phrunt

I've been following the 24k for a while now, especially since the news broke Garrett was going to be releasing it, the Whites version was far too difficult to get my hands on in NZ and when Garrett announced they were going to make it my hopes were high of being able to source one with them having a worldwide network of distributors. One is now on it's way to me and I look forward to it a lot. I think this detector will do very well in my area. I checked yesterday and there was just a back order system in place at Big Boys Hobbies, today that has changed to "in stock" So it looks like US dealers have now started to get stock of them so if you're after one you'd want to get in quick contacting your favourite dealer. https://bigboyshobbies.net/garrett-goldmaster-24k-metal-detector I asked them at Big Boys and they only have very limited stock however so if anyone is wanting one they'd be best to get in quick. It looks like they've been able to release it quicker than expected as I had the impression it was going to be October.

You're doing exceptional Northeast, Thanks for the posts and the photos!

I would not hope for a new model in the next year, the investor reports have proven to be very reliable indicating if there is any releases coming up. I am torn now if they'll even do a new FBS type model, it depends how much further than can push Multi-IQ I guess as I think they've possibly pushed FBS as far as it can go with the CTX so all they could do now if I'm correct is use modern electronics to speed it up a bit perhaps and make it a lighter detector and so on. It seems most people have moved on and now use the Equinox, for coins I went the other way from the Equinox to the CTX as it is very suitable for my hunting area. 🙂 I would assume there is more they can do with multi-IQ seeing it's new.

If you buy on Ebay does it not automatically calculate any duties and so on and you pay them to Ebay? It does for NZ so I know what I'll be paying when I order. And buying direct from Ukraine you'd think would end up cheaper, it certainly does for me as you're buying direct off Nel. There are two sellers on Ebay associated with Nel and if they haven't listed the coil you want you just message them saying which one and they'll put a listing up for you to order it. I've always bought mine off this guy and he's been good. https://www.ebay.com/str/valerius1906nelandcorscoils?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

Thanks for your Apex reports, I've tried not too read too much on it as the more I read the more I end up wanting one but I'm insisting I wait until the AT replacement comes out, I hope they keep the nice big Apex screen on that. I like the photo showing the sort of area you're hunting in, I only wish I could look for coins in a place with such history. Hopefully you get your weird EMI type problem sorted out, it makes no sense unplugging the coil would resolve it, but glad you figured out a workaround.

Here is Codans FY21 shareholder report. https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Presentation_CDA_FY21-full-year-investor-presentation_19.08.2021.pdf A few interesting notes, highest full year sales in the companies history, pretty impressive during a pandemic. Metal Detecting sales growth of 38%, however interestingly the recreational detector growth was 42% which I can guess is attributed to the Vanquish and Equinox. Gold Mining detectors up 37%. Also an increased distribution into big box retailers which seems to be a pattern I'm even seeing here in NZ with hunting and fishing and outdoors stores starting to hold product. A good thing about Minelab pointed out in that report is 30% of employees are engineers and they have 700+ employees so that's a decent amount of engineers. a good sign for the future of their detectors, although there are no indications in the report of any new detectors coming out in the next financial year like there were in the previous report with the GPX 6000 and MF5. Some key images. And now the FY20 Global footprint, you'll see the excellent growth. Although it may not look it overall, the growth in Asia and South America is massive but by far the biggest market is Africa, and we saw the focus there with the 6000 release. You can't blame them. They should have at least put a dollar figure for NZ on the map, my purchases alone should at least deserve a figure there. Come on now! And another key image from the report for us detectorists 🙂 Go the mighty Vanquish, exceeding expectations, with it's performance for the price I'm not surprised. I wonder how long they can hold the position of the Gold Monster being the entry level gold detector of choice, someone is coming biting at their heels for that title soon. So nothing new in the next year likely from Minelab.... It'll be a while yet until we see an Equinox 1000.

My motto is swing what you want to swing. The beauty of metal detecting is you don't know what you missed so you can't be upset by it, it's only when you find out what you've missed you want to upgrade 🙂 The Equinox has proven itself to many now and it's true beauty is it's a real multi purpose detector, one detector that can do so many things and do them well. It isn't the absolute best at them all, but it's not far off it and if you were only going to have one detector to use, it's a very sensible choice.

Nel were meant to be going to release their Simplex coils last week, there must be some delay, it seems delays are the norm in this day and age though with Covid.

I like they've done the Garrett Colour scheme on the Ultimate coils for the Apex. I'm really looking forward to when Garrett releases their AT series replacement with multi frequency, as I'm sure these manufacturers will be quick to make their coils for it too.

