1515Art

Steve, fantastic and i am relieved that you like the jade, i was afraid perhaps id built it up to much and you would be disappointed somehow in the way it looks. Have fun and show us pictures whenever you decide to make something with it.

you gotta go back and reread, Fred just put one back the other day... he said it was an accident, but we all know it was his caring and thoughtful act for the future generations, or Lunk... in a tutu? gets there first in style.

he's either in Narnia or someplace down Alice's rabbit hole hope he remembered to eat the right pill...

A small gold coin like a 1 dollar coin might fit the clues you give and be an unusual find.

whoops again, it's been a while guess i should have reread the whole post and took whats left of my brain off auto pilot. Sorru Root, but being called Reno Chris can only be a compliment anyways, however credit where credit is due... Root definitely knows his stuff.

whoops forgot to add the picture to my post...

Well... it took a little longer than I thought it would to get some of this jade the snake carving was made from and this little chunk of rock had to change hands a bunch of times on it journey from China, but it's finally here.

it is a nice piece of dark green Jade from Xinjiang the area in China with the most desirable jade, lots of jade claims to be from Xinjiang but is usually from someplace else. The gold jade as I was told it is called actually contains no gold... I had it XRF tested and exactly as Steve and Reno Chris said (no surprises here, these two know their stuff) this is a form of pyrite that tested 99% iron with trace amounts of silver, palladium and some other elements. 

The carving we have from this jade is very stable so far and has not discolored as of yet, perhaps this has to do with the combination of trace elements combined with the iron, more time will tell for sure.

That is some top notch material. I would love to make some jewelry with it. If you could ever lead me to a source, I would be indebted. Thanks for sharing.

El Dorado, PM me your mailing address and I will send you this piece of jade to play with, you should be able to get some nice cav's out of this chunk.

clark

about 2 1/2 grams thats 3 little nugs for me with my Zed this year... not much, but my first year detecting for gold. I really feel thats a very small part of where i've come in all my quest, getting the right gold machine, learning to use it and training my ear have been big and fun challenges and getting good places to hunt have also happened, so i'm satisfied with my little poke this year and next year i'll try and hit the ground running... errrr, jogging, OK really, more a slow walk and careful swing.

merry christmas and a golden new year!!!!!

Keen boots, its about all i wear any more i like them and they are really comfortable and they have stayed together with my metal detecting use so far. my gps is a garmin 650t with some extra maps downloaded from garmin, I'm supposed to be able to add digital image overlays, but i haven't tried to do any to this yet and don't know a lot about it.

Its called "rucky chucky?" really steep sharp right turn at the top my suv slid sideways across the road as i made the turn, at the bottom is some old mining machinery and a beautiful area to park and camp right next to the river, the river kind of wraps the claim? I hiked it before driving the road, took almost 3 hrs to to drag my out of shape a** from the river up to the top of the hill with all my gear and a couple days of limping around before I recovered all the way. 

next time I make that trip will be on a quad, next year perhaps it's time to get a good used truck and a nice lightly used quad... that or add a few welds to the current iron sled. oh yea, the damn sun roof is broken too and most of the plastic on the inside, but still runs good and is klunkier approved I'm sure.

rucky chucky? I don't know anything about that one, this road is near the western states trail and heads all the way down to the river. 

Hmmm... I do have doors a top and a heater air conditioner that work pretty good and flipping a switch gets my butt warm,,, emmm, i mean the seat heater still works, I don't have any welds although one of the motor mounts is broken and so is the front tie rod (blasting up same said dirt road) I'm getting to kind of like the added challenge cornering, so OK hands down you win... but hey, like you said we have the ZEE!!!

not just the traction control... none of the sound system works, gps is out, ABS is out with the traction control, both side mirrors el fritzo, back seat won't fold permanent cargo style and the price of Mercedes parts are about 10 times what the car is worth, but it still runs good and I can beat the holy heck out of it and not give a rats tail what happens to it as long as I get home.  

