AUddicted

My only hate is the weight, 1 kilo lighter would be so much better!

JP

But, would you be willing to add even more weight (ie: a larger coil) for increased performance?

 I know I would... I'm willing to suffer for the thrill of more, smaller and/ or deeper gold.

It just threw me off, showing the quartz and the pick tip,stuck in a outcropping. I was expecting more rough, coarse pieces. Beautiful gold no the less. And great finds. Keep it up.

Ahh yes, sorry. I should have mentioned the outcropping was merely 10' up from the bottom of the wash.

same thing I was thinking.......placer gold!

The term Placer can be somewhat general as there are at least 7 basic types of placer. Often people refer to Alluvial Placer (worn by the force of water) as "Placer" and yes, these pieces are Alluvial. It's quite possible, before they became Alluvial, they were Eluvial (hillside placer) as there are steep slopes down to this particular ravine.

Thanks guys. It's always enjoyable seeing your gold posts as well.

Literally

I was detecting up a wash yesterday not knowing if it was gold bearing when I heard this screaming broken pick tip in an outcropping crack. Wasn't the 3 ouncer I was hoping for but it was encouraging that there "may be gold here", and there was. Can't wait to get back there.

When it was first being made public,I heard some Aussies calling it, what sounded like Zvet as in ZVT. Then some "yanks" interpreted it (because of the accent) Zed not Zvet.

The big problem I have created for myself is what about a year from now?

I know exactly who should be picked a year from now. And everyone else (except you) knows who it should be as well!

But the problem is "this person" is probably not eligible.

I guess different strokes for different folks. I have well over 500 hours on my GPZ and passed the 10K mark in gold found with it long ago. I just don't have all the problems all you guys seem to have with it but again, that's just me.

I have to agree. I don't even mind the weight of the coil because it performs so well. As far as I'm concerned ML can even make it heavier if it finds more/ deeper gold.

The less people that want to own one... all the better for those of us who do.

Found a few weeks ago.

Good stuff to know, thanks gentlemen.

I think that's the first time you've complained about the weight.

I just think it takes that much copper to have that much sensitivity. So we have to just suck it up. Too bad aluminum wire isn't as effective/ conductive.

And what about those who are wishing for larger coils from Minelab.

Excellent question I have wondered about myself. The GPZ is new technology and no doubt more complicated than I appreciate. I am pretty sure if it was easy we would not even be talking about it. Truth is I have no idea I just go out and put the hours on the machine. My own GPZ is running just fine for me. All I could seriously wish for was for it to weigh less. A long day swinging that thing is a workout.

It's the newest one.

I like some things, like the different sensitivity settings. But I usually can't use the highest one because it just goes off, even holding it in the air.

I also don't like that it has a larger diameter than all the other pinpointers.

I'd really like to see a comparison to the

Carrot.

I have the Nokta pinpointer and its the same problem if I wear it on my side but not if it's in my backpack. Try yours in a backpack.

The coil is waterproof. But ironically you can hardly use it under water because it wants to float like a life vest. As a result the coil keeps pivoting and giving false signals. For me that's a real Bummer because you basically lose the advantage of having a waterproof coil.

I fabricated this pick a 3 months ago. It's an idea I had for a few years and finally followed through on. It was pricey to build but it does a great job grabbing up iron and it's easy to wipe off the metal and black sands. The underside magnets are 1/8 thick the large outside mag. is 1/4 thick.

Hmmm... I currently have no subscription, but was unable to read the article.

Am I missing something?

This was on the Antiques Road Show. So I paused the picture and took these shots.

I thought it might be cool to start a new thread where you tell a fun or unique story accompanied with a pic, even if it was a long time ago.

I have a handful of such ideas but chose this one:

I had always hoped to find a real white quartz/ gold specimen.

About a year ago I was hunting a small creek with my "SDC Birdshot Pro" where I had found many bedrock nuggets over a 6 to 8 week period.

