GB_Amateur

I'm just the opposite -- I never use the vibrate (and keep it turned off -- saves battery). But I understand your preference & choice. UPDATE: I did get the Carrot back from repair. Interestingly it looks like a new unit but I think, among other things, they replaced the housing. Anyway, it works like new, which is what I wanted. I still will be writing up a side-by-side review here, soon. However I've decided to only review them for the settings I use. So this 'feature' (TRX sound at turn-on and turn-off, even when programmed in vibrate) would have completely passed me by.

http://rnb-innovations.com/ Substantially Boost Battery Power In These Great Machines! ALL SPECTRA SERIES, MXT, MXT PRO, M6, DFX, DFX-E Series GMT, GMZ, TDI SL, ULA/SIERRA MADRE, CLASSIC 4, CLASSIC 5ID. This is what their website says for the HP3100mah model. At $150, though, I'd have to think about it a little longer... Regarding the Energizer lithium non-rechargeables, here is a decay (discharge) curve. You can see that if you are concerned about over-voltage with these you can just 'burn' off the early part, quickly, and then you're in the safe zone. And they are substantially lighter: 15g each compared to 23-25g for typical alkaline non-rechargeables. Still, they are also very expensive compared to alkalines. In the long run I'd guess the lithium rechargeables would be a more cost-effective choice for those wanting to go as light as possible. (Note: I just measured the voltage on a barely used Energizer Ultimate Lithium at 1.78V, so the graph is a bit misleading, with a high end of 1.6 V.)

Was talking to my sister yesterday (she has an MXT w/10" DD and 4"x6" DD). She said she was headed to a construction site with lots of rubble (rocks, dirt clods, piles of excavated ground) and wondered which to use? She lives in Colorado which, in my limited experience, has just moderate ground in the parks and school-yards. With your timely post, I'm wondering if the 5.3" Eclipse is the solution. No more head scratching; just post here and get good answers! Second question -- I cut and pasted this Dave Johnson quote from Steve's excellent review of the MXT here (Equipment Review sub-site): "Back in the late 1990's and very early 20th century, the MXT was developed around the 10x6 elliptical DD. When you're used to that searchcoil, stick a 950 on and the 950 feels downright clumsy with its muddy response and bad masking characteristics. Downright insufferable. The 950 searchcoil geometry was designed for completely different platforms. But, if you ask "does the 950 work?", well, yeah, it does. Wrong question. Sometimes engineers/designers view things from a different 'angle' than end-users. You obviously like the 950 coil on the MXT. Care to comment?

Always good to hear objective opinions, and find that every detector out there has a few warts. Your sidebar lists the White's V3i. Why didn't you include that in this overview? I understand why no Gold Bug 2, but thought the V3i would fit this description.

I'm going the other direction. I used to work in that field and would have been on this project if I had stayed. Now I'm after gold. (I enjoyed that, too, but I'm happy with my choice.) I worked on a neutrino experiment (MINOS) in the Soudan Iron Mine in Minnesota. Not as exciting as the Homestake Mine (and not even close to being as deep) but there is quite a bit in common. Northeastern Minnesota is a pretty cool place (and in winter it's literaly a lot more extreme than 'cool').

