GB_Amateur

Ok, but where are they (to click)? I do see a 'forum info' tag under the title of this thread, but I assume there is either another place on this page I can find them ("hiding in plain sight") or a pathway to a page that has them.

Depends a lot upon the shielding material used (aluminum is more transparent than copper) and the energy of the X-rays (higher energy being less absorbed, in general). @strick has done X-ray imaging of other coils. Do their cables show shielding? I think braid is plated/coated copper (or sometimes just raw Cu with no surface treatement), but far from sure.

Does it start at 30:45? Have you done that bungee jump (or is it only for TV stars)? 😜

That's about 4 coins every 3 minutes and I'm not counting the non-coin finds. Were most of these singles? Impressive recovery speed (the human kind 😏) in my book. And nice gold chain!

We're also only a month away from England's Detectival gathering. That has been used in the past by manufacturers to 'tease' the attendees with soon-to-be-released products. I am (as are many others) hoping for some excitement to be revealed then. Is it too much to hope that multiple vendors will participate in that curtain lifting exercise? (I live too far away to affordably attend, but I'm counting on some of you to tell us about it. And of course there will be plenty of other online reports, including YouTube videos. Oops, those are taking a beating here lately.... )

We may be getting "too deep into the weeds" or discussing something that is less important than much that has been written in other posts. At the risk of this... Plowing through limited data too many times leads to a well-known machine learning flaw known as 'overfitting'. The resulting model does well if you give it one of the events from the training sample, but if that training set doesn't cover the space of existing conditions very well it can be way off while give the misleading impression it's accurate.

Doesn't the GPZ7000 do something like this (using its built-in GPS)? Do people really want to be told the reason they found a good target with a brand new detector in a site they had previously detected was due to never having gotten the previous coil(+detector) over it in the first place? 😏

Unfortunately some don't even use natural intelligence. 😎 This paragraph seems to contradict itself. "...Not a huge amount of training data is needed." Then the next sentence: "...over millions of iterations it starts to learn." (emphasis mine) I undetstand in machine learning that if a lot of data has already been 'mined' (no pun intended, but it's a good one here 😁) and properly formatted, letting a computer learn from those data can be relatively quick. But what you are describing doesn't sound like data that can be quickly nor easily collected. One thing that even regulars here sometimes overlook is that the customer base for metal detectors can't be compared with many consumer products (such as cellphones). What might be obvious R&D funding expenditures for products in high demand can be prohibitive in limited product markets.

Excellent points.

Was that tongue-in-cheek? (If so you forgot the smiley face. 😄) It's been a fun learning experience with the Tesoro Vaquero but I think I'm better off spending my time with a detector more familiar to me -- the ML Eqx 800. When I was in Denver at the beginning of the trip, Jeff McClendon made a comment that really stuck with me. (I'm paraphrasing.) He said the new IB kids on the block (XP Deus2 and Nokta/Makro Legend) have improved his detecting with the Equinox -- specifically in regards to listening more carefully to the tones. That's what the Vaquero has done for me, so it's been worth the lesson.

Welcome, Don! Good to have you here and glad to see you're getting back into detecting. Like riding a bicycle, it won't take long and you'll be as good as ever.

How do you clean them (and don't tell me this is how they are found -- if so I'm moving to Australia 😏)?

Hmmm. I don't like to hear that. I assume you don't mean the screen is getting weak but rather the software (??!!) isn't coming through and you get the '--' instead? Another related thread from mid-June was just resurrected by a fresh post and I almost quoted you from that saying something about the only Eqx coil(s) suffering the tab breakage problem.... If it's a plastic resin issue (leading to plastic fatigue with time), I'm surprised that Coiltek got infected with that bug, too. I still think the most likley culprit is the (in)tolerance between ear separation and shaft attach point width, particularly as the rubber washers wear. Coiltek sends a new screw+nut (which is quite long) with their coils so it's not because they want to conform to ML's fastener that led them to duplicate the thin coil ears. Like you, Simon, I don't know why they would skimp there, especially after all the reports of the ML Eqx coil ear problems. OK, how about some quantities to mull over? I measured the ear thicknesses using a caliper, keeping the caliper 'arms' vertical when the coil was flat on the table and measuring when the tips of the caliper arms were coincident with the coil ear hole center. (Note: plastic isn't uniformly thick from top edge to hole center so I'm getting the max value of that thickness over this edge-->center distance.) I estimate the measurement uncertainty as +/- 0.1 mm. Coitek 5"x10": 2.6 mm; Minelab 6": 2.7 mm; Minelab 11": 3.0 mm; Minelab 12"x15": 3.7 mm. (A couple things worth noting: my ML 11" coil ears may be thinner than factory condition due to wear; the Coiltek isn't simply a flat tab but has a 'bend' at front edge and back edge.) Maybe a bit more on topic 😁: Like Steve, I just got mine a couple weeks ago from Rob. I've used it twice on a site I've hunted previously, basically as test runs of this new coil. I haven't noticed a difference (better/worse) using it compared to the 11". But that is based upon only 5-6 hours of use. In theory there should be several differences (and others have reported those from their experiences), but for the site I was hunting I didn't notice anything obvious. I'm leaving it on for now -- certainly a good coil.

