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  1. In the summer of 1968, I was on summer break - the fall would be my last semester before graduation from University and I was all set up to go into USAF Officer training school in February after I had my degree and turned 21 - and then on to Pilot Training - all that happened, but this is not about that. My mother’s family were French Canadian, emigrated to New England in the early years of the 1900’s - my grandfather - not yet a US citizen - was drafted and served in the US Army in France in WWI. But this is not about that. That summer, to make some money to afford to get married in the fall, I went to Rhode Island and lived with my godparents in Pawtucket. I got a job at Englehardt Industries in South Attleboro MA at a plant making the three layer metal rolls which went to the mint in Denver to be turned into Kennedy Half Dollars. There were several of us “College Boys” working there that summer. One of them was a Chemistry Major who worked in the lab. All incoming silver (from the US Repository at West Point) had to be assayed at the plant to ensure that the “mix” would be right for the silver content. One day at lunch break, my pal told me that there were problems with the last shipment of silver bars we had received - some stray element which was holding up approval for usage. We talked more and I recalled that shipment. The stuff came in in ingots - strapped one layer deep on wooden pallets in a trailer. They had us “kids” help with the unloading (we were cheap labor) and I recalled looking at these bars - they were a bit different. The bars always had mint marks on each bar. Usually just US Silver Repository West Point. These were different, Swastika marks - Rostchilds bank London, Rostchilds Bank Paris and the usual US. I though not much about it. The next day my pal from the lab told me what the stray element from the lab analysis turned out to be....mercury. The only likely source being amalgam for dental fillings. I will leave it to you to draw the same conclusion that I did. Precious metals are more enduring than us morals. Sometimes we possess them for a time - then we pass - as it were - through the “furnace” of time - and they endure. In this case - sadly - the furnace was all too literally a furnace.
  2. Yes this happened to me a few times in the early 70's. Mama found my porn stash under the bed and it was what set up my career. After all, I tell many I'm in the Adult Entertainment business selling high end toys. These early magazines had me squeamish in bed a many sleepless nights. A boy my age was quite naive, so seeing such raw and natural images sent my brain into overload. I had no clue what the future would hold, but I feel it came out quite right. View these 2 early magazines and you'll notice some of the articles and headlines. 1st is GOLD by True West, 1969 Vol. 1, #1 and looking at the inside page of the articles are authors mostly long gone. But I give credit to them for allowing me to dream. If anyone knows of these names, it would be neat to get updates. 2nd magazine porn I used to drool over, Old West 1971 and just as incredible is an article about "Elk City Idaho" and just below that....perfect timing. "One Thanksgiving Day". Folks, I can't make this up any better. I go to my old stash and grab a couple and these are absolute on. The inside cover (I forgot to check the centerfold) is a full page ad from Jetco and their top detectors 50 yrs ago. The models of the detectors are catchy like many muscle cars of the day, GTO, Mustang, GTX, Treasure Hawk...didn't Minelab have a Treasure Hawk? So I ask you folks, show the rest of us your Treasure Porn that kept you dreamin, drooling and -master swinging.