Day 2 report Sunday I made a shorter (distance and time) trip to a creek close to my house. It is not known (nor expected to) have gold due to it not being glacial till runoff. This creek is only about 10 ft. across even after heavy snow or thunderstorms and typically has slow or zero flow, as now. The real value of this creek (to me) is the amount of exposed bedrock. It's effectively a training ground for future trips to gold country. My launching point is a trail with concrete walk bridge (currently). I suspect this bridge was built when the area was a farm, possibly for getting small machinery from one side to the other. I don't see why it would be needed for livestock. There were adjacent and crossing fences as evidenced by the limestone fenceposts that still survive. These are age markers, and although I can't put a date on them, it's likely they are close to a century old, or older. Nearby (not in the creek) I've found dated artifcacts from the first decade of the 20th century, and a couple Indian Head pennies. OK, enough background. About 20 feet downstream from the bridge is an obvious transverse crack about 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide in the limestone bedrock. I've searched this previously and found coins, but those were new (clad era) and likely intentionally tossed off the foot bridge, treating this spot as some kind of wishing well. That was my first stop and I spent at least 1.5 hours of the total 2.5 hour hunt there. I was using the Fisher Gold Bug Pro with 5 inch diameter DD (neutral buoyant!) stock coil. Initially I stood adjacent to the crack and with the detector perpendicular to the crack ran it right down the center. It was constantly going off, signalling iron (in discriminate mode). On this first pass I never noticed any non-ferrous signals. (I had the tone/V-break set at 40 which is right at the ferrous/non-ferrous border.) I went back and walked along the crack with a leg on each side, now swinging perpendicular to the crack axis. Now I started to occasionally get non-ferrous blips, but dominated by ferrous tones. Later I went at 45 degree angles from both sides which also produced an occasional choppy non-ferrous tone. I decided to start clearing out the metal (iron) near the spots which hinted at non-ferrous. I had a crevicing tool and used my fingers as well. The water depth was only an inch or so, thus not much hindrance. Mostly I was pulling out elongated iron (nails, fence wire, etc.) as you can see in the later picture. But sometimes after clearing out the trash (and sometimes even before) I did find some non-ferrous, especially a few coins (see photo), but all new as last year's finds were. At one point I just used the White's TRX pinpointer to find and remove metal since I didn't need discrimination -- I was trying to clear all metals. That did become too big of a task for the time allotted, though. I only worked my way down at most 50 feet from the bridge. There was one other clear crack but it was much narrower -- more like 1/4 inch and I did find one coin there. Better were the limestone steps/dropoffs running perpendicular to the flow direction where I also found some coins on the downstream side, including the dime and nickel highlighted below. Before talking about the finds/targets in more detail, I will note one 'scare' I had. After the first hour it started to sprinkle but it was so light and there was no lightning/thunder that I just kept going. It continued until I ran out of time, but never got bad. I wasn't even getting wet. I noticed the battery bar was at 1 out of 3 so I knew I would need to change it out in the not too distant future, but it still operates fine there. When I got home I put the detector in the garage and did some other things around the house for several hours. When later cleaning up my finds I decided to check an ID and took the detector onto the patio. After running for maybe 30 seconds it went dead and I assumed the battery needed changing, which I did. Taking the battery door off I noticed water (not much) inside the battery compartment and then also noticed water apparently inside the screen, but still didn't think much of it. When I turned the detector on with the new battery, every readout pixel on the screen showed -- not good. I quickly turned it off and removed the battery, and next took out the three scews that hold the faceplate on the remainder of the housing. Water didn't pour out but there definitely was some in there, clinging to the housing and components. For the next half hour, off and on, I blew it out with dry, canned air. The good news is later that night after everything was dry I screwed it back together and turned it on -- worked like nothing had every happened. Phew! Another lesson learned. The first photo shows almost everything I pulled from the creek. There were a couple other very large iron pieces (long wire and some kind of bar/stap) that aren't shown. I've divided the ferrous from non-ferrous. That one wire next to the coins at the edge of the gold pan's bottom is a copper wire from 120 Volt Romex electrical cable like what is installed in the walls of homes, etc. To the right of the coins are a couple (white) pieces of spherical shaped lead, from firearms. That large chunk of iron in the lower right appears to be a small axe head of some kind, although I couldn't see a hole for the handle. The second photo hightlights a couple interesting (to me) finds. Both the clad dime but especially the nickel 5 cent are extremely worn from being in the water. I was later able to discern the date on the dime as 1997-D but the nickel never showed any sign that it ever even had a date, and that includes after I tried to clean it up with Scotch Brite (synthetic plastic steel wool substitute). The copper-nickel alloy used to make these is so hard that, at least on the Jeffies, it's nearly impossible to obliterate a date even from decades of circulation. (Buffalo nickels did lose their dates, but the date was raised and not protected by the rim as was done with Jeffersons.) I don't know if there is something extra caustic in the creek water or if it's just mildly acidic and years under these conditions causes a rapid deterioration compared to just being in the ground. More interesting (doesn't take much ) is that small bit of metal between the two coins. It appears to be natural, rounded from water flow like you see on gravel pebbles. It is not attracted to a rare-earth magnet and reads an ID of 45 on the GB-Pro (40 is ferrous cutoff and 58 is nickel 5 cent coin). Typically that is considered the foil region for most coin detectors. It has a mass of 0.24 grams and I measured its Specific Gravity at 7.7 --> 8.3 which doesn't match any common pure metal, but some bronzes (especially classic tin-copper alloy) fall in this region. Still seems strange and I wonder where it came from. Well, at least I know it's not gold... Next time? Always the optimist, but I'll settle for a Seated Liberty as a consolation prize.