Regarding your last photo, Geof, if it weren't for the sparse scraggly vegetation I would have figured this was a photo from the Mars Rover. (And Mars might have more water, too.)

He can (and usually does 😏) speak for himself. But here's a personal experience which might explain at least part of his preference: In the Spring I was prepping for my trip West with the Tesoro Vaquero and 6" coil. I went to a well hunted (by me and others) park to train my ear, sweep speed, etc. I was in front of what looks like a wishing well but was actually an drinking fountain built in the 1930's by a Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) crew. If you think about it, who with a detector that noticed this landmark would ever not think about searching around it. (Well, maybe if you figured it had been beaten to death.) I'm sure I'd been there at least twice with the Minelab Equinox and 11" coil. The Vaquero pulled out two shallow Wheat pennies among rather thick (but not as bad as out West) trash. Monte's Nail Board Perforance Test aparatus, as many know, was simply a copy of a real life situation he encounted -- surface Indian Head penny among several surface nails. That setup seems to be where the Tesoros are king, particularly his favorite Tesoro models. No detector is best in every situation and Monte knows that. But in this modern day of digital detectors he apparently feels he's one of the few who still speaks for the analogs and their concentric coils. I count myself among those who respect him for that.

Got some time today so I'll finish up the trip report. A long drive (for me -- ~700 miles) back to the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, getting to camp (my sister and partner had set up) before dark. And a nice change in weather.... Altitude is such a big factor. The previous week in NE Nevada, on Friday it was 100 F (38 C) less than an hour's drive East (in Wendover, at 4300 ft = 1.3 km altitude) from where I was camping and detecting yet I don't think it reached 90 F (32 C) at 5600 ft (1.7 km, first campsite) - 5900 ft (1.8 km, second campsite where I was on Friday). Breeze/wind was appreciated, too. In Colorado we were camped at 10,600 ft (3.23 km) and the improvement was quite noticeable -- warm (not hot) all day in the thin atmosphere sun, at Summer Solstice, but two nights got down below freezing. Fortunately in my vehicle (in a sleeping bag) I was toasty warm. On Monday I headed for the nearest National Forest office only to find it closed for the day. (Why??) Not giving up, I found the local library but they didn't have the old maps I was hoping to view but they sent me to someone who did, at the local history center. That person was off for the day, too. 😞 Given the price of gas at the time I didn't really want to make a second trip so I winged it from there. Before leaving home I had done the obvious internet searching (including at HistoricAerials.com) plus between my sister and me we had three books on Colorado ghost towns which included the one we were looking for. But..., OK, I won't go into my usual long-winded experience other than to say such easy searching isn't really what it takes most times (including this time). I spent the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday on foot trying to find some obvious marker (old foundations would be nice). One of the books had a photo from the 1860's with enough visual info (background mountains) to be my main source/hope. That book also had geo-coordinates, but I think those were determined by interpolation on a USGS map and weren't particularly accurate. To make matters worse, not having the NF info (thanks again, closed office) I was unsure where the public lands turned private. There were sporadic fences and "Keep Out!" signs but even my limited amount of hoofing out West has taught me some people are loose with the rules and there usually aren't sufficient federal employees to keep them in line. "Keep Out" isn't the same as "Private", and furthermore, where are the frigging boundaries??!! I found a couple cabins but they were unoccupied, likely only used a few days per year for hunting, etc., so no one to ask permission (if it was even their right to give it). About 50 meters from the book's geo coordinates was an old foundation which I'm almost certain was from the original town but it was very close to a cabin and was being used by the property owners as a storage spot. I just had to trust that it was off limits. By late Tuesday afternoon I was 90% sure I had located at least part of the town, and on an open meadow which wasn't fenced off nor held any signage. Without info to the contrary, and not wanting to head home (1200 miles) without trying, I decided to detect there the following morning. I don't know if it was good or bad that where I would be detecting was easily seen from a fairly busy county road, but so be it. BTW, I did find two claim markers that (if I interpreted them correctly) included the area I was detecting, so collecting minerals, etc. was not going to be part of my actions. Tuesday morning I hiked the 3/8 mile from camp to the meadow. I was pleased to find a surface food can with a bottom center plug/seal, indicating a 19th Century origin. I used the detector (ML Equinox w/6" coil) to search for trashy iron signals while occasionally clearing off surface iron (cans in particular) with my magnetic walking stick. Less than a half hour in I got the more/less frequent hits I was looking for, confirmed by digging some square nails. This wasn't a guarantee I found the town (which was abandoned prior to 1870). As with the NW Nevada mining area, just because the town was dead didn't mean the mining stopped. I had found some hardrock mines nearby (original town was founded due to placer mining) which, although inactive, had deteriorating structures with round cross section nails (interpretation 20th C. activity). BTW, I had forgotten my handheld pinpointers so recovery was using the ancient method, slowing me down considerably. But in the next hour I recovered what