Probably just a stock shortage in the USA due to Covid shipping, I'd imagine they sold out quickly. I buy my Nel direct from the Ukraine and they've got them available for sale, and the UK dealers still have plenty of stock. https://regton.com/nel-snake-6-5-x9-5-coil-for-garrett-ace-apex-metal-detectors-gnelaapsk.html They're also obviously still on the Nel official website. http://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/production/nel-snake-9-5x3-5?id=2320 Love that snake coil 🙂 Still plenty of Apex Detech coils on Ebay too Ebay Detech Ultimate 13" For Apex Love that Detech ultimate too 🙂 My two favourite aftermarket coils for VLF's 🙂

Nearby to where I live they created a Large hydro dam, in doing so they flooded a town to do it, this town started as a gold mining town in 1862 and turned into quite a big town by the 1980's when this all started taking place. They moved a few of the buildings up to higher ground to make a heritage precinct to remember the old town and then let the water in to form a lake. A little bit of info on it https://thecuriouskiwi.co.nz/blog/2013/the-town-that-drowned/ This guy made a bit of a youtube documentary out of it, prior to the town being flooded he made it his mission to go and photograph every building in the town center so he'd have a memory of the old town And these guys do a video diving in the lake and show the towns two old bridges underwater, there is still a car on one of the bridges. As the town was flooding people were standing on these bridges watching the water flood the area, some got up to their knees before deciding it was time to leave, they're now deep under water. I don't know why someone left their car on the bridge, maybe they couldn't get it out in time. I can just imagine the metal detector finds you could get in a scenario like that, you can guarantee it was never once detected before it was flooded and I highly doubt it's been detected ever. I guess it just can't be done, there would now be a layer of silt over everything and it'd just be too hard to do. There would be silver coins everywhere, and no doubt some gold sovereigns too, and who knows what else. And for anyone interested this area was quite heavily dredged in the 1800's and right up into the 1990's. This is a little bit of a documentary about it. They did get a lot of gold from this area and it's still where I go beeping today. There is just so many untouched places to use in a detector in NZ, I hear you guys in the US saying everywhere has had a detector over it and it just seems unimaginable here. Tiny little 5 to 20" coils and so much ground to cover, especially when it comes to gold prospecting. But even coin hunting, I doubt I'd be able to cover all the spots where coins could be lost in my lifetime. I guess it helps with a smaller population and far less people swinging beepers. For me it feels like when I go coin hunting, I'm stepping back in time to the USA in the 1960's as not a day would go by where I couldn't go out and find a old silver coin, often many.

Yes, it's fantastic news, I would rather wait for Garrett to release their coils for it. My experience with Garrett manufactured coils so far has been very good, rock solid coils. I would not be surprised if Garrett improve the coils in some way too over the Whites versions. I should be able to run my SAT on low in my milder soils and lock in the ground balance with a decent level of gain and do well with it. I hear with the Garrett stock coil you can really scrub the ground without it being bump sensitive which will be a very welcome change and helpful for getting the tiny bits.

If a manufacturer can ever make a Pulse Induction detector with Target ID's then old coin hunting grounds will come alive, just like PI's going over VLF gold fields made them come alive again. Unfortunately with the level of junk often in coin hunting spots using a detector with no discrimination/target ID just isn't viable as you really can't dig it all or you'd leave a terrible mess. The depth the GPX can get in a typical park scenario on a small silver coin is crazy, and I've experimented with this quite a bit but I just can't use it for that purpose as I'd do too much damage with all the digging. If a Target ID PI detector is ever possible, it will be a game changer for coin hunters. I would also add where I live there are a large number of coin spots that have never seen a detector, I'm abnormally lucky in that regard..

That will be a good range if Garrett brings them to market too which I'm sure they will, it already puts them ahead of the competition for coil range. I really would like Garrett to resume production of the 6" Concentric coil for it though, that'd be a deadly coil here. I will end up buying all of these coils as they're basically every size I'd need, I've done quite well in the past with bigger coils on VLF's finding some deeper bigger nuggets too so that 14" is of particular interest.

Garrett has now come to my assistance and resolved my problem so I'll have a 24k soon, what a great company to deal with. It looks like we'll both be swinging one soon El Nino, I really look forward to giving it a good workout.

Yes, depends what's wrong with the coil, loose windings will make noise mostly only when moving, especially when bumped. EMI typically is the one making noise when holding still especially if you hold the coil up in the air and the noise from EMI generally continues when you move the coil around too. If the coil has been drowned in water it will typically make EMI type noise all the time, still or not. There are no doubt other faults I haven't mentioned that will cause noise too, it's not really possible to give a definitive answer as many things cause the same symptoms. It could even be the ground in the cable is damaged. Coils can get noisy as they age with the foam inside breaking down or adhesives failing and so on, a whole host of reasons and that NF Advantage is a pretty old coil. Sensitivity and depth are very debatable between the 11" DD and 14x9" NF Advantage. The NF will likely give more depth in most situations on bigger targets and sensitivity it's a tough call but you've got the 10x5 for that anyway. You can flick the switch to mono while running the DD and run half the coil and get a bit of a boost for small gold sensitivity on the DD if you're cleaning up a little area. To me it sounds like you feel the Nugget Finder is faulty, and it does sound the case if it's operational noise is vastly different to the Coiltek 10x5 on the same settings. Perhaps someone else might have some more advice for you.

