Reg Wilson

At the time that the Beggary Lump was found, my mate Ian and I were only weekend prospectors, and on our next visit to Wedderburn the town was packed with detectorists, and Beggary hill was a rush site. The pub and caravan park were happy, but we were not.

Our research told us that nearby Kingower had been rich with big nuggets at shallow depth. The Blanch Barkly nugget, found in 1853, and weighing a whopping 1,473 ozs was the biggest found in the area, and we set up camp near the old State school. There was a surfaced patch running into shallow workings just to the south of the old school, and this is where we concentrated our search. We were getting the odd small color from around the edge of the surface patch, and a few 'throw outs' from the heaps. Our yield rate had not been quite as good as Wedderburn, but we were getting enough to keep us happy, and this was our spot for a few weeks. We liked this area as there were only a few prospectors about.

Back home in Geelong I received an exited call from Ian one morning. "Have you heard"? he practically yelled into the phone. "Heard what"? I asked. "Some bloke has found a huge nugget at Kingower". he spluttered. "How big and where,"? I Questioned. "Don't know mate", said Ian, "I've only just heard about it".

Well, that big nugget was the Hand of Faith, found by Kevin Hillier with a Garret not more than a hundred meters East of where we parked or car in September 1980. 875 troy ozs.

Yeah Jin, that's the one, but the kid's name was Turner, not Yurner.

The families got greedy and started a big legal battle over the rights. By the time it was over there was no money left after the lawyer vultures took their cut. The detector was a Whites that belonged to Adam's dad Luke, and Adam was the one who detected the nugget, but the other parents stuffed it up. GREED.

egixe14, you really know how to hurt a bloke, don't you?

You got me thinking of all the big gold I've missed over the years, so I'm going to start a new post listing the gold I've missed.

Jin, all I can say is that I have never dug deeper holes with anything since the prototypes.

Post script 3.

After hearing the story from the Ballarat boys about their aborted poaching expedition, I bought another round of beers, and asked them, "I've only detected around Dunolly a couple of times, but you blokes know this area pretty well don't you? I'd hate to go home to the 'better half ' with nothing to show for my time here. Is there anywhere you can think of where I might pick up just a small color or two?" After a bit of thought, one of the boys suggested I try a spot at Patchy Flat, which was just off the Timor road. "When you get to the tree line turn right, and a few hundred meters along the track you will see where a claim has been worked on the left. There is a gap of about twenty meters between the worked ground and the fence marking the edge of the private property. We've picked up a few bits there, so if you go slow and poke around the bushes you might get something ". I thanked them for the information and they left.

That night I told John of our conversation, and we agreed that we would pay a visit to Patchy Flat the next day as he had picked up some information about some ground on the left side of the road. Ian was at home with the flu at the time. Taking two cars we separated at the tree line and went to our spots. I found the worked claim without difficulty, and taking out 'the unfair advantage', ( prototype PI ) set it up and ground balanced. The 'scrape and detect' claim had been worked and rehabilitated to the edge of the track, leaving the track and the unworked ground  between the track and the fence. I decided to grid out the track and then the ground out to the fence. I had only gone about ten meters or so when I got a nice broad hum on the left hand side of the track. Thinking it must be junk I started digging the rock hard compacted ground. When I got down about a foot I realized the ground was intact, and this signal was now unlikely to be rubbish. It was in fact a nice nine ounce slug. The next bit in the track was about five ounces, and by the time I had finished gridding it I was up over the twenty ounce mark with a lot of smaller colors. It was slow going as the track was like concrete, and it took me all day to finish it.

John had got a few colors where he had been working, so we phoned Ian and told him of the new spot. Next morning he turned up coughing and spluttering, but determined not to miss out on the fun. We went back to finish the ground between the track and the fence, where I managed to dig a twenty and a fourteen ounce bit plus a few smaller bits, while John and Ian brought the total patch weight up to about sixty ounces.

 They never knew it, but the Ballarat boys had more than made up for their sneaky intentions, and the 'unfair advantage' had struck again.

Goldwright, having tested prototype detectors for Minelab since 1987 I can assure you that Bruce Candy is an electronics wizz, but erganomics has never been a top priority.

