tboykin

A lot of the gold at Briggs is larger, so something that is light and easy to swing on a 45 degree hillside (and easy to pack in) really helps. There was a guy with a GPX there but most of the crew was using TDI SLs. Luckily the tennis shoes held up, but the gentleman did mention he'd bring boots next time!

Last weekend I got to tag along with Josh and Tom Bohmker, and a few other knowledgable miners. The destination was the Briggs Pocket in Southern Oregon. This was not an easy hike for some of the crew, but we all made it out and back. We did have one guy fall down a steep slope, but Josh was able to catch him before he tumbled down to the bottom. The video tells some of the history of this famous pocket mine as well as how Josh and his family have used modern P.I. detectors to recover the gold left on the hillside by previous generations of miners. Of all types of metal detecting for gold, I would count pocket hunting as the most difficult - due to the terrain, research, and extensive geology knowledge required. It's something not many people have the patience for (me included), so I have to say I admire the gumption of the Bohmker family - they discovered the Briggs Pocket just two weeks before another party and have pulled a lot of gold out of their claim. The gold from the Briggs Pocket tends to be spongey and interwound with the host rock (quartz). I will post some journal excerpts at the bottom of this post in case you'd like to read some historical accounts as well. But here's the video: Every time I see Josh and Tom I learn so much about the geology of gold. Anyone who has an interest in pocket hunting might want to look them up. They do go on regular expeditions with folks, which I believe they run through their website. I thought you guys might like a virtual tour of the Briggs Pocket - since this forum is where I got started on my journey of searching for gold. HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS Briggs History: (As recorded by the Mining Review, Salt Lake City, Utah bi monthly publication) June 30, 1904 Discovery of a mammoth pocket near the head waters of sucker creek, forty miles south of Grants Pass. The discovery was made by the two sons of David Briggs, while out hunting, and was purely accidental as they stumbled across it while trailing a deer. They have already brought in $6,000 from the pocket, and believe they will bring as much more before the glory hill is emptied. Much of the gold was in great slabs as big as a man's hand, and all of it came from a shallow cut, but three feet wide, three feet deep, and but six feet in length. July 15th, 1904 The Rush is still on to the new Eldorado up in the siskiyous, beyond Holland, and on the Oregon California line. I took the fever and joined the caravan, mainly for the purpose of satisfying a curiosity, but not an idle one, for it is to severe a strain on a scribblers physical make up to climb twenty miles almost straight up just to see what is going on over the divide. ......................... We found about 100 men scattered about the head of Thompson and Indian creeks, a number of whom had taken up claims. A townsite has been surveyed, and the town will be know as "Goldenview City" The strike made by Briggs has already taken out $25,000 in gold. Contented in the truth that want will never more drive them out of unbefitting toil, they are satisfied with the life of the mountains. Here is the freedom no other land can give, the genuine freedom of the western outer world. It was these mountains that gave up bountifully from their long hidden treasures. And they who were so fortunately endowed with not forget the giver. _ Dennis H Stovall Records indicate that this was worked for two seasons, and there was a group that braved the winter and worked through. In the end, the strike led to a rush up there of over 2000 men, almost everything was claimed up, and many smaller strikes were made within the vicinity. I don't think the town of Goldenview ever came to pass. They (Briggs) sold the claim and staked a new claim not far away. A company from Chicago invested substantial money into developing the mine, but turned up nothing, or at least not enough to be profitable. By June of 2005, there was no more reports on the Briggs strike.

John, You can easily improve the MX Sport's by enabling REJ VOL (iron audio) at about 30 and also taking one point of iron disc off, just below zero. These were tweaks I made in the field when Monte challenged me to take this test that helped the coin pop out a bit better. His Nokta's had some adjustments made specifically for this test, and I was kind of surprised at how the MX Sport performed without doing anything special. The whole point of this video was to show the detector's performance with this standardized test - even for people who's only adjustment is the power button. An expert can setup almost any machine in a specific situation like this, but the reality is that most people just want a turn on and go machine. Tom

My personal preference after using the first gen TDI, TDI Pro, and SL is the SL. It's light, affordable, and works where VLFs will not. I also use it to hunt deep silver that other people can't reach. You can use a combination of the ground balance and conductivity switch to knock out iron and cherry pick other targets. I know everyone likes Minelab here, which I get - it's a prospecting board first and foremost and they focus on gold machines. But you name me another ground-balancing pulse machine for under $1200 (and under 4lbs) that can do what the TDI SL can do and I will go without my coffee tomorrow!