Hold that thought, if you can handle this long story. I made it to two creeks this weekend. I'll report on the first here and the other (for reasons you'll see later) on the Coins & Relics sub-site. Went to Salt Creek at Gatesville on Saturday hoping to get in some detecting. When I arrived I decided to first (that'll teach me) do some scouting. To give you an overview, we (just need to fill out a Dept. of Natural Resources = DNR form at the Country Store to become part of 'we') have permission to prospect/recover along about 2 1/2 miles (4 km) of the creek at Gatesville, and south. (There is about 1/2 mile north where we also have permission.) Most people (this should sound familiar) only set up their equipment within less than about 1/4 mile of the Store. I've been on two scouting trips previously and decided to do "a bit more..." Saturday with weather in the (unseasonal) mid-upper 70's (~25 C) and the creek very low from lack of rain in the last month. I figured it'd just be an hour or so and then I'd get out the detector. I decided to go light (too light as it turns out), putting on my hip waders, a hat with neck shield, my US Army field belt (wasn't in the military myself -- bought this at Army Surplus over 30 years ago, but you can still get them and their great for attaching all your bring-along gear, IMO) and a Garrett Super Sluice pan. Meant to bring my plastic scoop (forgot that). The pan hooks on my belt which is good when you need your hands free and/or are moving slowly. Walking quickly (e.g. down a road) it bounces too much so just carry in my hand. Put a snuffer bottle and plastic sample bottle in my pocket. Headed south and got down to the creek after about 0.2 miles along the road. I'd been on this first part before so I moved quickly until I got to my previous stopping point, then slowed down and tried to take in the details. I was looking for bedrock, either in the creek or along side. NOTE: DNR does not permit digging outside the channel, so if you find a bench you just have to leave it alone. I think this is to preserve the natural vegitation and prevent added erosion. About 45 minutes into my trek I noticed what looked like bedrock in the creek. But when I investigated it was soft (soft enough to break when standing on it) so I concluded it was clay ('false' bedrock)? Soon after that I arrived at a feeder creek and tried to figure if where it intersects the main creek would be a good spot. Within the next 50 m I noticed some uplifted layered rock which I figured was broken (limestone) bedrock. There wasn't a lot exposed but I picked one chunk and decided to collect some ground on the downstream edge of it and then pan. Since I had forgotten my scoop I just used a fallen tree branch to loosen the top couple inches of gravel and then start scooping with my hands. When I got down about 6 inches -- it was easy to dig because it was basically under the water line so just a kind of slurry(?) -- I started putting material in the pan. Along with sand and gravel there was a lot of soft, wet gray clay and I put that in, too. I got what I think you would call half a pan's worth. The Super Sluice is pretty large (15 in dia.), and thick so it's heavier than the typical plastic pan. Further, I'm a complete novice (as you'll see shortly) so I wanted to take it easy. Nearby was a fallen tree over a 2 ft (60 cm) deep, clear pool so I sat on the tree and started to pan. Now, I think it's supposed to take about 2 to 3 minutes (or even less) to do clean this amount of material by panning. But being so inexperienced I didn't want to screw it up so I decided not to worry about time. I looked at my watch (12:05) and figured it'd take me about 15 minutes. I was breaking up clay from the start but every time I washed off the top silt I would find more. By 15 minute mark I had finally gotten all the clay broken down but probably still had washed out only 1/2 the material. The Super Sluice has very deep riffles (only three) and it seems to clear slowly when working through them. I finally got down to where I needed to switch to the non-riffled side of the pan. I started noticing the black sand and the tan sand would float to the top of that -- washing it off and then remixing ("rinse and repeat" ). When I finally got down to about 80-90% black sand I decided not to try washing off any more. (I had not brought a magnet.) One thing I'm really bad at is fanning the material in the bottom of the pan. But even at my skill level I was seeing bright yellow specks, and they weren't mica or pyrite because no matter what angle I viewed them they looked the same. I counted about half a dozen 'colors' and I'm sure there was more hidden in the black sand. Having used a snuffer bottle only a couple times I went slow to make sure I didn't blow away anything good. By the time the only thing left was crystal clear water I checked my watch: 1:00 PM -- 55 minutes after starting panning! I estimate I had between 1 and 2 teaspoons of concentrates in my sample bottle (a white polyethylene over-the-counter medicine bottle about 1.5 inch diameter X 2.5 inch long). Two hours out already and nowhere near a road yet, I keep moving (generally) south. Most of the time I was able to either walk on the gravel bars or wade in the water. There was little or no flow and some places the creek was dry all the way across, so just a lot of stagnant pools. If the water was deeper than a couple feet it started getting cloudy and I decided not to try walking into that (remember, only hip waders). As such, in some places I had to move onto land to make progress and with vegetation being at max -- lots of reeded weeds taller than I -- the going was slow. Often I wasn't even walking on solid ground but rather fallen veggetation, so I stepped cautiously to make sure it was strong enough to hold me. There were some briars with those hooked thorns (similar to rose bushes) -- not a lot but again, enough to cause me to go slowly. Stinging nettle as well, but that's kinda like a mosquito bite (including the itch), so not a big deal. Didn't see much wildlife -- just a beaver. I'm sure there was plenty of wildlife that saw me, though. Fortunately within about 10 m of the creek edge was a corn field and I was able to walk along that but since I really was out there to scout the creek, I kept working back down the creek after getting past the deep pools. Now I mentioned it was a cool (very unusual for early August) day but I still need water, and unfortunately I had 'forgotten' (that's what I tell my wife...) to bring any. I could tell I was getting a bit dehydrated, but since I couldn't hear cars I knew I was still a long way from the road. I knew that eventually there was going to be a private bridge at the end of the permission zone, so I wasn't going to get lost. I kept moving south but then noticed I couldn't see any signs of corn. It's almost 2:00 and I've been out (with no water) for 3 hours. I backtracked to find the cornfield and heard a farm tractor so bee-lined for that. Found a guy with a front-end loader putting topsoil into an old beat-up dump truck and tried to figure how I could get into his sights without startling him. I was unsuccessful. When he finally saw me he down-revved the tractor and opened the window. When I greeted him he said "you scared me; I've never seen anyone back in here before!" He even offered to take my all the way back to the County Store but I declined and just asked for directions to the road. It stil took me half an hour to get all the way back and I immediately got some milk and a (homemade) ham salad sandwich at the Store. I always make sure to buy something there in gratitude to them being the proprieters, intermediaries with the DNR, etc. to make this place accessible. Really nice people. The woman proprieter (she does the talking for her husband and herself ), after I told her where I had been and about meeting the farmer, said "I'm not surprised you startled him; I don't know of anyone whose gone that far down the creek looking for gold." By the time I had eaten (and watched some Cubs whooping the Diamondbacks = baseball) I still was too worn out to do any detecting, so packed it in and drove home. Even without detecting I considered the day successful, having made it 60% of the way to the end of the permitted distance. I'll figure a way to start at the far end and do the last mile in the future, but I did find one (apparently) very good, unspoiled spot which I now know how to access (farm trail). No pictures from this excursion, sorry. If you notice anything I did wrong (besides not taking water and scoop) or have any other advice, like other things to be looking for, I'd really be appreciative to hear it.

