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This was really encouraging to me Luke, Goldmaster V/Sat is the only detector I own. That, plus not doing much detecting equals no gold. But, on the other end of the scale I find lots of nails. lead shot and small bits of other metals and hot rocks.

I walk into a major electronics store here or see their ad it's says Good Better Best. I'd say most of us try to stay in the income level we're in. This wholes true when we are looking for a detector to buy. This may not whole true anymore with the price drop of some high dollar detectors that we see coming on the market. When we see a price drop we also see that product put in the price range of more buyers. You're not a good buyer anymore you've gone beyond that and you find yourself buying the best. It may been a hard push to get there but you know that detector will be the best for you for years to come. In 91 I put down 725.00 dollars for a at that time was a high dollar detector but it still detects The thing is all these years later for almost the same money I can buy a detector that will run circles around my old one. That's my thinking but I want to know yours. Chuck.

In the process of finding the right person to mine with... any advice from those who have been there and done that would be great. Thanks. Small Scale Mining.

I always know that in ancient time people love to underground there tressure on earth but now a days we all love detecting that treassure yesterday i test a box of iron filled with full of crap item like copper alluminum iron scrap the i burried it at depth of 2ft dpth u all will amaze at max teknetics t2 atpro ctx3030 come up to detect it with ease t2 has upper hand on all of it nice clear audio ctx shows target sepration nice and smooth at max has not any problem it detect and make a loud clear audio but i am amaze after see the reading clearly

Hi ya'll! I have a question for you. If you could go detecting anywhere in the lower 48 and stay as long as you wanted-where would it be, and what would you hunt? Not looking for anybody's top secret honey hole, just a general area. I'm planning our trip next summer with the small toyhauler and ATV. I'd like to try hunting some different things in some different places. Already got South Beach/FT Lauderdale on the radar, as well as tons of places in Montana. There has to be something fun in the 2500 miles in between! Thanks for all suggestions! Ammie

I hit this pocket out hunting along a contact zone. I think it is native silver, but there have been no historical accounts of silver being found, only platinum and gold. Upon inspection with the microscope I can see gold popping out in a couple places. The large nugget was on the top of a vein of decomposing calcite and quartz, you can see on one side where the rock fell apart leaving some interesting formations. The large piece is 3/4 of a ounce and the foil like piece, that was found downhill, is about a 1/4 ounce. So this is most likely silver but anybody ever see platinum gold ore? The pieces came out very clean with very little magnesium oxide coating. The only thing that has my mind wandering is the fact that the source of platinum has never been found in the area, no historical accounts of silver being found and it came out of the ground really clean. Anybody see anything like this while out hunting for pocket gold?

This morning I was reviewing another thread and there was a link to Steve's review philosophy. I encourage everyone to read it. It reminded me of an idea I have had for a long time about having an event (several events) with all metal detectorists and manufacturers products used to find professionally hidden and buried targets. You don't get to dig or recover the targets. You put a score on each hole like you do on a golf score card. Rules can be made to make it fair. Spectators would be encouraged as the locations for these events could be elevated. The finals could be in a stadium depending on EMI! haha The idea is that there could be events and at each of the events there could be courses and each of these courses could have holes. Some of the courses could be coin only, gold only or relic only. Some of the 'holes' would have gold nuggets, hot rocks, coins, rings, etc. Some of the events/courses would let you use your own detector and some of the events would be using the same detector ... like some of the auto races. Some of the events could use discriminating detectors and some would be size and depth competitions using PIs. Some of the events would be set up like panning contests. I think everyone gets their own ideas. You get people and kids out early to find things. What would we get out of this as the metal detecting community? Competition, advertising and exposure of detectorists skills and manufacturers products that could result in better equipment. What would be a possible negative? Some of us would rather keep ourselves invisible to the public at large. Some of that would be lost. What say you? Mitchel

Lu found a pick on one of our outings to Quartzsite. We are trying to do a little research on it. I found an eBay item that had a similar mark but the seller does not know anything about the maker. The mark is a Y P with an anchor between the two letters. Does anyone here know about this mark? Mitchel

G'Day to our American Friends from Australia, i am new to your forum and new to Gold detecting, the little amount of detecting I have done has been very successful in finding dozens and dozens of 22 bullets along with the odd can pull tag. I live in an area renowned for Gold, but I am starting to question the advise I have been given by the sales people, it's fine to have a detector that will pick out the smallest gold, but to my way of thinking you need to be in an area that is isolated, Can you advise me on detectors that are designed to highlight small nuggets but larger that a 22 bullet, I am thinking that if a detector is less sensitive it would miss some of the trash, your thoughts are appreciated. Cheers.......Aussie