I think is a miner's tag -- more on that later. Wanting that pinpointer I headed back for an early lunch, crossing paths with my sister with her White's MXT heading to the hoped to be garden spot (which I indicated the place I thought she should hunt). When I got back she hadn't found anything other than trash. I got busy and within 30 minutes a high teens signal, strong and sweet enough sounding, led to the best coin find of the entire trip. A dark disk the size of a small cent got me interested, and a bit of water spritz revealed the prize -- I could see an Eagle quite clearly! Besides a bucket-list find, I felt vindicated that I had indeed found part of the original town. (Justification for that feeling is explained later in this post.) Despite this quick find, I never recovered another coin in 3 more hours on Wednesday nor another hour on Thursday nor did my sister. Lucky find? IMO the evidence is pointing to 'yes'. After one unsuccessful hour on Thursday morning back at the site of the Flying Eagle cent find, I decided to spend the remainder of the morning at a fallen miner's cabin on a (clearly marked) NF road before heading out a bit after noon. When my sister and I had happened upon the remains of this cabin earlier in the week I only noticed round cross section nails so I figured it was depression era construction, but after beginning my search this morning I started seeing square nails. Clearly someone had 'repurposed' a 19th Century dwelling -- a not uncommon practice in gold producing areas of the USA West. Unfortunately I was unable to recover any goodies in ~1.5 hours of searching. As typical, the sheet metal trash was plentiful and distracting. Here are the unexciting targets: Note the dominance of square nails over round. That thing on the far right is an open ended cylinder (pipe?). The tuning fork looking item on the third row center is non-ferrous copper alloy, but soft/bendable. Any guesses as to its use? The tag at center of top row wasn't at the ghost town site but rather at what appeared to be a modern (post WWII) horse riders' camp. If you've been hanging on for the past week, here finally are shown what I consider the best finds of the trip (front and back sides): The finds are arranged by site: left three are from the 1900's NE Nevada railroad town, middle five are from the 1860's NE Nevada railroad town, and right two are from the 1860's Colorado mining town. Here is what I (think I) know about them, from top to bottom and left to right: 1) cheapo ring has some gold plating and a glass or plastic 'stone'. 2) I think this decorative clip is from a woman's clothing, possibly for stockings, but it also could be from a man's suspenders. It must have been meant to be viewed. It has a 1907 patent date on the reverse. 3) This brass button has the stylized initials "P D Co", I assume a clothing manufacturer. 4) Saloon (/bar/tavern) token with generic obverse "Good for 5 (cent-sign) in trade" and identifying reverse "Sweeny and Worley - 320 K - Sacramento Cal" (I've taken the liberty to change case on most letters). 320 K is a street address, still in existence but the building is long gone. A friend with Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com memberships helped me narrow this down. Best evidence is a newspaper blip about Sweeny and Worley opening a tavern and restaurant at this address in 1901. By 1904 Sweeny's name is still on the property (with now a hotel on the 2nd floor) but without Worley. 5) 1880 Indian Head cent. 6) strange iron piece for which I have no idea its purpose. Identification help with this (and any other items) is appreciated. 7) Eagle cuff(?) button. I haven't been able to discern the lettering on the reverse but very likely this was lost during the Indian Wars (and skirmishes) of the second half of the 19th Century. It may have its origins earlier (e.g. Civil War) as I think professional soldiers often kept their uniforms as long as they were still wearable. 8 ) Badly worn (dateless) shield nickel. This series was minted 1866-83. There are chemicals (e.g. ferric chloride) that can produce a ghost date sometimes -- I haven't tried that yet. 9) Miner's tag? I know at some mines, when a miner was going underground, he would take a numbered tag off a hook on the wall and record in the logbook the tag number next to his name. Possibly this is what this item was used for. 10) Saved the best, or at least my favorite, for last. 😃 The condition when lost appears to be Very Fine, but unfortunately the ground/soil has deteriorated the date a bit, particularly the most important right hand digit. However, there was a small letter variety (obverse) which was only found on 1858 cents and mine exhibits that. (I can see the top of the last digit so it's not an 1857, consistent with the small lettering evidence.) Not only was this FE cent a bucket lister, but I think it vindicates me in claiming I found the original townsite. Consider the following excerpt from Richard Snow's book (p. 65): Although scarcer today than the 1857 cents, these (1858 dated coins) were distributed much more widely and are found more often in lower grades. At the time of the Civil War coinage shortage (from the summer of 1862 to early 1863) these were largely removed from circulation, only to reappear after the war. Any high-grade examples were probably held back from circulation at this time. By the time of coinage redemption of the 1870's most were called in and melted. The remaining pieces are either very worn or in very high grade. Problem-free EF and AU coins are very scarce. (emphasis mine) Thus the time window for circulation of Flying Eagle Cents was limited to their mintage dates through the first half of the 1870's decade. Add the fact that mine is in moderately high condition and my contention that it was dropped during this ghost town's occupation (pre-1866) is supported. Note that this Snow quote confirms why many coin detectorists have had trouble finding this elusive issue. The End, and I hope this exposure of the best finds was worth the wait.

