1515Art

Mitchel, that’s what’s wrong I’m hunting the wrong 20 acres, lol, but I just need that first piece. Eventually if I don’t give up I’ll find something there, I’ve also brought home a few buckets of dirt from a couple of the washes but nothing there so far not even a flake, keep trying different spots until something begins to show. Think next I’ll head back out to gold basin again try a new spot out there and spend a little time where I found that little bit see if I can squeak out a touch more. Think if luck holds my other house might be sold in California, if so life will get a lot easier and hunting more frequent, maybe even Australia if any thing is left after all the horrible fires, wish everyone there luck. My wife’s got cousins someplace have not heard anything if they’ve had any issues hop they and everyone else is safe now and comes out of this OK.

Steve, flak and Jeff, This last Monday I started swinging the 7000 at around 7AM confident today was going to be the day by around 2PM feeling tired my pants were riding low and it Was taking all I had not to skip digging the iffy signals, switching over to the deus it was so easy to use and running so nicely I felt refreshed and although lacking the power of the 7000 I kept at it until the last light faded I would have kept at it longer except the coyotes were making such a ruckus it was a bit unnerving. this claim is twenty acres I’d guess and I have only vague idea where to look and have hit several different areas including several of the washes, areas around dry wash piles, the piles them selves, off on the edges and at the end several hours in the trashy spots mostly with the deus the multitude of targets is overwhelming the 7000 in the trash. I’ve been running zed both with Steve’s insane type settings and also with lunks quiet set-up, I prefer running hot but have been trying both listening for faint tones. There’s a lot of ground I’ve missed but I know it’s there, time will tell if it’s in me. jw, I would or will depending on the nugget finder coils the proof is hard to ignore and if my time was not so spread out on selling and moving all this last year I’d have one already your success is inspiring😀.

I’ve been hopefully searching a club claim in Southern Nevada and although I know gold must be there the 3 trips out have been blanks, I’m finding all kinds of trash, old lead and tacks that say although no doubt pounded, not cleaned out by a long shot. Most of this junk found has been shallow but still there has to be some deeper gold hiding amongst all the trash someplace just haven’t found any out there yet. The other day I was burned out swinging the 7000 and grabbed the deus with the high frequency round coil to try something different, I hardly ever hunt nuggets for more than a few minutes with the little Frenchy trusting the power of the zed for gold. The light little deus was a pleasure, detector in one hand pick in the other and the pinpointing accuracy of the deus and target recovery improved 10 fold and I was finding almost exactly the same targets just a bit fewer (probably the gold ones). I ran the gold program against the hot program both at factory settings 50khz and switching between the two programs gave me really good idea of what I was going to find, the gold field being more sensitive and the xy screen of the hot program with full tones providing a more full picture. I was also pleased the deus seemed to handle the ground also with no problems, there were only 3 Little Rock’s in the upper right of the picture that hit hard on the deus and after taking them home for closer inspection they show tiny particles of silvery metal under high magnification that was almost impossible to photograph, its blacker in spots and silvery like mercury droplets (very tiny) in other areas with a metamorphic (I think) host rock that I’m not certain of, any ideas what this is? anyway, I’ve got to spend a week back in Calif working on an offer on my other place, and cleaning it up when I get back then try a few new spots in Arizona after a break before hitting my southern Nevada spot again. my modified Ukrainian army trench tool also worked great paired with the deus I added a longer handle, cut the blade square and embedded a super magnet into the end of the handle was a real back saver,lol.

No, no and hmmm, so you mean I’ve got a chance👍, no regrets Even if I never break even financially as the adventure has been worth every cent. Being late in the game starting nugget hunting with the release of the 7000 without clue 1 on the location of any placer makes for a slow uphill start , but each and every piece found a treasure. Whites SST. Almost 7000. I hope (no) Deus. No, I need to hit the park more and they were supposed to make that treasure coil thing

At the least Minelab should consider if the rumors of a new and improved gpz should ever come to fruition, for a brief period of time consider offering those loyal customers whom trusted in the 40% mantra and believed in them enough to shell out 10K for the new technology only to a certain extent then to have the placer rug pulled out from under us when the price was dropped. As Was pointed out patch cleaning is drying up and as I’m reading here price has a lot to do with quantity sold and those of us that paid full price only to have an equal powered lower priced detector kind of speed up the process, I remember reading in one of Steve’s comments and pardon me if I’m misrepresenting he was both surprised and disappointed in how many would she’ll out 10K, add to that even more at 8K. Plinking down 10K only to have it depreciate like my car, cell phone and everything else these days is kind of the path we’ll paved, but of all the things I could pass on buying... new detectors then seem to fall pretty close to the top of my list. Another absurdly priced detector would need an olive branch as a shaft, or do things only dreamed of otherwise I’m just fine with the old heavyweight I’m into now, just need to fix the broken swing arm, bungee, get a new skid plate and hmmm, I really believed it when they sort of promised that little coil.

The spot farther up the canyon sounds like very interesting ground indeed, if you camp out up there for the night with the big cats roaming around don’t forget to bring the dog and gun for under your pillow😀.