It's advertised as such. I'm going to find out for sure today because it's going to get dunked in the creek! And if it finds me some gold you (and everyone else on this site) will hear me shouting, even those in Australia & NZ.

Yes, I've been a member since 2015, but haven't gone to any meetings lately. Really good to read of all your experiences, and glad to hear that Salt Creek has big enough gold to set off my detector (at least I think what you describe will set it off, although maybe needs to be REALLY close to the coil -- I'm sure you and others here can set me straight on that). Coincidentally, I'm heading over there today with my GB-Pro. I knew the creek has fine gold -- lots of people there with dredges, etc. I heard they had detectable gold but also was told they didn't. You get a lot of conflicting info in the prospecting world, at least around this part of the world.... Glad to have people like you around who are reliable. Thanks. Wish Aurora were closer. I used to make trips up your way about 4-5 times a year -- Batavia -- but that stopped when I changed jobs in 2010. (Don't miss the traffic!)

Not to mention the pull tabs. Was going to relate this story earlier and I guess I'd better do it now before I forget it completely. (That seems to be happening more and more....) I was at one of my favorite sites (park) and happened to get three different targets in about 15 minutes, in a circle about 5 ft (1.5 m) in diameter. I was using the Minelab X-Terra 705 with the 6 in round DD 18.75 kHz coil (probably notching off iron and the very highest conductive bin due to iron wraparound issues). All three of the targets were close in VID. Note, US nickel 5 cent pieces ("nickels") hit around 18. Also note that the X-Terra 705 full range is -8 to 48, missing 0, and only even numbers, with iron below 0 and non-ferrous above 0. 1) got an inconsistent ID which was anywhere from 12 to 18, mostly hitting 14-16. 2) got a slightly more consistent ID, but still 14-18. 3) got a rather consistent 16-18. #3 was a US nickel (Jeffy) at about 4 inches, a bit off horizontal in orientation. #2 was a ring and beavertail (R&B) pulltab, also about 4 inches deep. I think the beavertail was bent back into the ring (which is common). Depending upon which piece you find (just the ring, just the beavertail, or attached), the orientation, how bent or broken, etc. these can get quite a range of ID's, sometimes dead on nickel 5 cent. #1 was a ladies 10kt gold, plain wedding band down in the 3 to 3 1/2 inch level which when weighed and converted contains about $30 in gold content. You can have the modern "square" tabs (thanks, Ronald McDonald House), and yes, I dig those, too. I'll take the R&B's any day.

SS-Al, sounds like you've already had experience with this. Thanks for your advice and concern. Others who are interested/curious may want to check out this book: http://www.miningbooks.com/midwest-gold-prospecting-indiana-gold-dredging-prospecting-book/ written by local (northern Indiana) Chuck Lassiter. I've read it and it's very informative. Bottom line is that finding small/tiny gold (i.e. smaller than can be picked up by a metal detector) is only of secondary interest to me and I'm sticking with panning for that size gold. I've got ~$100 in equipment already and if it cost me another $50-$100 for classifiers, etc., that's fine but that's my limit. I've seen people in action here using dredges, going under the water with their nozzles -- not for me. I wish them good fortune but I'm a metal detectorist and although I can swim, I'm not a diver in any way. According to Lassiter (and he speaks from experience), metal detectable gold is present in the Midwest but (as always) you need to be in the right place. I'm not hanging much hope that I'll find it in my local haunts, but I've been told by one local (not sure how reliable of a source) that he found a piece of gold that, from his description, would easily be picked up by an MD. (He found it while dredging.) But at the least I need to get down to bedrock for that, which, given my aversion to diving, means I'm very unlikely to find any. However, there are other things you can find with MD's along creeks -- I've done that. It's good practice for when I get to go West where I will have a chance. And I won't be tearing up anyone's manicured lawn digging along the creekbeds.