Given that Carl ( @Geotech ) was a major player in its development (and still employed by First Texas) I think he's the one you want an answer from.

There's a difference and usually one can tell by the details/wording of responses. There's a distinction between admitting one doesn't notice a difference but accepting that others might compared to saying "I don't hear it so it doesn't exist." Those latter people are the one's I referred to. I don't know if your golf analogy was in reference to mine or independent of it (and both make sense). I sometimes avoid golf analogies as they often only make sense to someone who has actually played the game. My comparison (for which I found data) has to do with the speed of the putter on a 10 foot long putt -- clearly different than a full swing. I'm pretty sure my typical detector swing is faster than many people use. That may be the biggest reason I've noticed it. But, no, my golf swing (as pitiful as it is) is much faster.

On to the oldest ghost towns for my last two stops+reports. At Elko (county seat) on my way to NW Nevada earlier on this trip I stopped at the library to 'research' the ghost towns I was (potentially) going to be visiting later in June. One book in particular showed the locations of over 100 ghost towns in Elko County alone, and I suspect it only indicated the best known ones. Monte's recent WTHO's -- last year's and current expedition, cover five of those but four were founded in the early 20th Century. The other actually began during the quest to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean via railroad (task completed in 1869). As typical, this town quickly reached its max poplulation and slowly declined, remaining a key stopping point for 35-40 years until a nearby camp/town replaced it (and that one was also among the 5 sites detected by others on this expedition). In my case I have a lot of sites near home with coins that go back to the Barber coin days but not many accessible places with Seated coins -- at least that's been my experience so far. So these last two locations (this one in NE Nevada and the one in the Colorado Rockies I'll finish the thread with) gave me hope for those elusive oldies. I spent the rest of my trip camping out and detecting these two. A word about my detector choices this trip. Monte is an outspoken proponent of simple, beep and dig detecting which has for him proven successful for well over 50 years, particularly in ghost towns. I decided this trip to give that method a serious chance so for all but my last 1.5 days in NE Nevada I went almost exclusively with the Tesoro Vaquero and 6" concentric. I was at this old ghost town 3.5 days so the first two were mostly with that combo. The problem for me (maybe not for others with a better ear) is that I could not distinguish scraps of sheet metal (aka 'tin') from good sounding non-ferrous targets, and this 1860s town was absolutely loaded with it. My magnetic rake methods that I had used previously didn't solve the problem because there was still way too much of that evil trash buried an inch or two down -- not clearable with magnets. I had the Fisher F75 as a backup but being able to see digital Target IDs (dTID's) using that detector didn't help -- the sheet metal still masqueraded as good targets and it was way too plentiful. Instead of pulling coins out of the ground, I ended up spending those first two days pulling my hair out of my head. 🤯 Oregon Gregg (occasional poster here) is a protege of Monte's and he's been super helpful giving me advice over these two hunts. (He uses a Nokta/Makro Fors CoRe and 6" DD coil quite successfuly in this environment). He mentioned that Monte had been getting attendees to try their skill with their favorite detectors on his Nail Board Performance Test and that Utah Mike (don't know if he posts here) had done well with the ML Equinox and 6" DD, to the surprise of some hardcore old-timers. I decided to revert to that combo for the last 1.5 days. The difference for me is that with my >1000 hours of experience with this detector (mostly with the 11" DD) my ear was better tuned