This day I was only getting bullets, birdshot and rusty square nails. I was starting to get burnt out with that and ready to move to a different area as I was hearing another "bullet sounding" target in alluvial creek gravel.

I turned to leave but stopped and looked back at where the target was, and again listened to the target. I knew it was another bullet and I usually dig all my targets. But again I turned to go, again stopped and looked back and just stood there staring down. Finally, I sighed then bent down and had the target in the first scoop. My eyes went wide as I chastised myself for nearly making a rookie bone head mistake.

It's not very big but for me it's a treasured little piece.

I was thinking it would be interesting to hear your (other members) thoughts on cleaning your gold. One guy I used to hunt with felt very strongly that you should just rinse it with water, no further cleaning, and absolutely no chemicals. What I do, is scrub using a tooth brush (the same one I use daily ) and citrus cleaner. I then soak the gold in Whink for a day then scrub again with citrus cleaner. If it has a calcite/ caleche coating like much of the Rye Patch Chevron gold, I soak it in CLR. I like the gold to be free of any visible iron oxide, manganese, calcite, etc. But I don't like the gold to start getting polished edges and high spots, like what happens from handling it often. I like that natural dull finish it acquires from the Earths fine grit, sand, rocks, natural movement etc...

I noticed this crystalline gold for sale on Ebay. It appears to me that the host rock was dissolved with a chemical that also began to soften the gold itself and polish it? Maybe Aqua regia (nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), but when the host rock was gone the specimen was then neutralized? It does look beautiful, but to me, unnatural. But who am I to decide what should be considered natural or not? Therefore, it is just my personal preference.

But what are the majority of collectors looking for?

To me, one of the most enjoyable nugget discovering experiences is when all you have left in your scoop is a hard dirt clod that ends up hosting a nice gold nugget. The next time that happens, I plan on gently removing the edges of dirt until there is proof of gold and then just save it in that condition (until some day I just get bored and decide to break it open ).

Thanks all...

43gr (1 of 1).jpg

 He did it to me again with the GPZ couple of days ago, but I`m not going to tell that embarrassing story, too much pride, plus I`ve the sulks.

Really? You think your going to say that and get away from telling us?

I've been using the GPS map/Geohunt feature of the 7000 for about 4 days detecting  now, I liked it to begin with, but with only 100 find points and 10 Geo trails and its full, I filled the find points all 100 of them in less than 4 days and everytime you want to turn the detector off you have to save the Geotrail or it gets lost without warning, so 10 trails don't take long to fill up.

 

 

So if you turn off the machine at lunch time then want to resume afterwards, you're starting another Geo trail and have now used up 2 of the 10?

Steve, I am one who is interested. I have never used GPS and haven't used it on my GPZ yet either. Part of the reason is, my computer is rather old and has issues. But I plan to soon get that resolved.

I look forward to your ideas and tips.

Here's 2 GPZ tips:

This morning I had a blaring target in a dry creek bed with a couple feet of overburden. It was so strong I couldn't tell where to start digging. This has happened before and I decided then, to come back with a different machine.

This time I set the Ground Type to Severe and it quieted way down to where I could tell where the target was.

It was a very rusted bar of some kind.

Yesterday I found 3 small chunky nuggets in close proximity on some upper stream bedrock. Searching for more, I discovered there were occasional hot rocks that sounded like good targets. Once I dug close to the target I would then change from Normal Ground to Difficult. The hot rocks would then go quiet.

After getting a new power cord from ML for my 12V charger, I decided to give it a try. Everything worked properly, one problem. I put the charger on the soft surface of the seat cushion and that didn't allow the charger to have any ventilation. The first light on the top left was flashing red, but the battery was fully charged and the battery and charger were both very warm. Second attempt, I put it on a hard surface and no problems.

                                                                    Norm

I experienced the same thing. Works fine on the hard rubber floormat.