Hi, hoping one of the Gold Bug Pro brains trust could give me their opinion please?I'm new to detecting & was wondering about the ground balance number and the ground phase number in the middle of the screen. In order to ground balance I'm pumping the coil up and down whilst pushing the GG button and most often the ground phase number and ground balance number match closely pretty quickly, however.....once I get started sweeping again the ground phase number (in the screen centre) jumps all over the place. Is this normal? Or should after I've ground balanced, the phase number pretty much remain the same? I've read through the manual and I think I'm doing everything correctly, just not sure if an erratic phase number is right? I was in all metal mode, both dials at 12:00 and up on dry sand. Thank you

I have recently been through a whole house fire and am looking to see if there is a metal detector that would help locate my wife's fine jewelry that was sitting on a countertop in the kitchen now that the kitchen is in the basement with the second floor on top of it?

Just some good advice if you ever sell some detecting equipment, always purchase extra insurance. Priority mail covers only 50 bucks !! Bought this great Detech coil spiral wound from a friend....was in perfect condition but I found it a bit heavy for all around use. I decided to sell it to a fellow who "was" going to use it back in Virginia for relics as its a double d coil and would have worked out fine if it was not " DESTROYED" somewhere by usps . So, if you're shipping something over 50 bucks buy that extra insurance....I am hoping it still works, going to give it a try tomorrow and see....looking at it I doubt it.......Insure, insure for sure next time!

Something I've been thinking about is "growing the hobby." It's kind of a tricky thing. For detector manufacturers to survive, there is a need to expand the reach and interest in metal detecting as a hobby. But, the catch 21 is that there are less and less relics and old coins to dig each year. The more people get into detecting, the less old stuff we find. And the finds are what get people into detecting in my experience. It's a lot harder to get excited about finding 37 cents at a park than it is to find a trime or a colonial buckle. In talking to old timers, the "good ole days" seemed to be the 70's, 80's and early 90's - when silver was easier to find and every site wasn't pounded to death. That's why making detectors that out-perform current machines is so important. A deeper, better discriminating machine can breathe new life into old spots, which is what most manufacturers should be working on. What do you think about introducing the hobby to new generations? Would you prefer it stay an "old guy hobby," or would you like to see the younger crowd pick up where you leave off? How do we deal with the fact that each day, there is less treasure (including nuggets) to find?

An interesting take on this subject from an old Pro in the industry, Dick Stout. From his website Is It the Detector or is it You….?

Recently read Lucky's post about his Rye Patch adventure. Nice job guys and gal. He mentioned "we cover hundreds of acres with our coils a day". I'm pretty sure he didn't mean that literally, it just felt that way. Anyway, it got me wondering how much ground are we covering with our coil in day. For the sake of simplicity let's assume we are swinging a 12" coil in a 6' arc. Therefore we cover 6 sq. ft each swing. To cover an acre (43560 sq. ft) we need to make 43560/6=7260 swings. Also let's assume we are taking 3 sec./swing. Then 7260 swings x 3 sec/swing=21780 sec or 21780/3600sec/hr=6.05 hrs. So to put your coil over an acre of ground with a modest swing rate takes about 6 hours excluding any digging, eating, or whatever. You could cut that time by swinging faster or using a bigger coil, but covering an acre takes a fairly long time. You also could move faster and pass over ground between each swing, but your coil is still only seeing one acre. Food for thought. Damn, I got to get a hobby.

I find myself nugget hunting alone all the time. The trouble here in Texas it's next to nothing in the way of gold to be found. You find most people coin hunting and some relic hunting. If you said anything about nugget hunting I'm sure they wouldn't know what you're talking about. I've got a nugget hunting trip plan and been talking with a friend in another state that did hunt but I don't believe will ever again. So tell me if you going it alone and if not then how. Chuck

Some may say that it's the detector in front of the guy and others may say it's the guy behind the detector. I say it's a little of both and the guy who will admit he may not know it all. Like another post this guy was asking for help to bring him up to speed on his GPZ. Oh don't get me wrong you do have to be where the gold is to start. Anyone who goes out and buys this hot new detector has to be willing to put in the time and make note of what works best. I say this has to be with you every time you go out in the field to detect. It's said the proof is in the pudding but in your case it's more gold found. A lot of you know Uncle Ron. Well at one time he had this old SD 2100 and found more gold than most with a newer detector. If you would have seen the coil he had on it you may had felt sorry for him and gave some gold to him. I don't know what he swings now but it was all about him knowing his detector and what it could do for him. I posted this just to give you more to think about to make you a better nugget hunter. Chuck.