to the audio subtlties and I could much better discern and ignore the pesky sheet metal scraps. I ran in 2 tones (no dTID threshold discrimination), recovery speed 4, iron bias F2=4 or 6 gain 15-17. I dug everything with dTID > 6 to make sure not to eliminate nickel 3 cent pieces (typically 7-8 in my air tests). As you'll see in photos I not surprisingly dug a lot of lead bullets using this mental threshold criterion. This site has a lot of area to hunt and some parts have more trash than others. These included a Chinese campsite (one of the less trashy) which is easily recognized from shards of pottery -- again, the trash being a good indicator of its history. Some detectorists (including at least one on this trip) have found Chinese coins here. Late Friday morning on my way back to camp for lunch I decided to take an easy walk along a railroad company vehicle road which Gregg told me few people ever seem to think of detecting. I got a decent low ~20 dTID (zinc penny range) surface hit which I could see was a small (cuff?) button with an Eagle. As usual I initially assumed it was some kind of modern reproduction from a railroad worker's coat. I returned to the Chinese camp after lunch and eventually (after many lead bullet recoveries) in a cinder ('coke') pile I got another shallow low 20's hit which immediately revealed itself as a scalloped edge thin disk with "good for 5" clearly showing amongst its dark patina. I was pretty sure that wasn't any reproduction, but how old? Saturday morning (my last half day) I was awakened at 7 AM by Gregg and his two young and rambunctious (but friendly) dogs. I showed him the token and he got excited, he being particularly fond of old tokens. I decided to spend my last 3 1/2 hours near the foundation of the old hotel which has been hammered by about everyone who comes to detect this site. A few coins had already been found here on this hunt so why not me? Using the Equinox I was digging quite a few nails and an occasional small sheet metal chip and then got a clean sounding high-teens hit. About an inch down out pops a familiar sized disk which turned out, with a little spritz of water (quickly dried), to be an 1880's Indian Head. Finally an old coin! I kept going and after many more junk recoveries, got a clean low teens signal and once again recognized the size -- nickel 5 cent piece, but with almost no discernable details. (Turned out to be an extremely worn shield nickel with no distiguishable date.) In less than 2 hours I found the only two coins of my week in NE Nevada, and in the last 3 hours of the entire expedition. "Slow, short amplitude swings" Gregg had recommended to me more than once, and it paid off. First photo are 'finds' (including junk) with the Vaquero. I've left out the rusty sheet metal as it was too psychologically painful to bring home. Note that the nails are square. I think the metal lid with punctured holes (upper left) was a poor (China)man's homemade shaker top. The spoon-like implement is completely flat (no bowl) and doesn't appear to have been flattened from a bowl. I'm confused as to what its purpose was, if in fact I've interpreted it properly. The animal shoe is interesting to me as its shape is not what I'm accustomed to seeing. Note the two embedded nais, and a couple other shoe nails above it (but not from the same hole). Here are the trash from the last 1.5 days when I used the Equinox + 6"DD exclusively: Interestingly more (lead) bullets than casings -- maybe they were shooting from the train? The coins aren't shown (that will come in the last post) and one of those round items upper left fooled me as it gave a strong, clear 31-32 and I was hoping for a silver quarter.... Turned out to be some kind of brass knob. I've separated the square nails from the modern round cross-sectioned kind. A couple of the buttons were surface, non-metallic finds and my (seamstress) wife identified them as made from seashells, apparently a common practice in the days prior to plastic. (I'll finish up this report with one more post, and that one will include decent resolution photos of the best finds.)

