GeoBill

7 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It would seem a waste of money for Garrett to buy Whites, and then do nothing with the purchase. I have no idea what they are up to, but I would make getting the Goldmaster 24K back on the market ASAP a priority. It was the newest detector in the White’s lineup when they shut down.

I've been away from detecting for a long time so I'm not really up to speed on the different technologies the various companies own. I'm more familiar with the biotech/hitech world where companies are bought solely for their intellectual property. Did White's have patents that Garrett would want/need to move their products forward?

Steve, you bring up the 24K. I see a lot of discussion/praise for the GM1000. Do you think Garrett would bring it back to compete in that space? Is it superior enough to the AT Gold that they would want to repackage under their own name?

I'm pretty happy with my V-SAT but was looking to get a VLF gold machine for my son.

Thanks.

On 5/8/2019 at 1:33 PM, kac said:

I recently purchased these

They are the proper 1.5 volt and lithium batteries. They work well in my Tesoro that tends to chew up batteries fairly quickly. Will see how they hold up. They should not fade in performance as regular Alkalines do.

$20 for 4 is pretty good. Much less than the $80 I paid for my AT Pro lithium pack.

Just checking in on how these are working for you? Just saw a sale for very similar 4 pack at 2300mAh for $15. If they can maintain 1.5v output sounds like a great way to go. Should be a lot better and a lot cheaper than running AA's in the long run. Curious, what sort of time do the TDI SL users get using alkaline AA batteries before the voltage drops significantly? If these don't drop off too quickly should give 4-5 hours (duracell AA are rated at 1050mAh at 0.5A load)

https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/epoch-aa-usb-4pack

Earlier people were looking for a TRX pinpointer. Centerville Electronics has a refurbished one on their used page for $95 with a 6 month warranty. Already have one or I would have jumped on it.

Cheers

Thank you all for your feedback. After my V-SAT and MXT being completely overwhelmed by the quantity of black sand and hot rocks at the site I was working in the foothills earlier this summer I've been looking for a PI detector. I recently got a line on a little used TDI Pro with the standard coil and am looking to see what to add to the arsenal. Jeff, from your comment I guess I missed a great deal, and reading some of phrunt's early posts it sounds like the Joey gave him some great results. Well damn, now to decide where to spend my limited (self) Christmas budget.

Thank you all. Wishing you a Happy Holidays!

Just checked and, Yep, sold out. Snooze ya lose! Hope you all now tell me it wasn't that good . Open to other coil purchase suggestions as well.

On a side note, I have a line on a Razorback 'Piglet' coil, 5x3. Any feedback on that coil would also be appreciated.

Cheers

Thanks GB. I had read all of the HI-Q threads, but really didn't find good feedback on how it performed, mostly speculation, folded, dual field, what makes it HI-Q, would it be available separately? Haven't found a good discussion of the net on performance.

If the Joey is sold out, I would still like to hear feedback from anyone who has used the HI-Q. Seems like Serious Detecting is the only dealer that has it in stock.

Thanks

Looking for advice on a small elliptical coil purchase for a TDI Pro. As someone pointed out in the Classified section Serious Detecting is having a clearance sale. Looking at the Coiltek 10 x 5 Joey Mono, and the Whites 7.5 x 12 TDI HI-Q Dual Field. See lots of good reviews for the Joey, but not much is posted on the HI-Q. I guess that initially the HI-Q was only available as part of a TDI-SL package and some were hoping that it would be available separately in the future. It appears that when it became available on its own that it was possibly misleadingly labeled as for MX series detectors, and I was wondering if that is why you don't find much feedback specifically on that coil.

Any feedback on either or both would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bill 

The classifieds forum is back online and has a few recent postings. There's one for what appears to be an essentially new GM 24K for a very good price. Tempting but unfortunately not in my current budget.

Thought that I would take a stab at this.

From the information supplied by the original poster, uknowhooiyam, my guess is this a bit of gash vein. Gash veins are common in massive limestone/dolostone where fluids migrate down (typically calcite veins) or up (basinal brines or other fluids trapped beneath) when fractures form.

