Glenn in CO

Sorry to hear what happened, I hope you can recover most of the stuff you lost and I can't imagine how much of pain in the butt it will be dealing with the outcome no matter how good or bad it is. I hope they catch the bastards! You take the time to share your knowledge with the videos you make and people still want to take advantage of you and people wonder why most prospectors are leery of sharing their sites with anyone. Keep us posted on how everything turns out!

I and my wife have the Jimmy Sierra GMT's and our backup Goldmaster 4 is a body mount. Here's a picture of me detecting with the GMT and I'm using a body harness that also holds my Falcon Gold probe that I use for pinpointing. Here also a link to Steve H. GMT custom body mount: https://www.detectorprospector.com/magazine/steves-guides/whites-goldmaster-gmt-rebuild/

The White's 24k sounds like it would be a good choice for the crystalline gold that we detect for. We are accustomed to using the GMT for such a long time with great success it's hard to change and try newer technology. The GMT's we use are body mounts and it make it easier for detecting the steep tailing piles, plus we are not getting any younger. We may try a White's 24k and see if there is a huge difference or not. Good Luck with your new detector!

The area we hunt tailing piles in Colorado has its fair share of tiny bird shot. Usually find a half dozen or more each trip. They sound just like the type of gold we are looking for.

Sorry, I have been out of town and just got back today. In my opinion I would not use a MXT for detecting wire, leaf and crystalline gold. You would have limited success with a MXT because of the lower frequency and would be better off with a higher frequency VLF detector with a frequency of 40 kHz and above. A high frequency VLF detector with some iron discrimination would be a plus if you are working tailing piles. A quality set of headphones are just as important as a good VLF detector and learning to recognize and hear the extremely faint signals as most of this type of gold is going to be very small.

Hi jasong, For some reason the PI detectors cannot detect the wire and spongy gold specimens very well, but the PI's do ok with the leaf gold specimens. The area were we hunt the ground is somewhat mild, so the VLF's are the detectors that we like to use. It is small world when you out in the middle of no where and you meet somebody you know.

Hi Chuck, The area we are hunting in sometimes gets an afternoon rain shower every day in the summer. We have been prospecting and detecting there since the mid-1980's and encountered a few lighting and thunderstorms, but usually they are brief and don't last to long. One year I and my wife were up on the mountain side and normal build up clouds started forming and she radio me that it was not looking to good and we should leave. I gave her my usual answer that it will be gone in about 15 minutes and we would be detecting again. Well I guess I was wrong this time because it started to down pour and lighting like we have never seen before. Apparently it had rained 4 inches or more in a hour and the lighting was relentless. She had left to return to where our side by side was parked and was screaming over the radio that she wanted out of there. I was stuck up on the mountain side and was hunkered down because of lighting, rain and hail and I wasn't about to move and become a target for the lighting. We didn't detect again until the following day as we needed a little time to recuperate from that ordeal. Now when we see a storm building, we get off the mountain.

The tailing piles near Leadville produced some very nice specimens. John Vivian and Glenn Godat did very well in that area with some outstanding gold and silver specimens.

Hi phrunt, Another nickname they call that type of gold is a bird nest.

The host rock was dissolve by hydrofluoric acid, unfortunately I didn't keep an eye on it while cleaning or I would have left a little rock to help stabilize the specimen. There was a smaller piece and a few wires that did not remain intact and may or may not held all together if I would have left some of the host rock. It can be handled but it’s somewhat delicate. Some of the wire gold specimens I found are more rigid and can be handled without a problem. Leaving some host rock in my opinion makes the wire gold specimen a little more interesting to look at. The gold specimens pictured were ones that I had found and I was using a GMT with the standard coil. The other gold specimen found was a leaf type variety and my friend was using a NOX 800. The others in the group were not as lucky in finding one. Interesting one of the guys had brought a GPX 4500 and could not detect the wire gold specimen, but all of the others who were using a VLF type detector could detect the wire gold specimen. Here is another wire gold specimen I found in the past in which I left a little of the host rock and limonite (before and after pictures):

Dealing with some family issues me, my wife and a group of friends finally made a trip to the central Colorado mountain’s to search for gold specimens on tailing piles that have been productive in the past. Part of the group this was their first time using a detector searching for gold specimens. After a brief overview of the history and different areas to search, we spent some time setting up the different types of detectors to achieve the best results. We then took off in different directions with some partnering up with others for additional instruction. It didn’t take long for the 10,000+ foot altitude to begin taking its toll and the steep terrain limiting the area they wish to search as everyone was cautious for their well-being while detecting. The group detected for three days and four specimens were found. Here are a few pics showing the wire and leaf gold specimens as found and then cleaned: Close up of the largest gold specimens: Couple of us detecting on the tailing piles:

“I want this or something similar” Thanks! for the kind gesture.

I do not have a Nox, but I have found that EMI can come from anywhere and sometimes it is a process of elimination of where it is coming from. The following EMI issue I had was from the least expected source and still do not understand why it happened. I purchased a Makro Kruzer over a year ago and shortly after I got it I decided to see what depth I could get on coins in the type of soil we have here in Colorado. I had my White's TDI with me and I use that detector for hunting older parks and get great results in find older coins that normally out of range of VLF type detectors. My experiment was to locate a deep sounding coin with the White's TDI and then use the Makro Kruzer to see what type of a response the detector would give me. I had hunted this park many times before with the White's TDI and never experienced any EMI issues and I normally run the detector at full gain. That day I was having a hard time running the White's TDI even with the gain greatly reduced. I was becoming very frustrated as I went to different areas in the park and no improvement. I did manage to locate some coins with the White's TDI, but the coins were much shallower than previous hunts. I hunted for a couple of hours and tried different settings to try to eliminate the EMI. Frustrated I made my way back to my car and was packing up to go and try a different park. I put the Makro Kruzer in trunk and for some reason I turned on the White's TDI and the EMI issues were gone. I got the Makro Kruzer back out to see if that was indeed the problem and yes that was problem. More unbelievable was the detector was turned off. Luckily it only took me a couple hours to figure it out.

We'll I guess I wasn't real creative in coming up with a catchy forum name. Both I and my wife are Colorado natives and live in southern Colorado. Though my avatar picture of I and my wife was taken on the Alaska and Yukon border, my profile picture is both of us nugget hunting in central Colorado. Colorado has been very good to us for prospecting for gold for over forty years. Great thread!

Is this the largest gold coin minted? https://stream2.kitco.com/19_07_16_Perth_liferay.mp4