You aren't the only one as I've been saying it since day 1 that I owned the Minelab Equinox (March 2018). I was going to get a friend with a fast camera to help me quantify how latency is impacted by swing speed. I also looked into golf putterhead speeds for different length putts and how that parallels coil swing speed. Baseball (maybe cricket, too?) is another analogy where 'logic' says there's no way a batter can react quickly enough and yet it happens, by the most skillful, of course. How many people would appreciate such a study? It seems in this day-and-age ego and stubborness receive too much credibility over measurable evidence.... I assume the Axiom is (err, will be) just like Garrett's other detectors with that proprietary Z-lynk solution. You can use their headphones (so no wires) or combine the receiver module with your own favorites. If you're willing to put up with an extra component (the Z-lynk receiver unit) you get all those options Steve was referring to while not be tethered to the detector.

Add my name to that list, because I didn't notice it. Was it on the northside of the road? I spent most of my time there (just a couple hours) on the southside. Your observations make me want to go back....

On to NE Nevada. Monte Berry (yes, the guy who created the Nail Board Performance Test) has been hosting a group hunt of ghost towns for a few years. I've been on the last two -- June 2021 and now June 2022 -- this latter one I'm covering in this thread. BTW, he's having another this year, basecamp in Wells, NV, during Labor Day week (early September). I relay you to his website which includes an active forum, if you are interested. In this thread I have been and will continue to take a conservative action in reporting some details of these hunts. In some cases I don't feel it is my place to reveal information which may be sensitive (e.g. locations) and which were reported or shown to me by others, in some cases in confidence. So I will be a bit secretive in naming the ghost towns I visited on this trip. I arrived in Wells (on I-80 about an hour's drive west the Utah border and about the same distance south of the Idaho border. I began my week (spending 1.5 days detecting there) at a ghost town south of Wells which was a railroad town established in first decade of 1900's. Like many western ghost towns, it hit its peak population in about 5 years and either slowly or quickly declined from there. This one still had a train station and maybe a couple homes during WWII, but I don't think much longer. Another thing western ghost towns have in common is trash, metal (mostly iron trash), and lots of it. Food and other items, stored in cans, became popular late in the 19th century and without modern trash removal services, they ended up tossed out back of buildings, at best. Plus any time a building was erected and especially when it came down, nails, sheet metal, etc. was typically strewn nearby. There is also lots of (now broken 😞) glass and pottery. All of this trash gives clues as to the age of the settlement. I took a non-standard (but certainly non-unique) approach. Inital step was to clear out the large iron -- mostly rusted cans -- using a super magnet attached to the end of a walking stick. I have a rake which has two functions -- standard mechanical removal of surface debris (metal or otherwise) -- and with an internal series of magnets it will pick up small to medium size surface iron, especially nails. Over these 1.5 days I cleared three areas (approximate sizes 10 square meters) before breaking out a detector. The first two I spent about 2.5 hours each clearing debris and the last about 1-1.5 hours. Detecting time was about equal to the sweeping time over each patch. On the first patch (which was smallest of the three), with the help of two detectors, I chose to clear out every piece of detectable metal. So after 'sweeping' with the rake I covered the area detecting with the Tesoro Vaquero and 6" concentric, graduated to that detector with the 8"x9" concentric, and finished with the Minelab Equinox and 11" DD. This was as much an educational experience as it was search for goodies, and a good thing because I found nothing I consider valuable. 😁 The Equinox detected less than a dozen items, all deeper iron. For the other two patches I searched, I only swept and then detected (with the Tesoro and 6" coil), leaving the non-surface trash in the ground. For the most part I didn't keep the raked trash although some of the nails in the photo were among that. Another iron trash not shown were a dozen ladies' bobby pins. (Was I searching next to a brothel?) Pretty typical trash found at these sites. Note the nails are modern round cross-section type -- a fair indicator of site age or at least a threshold date. Many of the 22 casings (chrome plated ones in particular) are likely recent drops, but not all. I'll show the decorative stocking clasp (next to the small buckle in middle right) in the 'goodies' photo in an upcoming post. (Yes, sometimes the finds are so sparse that we stretch the definition of 'goodie'. ) At the very center top edge of the photo is a broken container which seemed interesting. It's frosted glass, embossed C. de Koning Tilly, and is some kind of medicine bottle. The internet is ripe with unverifiable claims (IMO) on this, especially the auction listings. The original Dutch company can be traced back to late 17th Century when some kind of magic elixir(?) -- haarlem oil -- was distributed. Clearly something was still being marketed with that founder's name in the first half of the 20th Century, but exactly what and by whom?? (End of another long winded post, with more to come)