Went for a drive down the Feather River Canyon yesterday. Beautiful day, lots of water everywhere. With lots of water, comes lots of bugs. As the sun was starting to set, the mosquitoes and buffalo gnats were horrendous. So make sure bug repellant is in your bag. Lots of water made for a good scouring of the riverways. Should make for a good prospecting and detecting season.

So I've been working on my new dredge and its turning into a chunk of change. That has me thinking I need to plan a bit. Been lucky to date I have only lost a GEO pick but even that is 60.00. I'm looking for ideas as to deter people from getting into my stuff and vandalizing or stealing. What are the rest of you guy's doing? So far I have cables and locks for the dredges and I ordered security bolts to secure the motors. Looking at a game cam to post on a tree at the main road to get a picture of any driving in figure i'll get a license plate that way as well as a profile. Anyone have a favorite camera? Maybe some" smile your on camera signs"? I am looking at some camouflaged tarps and I did paint up some steel lock boxes for hand tools and small gear. Anyone use GPS tracking devices? Not looking to set up booby traps to hurt people but if anyone has a landmine that blows out crap, I'm listening Here are the lock boxes I painted.

Much has been written about prospecting and open holes. Let's try to keep some things in perspective. It is a well known and established fact that gold nuggets can be found in areas that have been and are being dry washed. (Large pits are left open or gullies are destroyed.) It is also a known fact that gold is still found where the old timers used ground sluices extensively in areas where there was enough water. (Large boulders and rocks line the hillsides with trees and growth coming out of these old digs.) The 'signs' of these activities sometimes gets us excited if we own a metal detector. We know they didn't get it all. A more recent sign of gold in an area would be unfilled holes in a nugget patch. (There can also be rake piles where someone got the iron stones out of the way or chaining marks very dense.) We can sure get mad about this or we can 'read the holes' and find what is left. We might even want to 'thank' the jerks who left the holes open. (We might learn that WE didn't get it all and someone has gone back to OUR patch and found nuggets we missed!) There is another way for us 'hole fillers' to think about things. (It is not all bad ... make some lemonade mates.) We should get 'excited' if we go to an area where there are holes (filled or not) because it means there were targets ... and you HAVE TO BELIEVE that there are still some good targets left. Think about it. You have these places where to detect: 1. A 'virgin' place with perfect patina and no signs of digging, scraping or mining. (Might be good for meteorites!) 2. A place that has 'old' dig holes that are fairly shallow but the depressions are there. 3. A place that has more recent holes which are less than 10" deep and some are unfilled. 4. A place with a lot of dig holes, many unfilled and some are very deep. Your detecting equipment is a 7000, a 5000/4500 with the new coils or something else which is 'state of the art' so to say. Please rank where you spend your time. Mitchel P.S.: When done fill your holes because there will be even better equipment coming out and you will want to go back to your patch. Save the locations on your GPS.

When detecting with 3 or 4 people and 1 finds a patch should it be shared or is it the the finders alone?

Quite often l have seen detectorists arrive at a new spot full of enthusiam and upon arrival jump out of the car, grab their detector and race off hurrying here and there like a headless chook swinging aimlessly in their excitement to find that first elusive bit of gold. Only to be dissapointed at the lack of gold finds and quickly ready to write the area off and move on. I speak from experience because l was one of those. However several of those spots kept calling me back. And when I did return it was with a contolled enthusiam. Instead of jumping out of the car and racing around I took the time to look about and read the ground. I took the time to get the detector running smoothly and most importantly I took the time to carefully detect the area I had chosen, thouroughly working the area in a unhurried manner. And on most occasions I was rewarded with gold. Yes gold from an area I was too quick to write off initially because I was in too much of a hurry to properly access the potential that was right in front of my nose. So all l can say is slow down, plan you attack and have patience and work the area properly and don't be too quick to write a spot off or you will leave it behind.

My buddy brought this thing back from a gulch in Colorado. He wasn't having any luck finding gold with is Atgold so he started using his magnet on his pick. He happened upon this thing. I don't know what to call it yet so it's a thing right now! LOL Anyway it stuck like glue to his pick but he told me his machine would not hit on it! I told him he must of had his machine set up wrong. OK. So I bring it home and tried my Atpro on it with my already set GB to 80 and not a peep at full power, Pro zero with no disc! I then lowered my GB to around 60 and there I could get a hit. It would not hit at the center of the coil but would hit as the coil approached and departed the target with an iron tone. The Propointer A/T won't peep even touching this thing but yet it is strongly attracted to a magnet!! It's small and heavy weighing in at 2.7oz. What the heck is it???