Paul,

no, no, no... i called you my hero!!! let me set this straight right away, I would be stupid to take my 14 year old 210,000. mile SUV out into the Nevada outback, in the dead of winter when the traction control is on the fritz and whenever i get stuck on something it has the nasty habit of shifting itself into reverse, it did this climbing out of the nastiest road out of the American river I've ever been on almost sending me over the edge of the road.

Hi Everybody,

Ive been in my studio working on clay and firing my big kiln with a load of large pieces that have a lot of detail, the firing went perfect i think, but i won't know until it cools enough to crack the door tomorrow. I also was throwing some tall clay on the wheel until 1AM and my body feels like I was in a bar fight and the clay won.

Paul, you are my hero... I don't mind the cold and in fact i prefer it to be on the cool side, i drug out all my ski gear and have it loaded in my car all ready to go. That is, until I saw those pictures, you are one tough son of a gun cause that looks hmmm epic and way to cold to be fun for a cupcake like me.

Steve, "I am amazed how bad the roads in backcountry Nevada get when wet." those roads a scary even when they are dry, the drive out to the blue wing mountain area past the seven troughs has some high mountain off camber curves that feel like they are paved with marbles, no way id want to be out there when its wet. Chris, that would be a bad place to break down any time but i guess it would be a long while till you saw some help come wandering randomly by in the winter time. Every time I go out there I feel just a little uneasy looking around at all that solitude, it's thrilling and a little scary too.

I guess it's about time to venture out to Arizona, Nevada is just to dang cold and most of the places I'd want to look at, it would be just plane stupid this time of year to wander that far out and risk getting stuck.

These are pictures of the green pieces i fired last knight, glaze is next...

I've been hitting the parks and having some fun, taking Steve's advice about loving the hunt and forgetting about target goals has actually improved my results and put more joy and patience in my game.

What Im really wanting is to just get away for a few days away from all the distractions and have the opportunity to be at one with my ZED and see a flash of yellow in my scoop if I'm lucky enough, still the hunt will have to wait until the beginning of the new year and this is good giving me time for some research of ground to explore.

I have a few options to satisfy my need for a little adventure, but this being the first winter I've been at this (and a wet one at that) I'm not really sure what would work best, Southern California, northern Nevada or taking the long drive to Arizona? If I can catch a week of dry weather is n. Nevada doable? or  am i better off taking the drive out to Arizona although I've never hunted there and have no knowledge of the areas?

Having never held the DEUS Im only guessing, but it seems to also have the advantage of being the least obvious detector to pack around in the car or truck and transport around to the various hunt locations. in the interest of being as invisible as possible and leaving no impact on the environment are casual observers less likely to be offended by someone carrying the DEUS around in a city park?

info and some event dates from our friends at Roaring Camp...

got this from Roaring Camp, I've found some nice little gold in their pay piles, never tried this but thought it was worth posting the info.

such beautiful gold and i'm so jealous to be out detecting, amazing work and more good luck out there!!

Wow, really cool tools those are so great!

 SOMEBODY will - and if Apple's success in China is any guide, it might not be a low ball outfit - whether Chinese or otherwise.

After checking with my friends it seems selling metal detectors in China might not be such a great market after all, they are a little touchy about their antiquities and all metal detecting type stuff is controlled by the government. Not to say there isn't a market, but not  for the average person in the general population. 

Congratulations Paul, we haven't met yet , but I'm certain Steve could not have picked a better guy.

"Guess who will sell 10 million high quality metal detectors there?

SOMEBODY will - and if Apple's success in China is any guide, it might not be a low ball outfit - whether Chinese or otherwise.

The last big prize for detector sellers - who will win?"

funny, i was talking to my wife a couple of days ago about an idea i had of having our friend with all the mountain property inviting a group of hunters over to China to do some detecting on his property and having another friend who manages a cctv station in Shanghai film the whole operation for Chinese TV. Putting together something that sounded like a fun adventure and getting some publicity for jade mountain and the old temples and such that are on the mountain land, I didn't really think about the possibility of generating interest in metal detecting "IN" China, i just kind of assumed they already were?