I was a big fan of the Carrot, but then mine went on the fritz. I sent it in 10 days ago (under warranty) so hopefully returns as good-as-new. In the meantime I bought a White's TRX, which is about $20 more expensive. It compensates (somewhat) on the price difference by operating more cheaply (if you go the non-rechargaeable route, anyway) on two AA's. It will also work on a 9V, like the Carrot, but why would you want to except in a pinch? When the carrot comes back I'll do some side-by-side comparisons. But I've gotten used to the TRX and really like it.

UPDATE: Neither piece of jewelry appears to be made of precious metal, other than possibly plating. Necklace piece (or bracelet charm) has a specific gravity ~7.4 and the ring (correcting for weight & volume of stone) is no more than ~9.5 and likely lower. The ring is probably gold plated copper. The charm composition I'm not sure (too low to be even copper/brass/bronze), but not made of any valuable metal that I know of. I suppose there's a chance that the stone in the ring has some minor value, but how often do they put semi-precious stones in plated jewelry? My guess is "almost never". Strick, if I had been detecting most of those 37 years, that would be different. It's only the last couple that I've gotten serious. Still a long way to go, but thanks for the compliment.

Thanks to all of you for your help and advice. I should have known this but based upon what you've said and linked, I realize that there aren't simple answers here as far as which classifiers are best. Similar to detecting, it depends upon your intended targets, your ground, and especially on the nature of the treasure in your location. I go forward with new appreciation. As usual, if it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing.

Thanks for all the positive, appreciative responses. (I'd even welcome some negative ones if they were informative/educational. ) I've learned a lot reading other posts on this site (and other MD sites for that matter) and I'm trying to return the favor. My goal is to add objective knowledge while also expressing the thrill-of-the-hunt. I'm the first to admit I'm no expert (modest, maybe, but true for sure). Apparently I'm fortunate to live in an area which has been sparsely searched in the past. I may have mentioned this but in the 35 years I've lived here I only remember one time ever seeing anyone searching with a metal detector, and since I started detecting myself in 1970 I am sensitive/observant of such activity. Still, I'm not much more than a novice (maybe I've graduated to 'intermediate') but I'm a glutton for useful knowledge, whether it's from my own experience or from reading what you others report. Please keep it up and I will as well.

"Picture is worth a thousand words?" and "Better late than never!" Shown next the 3 kHz 'Digger' coil for the X-Terra 705 (&505?). Appears to be from same mold for the housing but obviously drab gray instead of usual salmon(?) Coiltek color.

