Gerry in Idaho

Billdean, As an in-lander (Idaho) who's been chasing gold nuggets for a few years now, I have seen the cream of the crops whither with each year of passing and better detectors. About 10 years ago I realized in order to keep the heavy metal music beating into my ears, I needed to listen/learn new tunes. Water hunting has been my 2nd focus. Even though the gold is man made, it still adds up. In fact my 2018 season produced more ounces of gold/platinum and palladium jewelry than actual nuggets. A big bonus, the wife hardly ever says "no I can't go" when I want to hunt rings.

There are many other detectors than can get Micro Jewelry and even the new Pulse Induction machine by White's " TDI Beach Hunter" in salt water was very impressive on my last hunt with it. Realize many people do not post photos of finds and long term well known manufactures of detectors will have many more folks out there promoting and supporting the same models they use/own. Bottom line is that is you have a medium/high kHz detector and know how to use it, the opportunities is there. Learning the detector and what to listen for is key. Photo of finds was my 1st hunt with TDI beach Hunter in salt water. (warning, having the right recovery tools is key) to finding stud ear rings.

My customer on MX trip with me 2 weeks ago. 1st day 1st ring & it's this mans 14K gold with a gold Krugerrand coin. I told him to quit & just hang out at the bar as I felt he would not find a better. Should have listened as it actually did become his best find of the trip. It is his 1st gold coin find ever. So if entering it at the local club, does it go into the Jewelry Category or the Coin? Or he could pop the coin out and enter both individually? His Equinox 600 is almost paid for.

1st of the year... OMGosh. Hats off to you my friend for such a stunner of a save.

As some of you know, I head south each winter with a few clients and have some sun in the fun, with a few stiff drinks to kill any bacteria on my ice. I always take a detector and sometimes even test a few for manufactures (like I did last year with the TDI Beach Hunter). Anyway, I seem to find interesting metal objects in my scoop and on occasion they are still moving (that is for another story). So here are a few photos of finds and laughs. 1st pic of at least 10 different countries and some of their coins. Some of them I know others I'll need to look up in a book some day. 2nd is a waterproof Fugi camera. I took the card out and guess what was on it? Now here is a weird twist. There was video footage of me metal detecting. They actually filmed me. 3rd is a gold plated miniature brass shovel. Now I know there are some serious gold diggers walking those beaches, but now they seem to wear a shovel? I guess that should make it easy for the old guy to figure out their intent? 4th is an interesting piece. I thought it was an aluminum dog whistle but blowing on it numerous times has not produced a peep yet? Maybe one of those secret silent ones? My other thought was some kind of mini magnifier, but each time I look through I can't see anything. Sure does have an odd smell though. 5th. Is a Samsung phone. I've found a few throughout the years and you better have a serious scoop to reach them as sometimes the detector will go near 2 feet deep. I realize it is not a ring, but I also know a Rolex watch could be down there too. I'll be posting some of the jewelry later on as I am still getting caught up with customer emails and phone calls to get them detectors. Until next post, enjoy and if you know any info of my finds, please chime in.

Mike, The White's 24K has no issues with Micro jewelry in my testing soils. Here is my efforts from 2 well used volley ball courts. These finds were with my initial prototype 24K before the final product came out. Also notice the small ear ring backs & tiny #9 dove shot in the 2nd photo. Yes the EQ-800 will do well too. Glad that you learned this now and not wasting another year. It is very important for folks to actually test their detectors on the exact targets they wish to find. So many people like to skip that part and just assume. Great lesson learned and glad you had the gonads to admit it. Keep on testing and you'll find more.

Stunning find and story to go with it. I have personally only seen one of D, GA gold coin recovered and it was here in Boise, 20+ years ago. Thanks for sharing Doc and hats off to your customer for truly discovering a Find of a Lifetime.

