether they will be at Phoenix show or not is largely up to dealers pushing to make it so.

For most of what I do a 14" x 9" elliptical would be more useful than a large coil. I do think however that in order to realize that depth gain on big gold that many were looking for in the GPZ that the larger coil is a more critical development.

Gary Schafer of Minelab America announced today at the GPAA Las Vegas Show that a 19" - 20" coil is officially in the works. Great effort and therefore time are going into trying to keep this coil as close to the weight of the stock 14" x 13" coil as is absolutely possible. No projected time frame for release was announced but since they are still hard at work in it the implication was not any time super soon. Sorry, wish I had more than that to offer but at least you know now a big coil will happen before a small coil.

Yeah, I get there may be more than twenty tones just counted separately - I said that. The problem is people are thinking there is a 22 tone hunt mode and there is not. Certainly no big deal just something people on the internet have been quoting as an expected feature as in "I can't wait to try to 22 tone mode". There is no such mode.

Retail price for kit announced today of US$39.95 As Chris mentioned approximately 1/2" holes and time frame is March for Australia, after March for U.S.

I confirmed today this is the permanent new low price on the GPZ 7000 of US$7999 The $4000 special on the GPX 5000 Pro Pack is just that, and good until end of March. GPX 4500 remains at $2699

No reason to leave out the 10" pan to include those things rumblefish since everything you mentioned except a blue box is included in the kit. However the two bottles are plastic as glass breaks when dropped.

If you are looking for one - great! If you own one - ouch!

Well, the price part we got no say in - I do hope it is competitive. Parts/pieces will also be available separately for people that do not want or need the whole kit.

Unless they do something to directly address the issue of rotating paper at the county level fee increases would not fix that problem, but only make it worse.

Miners can break everything but yes, the pans and classifier are quite stout. I really think people will be pleased. Personally I think Chris looks far more authentic than I....

Well, Chris Ralph and I have had a bit of fun being involved in the development of a new gold panning kit just announced by Minelab. I lent my endorsement to the project because frankly, I think this is a very good panning kit. All people that pan gold a lot have their favorite features. I learned to pan gold with an old steel gold pan and I have personally always favored pans with a similarly large open bottom area to work with. I don't like pans with a small bottom area. And while some people really love drop center pans, I do not. The drop center catch area just gets in my way when I shift from regular panning to final cleaning using the side of the pan. These pans feature the clean transition from bottom to side that I prefer. I like the dual riffle system on the large pan, one for quick panning coarse gold, and one for separating the smaller gold. This kit has pan features that check off all the boxes for me, including the dark blue color, which is the same as the color of the SDC 2300 and GPZ 7000. You even have the little hole along the edge to hang the pans on a hook. It's the details that make the difference. I also like the screen because up to now most all of them on the market are the same. They all do fine, but I want to see something different, and this sieve features two large grip handles so you can really grab and shake. The sieve will be popular with people who really use one a lot to screen out and fill five gallon buckets. It even has a carry bag included for once you take everything out of the box. The bottom line is it sounds like hype me being quoted saying this kit is vastly superior to any panning kit on the market, but you know what - that's my opinion so there you go. It is the one I would buy looking at all the other options, and that's a fact. OK, the news release at http://www.minelab.com/usa/go-minelabbing/news?article=278075 says: "The PRO-GOLD kit will be on display at the Minelab Wedderburn Detector Jamboree 2016, being held on March 12th-13th, and available for sale from our Australian dealers soon afterwards. PRO-GOLD will be available outside of Australia from April/May onwards. The two pans and classifier will also be sold separately" Product information page at http://www.minelab.com/usa/accessories-1/pro-gold You can download the Pro-Gold panning kit Getting Started Guide And the pdf of the Full Color Brochure (jpg copies below) What does it sell for you ask? I don't know yet! I assume I will know by tomorrow since I will be in Las Vegas for the GPAA Gold Show the next two days to participate in the introduction of the panning kit. Maybe I will see a couple of you there.

