Lanny

If you can't detect that monster gold ring, something is off for sure. Have you invested a good chunk of time reading and rereading your manual and practicing with your machine? If you have, contact warranty and find out what the issue is. No matter what brand, sometimes units are faulty (coils, wires, boxes, connectors, circuits, etc.) that's why there's a great warranty on your Racer (or the coil wire is loose at the box, etc.). All the best, as I've paid for my Racer many times over. It does what it was designed to do, just like any great gold detector, but if there's a fault in the system, warranty is there for you. (Excellent, excellent customer service!) All the best, Lanny

That's livin' the dream!

If you can get to a place where there's mineralized soil (like in the goldfields, before you go) make a test bed in the mineralized soil (maybe make some with regular sand and black sand? I always have buckets of mineralized soil around; they come in right handy) for those bits of aluminum so you can experience some of the real-world conditions of trying to locate your aluminum-gold in somewhat challenging conditions. If you can't get any practice soil/a place with similar ground conditions, just have at it in mild soil until you've tuned your ear to threshold breaks as you'll always want to investigate them when you're in the gold fields. (For your test-bed, plant your aluminum at various depths until you can't hear it anymore, then bring it up slightly and bury it again and repeat until you can barely hear a signal. You'll be earning your spurs when you only get a break (at target depth while scrubbing the ground) in the threshold when you're over a marked spot with a target (regardless of size) buried at depth (the size will determine how deeply you'll hear the bigger targets, the smaller ones will of course be under less soil before they disappear, and in mineralized soil, you'll lose the depth ability a lot faster). All the best, Lanny P.S. If none of this is news to you, carry on and good luck.

They don't sell Oreos (or other food combinations) like that up here! All the best, Lanny

The tip you just got from Steve is solid gold (pun intended)! (I've found in the past [from sad experience because I didn't do it] that when a pro speaks, it pays to listen . . .) All the best, Lanny

Hey! It's been a while. Nice to hear from you again, and when your family is involved there really is nothing better because you can't really fake chasing the gold as it's hard work! So, maybe one day your family will come around. No single nugget is over 13 grams . . . . All the best, Lanny

Thanks for dropping in to leave a note, much appreciated. A bad day of nugget shooting in the mountains always beats a bad day at work, right? (The old cliché of a bad day of fishing always beats a good day at work doesn't quite apply for me as I enjoy my work, but there are bad work days, so the bad nugget shooting day will always win.) Thanks for appreciating the photos, and all the best, Lanny

Nicely done! Loved the pictures and the narrative. It truly looks like you've got a perfect slice of heaven. All the best, Lanny

That is indeed an amazing find! What a uniquely beautiful piece!! Congratulations on your find, and all the best, Lanny

Some of Nature's golden goodness this fall. Pictures shot on my second-to-the-last outing. Gold-bearing stream that gave up a few goodies. Gold is certainly valuable, but the beauty of the mountains and the accompanying streams, truly priceless! All the best, and thanks to all of those that dropped in, much appreciated, Lanny

Thanks so much! Really appreciate you dropping in, and all the best, Lanny

Gerry, that sure is a great response! Many thanks. I'm sure the outings will continue as he's already planning more trips to the mountains with me for the 2019 season. The nice thing about my son is he's a dedicated learner that listens intently to any tips I give him, and then he head right off to implement them; that's what makes him so successful. The older I get, the more I realize I don't know (not like when I was younger). He's at the point in his life now where he realizes I might know a thing or two about finding nuggets, so I'm not going to let him know how much I don't know because he's doing just great with the tips I've given him of what little I do know about nugget shooting. All the best, and thanks for stopping by to say hello, Lanny

You're right. It's always hard work, yet it's fun, which kind of comes across as fun work, which seems like a bit of a paradox. Regardless, when I'm hunting the gold with family, any work invested in the effort pays off in timeless golden dividends worth far more than the yellow metal we recover. All the best, Lanny