Sourdough Scott, I'll bet that James Beatty could do it.

Sorry Rocket, but I just couldn't go back to the'cripple'  (hip) stick and harness. Being trussed up like a trotting horse is not my idea of prospecting. Totally free of cords, harness and sticks is the way to go, but hey, whatever 'floats your boat'.

Not available in the USA (yet) but the QED PI detector sells for Aus $ 1,850. My detector of choise these days for a number of reasons, and no, I don't have any financial  involvement.

Sold my 7000 after finding nealy 80 ozs with it. Too heavy and too much money tied up in it. You can get a top performer at a very reasonable price. (in Ozz)

PS. Hope this is not off topic.

Goldwright, with all due respect, you obviously  have youth on your side, and  can we take it that you  have also been successful in your prospecting  endevourers? For  those of us that have swung a coil for nearly forty years, we have  suffered from a number of physical problems that are not simply solved by going to a gym. Let's see how keen you are at 70.

Thanks Jonathan for the reply, and I can understand that a direct answer could not be given, however I'm sure that by now Minelab are aware that design improvements re weight and ergonomics are a necessity if they are to stay 'top dog' in the gold detector field.

Although they are mainly treasure machines, some of the detectors from Turkey and Europe (and Australia) show great innovation, with weight and balance being a major consideration. Minelab could definitely learn from some of these manufacturers. Maybe they need you on the design team. The sooner they get real prospectors involved the better.

With the GPS system in the 7000, one could not help but think that the designers got a bit carried away, including technology for technologies sake. A good hand held GPS is far more efficient if positioning is required, giving 'topo', zoom, panning, up loading, way points and more. An added, and mostly unneeded feature and cost.

If Minelab were prepared to give James Beatty (a detector techno wizz) and myself a 7000 to 'çhop up', I'll bet we could give them back a proper prospecting tool. (Just dreaming. Never likely to happen) But seriously, the 7000 is a brilliant bit of technology, its just a pity that a few things weren't considered when initially designed.

Jonathan, any truth in the rumour that Minelab are considering introducing a lightweight version of the 7000? A proper prospecting detector rather than a modified military monstrousity that the Z currently is? 

You being close to Minelab, I'm hoping you may be in a position to enlighten us. I for one would consider an aquisition should this come to pass.

 Sorry Ashley, but I can't reveal the owner of that vehicle, but should they ever read this post, they will know that their nocturnal escapades did not remain a secret, and their Karma will catch up with them, although from what I have heard it probably already has.

Orange Roughie patch Post Script 2

On the day that the Roughie was dug up a car drove very slowly past on the nearby  road. We were aware that the secret was out, and it was obvious we were being watched. Shortly after, we arrived one morning to discover a number of fresh detector holes that we had not dug. We had been 'moonlighted'. Checking these holes we discovered that although some were very shallow, only penetrating the top soil, others were deeper, going down through soil, gravel, to the clay beneath. These would most likely have yielded gold. From the position of the holes it was obvious that someone had closely observed us and knew exactly what area we were successfully detecting.

 To put a stop to this I hired a caravan (trailer) that day, and parked it on a section already detected and overlooking the area we were currently working. I then camped there, setting my alarm clock to ring every few hours, whereupon I would take a flash light and check the area. This was not an ideal way to get a good nights sleep, but it did work, and we had no further problems with poachers. I suspected that the car that drove slowly past was the culprit, and two years later I believed that this was confirmed.

I had just recently teamed up with John and Ian on the Pulse Induction prototype project, and we had only been in Dunolly for a few days when I recognized the suspect car pulling up outside the Railway hotel where we had booked in for what turned out to be a years stay. I had met the two brothers that alighted, and knew them only slightly. They were a pair of notorious 'moonlighters' from Ballarat. "G'day fellas", I said, "long time no see", and I invited them in for a beer. Over a cold one, and after a bit of small talk, I asked, "look, it's all water under the bridge now, but just how much did you blokes pinch out of Carr's Paddock?" They looked at each other and laughed. "Aha", I said, "so it was you buggers". One said, "well you're half right", we did go down to Rokewood with the intention of doing a bit of night time detecting. We parked our car right up near the old tip (rubbish dump) and walked all the way down Frenchman's creek , but just as we got to the paddock, a car came up the road, and as it went around the bend its lights swung out into the field, there was a guy out there with a detector, so we decided to give the whole thing a miss. "You didn't happen to see what sort of car that bloke had did you"?, I asked. "Well yeah", was the reply, "we returned via the bridge, and his car was parked down there in the bushes".