Fantastic info/advice and story. I go to MX each year with detectors. Last year my buddy was pulled aside and they found his detector. They wanted money and after him telling them to keep it ($2500 machine) he agreed to pay $110 and it was on his birthday of all days. Me, I smiled and kept walking. He is the 2nd of my friends to pay some made up tax to get his detector in country. Another friend of mine had to pay for his drone. After you get through the border crossing and lines, I feel most of MX and their people (most of) are good. I have another story of MX down the road but for anther time. Good to see some nice gold recovered. As for my trip next week, I just cancelled as I did not want to be in MX if the government declares a State of Emergency. I might be over reacting, but my gut said it would not be a good time to be down there. Maybe in a big tourist destination (Cancun) or for dental (Yuma crossing) but we had planned on Lukeville crossing. I've yet to do the Baja crossing, but will make sure not to in the evening. Thanks again for sharing.

Great to see that golden grin back out there in front of a camera (so we know he is alive). Minelab should always be proud of Chris, as back in the early days when Minelab was breaking into the US market his company "AZO" was the prominent business out there sharing Minelab detector knowledge/videos. Thanks for sharing.

Merton, What a coincidence as I was fortunate to meet Mr. Gargov and his lovely wife 2 weeks ago while in MX. We chatted detectors, technologies and folks who were around in the late 90's at Fisher that we both worked with. We talked of the Coin Strike, Gold Strike and how they were a little before their time for most detector users. Great technologies but the average Joe did not grasp them as well as had hoped. The Gold Strike was too different from the proven Gold Bug-2 and digital detectors were not the norm at that time. Dimitar asked if I was interested in seeing his detector (MDT 8000) and an hour later he is standing in knee deep water with said machine in hand. We walked up to beach and I put my EQ-800 down in a chair so I could handle the 8000. 1st thought was very impressive quality of carbon fiber shaft/handle. The display screen seemed a little old school boxy but the features/functions were right there for me to see. Weight and balance was pretty good. Dimitar was trying to explain this detectors main features and kept saying it reads the Salinity of the surrounding soils/water which helps increase overall depth. Also I remember him saying something about seeing through certain hot rocks and still responding to targets under them. Those two statements alone peaked my interest. Anyway, with his strong accent it was a little hard for me to catch all his knowledge while standing on a beautiful beach in MX with stunning views walking past. I had just scooped a smaller 3.4 gram Palladium band so why not take up is offer and swing it a few to get a quick idea of how it would respond to my newly discovered ring. In wet salt sand it did as he said it would. In the water I was not disappointed. At the edge of the water where the wakes break it had a little chatter, but that is expected as the salt mineral around the coil is changing extremely fast. A couple quick clicks on the LCD pad and it smoothed out. His wife came back to inform him they had to check out of the room and catch their flight back to CA., so I did not get much more time to chat with him. Overall quick impression as I know most model of detectors on the market do not perform well in salt water, I see another tool to add to some beach hunts. Now a couple things I did catch. It is not 100% waterproof to my standards but rated IP-68 (which will suite most beach hunters). When I asked about a Prospecting unit, he said it could happen down the road, but right now the focus is the MDT 8000, which could answer your original question of a gold detector. The $1500 price seems reasonable for a high performance Beach detector, but I feel the sales would be more brisk if priced around the $1000 mark. I guess the EQ-800 sub $1000 pricing and its overall sales have really changed how some manufactures think, we'll see. Either way, it does not take to many more gold rings to cover the extra cost now that gold is $1300+ an ounce.

Hats off to you for your 1st Morgan. It is a tough coin to lose and easy to see if dropped. In return, not many get lost. Great find and thanks for sharing.

Some great tips by a few followers who actually find gold rings. My style of hunting with the NOX for gold rings varies. If beach hunting, I pretty much dig all non ferrous signals and don't worry about the pull tabs I do recover. But I do 1 thing to make sure my time on the beach is not in the heavy tab zone. I feel most beaches have the majority of kids toys, modern change, foil and tabs near the waters edge. I prefer to hunt farther away from the bank and into the water deeper than most kids go. Yes I do dig less targets out farther, but the % of rings seems to go up. I also listen for clear repeatable round ring size targets using my ears, as others have mentioned. When hunting gold rings in grass, I only go for clean round signals #7 to #19 and I turn my SENS down. If my pin-pointer does not hear it, I walk on. This allows for faster recovery of surface targets that only read in the majority of gold ring range. Yes tabs will fall in this range as well, but at least I'm not digging clad. Realize a few gold rings will read below #7 and even less of them (really large rings) read #20 and above, but those are easy to spot in the grass by anyone walking by. Bottom line is if you never want to miss a gold ring with the NOX, then dig all positive #'s...but I don't have that much time. I'll play the odds for the sites I hunt and use the tricks I've learned. I find my share of rings and still dig many tabs too, but probably not as many as most other hunters.

