maxxkatt

opps, sorry man. Just a stereo type from the mob days. I apologize. I wish I lived out there in the western desert area so I could use my CTX3030 looking for nuggets.

One think I think we seem (or I) to forget that back then it was a pretty lawless time in those areas. Based on some of my readings about the Dahlonega and Auraria area the miners did hide their gold at night since being robbed was a very common occurrence in the 1800's and probably also in the early 1900's. It was well known that thousands of miners were in the Dahlonega and Auraria gold workings. Auraria was once a thriving town. Now it is just a ghost town with one old general store and a collapsed hotel. When the word about gold gets out, honest miners are always followed by shopkeepers and robbers, saloons and saloon girls. Is it any different today? Look at Las Vegas and you will find the same mix of people except the miners are replaced by gamblers. Prospecting for gold like metal detecting is gambling your time for a good payout. Times change and times stay the same.

I worked one summer with Larry Otwell a state Geologist for Georgia. One think I learned that most geological maps have most faults identified by type of fault. There are numerous types of different faults. But the key here is finding an ancient buried stream and pot holes or glory holes or kettles. I don't think there is any direct relation like where there is a fault there is an ancient buried stream. I am not implying that is what you are saying, but just putting forth my idea finding buried ancient streams and ancients rivers is a whole different matter. Speculation on my part is that maybe faults can alter the flow of ancient streams and cause the stream to move elsewhere and eventually the original stream being buried over time. There are two major faults in the Dahlonega, GA gold bearing area running from the north east down to the southwest with a bulge around Dahlonega and tapering off down toward northwest Gwinnett county and down to Carrolton, GA area. We found it was rather rare to find any gold mines outside these two major fault lines. Gold in this area is volcanic in origin and was formed about 360 million years ago when this volcanic area was in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and plate movements moved it to its present location in north Georgia. The gold in this area is in hard rock and in quartz rocks that have eroded and washed down into the steams and rivers and when the rocks are broken up by rushing water and rounded the gold drops out and settles in the bottom of the stream. The gold will move downstream until it reaches a deep place it cannot move any more. Of course we are talking about millions of years. In theory the process is still at work.

Larry Otwell (now passed state of Georgia geologist) taught me that some miners did not realize what happened when a gold vein appeared to vanish or played out. In many cases it was because of a geological fault that can move the hard rock many feet to the left, right or up or down. The trick is to find out which way the fault moved and start drilling into hard rock either up, down or left or right. Not an easy thing to do so they often just went on looking for easier gold deposits in hard rock or panning in the streams. Digging in ancient stream beds seemed easier. Some gold deposits in north GA have been found when drilling for wells. What a pleasant surprise. That was what we were going to do with our map of possible gold deposits in the Dahlonega gold belt. We were going to hire someone to take core samples from the areas that our statistical program indicated were good prospects. We never got that far due to lack of funds. No, I am not looking for investors. But we did have fun with our project and I learned a lot about finding gold and my sons and I had fun back in those days for 2 years. Our best method was to use the fisher gold bug metal detector to search for lead bird and buck shot in the small streams and branches and process the gravels we dug out in that area. We would get color and some small nuggets about the size of a bb or smaller. enough to cover the bottom of a small vial for about 1/8th of an inch for a days work. Not a lot, but still fun and it was found gold. Of course we were always expecting to find a thumb sized nugget. Looking for gold was cold work in the winter, but rubber gloves up to your elbows helped a lot. The biggest pain in the but was taking a 3" trash pump to the creek sites for sucking out gravels. We finally made a cart with old fashion balloon tire bicycle wheels. But that still did limit us to the distance we could travel. Looking for gold using the fisher gold bug what got me interested in metal detecting after we stopped hunting for gold after two years. Another fine gentleman that taught me more than a few things about looking for gold was Frank Moon who lived in the Dahlonega/Auraria area. He was a third generation gold miner. He showed me a pickled rattlesnake head that was as big as a man's open hand. And thanks to a nice lady who let us dig for gold on her property that included two gold mines and two gold bearing streams. We were so lucky to get that permission. Permissions are now almost impossible to come by in that area of Georgia now.

This journal is addictive that is for sure. And if you pay close attention you can really learn something about finding glory holes or kettle's as he calls them in ancient buried streams. Most fascinating to me.

For those new to gold mining, they are digging in an ancient river bed that is now dried and covered up. It was formed way before man looking for gold walked the ground. So what their glory holes are a natural bowl or hole carved out of eons of water falling in that place. Water and rocks falling and also gold dig the hole. Gold being so much heavier than rocks will not be washed out of the bowl, kettle or glory hole. Thus when they come upon a kettle or glory hole it is a huge concentration of gold. gold gets washed into the stream and river upstream due to eons of erosion. This is the simple explanation of finding gold in gravel and rocks. Gold in hard rock is a different creature. So enjoying this journal.

Maybe, but what would it be doing in Georgia? I think it was just a method that maybe a single black smith in the area used to make pick axes for the more than 10,000 miners in the area between 1828 & 1840's. Anyway, it is one of my prized finds.