  3. First off, hello all! Great reads here, and a big thanks to Steve for all of the generous work put in for the lay-detectorists. I have gold fever. I’ve had it since I first dug up my own gold in 2013 and I’ve learned that it never goes away. It just gets worse as it sinks it’s claws deeper into its poor host. My summer job this year really hasn’t left me much free time for prospecting. Mostly a very brief opportunity to pan some gravel in the Feather River for flood gold. Much of the time for prospecting it has actually allowed me has been in the form of Google Earth prospecting the reminiscent values found in old patches and pure fantasy of what’s left to be found elsewhere. All of this imagination mixed with the ungodly lack of personal time has really flared my case of gold fever to a boiling point... no, something more closely resembling a nuclear reactor nearing criticality... yes. But, ah! Finally! After 3 months of work with only 10 days at home to take care of personal matters, another 2 days off without the chance of being bothered. An opportunity to go prospecting! In all the time I’ve had locked inside of my own head with my thoughts and stupendous ideas. There was one idea I had been diligently working to manifest into reality; I was going to use a mountain bike to subtract the amount of physical exertion it normally takes me to hike in and out of an old, arduously located patch! Well, my imagination is quite the steadfast optimist! And it kept being so, no matter how hard each and every contour line of this rugged desert terrain attempted to beat it into accepting the reality of the situation. Until finally, I submitted. My idea did not work. It was not smart, to try riding a mountain bike for my first time on the equivalent of an advanced, single track, rocky bike trail, with a backpack full of sustenance, plus a detector on my back. I had travelled 2 miles from where I parked and ridden the bike for maybe 500 feet... That translates to pushing the bike along in front of me with its front tire in the air for over 10,000 feet, not to mention the elevation gain involved! It was 8 o’clock in the morning, and I looked like I just got out of the shower fully clothed in Georgia during an August heat wave at 3 in the afternoon! Without shame, I laid the bike on its side next to the trail and proceeded on foot without looking back. I dried off quickly and was pleasantly relieved at how much easier it was to just hike after the whole bike ordeal. Eventually I made it to the old patch, where I had another plan thought up to explore the ground conditions for some future drywashing. This plan however was much safer, much less chance of failure. And I pulled it off without a hitch! It simply involved digging up a 5x5 foot area to see how deep the residual deposit laying over the area was. Of course more future exploration is planned, the purpose of today was just to have little teaspoon of medication for my fever. But I didn’t bring that detector for nothing!!! After dreaming of nuggets all summer, you bet I was gonna listen to what the dirt had to say today! I threw my old SD together with my trusty stock 11” DD and in two minutes I had a beautifully screaming target that stayed faithful after scraping away the surface. I couldn’t believe it happened so quickly! Soon I was looking at my first nugget after a 2 year skunk streak. A beautiful little half grammer! In another 20 minutes I found its little sister about 20 feet side slope to the left at a quarter gram. After exploring another one of my ideas without anything to show for it, I decided my day had been good enough and I’d head home and continue enjoying my short amount of time off. Plus I still had to push that dang failed plan from earlier back as far as I had pushed it in... but now with a Whopping .75 grams of extra weight of gold in my pocket
  4. Call them what you will- Mountain Lion, Big Cat, Cougar, Deese' Ven, Puma..... Until you encounter one real close you cannot comprehend the size and awesome power of these man-eating beasts. Sourdough Scott had such an encounter. I gave him fair warning. As we drove down a steep, narrow trail to our destination I ask him if mountain lions made him nervous while detecting. He said "Not at all. My dog will let me know if anything is amiss." His dog "Rooster" is one of the best detecting dogs Ive ever been with so I didn't worry. When we arrived at our destination the first thing we noticed were it's tracks. They were huge! The pads were bigger than any cougar tracks I have ever seen. Sourdough grabbed his detecting gear and head off while I was looking for my pick (and headphones and battery). When I caught up with Sourdough, there he was, within the clutches of a Big Cat! When it comes to heroic bravery I am one of the the bravest among mortals and I also posses uncommon wisdom. Which told me to run like hell, so I did. When I got back to the mining rig I got to thinking "this isn't right to just abandon my prospecting partner to a painful death. So I scrounged around in my backpack until I found my Kodak Instamatic camera. I know that gruesome and disgusting photos of human misfortune are all the rage these days so I figured a few photos could be worth thousands. When I returned to what I thought would be the scene of a tragedy, there was Sourdough Scott grinning like a conquering Gingus Kan and the Big Cat lay torn to pieces. Boy was I disappointed. There went my thousands. We continued on our detecting trip with beautiful scenery and perfect fall weather and found enough gold to justify a return trip before winter sets in. A good time was had by all.
  5. This past weekend I participated in my first outing with the Southwestern Prospectors & Miners Association (SPMA) club. We met at a gas station off I-8 and headed to one of their large claims in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains west of Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River. It took just under an hour on desert dirt roads to get there but the drive was not bad. There were six other guys and we all bonded well. After discussing the area we split up with half trying their hand at dry washing and the other half metal detecting. I suited up with my GPZ and tool belt and headed out. The rugged terrain with 104 degree temperatures was challenging but felt great. I have not been able to get out much this year. I got lucky. On a moderate slope about four inches down in a crevice of schist I found a 2.1 gram nugget. Yahoo! My best and one of my few nuggets for the year. The history of the area is interesting (from westernmininghistory.com): “Mining was first done in this region by Spaniards as early as 1780-81, when placers in Jackson Gulch and oxidized ores in Madre Valley were worked. This is believed to have been the first gold mined in California. Later, mining was resumed under Mexican rule. The district received its name of Cargo Muchacho, or Loaded Boy, when two young Mexican boys came into camp one evening with their shirts loaded with gold. American miners became interested in this district soon after the end of the Mexican War in 1848. Mining became firmly established in 1877 with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Yuma. Large-scale mining continued from around 1890 until 1916 and again from 1932 until 1941, with intermittent activity since World War II.” Happy Hunting!