Nice 14K save Mitchel. A close up shot of the ring would help my old eyes. I too try and teach myself the beach, cuts and pay attention to the varying targets recovered and their depths. I feel those who pay attention can learn more for better % of success on future hunts. Thanks for your story and insight.

Stunning saves my friend and in a park in AZ of all places. Just goes to show the many people who tell me there is no other detecting than gold nuggets/meteorites in AZ are not realizing parks, schools and sidewalk strips all have potential. The NOX has certainly helped in stepping up your game as for 1st's. Last year you dug your 1st Seated Silver with me on the trip to ID with the NOX, now you have your 1st Gold/Diamond ring and 1st silver quarter, both with a NOX. This machine is so well rounded and a true multi tasker, I almost feel sorry for the other manufactures. I sure hope they step up their game soon as I'd hate to see another manufacture close shop. Thanks for sharing your finds and the tips.

Merton can hold his own pretty well. When he is ready to purchase, I know of a dealer who has been selling detectors for 20+ years and using them for twice as long. Still on cloud 10, I think you skipped 9.

Lunk, Having the ability to find a meteorite in that area with any VLF gold detector is pretty amazing in itself. Glad you were able to break the 24K cherry on space debris. Using the 7000 with 19" coils allowed you to make up ground coverage lost when using the small coil on 24K. It is most important that folks realize that not 1 machine is best for everything and that is why some of the best hunters (such as yourself) have more than one gold detector. Nice photos, story and thanks for sharing something a little different.

Rusty, Glad you are having success with the Safari. With your bad shoulders, you should trade in the Safari for an Equinox 600. It can do more than the Safari, weighs less and is newer technology at a cheaper price too. See if you dealer is willing to work with you and if not, give me a jingle. I accept many detector trades towards the 7 different brands I sell.

No leather left on it. If you find a photo showing it, please update and thanks for helping ID.

Yes you are 100% correct Steve. Now that most of us missed the end of year party. I want to invite everyone to the New Year Early Bird January Special. Unadvertised specials right now on the GM-1000's, CTX 3030, SDC-2300's, GPX-5000, and GPZ-7000's. Those of you interested when you contact me, please let me know you read about it on DetectorProspector.

It is my first older style tag. I've found a few of the modern ones, but this takes the cake.

Noah, Very nice petite gold ring with stone. The other is one mighty Sterling Hulk of a doozy. Thanks for sharing and wishing you even more in 2019.

So you going to send it back to DevilsRenegade? He said he checked his sterling collection and it is missing... Love the nice stone background.

You better go back and check your pile of silver rings. I think you may have lost one and BeachHunter recovered it. Now...only if he returns it to you.....right. LOL.

Both rings are Stunners for sure. When you find higher end brands "Cartier", how do you get best dollar when selling them? Thanks for sharing?

Pulled 1 last really cool find before years end. Went to a late 1800’s site and found a few keepers with the Equinox 800. My favorite is this Pre WW1 military dog tag. I don’t want to clean it up much more than is, but I think it says: MILTON P CROWE. L 1ST CAVALRY. If I understand it correctly, then the L is for Lieutenant. 1ST should be 1ST CAVALRY. Also saved this US Cavalry crossed sabers Insignia Pin, a nice large non primer rifle casing, an old lead bullet, Eagle Coat Button and then another “whats it” do-dad. It’s made of brass and has like a pull end with two guide lengths (sorry about my description, check the photo). Any help of ID or knowledge in it is appreciated as well. But the dog tag is the shits… Anyone familiar with old military dog tags and how to research them, please email me the site.