With a bit of research looking at old topo maps and aerial photos, I found another promising site 5 minutes from my home. It's currently a school built about 25 years ago with a nice size sports field. What I found is that an older school was previously located where the sports field is now. Bingo! Along the street I could see old sidwalk and concrete steps outside the school fence so decided to start there on Saturday. Fisher F75 w/5"x10" concentric, de (default) process, gain of 70, no disc, 4H tones. Quite a bit of trash, but still manageable with this coil. Found a couple copper pennies (one at 4" depth, other a bit shallower) which I couldn't identify -- good sign -- so put them in the secret slot of my nail apron. After about 3 1/2 hours of my allotted 5 I decided to switch to the 5" DD round coil (otherwise same settings) and test the schoolyard on the other side of the fence, but still in the shade. Might have been my first hit -- boucing a bit but in the 'good coin' range (i.e. higher than Zincoln) so started to dig. I had a couple issues with this hole: 1) 1/8"-1/4" roots of nearby tree -- try not to cut those, this isn't my property..., and 2) about 2-3 inches down I was hitting crushed stone. Was this previouly a driveway, or was it backfill? I should have been a bit more careful but when it's getting later in my hunt I'm tired and tend to work fast (sloppy). About 4 inches down I see white metal... Could it be? Out comes a coin and turning it over I see the classic reverse of a Mercury dime! My research has been justified; this is an old site. Kept searching but nothing else turns up of value. End of day 1 but I already have plans for day 2, even though I have other plans/tasks and won't be able to get out as early or for as long. (Good news: my sloppy digging/prying didn't mar the coin, but lesson learned?) Day 2: decided to try put the concentric coil back on and return to where I found the Merc. I'm getting a lot of clipping of signals (recall, no disc so that isn't it) and start wondering if there is a problem. Then I remembered how many overloads I had gotten with the 5" DD the day before. Was this area littered with sheet metal scraps large enough to cause overloads and clipping? I kept going without success, then decided to wander over to another spot near the fence (less likely backfilled). Got a strong signal with high ID but when pushing the coil close to the ground (better pinpointing and ID determination) the detector overloaded. Hmmm, this seems like a small target, but overload? Pop can? I decided to investigate (I'm one of those paranoid searchers that just knows that as soon as I skip one it'll be the Heart of the Ocean ) so I push the tip of my Lesche down about an inch and out pops some kind of silver(?) jewelry, annular shape (but not a finger ring). Into the hidden pocket for later inspection. As I return to where I found the Merc my eye catches something very bothersome -- a 3-4 inch diamter hole in the ground, rather deep. Had I forgotten to fill in my excitement yesterday? But where is the dirt pile? I'm sure this is something I had dug, but I never fail to backfill. In fact, after cutting a sod plug, everything that comes out of the hole goes into a gold pan I carry just for this purpose. Empty the pan back into the hole and replace the plug. I didn't leave my gold pan so I had to have refilled. WTF?? Well, I need to fill it back in so I look around for some stones. Peering on the other side of the fence (there was a deep drainage cut next to the street and I had seen rubble there yesterday which would work) I see another similar hole! Now I'm really annoyed. Is this why detectorists get banned, accused of not filling their holes? Obviously some animal (humans are animals, too) had re-excavated a couple of my holes. After filling in both I have a decision to make -- should I just cut bait and jump ship? I don't want any more of this to happen. This is a schoolyard and kids can twist ankles in such a hole. Then I decided I hadn't done anything wrong. Why let someone ruin my day? With the signal overload still on the back of my mind, I decided to switch to the Fisher Gold Bug Pro with 5" DD and see how it performs. I also was curious to see what ID's it shows. Retracing my tracks inside the fence I confirm with several overloads -- something big is under the surface and I'm not digging it. Also, the sun is moving such that I'm running out of shade inside the schoolyard and I recall that I had left some ground unsearched outside the fence (where there is shade) so back there I go. The usual junk (foil, grrrr) but before my 3 1/2 hours are up I made three interesting hits which I'll finish with here before showing the loot haul. A) Getting an inconsistent ID near nickel 5 cent -- that is typical of ring and beavertail so this is my guess. Handheld pinpointer (White's TRX) signals so I dig and find a small nail. Now most of you know that nails, depending upon orientation, can be all over the ID scale. Was this it? Then I look in the gold pan and there is round disk -- had already pulled it out without noticing -- dark (nickel size) coin. So the signal was jumpy because I had two targets, one good and one bad. I'm learning all the time. B) searching right along the vertical edge of the concrete sidewalk I get a high ID (but not clean) and decide to dig. Nothing on the TRX at first, but then a couple inches down it sounds off, and a bit more digging reveals a tiny ring. How can that read high? Back over the hole with the GB-Pro and another signal, this time some junk (can't remember but probably wad of aluminum foil). Was the high tone from the junk? Did I even get a signal from the ring or was this find completely serendipitous? Into the hidden chamber! C) about out of time, I get a strong coin (copper penny or dime) hit and figure it's close to the surface, probably a recent drop. Immediately I see an exposed tree root right where the signal is. Have to dig around that. TRX sounds strong and as I work my way around the root it seems like it's actually inside the root. Now what? In the past when this has happened I've just thrown in the towel, not wanting to damage anything. But I noticed the root appeared to split into two branches so I pried between and out pops a penny. Hmmm. I still figure it's new (Memorial, but not Zincoln) and put it into the pouch. Done for the day, I decide to attempt to atone for my sins (holes I dug, filled, and someone else redug) so I gather up a bunch of trash that the wind had collected along the fence inside the schoolyard and headed home. The picture shows my good finds. The two days yielded 4 Zincolns (junky looking, as typical), 2 Jeffies ('77 and '81), one clad dime and one clad quarter. No copper Memorials but 3 Wheaties -- a '46-D from day 1 and a 1919 (considerably worn) -- this latter being the one nearly on the surface stuck in the tree root! The Merc is in nice condition but a super common date (1941 plain = Philadelphia mint). I suspect the gold ring is cheapo plate with a glass 'stone' but need to investigate further. I'll also do a specific gravity measurement on that other piece of jewelry to see if it is really solid silver or just silver plate. Neither of these had any markings that I could see. My find of the hunt (from day 1) is the pictured penny -- 1932-D. Without considering the scaling from decades in the ground, the condition is approaching extremely fine (EF) based upon the lack of wear to the reverse wheat stalks. I'm soaking in olive oil per advice from SS-Al and Deft Tones, hoping this will clean up the scales. Looking at my Redbook, I count 140 date+mintmark 'business strikes' (meant for circulation) Wheat pennies in the 50 years (1909-58) they were minted. The 1932-D is #16 in lowest mintage. This is easily my scrarcest Lincoln detector find ever. With the scales it's not worth much, and even cleaned up it's likely only worth a few bucks (haven't searched Ebay for the appraisal), but it's still a top find for me. Conclusion: In the past 7 weekends I've found old coins at all four sites within 10 minutes of my house. I'm not done searching any of them. However, I recall reading here (sorry, forget who the posters were) that some recommend to stop digging in the dry season in public places (like my parks and schools). I'm going to heed that advice. It's less likely that whoever redug my holes would have done so or made such a mess if it weren't dry season. Besides, I have some creeks to hunt which just might (very great longshot) yield my first detectable gold or possibly some coins. Crazier things have happened. That will keep me busy until the fall rains. And if I have just a little time to spend I'm going to work the backyard on my digging techniques -- try for smaller holes. That's gotta help in the long run, too.

John, thanks for plugging a company founded and still located near me in Southern Indiana. I had one of those back in my early adventuring days (1979+) but eventually sold it about a dozen years ago thinking "those times are over". WRONG! In a year I'll be getting a new/used 4WD for prospecting out west and will definitely need another -- thanks for your advice and tips.