The 11" DD will always be the quietest being a DD coil it will handle EMI much better, and the 10x5" will be quieter and less affected by any EMI than the 14". With the 14" being the larger coil, it's also a larger antenna to pick up any EMI. The GPX 4500 is quite a difficult detector for EMI, very sensitive to it, but out in the middle of nowhere should normally be OK although I can rarely find a place that's completely free of EMI with my 4500, even planes can cause it. Getting the occasional EMI spike or messed up threshold is pretty normal. Even though you've got no cell phone signal your phone will be trying it's butt off to get a signal, that can make it produce worse EMI than if it's got a signal, A reasonable solution to phone EMI is to go into Aeroplane mode, as a test I'd switch the phone off though and see if anything improves, it will certainly help with occasional EMI spikes. Noise when holding still is normal for EMI, noise only when moving the coil is less likely to be EMI. Is the coil still erratic if you turn the gain right down low of something like 4? Also, if you switch it into Cancel is it still noisy? Doing those two things may help diagnose a bad coil as I would expect it would still play up with a lower gain, or possibly in cancel if it was faulty. It's hard to help much more without seeing a video of what it's doing and sounding like but it does sound a fair bit like it might be a bad coil, just make sure it's cable is done up tight.

Yes, I'm firmly of the belief it's the best gold prospecting VLF available, it is loaded with features, designed well and now Garrett has taken the reigns its status as the best prospecting VLF will be realized across the world. White's was more restrictive where they were sold by comparison and Garrett is Worldwide. I envy you a lot El Nino, you're lucky to have access to one! 🙂 I look forward to hearing how you go with it. Garrett also has no problems with aftermarket coil manufacturers making coils for their detectors so in the near future I'm sure there will be a large range of coils for it from the aftermarket companies too and that will really put it a long way ahead of the competition.

Yea, I'm just glad I got any, this spot prior to getting a GPZ was my nemesis, I'd only ever found a couple of nugget there in a year or so of regular detecting with my previous detectors. The extra depth the GPZ can achieve on these smaller bits can bring old ground to life, and obviously some bits are just raw hard work digging through the abundance of shotgun pellets 🙂

I've seen my understanding of the scrape and detect method in play many times with JW, he finds a nugget, then spends a few hours scraping away getting more and more, he had a turn on a patch I found and did exactly that as he didn't want to start taking over my patch he stayed in one spot and just kept scraping down layers and getting more and more gold, albeit very fine gold so he was using the GM1000 but the gold just kept coming and he was having a good time, I'm sure he got 60 or more pieces from this very small area. It was quite impressive to see. I did similar on my first ever patch, it was in the bottom of a old timer dug out sluiced area and I found one reasonably sized nugget, so I just figured there had to be more so I kept digging out the area and more and more popped up, it eventuated with me getting my biggest ever nugget which was 4.2 grams, very respectable size for NZ. I went back the next day with a shovel instead of a pick and I probably got around 20 to 30 nuggets in an area that on the surface only had one detectable nugget. In saying all of that I probably need to use this method more often as I've only done it a couple of times, perhaps I'm a slow learner 🙂

Well, I asked if they're going to bring any in as I wanted to buy one, the expected response I would have thought is we could put one in with our next order for you but the response above is what I got. My option is to buy overseas and forfeit any warranty as shipping back to the US for a warranty claim is just not viable with shipping costs so high and import duties and so on. Their reasoning is likely they think it won't sell well in our market with not enough prospectors looking for gold with detectors I guess where as coin and jewellery detecting being more popular so they bring in those models. Buying from USA means I'll end up paying hugely over the market price for one, many hundreds more than if I was able to buy one locally and I'd have no warranty. It's a tough situation to be in and why it's just easier to buy other brands. Disappointing as I'd love to have a Garrett 24k. I could go buy an Ace, AT series, Pro Pointer or Apex right now though, and as you can see I have, I have two Aces and an AT Gold and three Pro Pointer's 🙂 The models that they think will sell are accessible so I can't really blame the dealer. The downside of being in a small market, I go through this all the time with some brands, the only really easily accessible ones are Minelab and Nokta.

It's remarkable how much Alaska looks like New Zealand, thanks for putting the photos up.