Pro tip that has helped me out in farm fields and hot ground - enabling salt track in any mode results in quieter operation and more stable signals. But requires a slightly slower sweep speed to allow the ground tracking to track the big changes in ground conditions.

Really? When I use that coil to hunt swimming areas it feels pretty neutral. It's epoxy-filled so it should sink. Feels a lot less resistant to water too.

Awesome info, thank you. There's a coin shop here I can take it to. My plan is to slam the nuggies on the table and say "I'll sell ya this gold for $100!" At which point the shop owner will scoff and say "That's not gold!" Then I will say "PROVE IT BUDDY!" Free test achieved.

Same here. Your coin collection was amazing to see. Something I will never match! Nice meeting you and when you stop by the factory next please don't be a stranger.

Thanks - I plan on having these checked by a local shop to make sure they are legit. These were down on a flat bench right above the confluence of two rivers. I won't know for sure they are gold until I have them professionally tested.

What a weekend! I had the opportunity to head out to Idaho for an event put on by Spud Diggers/Ultimate Metal Detectors and meet some members of this forum who attended. Great group of guys on an old Chinese gold mine with an old townsite. Many layers of history going back from the 1870s to the 1930s, and lots of tin - yuck! I followed the Oregon Trail out there, and planned to represent the White's factory at the event since we were sponsoring the event. My fingers were crossed for relics, but I knew that since it was an active mine years ago there was a chance at finding some other types metal. So I brought it all - TDI SL, GMT, V3i, TreasurePro, and of course my go-to the MX Sport. Pretty quickly after running the TDI and GMT I realized that I would need a good discriminator and a strong magnet to get through the tin. The first thrill I got was seeing a newbie (Maddie) dig her first signal with an MX Sport - a 1940 Merc on the side of the road by camp. She was shaking when I caught up with her after hearing her holler out loud! Oregon Gregg was hitting IHP's and everyone was finding relics left and right with a few coins thrown in. Even I was finding some buttons, bullets, and a nice little pewter teacup from a child's play set. I found a flat area that looked like a prime spot where two creeks met. The area had been hydraulic mined, as well as dredged, with hard-rock mines in the area. I got a bunch of strange lower-conducting signals with the MX Sport and decided to dig one. They were about 6-7 inches down and rang up in the foil/nickel range on the MX Sport. My newly purchased HoeDag made quick work and the TRX helped me out since the targets were pretty small. What came out looked like a crusty booger. Underneath the crust it had a dull yellow shine. The mining report I read mentioned several different types of processes the miners used throughout the 80 years of active work, so I kept three pieces I dug from the same hole for examination later. There were other signals in that area to investigate but I had high hopes for a Chinese coin so I moved on. The rest of the hunt was awesome - lots of miles on my boots, awesome company, great food, and memories to last! After I got home I was too curious to wait, so I broke out the peroxide and a brush and got to work. Somewhere I lost the small BB-sized piece in the field photo between my fingers. But the bigger pieces made it home. Here's the finished product: I will admit I got a little shaky when I saw them start to shine in the peroxide. I got to meet Gerry from Boise on my trip, great guy and I figured I owed him this shot with the 2.5 grammer. Every time I find something new I get more and more hooked by this hobby. Thanks to forums like this, Ultimate Metal Detector, and of course WHITE'S ELECTRONICS, I can mark this off my bucket list. It took me over a year... but it was totally worth it! I was getting pretty frustrated at all of the skunks, and to find this much gold with the MX Sport, well, I feel pretty damn lucky! I need to do a little more digging to see what the crud on the outside was, but there was a lot of sulphide-bearing quartz in the area. I would guess that these nuggets were a result of some kind of refinement and processing and they were just missed by the old-timers. But I know where I'm going the next time I'm in Idaho...

Steve as always is spot-on. If you are somewhat new to detecting I would run a low (or NO) threshold. When you get used to that increase it and enable the REJ VOL to hear all the iron in the ground. It can let you know where to slow down and pick through a spot.

We are just about sold out on these already. Should have more soon. Did not expect them to go so fast! These are made by a real nice guy who contacted us on Facebook. They are laser cut and have a nice finish, plus you are supporting an individual when you buy these, not a giant corporation. His hand-written note to the factory when he sent us some samples to evaluate was a nice touch as well.

I think it's good they are taking the time to tweak it. Kinda feel bad for the dealers who took preorders so early, but at least they can offer an MX Sport to those who don't want the summer to slip away before getting a new detector.