  6. Hello everyone I'd like to document my expeditions this year. This will be my first season of being an "Electronic Prospector". I've studied most of the summer and am ready to go. I still need to learn more about Geology but I'm hoping this will come with time in the field. I look forward to posting my adventures/expeditions with you all 🙂 --Garik
  7. I don't know how it happened but it looks as though my post "Sourdough Scott Survives Encounter With Big Cat" seems to have been mistakenly read as having something to do with wild animals. Perhaps this photo will provide needed clarification. This beast was a Deese' Ven.
  8. Expanding my gold horizons During the last few months, I’ve been looking for gold beyond the horizons of Magnetic Island. It’s not that the island’s gold diggings have failed to live up to expectation (far from it, the pleasure of exploring them is worth its weight in gold), but rather my son has now really caught the prospecting bug and he’s got his heart set on finding a gold nugget (no matter what size). He laughs at me mucking about on beaches looking for coins or rings, he’s after the real thing. So much so that we’ve invested in a couple of sluices, pans, sieves and an Equinox 800 (backed up by a Nox 600 and a Chinese Gold Bug Pro). First, we spend a few weeks exploring old gold mine sites in rainforest country along the Barron River, Closhey River, Musgrave River and Davies Creek. I would usually go ahead with the Nox 800 and try to get some good readings (mainly on the side of hills and along the bedrock of little creeks flowing into these rivers) and then we’d run the soil from any likely patch through a sluice. Following local knowledge, we didn’t expect any nuggets but it’s always a bit sad when you need a strong magnifying glass to see the yellow stuff. Still, our efforts yielded 2 tiny little flakes in the upper Barron River which my son got in the pan, unfortunately we lost them on the way home (my fault). Over the last few weeks, we’ve been going much further west. Dry country full of flies and wild cattle, following unmarked dirt tracks to get to old gold mines. In these places the evidence of gold fever is everywhere; huge scars in the ground, enormous tailings piles and mining machinery. It’s hard to describe just how good it feels to be in these places, not just because of their history but mainly their geology and seeing the landscapes that produce gold. It’s pretty bloody mind-blowing at times. So far, we’ve concentrated on the hills and gullies surrounding the mine sites. This strategy hasn’t been successful and we’ve come to realize that because of the huge amount of rubbish in the ground (especially bullet castings and pellets), that we’re much better off in country further afield but where the geology is the same. Unfortunately, this only dawned on us when we got back home from our last trip but we’re planning to hit these areas next. I know that in this sort of country we’re a bit out of our depth without a PI detector. The ground is very hot (I thought it was hot on the island but more fool me) and even the mighty Equinox 800 with a 6’’ coil (yet alone the Chinese knock-off) doesn’t make much of a dent. As much as I would like a GPX of any description, I’ll settle for a QED. I keep hearing very good gossip about these detectors (including a favourable comparison to the GPX 5000) and I like the fact that they work with many other coils. If anyone knows of one for sale please let me know, I’d be mighty keen. I’ve included a few pictures below of some of the places I’ve mentioned. Is the last one of a smelter?
