geof_junk

Us Aussies lost our 1¢ and 2¢ back in 1992 but they we copper/bronze. I quess this is why. Australian one-cent coin - Wikipedia They were introduced on 14 February 1966 in the decimalisation of Australian currency and was withdrawn from circulation in 1992 (along with the two-cent coin) A 1¢ in 1966 would have a purchasing power equal to about 15c in 2022 values.

Hope I am not too far of topic. Some remains of the 1930 mining on Bougainville (Crocodile gold). Photos taken 50 years ago. The machinery was carried from sea level to about 2000 meters above, on the backs of the local natives. Not an easy route back then. By foot. The crew.By Bike The easy way I hope those photos get you back on the journal soon.

"100th's of a gram" that a very tiny $1 Aus at today gold price. Do you have to buy a magnifying glass with the scales. 😉

50 years ago in PNG I imported this Ossa explorer 250 for riding off track in the "Island of Crocodile gold" Bougainville. It did go up vertical climbs all the time.

Now that is a way to go. Another way is use the reverse method, that is were would you not think to look for it. I would say you have a chance of finding it as the size of your cache limits the location that you would chose to place it. BEST OF LUCK.

Simon it is a lot better when it gives a error on the dial due to the nugget being too heavy. 😉 As far as which coil to take to W.A. and Tib. NSW it is not the size of the coil it is the size of the gold and the depth of the gold. W.A. from my experience the gold is mostly under a few grams and shallow due to the fact that most of the light soil has weathered away. I would be lucky if I have found a dozen or so nuggets there over and ounce, but a few thousand under 5gm. Only 1 large nugget was deeper than a foot, it was a large specimen with well over a pound of gold in it. So the best coil is the one that will get the size of nuggets that you are chasing and depth, that you can use for the full duration of your day, with no over exertion by you.

Been away for a month in sunny QLD Aus. and missed most of this. Both you and Steve put a lot of time in entertaining us all on this forum, so I hope your BREAK is a lot less than the one I just had. 🙈 🙉🙊 ........... 🙌

So Simon are you only half a REAL Oz 🤣 marmite vs vegemite ..... Google Link

The 2023 of Queen Elizabeth 11 and 100 years of VEGMITTE

Hope you enjoy these two YouTube Video

I like the green pull tab it really stands out

The pin in the third photo make me think it is to hold a wooden pole/handle in your find. Very interesting piece.

To me it looks like the gold has not moved very far. I personally would be expecting that it has came down the slope above or very close up stream on the slope. A good locking piece of gold and would be great on a gold chain for your loved one.

There is an art in discriminating, but I have seen a lot of failures with it. Most of my spots are virgin areas and not much junk and when it is fully of junk I conserve my time walking away from it. In the photo below got gold right up to the junk (It is not the junk you can see that is the problem it is the small bits) and I walked ½ a mile away I got my largest specimen 3.5 kilos with 16+ gold in the second photo.

An I thought is was one of these. Butt (no pun intended) it would hurt. 🤣

At least Simon the GPZ coils can be sold to make a patch coil, if they don't trust damaging their own coil.😜

What makes me mad with Minelab coils is I have to buy their coils with each detector even when I know it will remain unused, as my choice of detecting does not favour the most general ML size coil. Most of the committed prospectors over the "Minelab era" that I have known had to pay for a ML coil that they did not want and the resale of them is very low as most customers have one also sitting unused.

This YouTube shows the work done, the effort put in by the gold diggers and the change to the environment that occurred during the 1850 - 1890 ......LINK.... for video below.

I had a similar good fortune at and old county football building, where the coins had fallen through the wooden floor gaps of the members private elevated and enclosed grand stand.

Just guessing but it might be in pinpoint mode and not search mode and vice versa due to software update or incorrect wiring for selection of the mode that you choose.

You can see with the amount of over lapping, he is going for depth no ground coverage.

My choice is determined by what I am going to use it for. Then look at the views of members on forum have to say particularly this forum.

The main thing with a drag coil is that it is very useful for covering a large open area that is a "virgin patch" area to see if there is gold in it. Then to find the majority of the gold you have to grid/chain the area with a normal/small coil and then a large hand held coil in the deeper ground as the depth of the smaller coil targets get deeper. Just think how many of your nuggets would of been detected with a 25+ inch coil if you did not know they were there, however very deep larger nuggets would be missed with a small coil. I would of been lucky if I used a very large coil more than 1% of the time. So the best spots to use a drag coil is in large clear non flogged/known locations, I hope this lets you know what you are getting into.

From Wikipedia Human horse power that might be of interest. When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp (0.89 kW) briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp (0.075 kW) indefinitely; trained athletes can manage up to about 2.5 hp (1.9 kW) briefly and 0.35 hp (0.26 kW) for a period of several hours.

I have found a few new ground patches, but in most of them only one or two nuggets would of been found with a drag coil and even less with the size that you desire, the rest you need to grid by hand. How ever you can cover a lot of ground with a machine dragged coil in shorter time in poor ground. I'm sure other will give you their opinions of what is worthwhile, best of luck.