From their description, I knew that car quite well.

There were a couple of interesting post scripts to the Orange Roughie saga, and at risk of boring the readers of this forum I shall relate them, beginning with the bulldozing episode.

When it was realized that the extent of the patch was significant, we decided that it would be prudent to 'peg' the area. Rather than put a lease over it (the patch eventually measured 740 meters by 360 meters) we opted for four 'miners right' claims which we hoped would cover the auriferous ground. There was one claim in Murray's name, one in John Carr's name, one in Marlene Carr's name and one in mine. We hoped there would be some deeper ground where a scrape might yield gold beyond the depth that the 16000s could normally reach. When I had dug the Roughie at a depth of a bit over twenty inches, I detected the dirt before I back filled the hole, and low and behold there was a small color of a couple of grams in the heap. This gave the impression that there would be loads of small gold scattered across the patch that we just were not able to detect without scraping. The fact that the gold detected to that stage was mainly large (about 200 bits for 300 ozs) seemed to indicate that there would be perhaps that much more again in small colors. It seemed logical.

At that time I owned a Drott equipped with a four way bucket at one end (with the bucket open it would scrape quite well) and a backhoe at the other (most handy for taking a costean to check depth to bedrock). We agreed on a three way split after the landowners cut. One share for Murray, one share for me, and one share for the dozer to cover repairs, wear and tear etc. Murray and I would split the fuel costs. This is a fairly common arrangement among prospectors, and saves having to hire equipment when one partner already has a machine. I was to do the machine operating, and Murray the detecting.

Unbelievably, after scraping and rehabilitating a huge area only a bit over ten ounces was recovered. It seems those prototype 16000s did a mighty job the first time round, and the ground was shallow enough for them to penetrate to most of the gold. Needless to say, we felt a bit ripped off, and had we hired a dozer we would have suffered a big loss as the whole exercise took a number of weeks to complete. I then sold the Drott, and took a bit of a hit financially. From my point, it would have been better not to have bothered with the claims at all.

JR, sorry about the spelling, and you are correct about Holabird. I was just trusting to memory on the spelling of his name, but Sanders was known by two names, and it may have been Sanders Gill, although I thought it was Saunders Gill. A bit of 'googling' would probably sort the matter out.

There are a couple more interesting and rather twisting  tales that can be told in relation to the Orange Roughie, but I shall hold forth until I am sure the readers would be interested.

I was made aware of the Washington nugget hoax when Murray phoned me and told me of a story in the Gold Gem and Treasure magazine. Upon purchasing the magazine, I read an article titled 'The one they missed'. There was a photo of the 'Orange Roughie', and a story of how this nugget was found near the town of Washington in Califonia. G G T magazine had done a story some years earlier on the Discovery of the Roughie, but obviously had failed to notice that the two nuggets were in fact the same one.

I contacted a friend who was a well known and respected gold dealer to see if through his American connections we could find out how the Roughie had passed from Rattlesnake John to Saunders Gill who was claiming to be the finder. He was traced to a veterens hospital in Chigago, but due to his advanced years, had little memory of the events of that time. John was a returned soldier who had served in the Pacific in World War two. I had sold the Roughie to John after trying unsuccessfully for two years to find a buyer in Australia.

Researching American news articles revealed that the nugget had been exhibited across the country, creating a great deal of interest, due to the fact that nuggets of that size were extremely rare in California, and amazing that the 'old timers' had missed that one. Saunders Gill had claimed he had found the big slug using new American detector technology which enabled him to find it at a depth of over two meters, where the signal had 'sceamed' at him. The dodgy company that made these detectors were getting exposure, and were widely advertising them, while Saunders Gill was attempting to sell shares in a company to remine his property.