This is the second installment of about four in this thread. Most of this first part (not counting intro and couple days in Denver) was spent searching for native gold. This isn't the optimal sub-forum for that but as you'll see, this experience probably doesn't qualify for a post on the main forum (where gold electronic prospecting posts are most appropriate). As mentioned, I spent 4.5 days in NW Nevada, the first 2.5 with Steve and Steve, about a day on my own, and the last day with Andy. The altitude for the area we were hunting is around 4.0 to 4.5 kft (1.2 to 1.4 km), is rather flat, and all dry desert with scrufty vegetation interspersed with bare ground. The temps were in the high 80's (low 30's C) during the afternoon and dropped into the low 50's (low teens C.) before dawn. There tends to be a breeze/wind all day long which helps with evaporative cooling, but the day I spent mostly alone was the exception -- quite still and uncomfortable. Given we were there a handful of days before summer solstice the sunlight was pretty direct midday meaning nowhere to hide from it during the hottest time of the day (6-8 hours worth). I drank 7 1/2 gallons of water in the 4 1/2 days I was there. I'm far from an expert on the geology, but basically the gold is aeolian, exposed by wind, not water, and its primary source has been gone for a million+(?) years. It's often on the hillsides, can be in the gullys but not so concentrated there as in locations with more rainfall. (It would be a lucky year to get 10 inches of precip, even pre-climate-change.) I would make a WAG that 90% of the nuggets I've seen come from this area are less than 0.1 g size. (Others could give better estimates, and I haven't seen that many which makes my estimate have a large uncertainty.) To understand historically gold recovery in the NW Nevada area, ignoring very early mining (possibly by natives and possibly a bit by the Spanish), think 1.5 centuries from a bit after the California Gold Rush to present. Gold mining activity in general has wild swings which track the gold price. There have been spikes in the early 1930's continuing to WWII, late 70's for about a decade, early 2000's and then in the last few years. Thus when you are in these areas you will often find (a few) coins, a moderate amount of relics, and a lot of trash which has its origins in those time windows, and often multiple age indicators in the same spot. Another thing which has majorly impacted artisinal/hobby gold recovery is the evolution of detectors. Prior to the 60's one had to use gravity recovery. When metal detectors (induction balance or 'IB' designs as well as BFO's) became light enough and inexpensive enough, at first they could only find the large pieces (which, of course, are at the extreme rarest in occurrence) and only in low mineralized areas. When ground balancing VLF's (special case of IB) were introduced in the mid-70s, smaller gold became detectable (still not what can be found electronically today) and the field of electronic prospecting took a foothold. The 90's saw both a significant improvement in IB detectors using higher (~50 kHz and higher), but also with the commercial introduction of Pulse Induction (PI) detectors which went deeper but not for the small stuff (so IB's still had their place). The latest quantum leap has been the Minelab GPX6000 PI which has pushed aside pretty much all IB/VLF's in that it can find gold just as small as those but now deeper. So why is all this relevent? I hunted this same area for 3 days in May of 2019, just three short years ago. In that time I found six or seven small (around 0.1 g) nuggets with the Minelab Equinox 800 and its 6" coil. That's the exact same setup I used this time, but for an extra day, and got nothing -- Nada, Zippo, a true skunk. Am I a worse detectorist today than 3 years ago? Probably not. Same area, 4 days instead of 3, zero nuggets instead of 6-7. Only one thing explains this -- its been hit hard, and IMO the GPX6000 has played a big part in that. And it's not just me. The three guys mentioned above are all experienced gold hunters, as in some of the best in the business (90%-ile at a minimum). I won't go into specifics other than to say that all three expressed disappointment (they weren't whining or snarling -- with their experience they've seen bad days before), and they've all detected (successfully) in this area on multiple occasions. There's still gold out there but it's getting very difficult to find, particularly in the easily accessible public land in the Western USA. Enough about native gold. I spent about 2-3 hours detecting around an old dwelling (from the 30's, I think) and about that same amount of time on my last day driving back to Winnemucca at a railroad ghost town. Although a bit of the stuff in the photo below was from the time I was searching for gold (and I have a bottle of tiny metal pieces which isn't shown), most of what you see is from those two historical domesticated(?) areas and not from the wide open desert. I was using the Equinox with both coils, two tones, Field 1, recovery speed 4. (I think at that time I had Iron Bias F2=0). I'm saving the best finds for a later post, but none of them were from these days in NW Nevada. Maybe the only interesting thing here is the auto/truck gasoline cap which I'm thinking is from a 1950's to (maybe) 1970's vehicle. That disc at the top center is not a coin. 😞 It's brass, slightly convex, quite thin (~1/32" or just under 0.8 mm) and has no identifying marks. There's an interesting(?) mineral crystal just to the right of the brass disc which I haven't yet identified. Thankfully the finds improved when I got to Eastern Nevada, but they still weren't just jumping into my pouch. (I'll post some of that in a couple days.)