  9. As many of you are aware, I have been 'accused' of driving a lot and not staying in one place long enough to find gold. I'm here to tell you that is TRUE. Here is an example. Tuesday afternoon my wife reminded me that Pat Keene (that Pat Keene) might be up on his claim in Downieville. I said "The Forests are CLOSED!" I called anyway and sure enough he was in his second week of his annual pilgrimage to the Downieville area and said come on up. That is a 500 mile trip for me but I said I'll leave tonight and be there in the morning. My wife and I have fond memories of this trip as we went to this about 5 years ago and had some success. She found a 5 gram button on a trail near some old workings using a Gold Bug Pro and I found a 1/3 ounce nugget using a 3030 sniping the Yuba River. Now I have an 800 and the 6 inch coil and thought I could find what was left. After a bit of packing in the late afternoon it was time to go out to the 4Runner and wipe off the cobwebs and see how it looked. It needed a bath so I could see but it also had a low tire. What? It was too late to go to a tire store so I stuck some of the tire seal in and when to a gas station and filled and checked the tires all around. I gave it a bath and my plan became to find a tire store on the way and get it fixed. My original plan was just to take the 800 and the 3030 as backup but as I got closer to 11 PM and a nap I decided I'd take the 7000 and the Xcoil in case I had time to make it to the old WSPA claims in Sierra City. I laid out all my stuff and tried to take a bit of a nap. About 12:30 I got up and packed the car and knew if I got to Auburn at 8 AM the America's Tire Store would be open and I could get my tire fixed and all of the rotated. It would be over an hour and a half to Downieville from there. Staying on schedule and making pretty good time I followed my familiar route up I-5 and I-80 to Auburn and arrived there about 8:15 with a still inflated tire! When I was asked why I was there I pointed at the tire and right on top was a screw head. I said I think this is my problem! I bought these Cooper Tires from America's Tire because Fred Mason told me his good experiences with them. They told me I should be out of there by 9:30. Well, because of some 'training' and scheduled appointments I didn't get out of there until 10:30. They showed me the screw and it was about 3 inches long. They plugged it. Now I was on my way. Going up Hwy 49 to the northern Sierras. This particular 70 miles of road is 'lovely' but I learned to hate it with my 4Runner because it doesn't like turns. The anti-swerve gets activated because it is old and needs a new R&P and it grabs. Most of my friends will not pull a trailer on this road. So with all of this 'behind me' I arrived at Downieville about noon. My plan was to stay in the hotel with the other participants that night. When I got there Pat was making a video about some of his innovations to a sluice they produce in Canoga Park. I took off with the 800 and 6 inch coil. My first stop was going to be where I found my nugget. When I got down to the back of the river it had changed. This is to be expected of rivers that flood and are subject to snow runoff but the conditions now didn't leave me much bank. In addition there were panners and sluicers set up all along the area I wanted to detect. Hummmmm ... I chatted with a few of them but I wasn't there to pan. I walked around them and found some areas to get to work. It was more difficult for the 800 than I thought it was going to be. I've used it for thousands of hours now on the beaches but these hot rocks were making me take the sensitivity way down from my normal 23. I was down to 17-18 before I could make it ignore some of the rocks. I was trying Gold 1 and Park 1. This bank area is not that big and it is steep with green moss on it but I worked it for 3 hours. I couldn't get into the water because it was too deep. This was one of the changes. It was now time to check where my wife had found her gold button on the path up above. While looking for anything up there I did come across a 'mini-spill' which was 3 pennies and a dime but nothing more. At the end of this it was about 4 PM and it was time to check on a room at the Inn. More later ... Later has become 2:40 PM on Sunday the 27th. When I went to check on my room ... there was none available. My original plan was that I would sleep in the 4Runner but I saw the setup and I said I'd go on up to Sierra City and get a room there. That is about 12 miles. I passed by Sierra Pines on to an old club claim and saw they had been working on the forest to thin it and had disturbed the soil. This now became the area I wanted to detect. A new 'plan' had replaced the old plan because I could stay near this location. The problem then became gas. Sierra City and Downieville don't have gas stations any more. I had to drive to Graeagle and get gas and that would also be a place where I could use the phone. When I got there I called a forum member, Norm but there was no answer. I spoke with my wife and she was ok at the end of the first day and said everything was fine. I drove the 20 miles back to Sierra City, got a room and got on the computer before I slept. I messaged Norm and Klunker. I told them where I was and that I could be around for a couple of days but there would be no way to call me. When I got up in the morning I had messages but Norm was not available and Klunker was working but could consider Friday but he wouldn't know until late Thursday. So, we didn't have any way to set a schedule. Off I went to the claims where I