A geologist named Fred Hollibird had examined the nugget and declared it as a genuine example of Californian gold stating that pockets of cemented gravel in the nugget was proof positive that it came from the Blue Lead, as claimed by Saunders Gill. (why he didn't notice the obvious color difference between that lump and other Californian gold is beyond me.) Hollibird, who was in partnership with a man named Kagin, who owned the auction house that sold the nugget for US $460,000, issued a certificate of authenticity.

Meanwhile, Murray had been in contact with George Warren, who had a TV show in America. George had always believed that there was something fishy about the Washington nugget story, but lacked proof until a phone call from Murray. This was manna from heaven for George.who wasted no time blowing the whistle on the whole scam. At first Kagin and Hollibird tried to bluff it out, claiming that we were a pair of Ozzie con men out to try to stooge money out of them.(how would that work?) The idiots had picked the wrong nugget for a scam, as the Roughie had received huge publicity due to the fact that I had found it with a Minelab GT16000 prototype, and the deal that I had with ML was that anything of significance that I found could be used for advertising and promotion.That exercise probably sold thousands of detectors for Minelab.

Eventually Hollibird had to admit that the nugget was indeed Australian, and then claimed that he had been a victim. Kagin said that the money from the sale was refunded and the nugget resold. Saunders Gill went into hiding and the detector mob quickly withdrew all advertising. At the end of it all no one was charged with fraud, and the story just fizzled out, leaving history slightly rewritten as to the original finder and seller.

I shall leave it to the reader to deduce who the liers and crooks were.

In reply to your observations JR.

Murray Cox and I detected the 'butcher's paddock' (owned by the late Lloyd Laidler) when we speculated that the run of gold could possibly run across the road into John and Marlene Carr's paddock.

I aready knew John Carr from previous detecting on a seperate section of his property, and it was me who negotiated with John in regard to access and percentage to be paid. The percentage was to be paid in gold, which I said could be converted partially or wholly into cash through a reputable dealer if so desired.

I suggested to Murray that we should let John 'cherry pick' his percentage, and that we divide the rest. He rejected that idea, saying we should pay our percentage to John individually. I had not worked on that basis on other projects with other prospectors in the past and I asked him why he wanted such an arrangement. To my amazement he explained that he considered himself to be a better prospector than I was and didn't wish to be limited by such an arrangement. I reluctantly agreed to his proposal. The first gold found in the 'Orange Roughie' patch (11ozs) was found by me, just inside the fence.

I detected and dug the Orange Roughie, and two years later sold it to ( Rattlesnake) John Fickett in Dunolly. The price and conditions of sale were not as quoted by Murray Cox, as he wae not present, but Ian Jaques and John Hider-Smith were.

These are not the only discrencies in this tale, but perhap some other truths can yet be revealed.

mn,  after going back to google the Washington Nugget to refresh my memory of that particular saga, I was reminded of the amount  of misinformation, lies, greed, and just plain old bulldust that was involved. I am not sure quite how I can tell the true story without stirring up a hornets nest. There are some people who treated the truth carelessly, and made claims that for whatever reason were just untrue. 

I shall have to be careful how I compose this story, and some parts I will need to leave it to the reader to add up the evidence and come  to their own conclusions as to where the truth lies. Hopefully I will be able to bring this story to you shortly.

You are dead right Beatty.

The old cocky (farmer) asked James, " how do you blokes know just where to look?"

And guess what? 'Einstein' told him!!!!

Sorry Mr Beatty, but Mekong whiskey is Thai, and I am in Nha Trang, Vietnam sampling the local beer. This is the wet season, but it is not too bad here.

Nice nugget from Dunolly. Another one I missed.

Hi all, and thanks James.

My old Transit had a 3.3 ltr in it originally. The previous owner put a 5 Spd. Supra gearbox in it but it kept blowing 5th gear, so I put  4.1 cross flow alloy head, twin throat weber carb, extractors, and 5 Spd Ford box. Duel fuel as well. 

She goes all right.

Paul, if you get the opportunity I would be happy to loan you my setup and show you the basics. It should be fine with any GPX. All you need is auto ground balance and a tow vehicle that won't interfere with the electronics. (diesel with alternator isolated)