mn90403

I didn't read the Twitter report but ... it was probably not 'lost' ... an 83 year old never forgets things now, does he??? Maybe they just have so many nuggets they didn't count all the big ones properly. The police just wanted to un-jam the roads leading to the area.

A '$50,000 A' nugget was lost on the highway 270km from Perth. Reward offered ... haha https://thewest.com.au/news/regional/wubin-motorist-loses-50000-gold-nugget-on-great-northern-highway-ng-b881588392z

Shape matters is all I can say. Does the piece at the top of your picture that is not a closed loop sound different than the piece below it? I could probably interrogate those pieces with my 800 and get a couple of positive audio responses if deep and then I would have to take my chances on the number of good targets that sound that way. The closed piece would probably make me want to dig it if I was new on your beach. Mitchel

I call this detecting the 'staging area.' Before targets are brought up or washed off by wave or tide energy they collect for a few weeks, months or years waiting for the right circumstances to move. I look forward to detecting these areas on my beaches before the targets are ejected up on the beach where I have found them with my Explorer, 3030 and Equinox and even my 5000. My beaches are not a sea, lagoon or a lake where targets remain in nearly the same place where they were lost. They move in what I sometimes call a crab crawl waiting for the energy to be within the finding range. A few years back when we had an El Nino we had new targets all summer long. Targets are sparse now so I have to look deeper. Mitchel

The Aussie story tellers are working overtime to describe this one! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8445421/Huge-gold-nugget-buried-secret-location-Australia.html

Steve, You are not alone in the 'backing over' your metal detector category. On one of my few nugget hunts earlier this year I forgot the 7000 was leaned up against my 4-Runner. I was with a friend and he stopped me carrying my broken detector! I had heard something but ... I was lucky, extremely lucky ... I broke the bottom lower shaft which is plastic. Nothing else was damaged and I changed it with an extra I had and kept right on detecting for the trip. Mitchel

Good going on the finds. My wet change has been down low recently also. We haven't had much energy in the waves lately to dig out those heavy rings and put them on the move. In my area there is the slope as you described but there is also a layer of living shells capping the sand. We need some big swells to break that cap and get things moving. I didn't go out last night but I went out the night before. As you described there was only a couple of pieces of light jewelry and hardly anything at the top. I was using the Nox 800/15" which kinda wears me out. It has to be right over a target for me to see it. I feel like I know and see better with the 11 and that is what I'll do tonight. Mitchel

Can it be glued back to make it as a spare?

Phrunt, Basically there are 'day parks' and they are open then and they prevent excess trouble and vandalism and night camping if they close the gates. You have to go to a camping park with your caravan or tents and reserve the space sometimes months in advance.

Ok, I remembered in another article I read that the amount of gold shown would not equal the claim of value. That can be subjective I guess when you are the 'hider' but that is really a different question than the truth of the find.

I had read several 'related' articles to the story I linked. I didn't find the answer to my question and it was time for me to sleep. Why was he looking through his planted box? Did he go to where the finder had opened it just to see the condition of his stuff? Did the finder bring it to him? Can you get any clues in the photo where he actually was when he was looking at the box and does it jibe with the other info. Gold hunters are skeptical by nature. We try to figure out how much truth there is as the 'where and when' which is what Fenn is trying to protect here.

How is it that Fenn is going through his own planted box? https://www.westword.com/news/forrest-fenn-treasure-photos-dont-convince-doubters-11727941

Well done! That must be brackish water to make that coin look so bad. It makes me want to go back to some of the swimming holes we went to as a kid in North Florida. I imagine many of them have already been detected but there are many more lakes and springs up there. Mitchel

There is a salt setting on the 5000. I was digging everything and eventually got tired of the bobby pins and got VLFs since then. Funny thing about all of that is now with my 800 I'll 'enjoy' digging a bobby pin at 4-5 inches in all metal because every once in a while a -2 turns into something else! I expect the same with the AQ unless there are so many missed rings on our beaches that I won't stop for anything other than round sounds.

Years ago I used a 5000 with an 11" Commander coil on the beaches for about a year. One of my best finds was a chain with a diamond. There is a story to go with it but basically I heard something in the damp sand where the high tide had been so I went to dig it at night. I dug and dug and couldn't find it. Then in one of my dig out piles I saw a glimmer and it was a fine gold chain with a diamond (about a carat) hanging from it. The only part of the 'chain' I could get the 5000 to see was the setting holding the diamond. Other chains I have seen the clasps.

I made an adjustment today that made the 15" more usable to me. In the past I had tried to lengthen the sound by going slower from 6 to 5. Today after some falsing I went the other direction and increased the speed to 8. It sounded and performed better.

It is my understanding that the Crown is always involved because they retain mineral rights on even private land.

It doesn't seem like two years have passed since we first heard about that find. I wonder what they have found around it since.

Ask Chris Ralph and get it shot with a IR.

Going to that thread made me think of time travel. We are observing the same responses with newer technology.

A few years ago I got a couple of scoops from beachscoops.com or something like that out of Miami. The price was reasonable. They are all stainless. I didn't know they were being shipped from Lithuania. After a couple of months I didn't get them and I emailed the seller. He said his shipper had sent them to the wrong address and sure enough about two weeks later I got them. They were labeled as muffler parts for import purposes. They are that sturdy. I have a picture of one of them. It weighs 4 lbs and has a 6.75 x 6.0 " basket with a 42 inch handle. It will pry out all wet sand!

I have abandoned the dig on many targets in the wet sand because the hole fills too fast and my arms just won't let me get the target. Granted this was not with my best digging tool but this was also years ago as well as recently. I can slow down and keep digging on a desert but not in a wave.

Simon, I have mentioned this several times in my hunting. I turn up my T1 volume which includes ferrous and have found GOOD targets that were on the deep and lateral fringes when I first heard them. This keeps the blanking away from my headphones even more. When I interrogate a target with swings I don't ignore it just because it is negative. In the sand at my beaches there are times when I lose it or it is just the iron in the sand but I can tell the targets better with the 11" coil on F2 0 better than I can with the 15" coil. The last couple of trips for me to the beach I used the 15" and there are just not that many targets. I know because I see other detectorists going long distances between targets. The 15" picks up some additional 'noises' so I GB and push up the F2 to 4 to make it more stable at my sensitivity of 23. This doesn't always work and I have to lower the sensitivity but I feel like I'm losing fringe targets. I like the 11" coil on the Equinox best of all. I can dig 15"+ on some targets but I'm wondering if an AQ will brighten up these targets even more or if it will only be gold. I'll use it in all metal and bring out my massive scoops! Mitchel

It would be nice to see how it will perform on the California beaches that have black sand lines. And of course I wonder about the fringe of just how far laterally it will pick up a target. If Joe shows a target 20" deep then I would 'think' that you could see 12" on either side (not from the center) of the coil. Results will show up soon on that one also.

Joe, It looks like you are going to have a fun summer!