Cool about seeing fresh cat tracks I was mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains in Northern California one afternoon I just finished a long climb and cresting the top of the hill found myself face to face with a big cat just standing in the middle of the trail. As soon as I spotted him I got off my bike a made myself look a big as possible as we stood there eyeing each other he was at a distance of roughly 50 feet from where I stopped my bike. Eventually after 15 - 20 seconds that seemed much longer he just slinked off into the brush, i on the other hand decided to end my ride and quickly turned my bike around for a hasty retreat downhill.

Thanks, you are absolutely right it’s all about the learning, I get a wealth of information from every little mystery I find. Being new learning the geology, reading maps... and I believe I’m in good company I read frequently similar questions and concerns, I can look through the pages and pictures in my mineral guide and some of it translates for me in the field, but like anything else the devil is in the details and years of practical hands and eyes on experience or good and patient teachers are essential to read and understand the story to the right ending when comparing what I find vs my books. Thankfully the help here plays a big roll in filling that gap in knowledge with access to so many great teachers making it possible for someone new like me to have a chance at finding some success in a reasonable amount of time. so, the last mystery didn’t need XRF the experts were right as always😀 this is metal trash from mining. Before taking it any further testing by cleaning off the rust revealed an earth like man made curve not found in debris from space at least none that I know of in Pahrump, NV. My guess is they were both little chunks from the same axle or shaft that exploded under the load of mining by the shape and curve.

Thanks Mitchel and Fred, it’s probably chunks of iron from some old mining equipment the last one I found out at rye patch tested as an alloy earth like and modern. There is a pawn shop in Santa Clara that will test things anywhere from free to $15 depending on who’s there doing it for you, I’ll be back for a couple weeks an take it in and have them solve the mystery. The only mystery really I’d expect to find a chunk of old iron in the tailing pile curious finding the other buried some distance away looking related, safe money bet is old chunks of iron equipment? Thanks for the feed back and help, see you out there soon. clark P.S. Second thought probably the real mystery is how long it’s going to take me to figure this all out, lol and quit bringing home leaverite.

Well one thing for sure looking at the pictures, I’m not taking very good care of my nails, lol. Grinding off a little edge on one shows nothing but metal and I’m surprised as they looked more mineral? They were found somewhere around 1/4 mile from each other and appear to be of identical material and unique from everything else recovered in the 8 hours detecting the 2 pieces one an inch or 2 down in the middle of nothing far above a wash and the other dug out of a tailing pile several inches down. They are to small to acid etch so guess I’ll XRF one and see what the percentage of Nickel is?

A big thanks, I’ll be joining them too. i probably need a new thread for these but my success ratio on meteor finds has been 0% so first I’ll post my latest mineral pocket hitch hikers from Pahrump area here, no quartz that I can see and they stick like glue to a magnet, not iron scrap but I have no idea...???

Thanks everyone, it feels good to get that first one out of the way after relocating and the drive is a lot closer now so I hope to get out more now. Good luck to all and see you out there!

The top row are all bullet fragments the piece on the second row made it to the pocket but I don’t know what it is. It seems light weight so I discounted it being from space, but being different earned pants pocket status for future testing and research, lol. at the rate I bring home rocks I probably should have bought a bigger yard, at least this one is tiny😀

{ Sounds like a plan I’ve yet to find any space rocks so far I’ve just found rocks that are taking up space. I sent in an application to GSSN last week and I’ll probably go to their meeting on the 6th to introduce myself and check thing out. I was doing a little research on GPAA but I’m seeing a mix of reviews so I think I need a little more research before buying in.

I was running the 7000 hot as I could maxed no filters normal hi yield semi auto SP1 enhancer, this was a soft sweet signal that finally sounded like something other than surface trash down about 4” on a hillside just above a wash in what i latter learned is a heavily pounded old patch with little left to give. It came out in one piece looking rusty and worthy of tossing aside except it was not magnetic so I began scraping, chewing and bending. Yellow began to emerge and that’s when I should have slowed down except it looked more like pyrite to me so I kept working at it and I was surprised it only bent a little before breaking, looking at it now it appears spongy and that may be why it broke the way it did. I’m not actually 100% convinced yet that it’s gold seems like it could be perhaps mixed with something else? This would be the first piece in a new area for me and I’m unfamiliar with hmmm the gold there and host rock and well everything. I was finding a lot of lead and bullet fragments so it seems there should still be more although today only the one (now it’s 4) for me, if in fact it really is gold and not mostly pyrite or something. my scale is in Santa Clara so I don’t know the weight?

I’ve looked at them closer and ground windows into them just for a better look at the structure and no doubt in my mind I’ve found a couple of very fine extremely common earth rocks. I’m learning ... slowly. Thanks for the help and tips and until my next great find may it be more of a challenge, really they should be getting closer with each try right, lol???

Yep, thanks... more rocks and probably won’t be the last undeserving mineral getting a free pocket ride from me, 😆.