Here is an 1828 - 1848 miners pick axe looked like. I found this many years ago near Auraria, GA which is about 4 miles sw of Dahlonega, GA. I was using my Fisher Gold Bug, and it went off real loud on that target. One of my best finds. You can see this vintage pick axe was hand forged by a black smith. Of course by 1936 they would have been using more modern pick axes. This is a great story. One of the best I have read. Thanks for the time and effort you put into getting the story to us on this great forum. Ancient rivers and creeks indeed do change their course and the old channels do get buried over time. But the gold remains in the pot holes or as you guys call them accurately glory holes. A retired state Georgia geologist now passed, Larry Otwell told me of a guy from Canada who found a glory hole in the Etowah and the Chestatee Rivers near Dahlonega and sucked out enough gold to be spread out on a full bed back at his motel room. Larry said he was there when they spread the gold out. He left a week later. This would have been back around the 1970's since Larry and I worked on a gold project in the late 1980's. I got a great education about gold mining from Larry. Then a practical education also, it is hard work, but boy are you motivated.

Hang in there JN. Lost my wife of 11 years ago. You and I both know on the day of the diagnosis (she had stage 4 lung cancer) your world turns upside down. If it was not for my Brittany Springer (a birthday present from my wife) and my two adult sons I am not sure what would have happened. Keep on keeping busy is all I can advise.

Great story and great dad. Thanks for posting this story. Need more like them.

I am convinced that coins in that condition come from dad's or grandpa's coin collection from kids and grandkids. We all like the shiny at even an early age. Grandpa's first mistake was showing off his coin collection to his grandson.

there were some errors on the original chart. here is the updated. specifically .25 tin /zinc breakdown should be .025 for each.

I agree. On some years in the red book it said .950 cu and .05 tin & Zinc. So I just split the difference on tin and zinc. Don't really now the ratio of tin and zinc or even where to find it.

Correction to chart: 62-82 has .950 copper and .05 zinc. no tin. oops on my part copied it down wrong. plus they should be .025 Ok, lots of corrections here. I should not have created this chart from the very small print out of "A Guide Book of United States Coins 2019 by R.S. Yeoman, 72nd edition when I had this head cold. Here is the corrected file. I hope I got it right this time, I don't wish to mislead anyone with bad info. The test was an air test on ground I cleared with my CTX3030 to make sure no other metal items were in the ground. Height was about 7" above the ground using Ferrous-Coin mode. My ground is moderately mineralized but that should not have affected anything since it was an air test. Sorry for the goofs.

Ever wondered why pennies ring up so differently? Well you probably knew, but here are some more detailed results tested on the CTX3030 in the Ferrous-coin mode with the pennies on a patch of ground cleared of any other metal. You can easily see from the data that the TID values change when the composition or weight changes.

You are right great finds and yes looks like there were a lot of women present based on the nature of the finds.

Nice permission and hunt. Hmmmm, maybe I ought to offer to bush whack and mow some sites like that in exchange for a permissions. Sounds like a good way to get a permission.

When I used to hunt for gold in North Georgia streams I used a Fisher Gold bug to specifically find lead bird shot or buck shot pellets. Why? They specific gravity of lead pellets and gold are close. So finding corroded (white) lead pellets is a very good locator to where in a stream (in a gold bearing area) to dig the gravels as deep as you can and run them through your sluice and pan the results. Rarely failed for where I use to prospect.

Found old bullet 5-6” down near 1840’s homesite. It has civil war patina, about ½ inch in diameter, weight 26 grams or 401 grains. I can see two rings clearly and faintly the third ring. It is a fired bullet. Any idea what type of bullet and is it really a 3 ringer?

I find what Steve said to be true. But in addition: “found good stuff in hunted out ground with new detector” sure sells a lot of new detectors. Just maybe the detector manufacturer's PR machine keeps this theory alive.

wishful thinking. I looking for a Equinox 3090.

great finds. I wonder what kind ok kick a rifle had shooting a .69 cal like the one you fired. Would probably stop a bear.

Now that is one sweet bottle. Amazing they can last that long and not broken. I guess it is hard to break them buried in a creek or river. As a kid we use to throw rocks at every single bottle to watch it break and see who had the best arm.

cannot find that video. Sorry. but easy to test. take pop tops and pull tabs. put on ground and poptop on top silver dime. in multi swing over target and see if poptop masks the dime. next do the same in 4 khz and you should see a tid for the time, not the poptop or a down averaged number for both.

Clive Clynick's books on the Equinox are much better than Andy's. Andy's book on the CTX3030 was very good, his Equinox book not so good and in my opinion full of filler fluff. Do not under any circumstances use anyone elses settings. Stay in the standard modes until you learn how to set up your 800 for your type of hunting and hunt sites. It does not take much to get a setting wrong on the 800 and totally ruin a hunt by using a badly tuned detector. That has been my personal experience with 3 years on the 800. Hunting coins in a park that is trashy with modern trash (aluminum) use park1 or par2 and switch to 4kHz. 80% of your aluminum trash is will be invisible to your 800. Some times pull tabs with out their tail and screw caps will still trigger the 800's roundness routine and report those as good targets.