Patience, Grasshopper. I'll post the goodies at the end (to add suspense) and the trash in post increments -- probably 3 more posts. I'll make one today, one Thursday, and finish up this weekend.

Been home a month already, and as you all know things don't stop happening just because you're away. Besides catching up from falling behind domestic tasks, it also takes a while to get back in the habit of reading and posting. But I need to write my experiences down before I forget even more of what happened. I'll break it into a few posts to hopefully minimize the yawns (yours and mine). In summary I spent 27 days (26 nights) away from home, leaving on the 31st of May. Here's the Outline of the trip (not including days spent merely driving): 0) 3 days in Colorado at my sister's home, with one day spent hunting an early 20th Century homestead permission of hers (unfortunately my nemesis -- regraded/backfilled property -- led to zero finds), and one morning with Denver's Eureka Treasure Hunting Club in a city park (that was already reported by Jeff McClendon and me here). 1) 4.5 days in NW Nevada, first 3 with Steve (the one person here I don't need to specify last name nor site username 😄) and Steve (Condor). For those familiar with that area we were near the Stone House and Sawtooth. After they left I spent one night alone and then was surprised when another DP member poster drove up in his VW Beetle(!) -- Andy (Abenson) for the last day or so. 2) 7 days in NE Nevada at Monte Berry's "Welcome to the Hunt Outing" (WTHO) #14 ghost town detecting get-together with 12-14 like-minded people. 3) 3.5 days at 10.5 kft (3.2 km) altitude in the Colorado Rockies at an 1860's ghost town site with my sister and her partner. I don't know which is more satisfying -- actual detecting or spending the evenings around the fire discussing our pasttime with such great people whose company I was fortunate enough to share. No less than four of my comrades has 45 or more years of detecting experience (and accompanying stories) and you can count on me to ask questions on that until the fire was low and we needed to get some shuteye for the next day's efforts. Several more had their silver anniversary (25 year) pins as well. A few stats for those who may be curious: 4325 miles (29.9 mpg and $658 of petrol), 13 nights sleeping in my vehicle and 7 nights in motels (other 6 at my sister's house), ~$1600 for the entire trip, including food and lodging (but not counting cost of batteries 😁). Only needed to put the Jeep Compass Trailhawk into 4WD twice and one of those was following Condor's pickup through a deep gully/wash. (Was he trying to lose me? ) I should say how many hours I spent actually swinging a detector but I haven't added it up. Mostly because of my age but also dependent upon the heat, 8 hours is a long day and sometimes (when I'm arriving or packing up to leave) it's less than half that. BTW, on the way home I stopped at a couple roadside rest areas (the old kind on 2 lane roads, not the modern Interstate kind) to finish of the detecting time fix for the trip. I'm really bad at remembering to take photos, but here are a couple. The first is in NW Nevada which was meant as a joke to a friend who predicted I would be abducted by aliens (you know, Skinwalker Ranch, Blind Flog Ranch,... although those are in NE Utah). Second one some of you will recognize because of the aspen trees, tree line,... from high in the Rockies. You may notice I try not to show enough detail that you'll figure out our secret locations. I'll stop for now and go into more detail on the detecting sites (and finds) in the next installment.