Thanks for stopping by, and as for the Racer, I invested a good chunk of time reading and rereading the manual, kept top rod/box-combo by my bedside with the manual, powered it up and practiced all of the various switch and toggle combinations until I had them down cold. So, when I hit the goldfields, I was ready to truly focus on sounds and not have to worry about trying to remember what I had to do mechanically with the machine in changing detecting conditions (more of a learning curve for the Racer than some other machines, but a great machine regardless). I wanted to see how sensitive it was to smaller gold, so I ran it over bedrock I'd already cleared with the Gold Bug Pro and was amazed at the concentrations of small gold the Racer hit on. Of course, it hit on the bigger stuff too, but so did both of my other machines (the Minelab 5000 and the Bug Pro), but by the time I was finished checking the bedrock, I'd recovered half again as much fine gold as the coarser stuff I'd found with the other two machines. So, by reading and rereading the manual (pretty low-tech), by keeping the rod/box-combo handy to power up until I'd learned the various operating steps of the box-unit, and by being able to focus intently on changing breaks in the threshold to find the fine gold, that's what worked for me. Nothing special, yet I should also mention, that once I started swinging the coil, I invested time learning the different sounds the Racer made for various hot/cold rocks; that was important so I didn't waste time chasing strange signals. It's a great little detector that does what it was designed to do well, but there was a bigger front-end learning load for me than with some other gold-getting VLF's. Having said that, if you get it over the gold, even tiny gold, it's mighty handy at sniffing it out. All the best, and good luck chasing the gold, Lanny

We really did have a great one! All kinds of fun that we'll remember forever. All the best, Lanny

Thanks so much! We truly do enjoy our time together, and the gold nuggets are a bonus to the true gold we've discovered in something we both love. All the best, Lanny

Thanks for dropping in, and many thanks for the kind words. Nothing better than chasing the gold with family, and my wife loves to go with us as well, so I'm pretty much set up perfect. All the best, Lanny

Hey, great to hear from you! Hope all is well at the other end of the globe, and I trust you'll chase the gold and continue to post those great pictures of your golden adventures. My son is in his 30's, and he started chasing the gold with me when he was about 12, but then he got busy with life and took a long break. However, now he's been dedicating some solid time over the last couple of years to learn all about nugget shooting, and he's doing great! All the best, and always great to hear from you, Lanny

Thanks! Lots of fun finding it too. Thanks for your comment, and all the best, Lanny

The best part was how much fun I had chasing the gold with my son. The two of us really hit some nice stuff this past season. All the best to those of you that enjoy chasing the gold, Lanny

What's wrong is what's right: most people get great instructions, get put in a good gold-finding area, but don't listen carefully to the instructions (been there, done that myself), so the wrong is not listening and internalizing what needs to be done, the right was in the proper instructions they were actually given. In other words, many people go too fast, don't carefully check out threshold disturbances (not signals), and obviously what she did right was she did check out a threshold disturbance, had the patience to stick with it, and so she got the nugget that many others would walk over. Point in case, I've worked with three rookies in the last two years, two investigate every threshold disturbance and they've got the gold to show for it, lots of nice nuggets. The other one just tears into the coil swinging trying to cover as much ground as quickly as possible waiting for a "screamer" to stop him, and for some reason, he won't believe the other two that they find nuggets by going slow and listening exceptionally carefully and then investigate any disturbance in the threshold: he can't believe that strategy works. He'd rather believe they were just lucky enough to get their coils over the gold first. Yup, he still has no gold . . . All the best, and thanks for the pictures and the explanation, Lanny

Thanks for sharing the pics and the videos. You've found some amazing gold, nicely done, and all the best, Lanny

What a fantastic trip! I loved tagging along as you told your tale, and the pictures were priceless. Thanks for taking the time to write about your adventures Steve, nicely done, and all the best wherever you go to chase the gold, Lanny

Sorry you didn't have any luck, but sometimes specialty vendors (one's that specialize in gold-hunting materials) are the best ones to send a request to as they have the established contacts to track down what you're looking for. Don't be afraid to contact them on ABE with a request. All the best, Lanny

Did you check on ABEbooks.com? Many vendors sell there and sometimes you'll get what you want. I've found a few obscure titles on mining there before I couldn't find anywhere else. As well, you can locate one of his books by vendor, then perhaps contact the vendor to see if they can round up a copy for you. All the best, Lanny