He didn't lose any money from missing work because he's retired! As one who is going to join him in a year, I appreciate the benchmark datapoint showing how much a trip like that costs if you try and go "on the cheap". Of course I'm in US, not Australia, but I can adjust for that if need be. Looks like he got excellent fuel economy with his diesel pickup(?). On this we agree. Some people are out there hunting as a business (primary or supplemental) and some of us for the pure joy of the hunt. Everyone has different standards, goals, and measurements of accomplishment. One question that particularly annoys me is when I show/tell a $2 find I made after hunting all day and get "...so, how much is that an hour?" More than if I had been sitting on the couch drinking beer! (Don't get me wrong -- I like doing that, too. )

Check out the "Vaughn Garrett Favorite Finds of the Month" for January, 2017 on page 13: US Winner #3 -- a button from the War of 1812 found with a Garrett Treasure Hunter BFO!! Glad I've held onto mine for 38 years. Just another example of the importance of the search site trumping the technology of the detector.

Tuesday I watched for final episode (#6) of the "1st Season". Given the track record of these kinds of shows (adventure, etc., not just gold shows) I wonder if "Final Season" is also the proper description. I watched all but the 2nd one. It's possible my expectations were lowered drastically, but I found the last 2 (in particular) to be more about gold and less about survival. The final (approximate) tally was: Ben 12 tr.oz., Boyce 5 tr.oz., and John 3.5 tr.oz. Ben spent the most time at his site (~60 days if I remember correctly) and 70-something John the least. If the gold they videoed finding wasn't planted, this is a productive area. These shows have trouble conveying the truth, at least to my high standards. The first episode claimed they could have only what they carried on their backs. Then in a later episode Boyce claims the raft he builds to cross the river is carrying 1000 lb. Two of the three (not John) had high-bankers with their associated gasoline powered engines. How much fuel does it take to run those? "Only what they carried on their backs?" They had tents, guns, shovels, picks, axes, food,... I looked up "Devil's Canyon, British Columbia" on Google Maps and, if that found the right spot, there is a road within a few to several miles of the location. It may be locally remote, but in global terms, not so much. Still, with all those shortcomings, it seemed from my less-than-expert eye that the info they conveyed on how and where they found the gold made sense. I hope some of you more experienced prospectors/miners can weigh in on that part.

I can't weigh in on what you have, but in my experience, an ohm-meter isn't a good discriminator for metals. I looked up some electrical resistivities (mostly pure metals) and then did some measurements with my (admittedly cheapo) multimeter. To put things in perspecdtive, at room temp, gold is quite low in resistivity (not as much as copper or silver, but close). 'Brass' (don't know which alloy) is 3 times higher ( = worse conductor). 'Bronze' is a factor of 2 worse than brass. Lead is another factor of 3 times brass. Titanium is again a factor of more than 2 worse than lead. Yet I have pieces of all of these (exept gold ) and they all measure resistance (not resistivity, though) at 0 on the meter. The meter's precision is 0.1 ohms, so I conclude that these pieces all have the same resistance within about 0.05 ohms. A clean sample of uniform composition should read pretty reliably on an fluorescence X-ray spectrometer ("XRF analysis"). The poor man's method (which includes me) is to use Archimedes Principle to find the density and then use that to rule things in or out. Gold has such a high density ('specific gravity') that unless alloyed <~50% it's distinguishable from most metals, and all the metals in its density ballpark (from what I know) are quite valuable except for tungsten. I've read here that some coin shops have XRF spectrometers and the nice ones will analyze a sample for free. You strike me as a sweet talker -- I bet one of them will do it for you! There is a company in California that advertises in the ICMJ that will do it for $25 per sample. (Read their fine print, though, if you decide to go that route.)

I understand that there are multiple reasons for panning especially when you include professionals all the way to occasional, recreational prospectors. I'm definitely near the right end of this spectrum, but I'd like to get better, faster, more efficient. To be specific, I want to find all the gold in my bucket, and I'm not trying to make a threshold cut at return per time spent. Here are some questions I have: 1) Does classification help enough to make it worthwhile to buy, carry, store one or more in the first place? (If 'no' then I guess the rest of these questions are unnecessary.) 2) What sizes should one use? I know there is an array of sizes, but how many of those are useful? 3) Do you stack multiple sizes in one operation? 4) Do you still investigate the materials that the classifier rejects as too large? For example, with the wire mesh types do you dump the contents onto a clean, metal free area and run a detector over them to make sure there isn't a nice size chunk of the magic metal in your rejects? 5) I know the GPAA sells a set of screens that you swap in/out of a single housing. Is that the best direction to go if you are going to use multiple sizes? If I've missed any important points, please enlighten me on those as well. Thanks in advance for your answers.