Northeastern Iowa is on the western margin of the “Upper Mississippi” MVT district and has a history of  Lead/Zinc mining and considerable production. Mineralized gash veins are common in the district but are generally small and not of economic interest.

Looking at the first two pictures, the rock appears to have two well developed surfaces which I think are the sides of the vein. In the first picture, on the lower left and to a small degree in the upper right, there is a light yellow/brown material that has what looks to me like slickenside texture which would suggest that there was some movement between the vein and host rock post formation (what appears to be stepping or chevron texture). In the second picture you see some evidence of this, and there are scratches that suggest that the vein gangue is fairly soft.

In the third picture, what would be a cross-section of the vein, there appear to be well rounded pebbles, course/angular fragments of a gray/metallic material, in a granular matrix. The gray/metallic material also appears to form a more competent lower edge to the vein. The rounded pebbles (some look like chert or possible quartzite) and the angular fragments suggest that this was a dynamic system with either fluid flow or fault movement.

The original poster mentioned that in places the rock appears to have a “molten” appearance and I assume that he is referring to be the wavy appearance of the gray material on the right side of picture 1, and the rounded blebs of the gray material in picture 2. He also mentioned magnetic and “paramagnetic” “qualities”. I am assuming that what he meant was that a magnet was attracted to the rock, and that once the magnet was removed the rock itself became slightly or briefly magnetic (Hysteresis?).

OK, sort of a long explanation to back my guess. I think that this is a small gash veinlet from limestone/dolostone that was mined in upper east Iowa where MVT massive lead-zinc deposits occur. Botryoidal or coliform textures (the “molten” appearance) are common for the microcrystalline sphalerite/galena and possibly hematite. I’m guessing that the gray/metallic material is a mixture of those minerals and probably has a fairly high iron content (primarily hematite?) which would explain the magnetic properties. In several places on picture 3 the broken surfaces of the gray material also has a reddish/purple tinge which could support this. The blue/green material in pictures 1 and 2 doesn’t really look like copper staining to me, more like a green clay or glauconite (MVT’s are also generally copper poor). The other somewhat dark lime green that coats the fracture looks to me to be organic.

There is a good chance that all I have written here is BS, that can be the nature of geology (probably why I was fairly good at it), but hey, it’s been fun thinking about it.

Cheers

Bill

Thanks Gold Catcher,

I'm down on the Peninsula. Years ago I used to detect with the Santa Clara club we would have outings to where Niles Canyon intersects Mission Blvd, I guess where is now a historical park. Also further up Niles, on the east side of the canyon just south of where the railroad crosses the road at Palomares. I was told that had been in the 1880's the trail from from Livermore Valley, a dump, a campground, and a Boy Scout Camp. Back then it was a very popular site for bottle diggers. I only found more recent coins (>1940's) but one in our group found several military buttons (why they were there who knows). Any idea if those areas are still open for detecting?

Thanks

Joe,

I really can't comment on the MXT Pro. I have the original MXT with the open Eclipse 950 coil and for me it's been a great machine. I have the 4x6 DD, but honestly don't use it much. Previously I was using a Minelab XS-2 Pro which I think is a great detector but now only use at the beach. I think the XS-2 had better depth, but I've just gotten very used to the MXT. It's pretty accurate in identification and depth and I guess having the screen to look at (even though I think I pretty much rely on tone) makes me more inclined to use it.

Maybe here in my retirement I as I hopefully detect more I'll look to upgrade to a more modern detector but right now I'm very happy with what I have. But, Yes, I do drool at the pictures and stories everyone has with their new detectors and will probably be getting one.

Thanks VL, Joe, and Steve.

Guess the intro may have been a bit over the top. I've had many careers over the years and hoping that the next one is as a Detector/Prospector. The MXT and V-SAT are great machines and have served me well. For the V-SAT I guess I should have put that it 'hasn't seen enough use'. Been hard to get out to detect gold for the last 20 years (work, kids), but when I've made it to the Sierra's with the family it has found me a few nuggets but above 4000' where there is only light to moderate background mineralization. Looking forward to giving it a good workout! Never thought about the MXT as a prospecting tool until reading some of the exploits here. Have a few good finds from the past for my local area I plan to post, but unfortunately areas to detect nearby are growing slim.