How many New targets are we really finding? To answer this question it is a bit more 'complicated' than just a new coil vs an old coil or a new detector vs an old detector although those are part of the variables. This question now comes to mind when I am using the GPZ 19 on previously worked patches. When I go to the beach and grid a box that is 100x100 with my 3030 I will find targets. If I assume there are 50 targets within that area and I get 20 I might be doing pretty good without knowing for sure the total potential targets and how long I take to hunt it out. I will not find them all ... I will miss some ... and then I'll move on to another pocket ... sometimes. The number I miss depends on my grid pattern, the type of target, if I overlap my swing, soil/salt conditions, discrimination level, shape of target and of course, depth. If I am finding really good targets and I go back over this area I might find 5 more that I missed the first time ... and I still haven't gotten them all. If a friend of mine comes over that same square with his White's Surfmaster Dual Field PI he might find 15 targets. Some of these targets would be new (12) and some missed (3). (Those are just guesses but you get my point.) The point is that the PI will find New targets because it can go deeper and see invisible targets but it is also possible to find missed targets that my 3030 could still see if I went over it. When I use the GPZ 19 looking for meteorites I am primarily looking for missed targets because the targets are so shallow. This includes going to a new area previously undetected because part of the 'miss' is not going to an area because of luck or inadequate research. Now when I am out on a gold patch with the GPZ 19 I am looking for missed targets and New targets. An advantage of the GPZ 19 on the missed targets is that it is a much larger coil. It is also a more advanced, quieter technology. (Missed targets need to be a bit larger because the GPZ 14 will see smaller targets than the GPZ 19.) New targets (those not detectable with the GPZ 14) would be those that are deeper and those 'invisible' to the GPZ 14. My mentors have been going over old patches with new technology for years. Some of what they find is New and some of what they find is missed even to this day. So this is an 'old game' with just a new player (me) hoping to be productive while swinging. I want to find something every trip. Am I going to find more missed targets than New targets? It depends on where I search so I need a mix of new ground and hunted out patches. There is still deep gold! Slow, deliberate and methodical gridding will have to win the New targets (if the patch has depth) and the missed targets will follow. This will mean many skunk days. The old patches aren't being replenished unless it is a wash. Mitchel (added after Chuck's response))

Jason made a comment on another thread about the virtues of not getting bogged down hunting small gold. I wanted to comment without getting off topic so here goes. In my opinion big nuggets generally go to the first coil over them. They are big and so kind of hard for any good detector to miss. Let's say there is a nugget that a detector can hit at 20". That means as long as any of those nuggets or larger exist in the top 20" you get them. Now you go back and hunt with a machine that can hit those same nuggets to 24". The problem is for all intents and purposes you are now detecting only 4" of additional depth, and the odds of one of those targets being in 4" of ground is far less than the odds of one being in 20" of ground. And in fact due to the way many desert placers form, your odds are even worse because many desert placers get leaner the deeper you go. Those big deep nuggets of your imagination may just not be there, as has been proved by many (not all) failed bulldozer pushes. There is therefore a lot to be said for Jason's method of covering lots of hopefully virgin ground fast with larger coils to go for the larger gold even if you give up some depth doing it. I spent much of my detecting career hunting like that. The problem is pretty simple. It is getting very hard to find virgin ground that has good enough gold for this method. Days if not weeks can pass between decent finds, making this only for people with lots of time and extreme patience. My method now generally has shifted to cleanup mode. Hunting slowly and methodically chasing smaller gold with the GPZ with the idea that any deeper nuggets I get over will take care of themselves. Oftentimes for most well hunted areas that means only getting small gold but at least I am finding gold, and the GPZ hits about as small as anyone could wish. And if a larger one comes along I have high confidence I will nail it easily enough. As anyone can attest however, those big ones are getting very rare. Novices in particular I have to recommend slow and careful, going for the small stuff. Finding gold, any gold at all, is an extremely important confidence builder and essential if the novice is not going to quit the game after only a few outings. If money is no object, there in my opinion is no surer way to get some gold than to get an SDC 2300 and go as slow and as methodically as possible with it. If you can't find gold with a 2300 you are in entirely the wrong locations, or electronic prospecting simply is not for you.