tvanwho

and story telling around the campfire before bedtime...

Jason, You need to keep the little guy in mind. Most of us don't wanna part with more than $50,maybe $100 a bag. Some of the sellers are selling unsearched dredge cons plus a gram size nugget for insurance. You can always test the market via Ebay tho...

Not to mention, I didn't have to spend many hours of anxiety prone highway driving to and from a gold creek, no money spent on tolls, gas, food, motels which averages $100-150 for a weekend gold trip to Indiana for me, no dodging potholes .cops, tailgaters or other road hazards, no looking for a bathroom or parking spot, and absolutely no guarantee of even finding a speck of gold in the creek ,much less klinkers... I just spent another $60 on another bag of dirt from Jeff. Guess the word got out and the price went up or maybe its the Xmas rush?Just want to see if the gold is consistent and have some more flash in the pan fun in the garage for cheap. Weight wise, my scale says 1 gram of color, and I threw the fines back in the gravels,might be going back to putz around with those.Jeff says to watch for Cu and Pt too but all I saw was hematites and chunky black pebbles. -Tom

Yes, it was fun to do in the garage on a rainy winter day and break in a new 10 inch gold pan. Sure am glad it wasn't 30 degrees colder or we would have had a pile of white stuff...a warm winter sure goes by a lot faster than a frigid one...3 more months to go if we get lucky..is it cold in AK this year Dick?

Ok, so I didn't get this color from a creek, but paid 60 bucks for a 1 pound bag of red limonite dirt from Jeff Williams on YouTube. Love his videos for a good laugh and some good gold finding tips and tricks.... Anyway,I got 25 Klinkers out of my bag of dirt, almost no fines, heck who cares about fines...can't find my scale at the moment. Best bag of dirt for the money so far...boy that desert dirt is almost as red as blood in my panning tub.... I wonder on that? I was in an Indiana creek a few years back where we were getting fines under a covered bridge in creek gravels with sluices.What caught my eye was the bright red creek bank downstream. Like 100 feet of orange/ red bank. Wonder if there is gold in that stuff now ?

Hmm, I was under the assumption these new Makro and Nokta gold machines were the cats meow that blew all the others out of the water so to speak....oh well, thanks for the heads up...

So Steve , are you saying that all the VLF gold detectors on the market, new or old, are basically the same depth/sensitivity wise, and just different in the bells and whistles department? Altho, the weight is defintely an issue, and the GB2 is almost the only hip/chest mountable unit out there.

So, which to get, the Fors Gold + or the Macro Gold Racer? Has anybody done a features/performance comparison yet? Wonder if I should sell my MXT and GB2 now?

The under $200 ones I see only have a range of 150 feet which seems about useless to me? I'd want at least 500 feet range altho you would only see a speck in the distance and have no idea whether it is coming or going? I'd also want to be able to view the drones camera picture from the transmitter or large cell phone or tablet, vs an SD card after the fact. I like the idea of a pilots eye view while flying it plus a return home failsafe in case of loss of radio control. If you wanted to scope out a spot on private land, this might be the ticket, and no trespassing issues, unless it crashes on said property. Having one follow me up a desert wash would be pretty nerve rattling tho.

I like Pauls good sense of humor , congrats on the award...

Does anybody rent a Minelab,maybe thats an option for me?

I had to wake up and realize too that retirement age is fast approaching and I cannot afford to keep buying all these expensive toys. Retirement expenses and health issues will eat you up at some point, so a pile of money saved in the bank for a buffer , will ease the pains and anxiety of old age a bit. Heck, I see there are a whole mess of detectors on the Classifieds even now !! I need to sell a few myself. Been cleaning house again lately and taking car loads of stuff to Goodwill all year. Gots to downsize to a few gold machines of various types. Heck, might need to start playing with my old Sega Genesis for old times sake....

I suppose....but I'd rather have a new 2016 Toyota 4 runner or 2016 Chevy Colorado 4wd truck or a new Dodge diesel 4x4 truck for that $40,000 myself.....or a pole barn and a backhoe ......to each his own....not any nugget gold where I live...just galena and a bit of copper so far...but I can still dream of the yellow rocks....

Hmm, $40,000 dollars worth of detectors vs $100 of gold found? Well, at least you had fun at it...I think I will stick with my 15 year old MXT and Lobo. Seems more cost effective....

Somebody else discovered my Indiana secret spot,oh well...he does do good videos. Wonder if it would be worthwhile to run my GB2 with 6 inch coil here? Lots of nails and glass shards tho. This is where I got a 1.6 grain picker a year ago and a buddy got a 25 dollar nugget, in the bedrock clay/mud. Been told people have come here for years before but it is still not worked out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjx59MCoFJQ

It involves using some nasty chemicals with nasty fumes.I was going to strip gold off PC circuit board fingers and chip pins some years back but decided I didn't want these nasty chemicals/acids in my house. The fumes alone could hurt you bad and we don't want govt types to come snooping around investigating strange odors and chemistry sets. Aqua regia was one of the nasty solutions as I recall. I'd say to sell the electronic scrap on Ebay instead and stay safe at home...

My coin dealer says to buy scrap silver quarters ,dimes, and halves, made before 1965. Buy $100 a month ,after a year you have $1200 dollars worth, and stash at home/in the ground. If the banks are closed, at least you would have some hard currency available as backup. I doubt you could use gold nuggets as legal tender....ask some older folks what they did in the 1930's during the depression years?

So which is the one to get, the Fors Gold Plus or the Macro Gold Racer? prices? Be nice if you could run them both side by side...

Just curious what them gnarly evil looking stunted trees are? I found some similar to those where the rest of the trees were 100 foot tall elms. I was told extreme mineralization can stunt trees? I might need to go back there someday and do some digging in the gulley beside the stunted trees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft8UuzIS-ec Liz finds an ant stealing her gold nugget...and she has proof...

Well,its great to know 2 of the official testers are on this forum !! At least we will find out the good and the not so good from people we trust. However, I need to thin down my herd of machines soon, can only swing 1 at a time. A new gold detector will have to go on the Wish list.

We need more female prospectors for sure and Liz is so enthusiastic.....

TDi in Australia with small coil and gold nuggets found

I was wondering about that myself Fred? All them inclusions and cracks in that huge diamond? I sure wouldn't want it ! I thought the valuable stones were sposed to be as flawless and clear as possible to be worth lots of money, or so I have always been told. I sure do like that Topaz tho !!

2 hours? Tertiary placer gold of the Ruby Mine, in Nevada, USA.