Cheers, and glad to be here.

Bill

Been lurking here off and on for quite a while and decided that it was time to join in and introduce myself. Not currently a detector/prospector, but hope to change that.

A bit of my background: 21 years as a geologist with the USGS, about 2/3 summers looking at mines in Alaska, 1/2 in CA, NV, AZ, and WY. When I left the survey in the big purge in ’95 I was working on a project looking at lode mines east of the Mother Lode proper. My work in Alaska was almost exclusively looking at lode gold mines and prospects, and spent quite a bit of time late ‘70s early 80’s south of Anchorage: Girdwood/Crow Pass (my favorite, staying at the Alyska and eating at the Double Musky), Hope/Sunrise, Moose Pass, Port Wells, Port Valdez, down the Kenai, and around PWS and SE Alaska (good story about an almost helicopter crash into the AJ pit, but maybe later). I think part of my lurking here was many of these areas are home for Steve’s exploits, and kicking myself for always staying up on the hillsides and not looking in the creek bottoms. I sure missed out on the gold (the Bureau of Mines guys were dredging the creeks as their part of the assessments, and I know a lot of gold went home in their pockets).

I always thought about taking a metal detector with me, not to look for gold, but to check around all the old cabins and workings, and  in ‘88 I bought my first metal detector, a Gold Mountain King Cobra because it was small and light and I could sneak it into my backpack. Never got to use it up there. My final AK field season was in ’89 sampling and mapping the exposed bedrock from active mining at Valdez Creek. The cheerful 18 yo security guard was more than happy every evening to let us know over beers that he had his scope on us all day just in case we decided to pick up a nugget. Don’t think swinging a detector would have gone over well.

That King Cobra also indirectly contributed to my getting off my butt and joining here. When Reggie posted the pictures of his dad’s collection I thought I saw a Gold Mountain detector among the lot. It was also somewhat ironic that I had earlier this summer been reading a lot of what Reg had written about PI detectors on various blogs and forums over the years. Back in June I did a small consulting job in the Mother Lode at a winery where the grapes are planted in the weathered volcanic cover and the owner was wondering if the volcanics capped any Tertiary channel gravels. Turned out there was a lot of gravels that don’t show on any geologic map I could find, and they had been extensively mined though I couldn’t find any record in Cal State pubs. Since lurking here I decided to take along my two detectors, a MXT (I’m deadly at parks and old houses) and a mid '90s V-Sat that has not seen a lot of use. The ground there was unbelievable. Just setting my magnetic cultivator on the ground would pick up several pounds of hot rocks and coat with black sand. A full screened pan once the weathered volcanic soil and clay was removed would end up almost half full of black sand (and quite a bit of flour gold). Never seen anything like it. Anyway, got me curious whether a PI detector would work better and got me reading a lot of Reg’s posts and discussions here and on other sites. I was very sorry to see the news of his passing here. The detecting community truly lost a hero.

Anyway, recently retired from 12 years sitting on my butt doing research/data analysis in radiation oncology (once a scientist, always a scientist), getting a knee replacement in a few weeks (Steve, I think the first time I blew it out was hiking down from the Nearhouse mine on Palmer Creek with a backpack full of about 80 lbs of samples), and I hope that part of my recovery therapy is walking and swinging. I’ve spent a good deal of time on the other side of interstate 80 from Rye Patch but never visited the Majuba Mtns and reading some of the geology papers reminds me of some areas I worked in the Klamaths. I hope to get out there at some point - soon.

Looking to pick up a PI machine (was tempted by the GPX 5000 listed here, but a bit out of my price range) and pick your brains on how to best use it (just missed on a TDI Pro on Craigslist - damn).

A bit of a more rambling intro than I had planned.

Cheers

Bill