GB_Amateur

I would take Dave's suggestion and do the specific gravity test before deciding on an irreversible (destructive) route. If there's a reasonable amount of gold, you might have a better (that is, more profitable) approach to take than turning this into dust. More info is almost always helpful.

Obviously your long hours and great attitude are producing. Thanks for sharing the pics -- gives us motivation! What detector and settings are you using? Are you mainly honing in on the nickel zone and above Zincoln zones? I see some rings there -- are those silver, TID'ing up with the copper pennies, etc.? I'm one of the nickel hunters, too. I can live with the junk targets (at my sites mostly 'right' sized can slaw and on school yards, pencil ferrules) that show up in the nickel TID region -- just goes with the territory. Oh, and you might take your "work your butt off literally" discovery to the infomercial folks out there in SoCal. 😜

It sounds like what you (and a few others) are experiencing is a caution to all of us -- open up our discrimination (any type, particularly the brain discriminator) from what we've learned previously and recalibrate.

I commend XLOOX for giving objective details of his tests. It seems he is displaying the tradeoff between run time and sensitivity. His Li-ion solution provides an average of 15V (and its associated higher sensitivity) for 2.7 hours of runtime. That is compared to Eneloop Pro NiMH at average 10 V for 6 hr and White's NiMH pack, also average 10 V but 4.5 hr runtime. Users must decide if they want longer run time or higher senstivity. You get both if you carry extra battery packs (==> extra weight and cost). I doubt any of this is new qualitatively, but I appreciate XLOOX for putting quantitative measurements on these concepts.

Is it possible to find (e.g. government archived) LIDAR pics of that area? I don't know how likely it is for vegitation to overgrow tailing piles in that climate, but if such happened I expect LIDAR would reveal them.

Nice workmanship on all your homemade parts. White's should hire you. 😁 Since you need the extra weight to avoid buoancy can you add even more batteries?

You're putting six of these in series? Unless I'm mistaken this would be 6 x 3.7V = 22.2 V nominal, and probably as much as 24 V when fully charged. Pretty sure White's (e.g. Tom B. here on this sight, but also I've read elsewhere) warn about using more than 18V or so when powering the TDI.

I don't think the photo gives enough info, but you likely can find that info yourself. Some questions to ask: 1) Is this a gold producing area? (I assume, based upon the intro, you already know this.) 2) Is this a commercially viable fishing spot? 3) Would the governing wildlife organization even (in 1970's) allow damming a creek to enhance harvesting fish? Would they allow today? If they did in the past would they require the dam be removed when the permit expires. (You could also ask this question if a dam was built for precious metals recovery.) 4) Is the location sufficiently remote (or was it in the 1970's) to require dog sled access and provide secrecy/privacy for the miner in question? There may be some other clues I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to decipher, such as: "If you were going to dam up this creek for gold recovery, is this the right spot for the dam?" GL with your quest!

37 g is worth about $15.50 US just silver content. That's about five of JW's nuggets! 😛

I was wondering what happened to you, Tim. I had visions of much worse fates, such as: just lost interest. 😁 Welcome back! Good luck reading all the threads you've missed.

Welcome, John! You may be a newbie here, but obviously you're a veteran of the endeavor. We'll be glad you learn from your experience.

There are a lot of posts with good information but every once in a while one comes along that is so densely packed that it's worth bookmarking for repeated reading. Steve, you've created another one of those. Thanks!

Really? That seems like one more reason to send it in for repair/replacement. I wouldn't trade my TRX for any pinpointer that I'm aware of, but not because of its depth (which for a coin in the ground is about 2 inch limit for dime or penny; that's in gain 3 out of 4).

So (1/2 penny) * (472.29 modern pounds / ancient pound) * [1 ancient pound/(240 pennies)] = 1 modern pound (approx.) equivalent value?

Always glad to have new blood on the forum, and being from Indiana (N,S,E,W?) is a bonus. 😄 Clearly you are a fast learner. I think that's pretty much true no matter where you are in the US. You always have to find the sites where people have lost coins and where no one else (with skill and a good detector) has searched. Fortunately those private sites are still plentiful -- the key is getting permission and that takes a bit of courage. You seem to have that. Keep is informed as to your progress, and welcome.