Well, part of the problem as Chris pointed out is gold is not all that prone to dissolving in water. We have had classic water geochemical tests available for a long time. I had a ton of them for Alaska when a series came out up there right after geochem became easily available. The state ran them all over the place, and it became obvious very fast that it is not so simple as just testing a water drainage for a gold result. Creeks full of gold would show no gold at all in a normal geochem test. But if you were chasing gold ores carrying other trace elements that could be used in some cases. Part of that may have just been limitations on the sensitivity of the testing method employed but there is no doubt that gold does not like to corrode or dissolve, and that is a key thing you want if a mineral is to be amenable to goechemical sampling. That said, very interesting report here that says that gold may indeed be present in waters in Nevada http://www.nevadaexploration.com/_resources/geochem_cortez.pdf

Thread on fake Garrett pinpointers at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1216-fake-garrett-pin-pointers/ I guess I would be less worried about it being fake and just want it to work. If you can detect a nickel in the air at about 3 inches you are good to go. Since they do appear to be a Garrett dealer I doubt you have much to worry about.

Everything has limitations, just as in basic geochemical prospecting. It might be better in most cases to go after trace elements instead of the gold itself. I used to sell chemical based geochem kits and they were not cheap nor easy to use. Be nice to have an instrument based alternative if it were affordable.

This could be an exciting development for prospectors if the cost is something most of us could afford. "Instead of a pan and a pick ax, prospectors of the future might seek gold with a hand-held biosensor that uses a component of DNA to detect traces of the element in water. The gold sensor is the latest in a series of metal-detecting biosensors under development by Rebecca Lai, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Other sensors at various stages of development detect mercury, silver or platinum. Similar technology could be used to find cadmium, lead, arsenic, or other metals and metalloids." Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-hand-held-gold-sensor.html#jCp

White's has added the official MX Sport User's Manual to their website and it is available here. I have compared it to the preliminary manual and only see one change - the addition of one section on the Reject Volume feature. Other than that the manual appears to be the same, though with a much lower quality in the visual clarity of the tables - too much compression used on the file. The preliminary manual is much sharper when viewed or printed. I have to admit I was hoping for some other operational gems to be revealed but that looks to be about it. There appears to be an error in both versions of the manual in the specifications listing. Both tables show the MX Sport as having up to 22 tones. Yet the manual is clear that a 20 tone setting is the highest obtainable. Are they counting the 20 tones plus maybe iron grunt and something else? Maybe, but it is being repeated a lot on the forums that the MX Sport has a 22 tone mode when in fact it does not. I have made a change to my own version of the spec list to help alleviate this confusion. Kind of like on the picture of the box below. Instead of "20 Audio Tone Option" it says "20 Audio Tone Options" which makes me think the machine has twenty different audio tone settings. Little things like that can leave people disappointed for no good reason, all over an extra letter "s". Boxed and ready to ship.....

Yeah, it does not fold out and lock into place - you have to give it a good stiff smack!

I have fond memories of my XT17000 for sure. The Fisher Gold Strike although it was a market failure actually had very good performance also running at 30 kHz. Obviously the 20 - 30 kHz range is not an absolute no-go zone for detectors. It is actually a bit funny coming from Dave Johnson in that particular article because the F75 at 13 kHz was one of the most EMI plagued detectors I ever used. The low single digit frequencies do have superior ferrous handling characteristics and I had read of the Deus trick of shifting to 4 kHz quickly as a ferrous check. Not tried it out myself though, but daffodils are blooming in Reno so time to get with it. Very busy month ahead for me on other things though so unfortunately detecting is still taking a back seat.

Now that would be some unique and helpful information! Look forward to it and thanks in advance.

They may or not respond publicly. Just because Minelab did not chime in on that survey on the forum and comment does not mean it was not paid attention to. Whether they do or not is beside the point from my perspective, though certainly I would welcome it.