I hoped you’d chime in on this and well I didn’t think they were but I kept trying to talk myself into it the two small ones have a lot of iron in them and attract a magnet like a piece of metal, but did streak lightly blackish brown, the large one initially left a light brown mark that could have been just from the surface then it was hard to leave a mark after a few passes on my tank lid, so I had to ask because obviously don’t know what I’m doing? Eventually I find one out there and the difference will be obvious, it’s hard to go by pictures cause there’s always one you can find to create doubt in my own mind if I look to long, lol.

And turn on the light, lol 😂 the lucky part is in a couple more days be just a memory. Something around the edge of each step would make them easier to see i could also change the soldier course to a different color stone that would help. I need a tile guy anyway for some other work I’ll do it then.

Been going back and forth to the new place in Las Vegas setting up all the little things that need to be done to move in and flying back and forth on frontier’s Special rates sometimes for as little as $15 one way the only catch is you can only take a little personal bag with you on the airplane. Got tired of renting a car and not having any prospecting gear so I loaded up the Jeep and drove it down for a longer stay and a planned first hunt. Friday had everything ready and my Jeep fully loaded for an early start in the morning, that evening I headed out the front door no shoes or shirt to check the mail box and in the dark missed the edge of the front step rolled my foot and did a summersault down the front steps praying I was going to be able to walk when this was over as I watched the world spin around me out of control. When I came to a stop laying there foot throbbing I summoned up the courage to raise up and put weight on the injured limb, painful but I could hobble, I downed a few Alive and met friends for dinner at an all you can eat seafood buffet my foot still hurting but slowly improving. Next morning after warming up and more Pills I’m limping but feeling like things are worth a try and head out the door for the little over 2 hour drive to gold basin, Arizona from my house. By the time I got there after a few stops and marking my claim borders on the gps my hunt started around 7:30AM navigating the wash with my hurt foot a challenge and my detector kept signaling on my metal free Keene boots? Turns out the pair I’d grabbed and threw in the Jeep I’d used pulling up carpet puttin in a new wood floor and both shoes had a dozen or more staples stuck in the bottom, without pliers I got all but one tiny piece out of the bottom of my shoes the little staple end stuck in the bottom of the shoe on my hurt foot interfering every time I forgot it was there. Learning a new place I learned where not to hunt but I felt good about my detector small targets were slamming and I’m sure I’d have heard the gold if I’d been over any by around 2 in the afternoon my left knee was hurting as much as my right foot from taking up the slack walking uneven terrain and standing up from digging that I decided to call it a day and I’d accomplished my goal of some exercise and finding the place to hunt. As I was directing the 7000 around the area I kept 3 rocks that hit hard on the gpz, the two smaller very magnetic the larger magnetic but less than the little ones. The smallest roughly 130g on a little analog food scale the larger around 230g and the large stone (?) somewhere between 5 and 10#’s I’d guess for both pieces found several feet apart from each other. looking at other examples on the web they seem to hit the correct marks, any thoughts? Just earth rock or did I get lucky?

When you get it figured out I’m curious to see how it goes if you feel like sharing post a picture.

Thanks everyone for playing along with the game it was a ton of fun and I had a great time running it, till next time and now let’s go find some gold!

What got you into plating you obviously had it worked out pretty good seems if you want it to look professionally done there’s a lot of steps to go through like everything else. Thanks for the warning I probably will never do any plating it does sound like you need to be cautious with all these chemicals that foil pack I was wondering about had CYANIDE under at least 4 layers of protection. Unwrapping when I hit the MSDS under the third layer of protection with several metal potassium cyanide’s listed I carefully put it all away. Now I gotta figure out what to do with it. I remember Monsanto had a facility in Santa Clara back in the 1970’s where they made and stored a chemical called Parathion in 55 gallon drums. Hundreds of drums on large steel racks and roughly every 10 feet as you walked through the warehouse there were little boxes mounted eye level each with Eppi pens in case you accidentally came in contact with any of this chemical you had under a minute to get to one of those boxes and give yourself time to get to the emergency room or you’d be dead in minutes. They also had one building where the chemicals were so volatile the roof of the building it was made in was designed to blow off during explosions, time sure have changed. I inspected most of the plating shops in town back in the early days things were pretty loose and wild with not much regulation when you could do anything... we had a lot of fires and accidents back then and the combination of PVC tanks and immersion heaters burned down a lot of buildings.

This was not only something fun to do, but actually helped me out a lot because truth is I really like all this stuff and have no problem filling every available spot with it just in case at 66 I’ve had plenty of time to acquire, now thank you Fred your words helped give me strength 😀, some of the things I don’t really need it’s easier to part from if I’m happy with its new home, or sell it for what I think it really worth and then trying to make sure the person who bought it’s OK, I’m not a good business man that way I guess. Long story short I had fun and have a little less to move and I hope everyone else had fun. Thanks to RidgeRunner and all who have done this and encourage anyone so inclined, pending permission from the boss of course, thank you Steve. You won heaviest box!

That silver box I thought might have been a respirator had a box inside the foil pack and a sealed metal can inside the box and inside the can was another sealed foil pack and an MSDS for CYANIDE. I did not open the last pack carefully put everything back and tuck it away someplace safe. Is there anyone semi local to me that knows what they are doing with this stuff and wants it?