Wow, strick, look at all those pulltabs! I'm envious. Honestly, I like ring-and-beavertail style pulltabs because their limited time window of usage (1965-75) is an age marker. In some ways they're like finding lead when hunting for native gold. I keep counts of all my pulltabs (including the hated 'square' tabs) from every hunt. I'm going to write an article about them someday, but I have a lot of those mini-projects on the ToDo list, so don't hold your breath.... Not that anyone is likely to look forward to a writeup on that topic!

Followup: The initial post on this thread summarized my 2nd (7 hr) hunt in this newly exposed lot, that one following the Independence Day 3.5 hour exploratory adventure. After 10.5 hours the total old coin haul was 4 silver coins and 32 Wheat pennies, having covered about 3/4 of the available, undisturbed area. I returned the next day (Sunday 9 July) with high hopes, and 5 hours to spend. I began the day with the Fisher F75 set on de (default) discrimination mode, gain~90, zero discrimination threshold using the factory 5 inch DD coil. I planned on finishing the last 25% of undisturbed sodded ground, which was along the street next to the public sidewalk. Things didn't start well (a Zincoln) and didn't improve. About half to 2/3 of the way through that patch with nothing of age to show, I shifted gears and returned to the previously fertile ground. That change didn't improve my production. The last 1 1/2 hours I decided to use the factory stock 7 in X 11 in DD coil to see if the anticipated added depth might be the solution. It wasn't. Large coils gain coverage and probably (depending upon settings and ground mineralization) depth, but at the cost of increased ground mineralization and added junk targets -- in all directions (along the surface and deeper). In the end the total coin haul was a meager 3 Zincolns (you know I'm in trouble counting those), 6 copper Memorials, and 1 Wheatie. With a workweek to lick my wounds, but then not being able to hunt there on Saturday the 15th due to other commitments, I made another trip on Sunday, 16 July, with only 3 1/2 hours allotted. However, in the meantime I had added a coil (how can anyone get by with just 2 coils ) -- the 6 in X 10 in Fisher concentric. I did get to test this out on Saturday, so I wasn't going in cold. I mostly ran at a gain of 70, and in fa (fast) process, but I did experiment some with other processes. I decided to retrace my paths, both in the previously high producing sections as well as retesting the barren strip next to the street. The return on investment was modest: 3 Wheaties, two of which came from the same hole and a 1991 Jefferson 5 cent piece. Although all were in spots I don't think I had previously checked (two Wheats and the Jeffy on the fringe of sodded ground and the other Wheat on the strip adjacent to the street which I had abandoned in defeat the previous Sunday), I did find some high conductivity junk targets in the previously searched ground which I should have found earlier. Conclusions: It's precarious to read too much into sparse results. However the strong contrast between those first 10.5 hours and the last 8.5 hours is sufficiently significant. I enumerate: 1) Clearly no one had ever hunted that private lot. 35 Wheaties and 4 silver coins were easy pickin's. I don't think I can say as much about the strip of right-of-way next to the street, which yielded just 1 Wheat. 2) I vacuumed the easy-to-detect coins pretty well those first two sessions. I'm confident there is still some left, but most of that is either well shielded by iron junk (nails?) or deeper than I was able to get with my coil, settings, and skill level. 3) The coil choice has an impact. The large coil wasn't very productive due to the moderate to high (depending upon location) amount of junk targets. The small coil does very well when over a good target, even in the neighborhood of junk, but suffers from coverage issues. The Goldilocks ("just right") compromise might be the 6x10. How much difference concentric vs. DD matters I can't say. Fisher does make a 5 in X 10 in DD, and a Nel/Cors aftermarket 5.5 in X 9.5 in DD is also available. My F75 Black was a recent, well studied purchase, and I chose the Fisher F75/F70 side of First Texas over the Teknetics T2 simply because of its capability to use concentric coils as well as DD's. (There were many other detectors in the running, too.) So far I'm pleased with the performance of the new (concentric) coil. 4) Almost all of my finds were 4 inches or less in depth, and most of the deepest (4 to 6 in) finds were multiple good targets. The large coil did find one lone 6 inch deep penny. First off, this lays to rest any notion that old coins have to be deep. Yes, in heavily searched areas there is a lot of truth to this (but don't discount junk targets masking shallow to moderate depth old coins). In virgin ground, Midwest soils anyway, not the case. But also this sparcity of deeper finds leaves lingering doubt regarding the difficulty of good ground coverage with small coils (the 5 in. round DD here). There likely are more good targets available for better searching techniques (and/or coils with better coverage). I'd be surpised if I even efficiently swept 75% of the area with the small coil. 5) The grass had not been cut in several weeks which kept the coils typically about 2 inches above the soil and in some spots more like 3 inches. We've had a wet May, June, and July so these facts are conspiring to make my detection depth less than ideal. On the flipside, wet ground is said to produce stronger signals. Closing, I don't have any more pretty pictures and I feel I'm ending on a depressing note. But the search isn't over and I've learned a ton. Still there is a lot more to learn. If I make any new discoveries (in loot or knowledge) I'll keep you posted. I'm giving this location a rest (hoping the grass will be cut...) and returning to a previoulsy fruitful search location and a new one I've yet to try. But I'll be back.