I've bounced between 2.77 and 2.78 a lot since getting my Simplex a few weeks ago trying to establish which firmware I'd want to leave on it, my 2.77 seems to work fine after the downgrade flash and I can do a factory reset no problems. If you can't get the rom I'd be able to give you my copy.

Sadly, Garrett NZ has no plans to bring them in by the looks of it...... back to the drawing board. Hi Simon, Thanks for your email, We do not currently have any of these new units on order, We may bring them in at a later date, but this may be into next year, Thanks for your time

I haven't done a story on a gold find for a while, partly because once you find a patch with a bunch of nuggets everything else seems pretty insignificant, a couple of months ago I did just that, it's only my second patch but had quite a number of nuggets, I'd guess at least 40 (Correction: at least 80 nuggets) and over 30 grams in total. I lost count of both the nuggets and the grams we got out of it in the end. I did take a couple of videos on the first and second day of it, after that I stopped filming and just worried about detecting as filming videos is very time consuming and wastes valuable detecting time 🙂 That patch has been the highlight of my detecting time and hopefully I can find another in the future, I'll put links to the videos for anyone that wants to watch them and hasn't seen them already. https://youtu.be/qs-e8HO7xdU https://youtu.be/tppU5XZe77o Now to the more recent adventure, one of the most common gold spots I've been to is being developed, very soon it will no longer exist, already a large area of it has disappeared over the past few months with more to go yet, seeing it's probably the closest gold spot to home and one I've found a reasonable amount of gold before so it will be missed greatly. It's obviously getting extremely hard to find gold there as it's not a huge area really and it's been done a lot over the years by a number of people being an obvious spot to look. My focus on this day was to take advantage of how well the GPZ and Concentric coil handles EMI to hunt almost exclusive in and around the power lines where people including myself with previous setups were unable to really detect very well, especially with my GPX 4500, it was terrible near the power lines, and what inspired me to try out a QED which ended up working quite well under the power lines but just didn't have the power of the GPZ. I didn't take all that many photos as my aim was to get some video, I always struggle to get gold finds on video as I just use my phone to film and I have to put it down to do the recovery 🙂 I have a GoPro but just haven't bothered to use it yet. I went to some bedrock and worked my way up digging every signal and recording and deleting all the recordings as they were turning out to be shotgun pellets, this is entirely normal in this area as it has a big rabbit plague and shooters love spreading their pellets around all over the place for me to dig back up again. Here is a video of the first gold find, a .109 of a gram nugget, I was pretty happy with that to start the day as often at this location I go home empty handed. I didn't get the entire thing on video and I had my detector in difficult from when I was messing around the other day doing some testing and didn't check my settings, I'd never normally use difficult in my soil as Normal works just fine. Fortunately it didn't prevent me finding the gold, or the numerous pellets before it Once I'd finished that bedrock area I walked up under the power lines to detect hoping I'd find something others couldn't get, I took a little video there of how the detector was working under the lines, I really love how well the GPZ handles power lines seeing they're in many of my gold areas. You'll also notice at the end of the video the millions of bits of rabbit poo on the ground, this is the reason for the shotgun pellets everywhere. You'll notice in the video I discover I'm in difficult and seem a bit surprised, this is when I worked out I may have wasted the past hour detecting in difficult and it went through my head now I'll have to go check that bedrock again 😛 I was quite happy at that point I took the video or I may not have noticed for the rest of the day. I started detecting along under the power lines and ended up in a little area I don't think I've been into before, I'm terrible with directions and locations so it's quite possible I have been there before and don't remember it but it didn't look familiar, I was still recording every target dig to try get a gold find on video and managed to do it, I think this might be my first time ever getting one from start to finish on video, quite happy with that. And a couple of photos of it. And my lucky last nugget of the day if you could call it that was a 0.038 of a gram nugget, very shallow on some bedrock, it took me about 20 minutes to recover this one, but I only got a portion of it on video, I kept moving it around but couldn't pick it up, I had no idea where it was in the cleared area, I was wishing I had a VLF with me with tiny coil to narrow it down. I'd imagine there are quite a lot of these little guys around it's just the amount of pellets you'd have to dig to find them would be crazy. I do it more for the challenge but the novelty wears off after digging a massive amount of pellets and not finding any nuggets and if you ignore the pellets you'll miss these little bits of gold. So here are the 3 little bits for the day and the weights All a bit of good fun, I really enjoy chasing these little bits especially after the first one pops up to get you into gear looking for more. I can't compete with the photos lately out of Alaska for gold though, I'm just glad I can do the hobby near home and find a few bits to keep me happy. Here is a little tour video of where I was detecting. Keep in mind to run these coils you need to have an adapter and that involves cutting the end off your existing GPZ coil and making an adapter out of it, it should only ever be taken on by someone very skilled at electronics or really the best thing to do is get a professional to make the adapter for you to avoid any problems.