Made me laugh. I'm still in the squat-behind-the-brush phase, but I make sure to leave a nice-sized fishing sinker everywhere I do my duty. Careful where you dig at Rye Patch!

Both of the machines got wet from the drips, but they can take that. Just don't want to submerge them.

*** NOTE *** DO NOT ENTER MINES. This trip was with an experienced geologist and miner. Leave the mine exploring to the professionals. Never enter a mine. STAY OUT, STAY ALIVE. The discovery of gold in Quartzville started a small-scale gold rush in the 1800's. Not as big as Althouse Creek or Sutter's Mill, but big enough to cause farmers to lay down the plow and head to the hills above Sweet Home to seek their fortune. Much of the gold is small, including wire gold, but a seasoned prospector can do well and come across some gorgeous nuggets if they know where to look. Nowadays most people work the creek using dredges... but like all placer gold it came from somewhere. A lot of people who tell you "don't waste your time there" are just trying to protect stuff like this: Saturday about 8am I went out with two guys who had a lot of history with the Quartzville District above the White's Factory. The idea was to check out claims and use the metal detectors to do some true prospecting in and around old workings that date back to the 1880's. The GMT seemed like a good fit for the size of gold and what our goal was since we would need to read the mineralization in the mines to locate pay streaks. I brought a TDI as well to use in one section with some pocket gold. But they were just tools to help us locate mineral samples for the most part. I will never be a geologist, but I did try and pick up a few things from these guys. The climber is a geologist (and the claim holder), and the hammer-er is a seasoned dredger who has pulled ounces of gold out of Quartzville Creek (legally). This was the first mine that was completely flooded to the roof, so we took some samples and moved on. And yes, the only way up the mountain was to billy goat where the guy with the backpack is climbing. This was not a trip for the meek. I am a pretty regular hiker and this had me huffing. 45+ degree slopes, thousands of feet up and down. But it was worth it. Just above where I took this shot was a massive quartz outcropping. The view was incredible. With the claim holder's permission I took a few quartz samples for the wife. She is a rock-hound and likes it when I bring her something back. Some of the quartz was so hard even a rock pick and sledgehammer didn't do much to loosen it. But it was a good sign! The next shaft had water in it too. But the claim holder said it was only 4 ft deep. Still too deep to see what was under water. Luckily I could feel some of the timber underfoot and used that to keep from sinking to my neck. The other guys did the same. Still had a couple OOPSes that led to dunking. It is an eerie feeling in the dark when your feet can't feel the bottom. Plus the water was COLD... After we got through the water it shallowed up and we made our way to the back of the mine. The air was good but a little stale. Timbers were in amazing shape for their age! There aren't too many mines with the ore cart tracks still in them. So this was a neat thing to see. We used the GMT to scan for pockets of mineralization in the vein, which let us know where to sample from. Previously the material was assayed at .17 oz/ton. So we were curious to see if having the detectors along would be any help in locating streaks of mineralization. We listened for threshold raises to target "hot spots" on the walls.. and hoped for that screamer signal that might be a nice-sized nugget. Time to check and see if it was worth it... Hard to make out, but definitely gold! We checked a few other spots around a known pocket mine and didn't find much besides square nails and other mining junk. With a heavy bucket full of samples, backpacks, detectors, and a gallon less water, we headed back to the trucks about 6pm. It had been a pretty full day, and it was burger time. Even though we didn't get rich, it was a successful trip! We got to help a guy work his claims a bit, I got to know more about the mining district, and we even found some gold. I will say that compared to Rye Patch, this was a lot more interesting and gave me a serious workout. Plus, I came away with some new friends.

He's really pleased with his MXT right now. It's the go-to machine of most of the cellar hole hunters I've met. I think the simplicity and metal box are what draw them to it - it's a tank of a detector. TRX is a good idea though, I should see if he's got one.

Customer sent these pics of a once-in-a-lifetime find. This is a dream for many coin hunters on the East Coast of the U.S.

We did slim it down. This was based on customer input as well as Steve's post about our "archaic" loop design.

Updated the list on our forum.

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to meet Steve Herschbach in person - he really is that smart!

If you can get the 4x6 shooter for the GMT it might help around the rocks. Good luck and find some shiny!

Yeah they said since I couldn't grow a beard I was out of the running. But the wife is happy!

I appreciate it. I think having a less risky purchasing decision (sub $300 machine) is the way to go to get those people interested. Hard to justify spending $800 to try something out when many people under 35 are spending half their pay on housing...

Yep!