goldbrick

I posted this before but for new members or those that may have missed it- Pocket Mining post on Canadian Prospectors Forum This is an excellent treatise on pocket mining from 1893.

Here is an interesting video of in-ground testing of gold coins with a few different machines.

I was surprised to see the air test VDI so high in 12 khz. Like Steve I always thought a $1 gold coin would read as foil, 40's maybe up into the low 50's in 18 khz(my favorite Deus freq). But 62 in 12 khz? I like it because the cherry pickers will never see it there by increasing my chances of finding one of these coins.

That 's pretty cool. Treasure those memories.

That is a stroke of genius Steve. Thanks to Dilek for the donation. I hate to admit it in print but you picked the right guy for the award. P.K. is a good man. Congrats Paul, can I borrow your pin pointer?

This is a heck of a deal. I was going to buy a 2300 in a few days, now I can upgrade my old beat-up 4500 for $250. Oh yeah. That is some bang for the buck.

I run one or two. Headphones 95% of the time.

I have had a Deus for some time now and love it for relic hunting. Not so much for prospecting. Steve's analysis of the possible new capabilities of the Deus is spot on and are the very same reasons I am excited about the new coil and V4 update.

Interesting......but come on, we already been waiting forever I was surprised to see no mention made of the Goldfield program.

O.k. lets keep this thread on topic and not try to change it into a dating site for horny miners.

The link is broken. Congrats to the miners.

I joined too! Any one that works as hard as Barry deserves our support.

Wowsa Ray! Nice relics. Those will put a smile on your face.

Chris, Beautiful gold, er I mean silver. That is a cool photo.

I was gonna post a couple seated dimes I have found while gold detecting until I scroll down and see the gold coin. Klunker ya pissed on my parade LOL . That is one beautiful coin my friend. I am happy for you yet extremely jealous.

Gambler, Steve had written "Since everything has been pounded for years research and finding good sites is more important than most anything else. " This is so true. Don't think you will finds great sites by pulling up a list of ghost towns in your county off the internet. People have been metal detecting a long time now. I am continually amazed at how many places have been pounded. Let's say you do some good research and have a couple new spots to hit for the day. You arrive at the first one to find recent dig holes(covered we hope) so you take off for the next site. After a couple hours of nothing much at site 2 you figure that place must have been vacuumed years ago by some savvy hunters. Time to go home right? Wrong! Head for the worst iron infested spot on the site. Don't pull out your MXT that weighs 4.5 lbs and has a 9" concentric on the stick. Forget that boat anchor! Pull out your new light weight Deus or Racer w/OOR coil and go to work with a machine that has lightening fast separation. I have had a Deus for almost 2 years. Gotta admit I am a fan boy. It is mega-adjustable for the conditions, almost like a bunch of detectors rolled in to one. You can hunt the worst iron with it or tune it to go deep. Works good on coins and relics most everywhere, not the best for parks though it does work. Not my favorite for gold nuggets. A new coil and software update will arrive soon so I hope to see some new wild abilities out of the detector from XP. I bought a Racer this past spring because I was intrigued by the claims made of its abilities and I had to see for myself. Well, for a while I thought the much touted abilities were actually nothing special. A nice detector but it did not make old sites new. LOL. Then I was at an old gold rush hotel that has been pounded by many. My brother-in-law and myself had beat it to death with my Deus and his 705. Good targets being slim to none, out of desperation I pulled out the Racer with that tiny coil. Started digging relics one after the other. It had me scratching my head for sure. I have seen the same magic occur since. I have no explanation why some places are lit up by this detector why others are not. If money is a factor just buy a used Racer or Fors Core, they kick butt in old mining camps such as you describe. I fully expect to be excoriated by MXT owners but I needed an example of a great machine that needs updating and put on a diet. . Owned one-been there, done that.

Do the 2 discrimination modes have differing separation/reactivity speeds? How do the reactivity of these modes compare to a Deus, 2,3,4, or ? Thanks, Merton

Steve, on the discrimination side I see ID filter and Imask. Can you tell us what I mask is?

Chris, put me on the list. This should be a wonderful winter, new toys coming soon. I could not decide between Gold Racer and the Deus coil. Because stress is not good for ones health I have decided I will have to purchase both.

I don't have a problem paying $400 for a Deus coil. Heck I paid that more than a few times for Nuggetfinder and Coiltek P.O.S. coils that come unglued and fall apart or start falseing in less than 2 years. A Minelab CTX 3030 6" coil is $299? When the new coil comes out I intend on buying one. While I am not enamored with the Deus' prospecting abilities in it's present form I must say it may be my all time favorite detector because it is a joy to swing and I just flat out have a lot of fun using it. And isn't that what hobbies are about?

I have used an 11x17 NF Mono on my TDI coin hunting and it ran great. Nobody has mentioned the use of a Minelab DD coil on the TDI. I think it was back about 2010 I saw a blurb in one of Reg's post about discriminating with a TDI/DD combo. How it worked(as near as I can remember) was as the center of the two windings(blade effect) passed a ferrous target the tone would swap. On non-ferrous targets or really small ferrous targets the tone would stay the same. Well, I gave the technique a go and it actually worked o.k., but my problem was the ferrous had to create a pretty good signal, ergo a nail etc.... I was searching an area with lots of disintegrated can slaw that was tiny, too small to make the tone swap so I gave up and went back to digging it all with my GP3500. I always meant to give it another try so about a year ago I threw a DD on the TDI. Dang it if I could duplicate the results. I don't know what I was doing wrong if anything or if that particular DD did not like the TDI. I should have spent more time on the problem because if there is one thing I learned from Reg is some results may arise that will puzzle the heck out of you. Brain cells need to be expended then the light bulb may click on. Some day I should do some further testing as this may be the ticket for hunting the outer edges of old cabin sites in hot ground or areas of disintegrated sluices, or?

I am probably wrong but I thought I read where all Minelab repairs are now done by this Minelab West location or Kellyco. My GPX 4500 needs a minor repair but I have been afraid to send it in due to some of the horror stories from past years. I may let the dust settle, so I will be interested to learn of Chris's outcome.

Cabin Fever, I will buy it. Check your PM's. Merton

Steve, I am curious to know why you sold your Silver U-max and use your GBII as your mini discriminator. Did you opt for increased small gold detection over the better big-iron discrimination of the Tesoro? I am thinking of building a discriminator for use in conjunction with a SD 2300 on trashy hard rock tailing piles. in another thread you mention other detector models as being options now. Which detectors in your opinion would work well, taking into consideration the gold size and types of trash typically found in hard rock tailings, cost, and eventual compactness of the mini detector including small coil options? I do not think I am interested in any detectors with a display as that will only increase the cost and overall size.

4500