had found gold before. When I got there I could see that they were still harvesting some trees. This is one area where forest management has continued over the years. When I first prospected around this area over 5 years ago you could see old tree stumps left from maybe the first cuts in the area 60-70 years before. Now they were thinning the trees again. Some was cut for lumber and other was cut to make road access. I gouged the dirt deeply and that was what I thought would be different. Above was the first area where I pulled into and started detecting. It was about 9:30 and pleasant after the low of about 42 in the morning. I was rested and ready to tackle the area where I know gold had been found before. At this point I knew Norm was not going to show up but he wished me well. I began detecting the ruts as were my plan but that plan soon had problems. My Xcoil was working fine and I was getting these 'targets' but they turned out to be pieces of the dozer blade! Oh, no. Why can't they make these blades and teeth harder so they don't shed. That continued all day. I altered my pattern and detected some unrutted areas. At one point I was walking along (looking out for snakes in the process) and I almost tripped. I went to pull my foot up and it was like it was in mud. It was actually dirt that was so dry and fine that it acted like water and mud. That is one of my lasting impressions of this trip. It was DRY. There was another problem that I discovered after the first 30 minutes or so. YELLOW JACKETS were everywhere. I could walk along and try to recover one of the little pieces of blade and they would gather around me and then land on my arms and then try to get behind my sun glasses. They were not overly aggressive in the sense of a big swarm but they did sting me a couple of times when I had to get them out of the way. After 4 hours at the first location which included the area where I found my last nugget I had to move about half a mile to another spot. At this spot I had found the remnants of a pair of Levi's. There was really no material left but the buttons I was able to date back to the 1890s. That meant there was old workings and others in our group had found some nice gold here. They had even cleared the brush when Fred was out with them to get access to the gold. It was not long before I got a couple of targets that included normal trash but then I got a deeper target. I went back to the 4Runner to get my phone to take pictures because I was into the roots. A new roadway had been scraped here to allow for taking out the logs. I thought this was the nugget of the trip. The Yellow Jackets were around and I was digging down and down and got the target out of the hole and ... a big piece of lead. Sooooo disappointing, just like Australia I thought. Well, there was nothing I could do other than fill in the hole and keep after it. I went a few feet more and got another good target. This time I walked back to the car and got the 800 to pinpoint. It was an odd number of 10-13 and it wasn't coming out of the hole easily. I used a pin-pointer and found it. A WIRE. Now I'm getting late into the afternoon. Home and obligations started to weigh in on me. I had gone to the areas I knew best and didn't get any gold yet. I went to another area where the undergrowth had been cleared and tried to get a stray nugget to keep my head in the game but it was not to be. I started thinking about telling the story of forest management with pictures. All of these trees that had been cut down would make some people mad. What I realized was that there can be too many trees. All of the little trees on the ground didn't have enough sunlight to grow in many areas. This was being corrected with management here. I was done with detecting and I knew it was time for me to go back but I wanted to take some pictures on the way. Here is what I saw on the way from Sierra City to the end of the forest and the valley overlook. The road above is covered in snow during the winter. A few years ago we couldn't get to the claims where I was detecting until April there was so much snow. The road below is 49 again. It is maintained through the winter. I wanted to show Simon the elevation and also the ski area but this is not a ski resort as much as it is cross country. I don't know much about it because I don't do it. As you guys know, I'm a beach sort of guy. If I don't get early, quick results then I'm bored with limited time. I want to thank Klunker and Norm for taking my call/message on very short notice and trying to help me find some color. I didn't plan the trip very good and once I decided that missing the traffic on Friday was more important than gold I was done. I did see on accident near Sacramento on the way back. I don't see many and this one was a car had just run into the center. I was back in Santa Monica about 1 AM on Friday morning. I had been gone 48 hours and driven about 1200 miles. That is a long, short trip. One day I hope my sons will be able to still read about it here on Steve's forums. Thanks Steve. Mitchel
  10. My girlfriend got us permission to detect an empty lot owned by her employer. They recently bought the lot and took the early 1900's house down. She's been wanting to learn how to detect, so today was her first lesson. We headed there with the Equinox and my old AT Pro. Set her up with the AT Pro in STD/Coins mode, and went over ground balancing and how the ID scale works. Explained and showed her the difference between solid, repeatable signals and the less repeatable signals with bouncing target ID numbers. All I can say is I wish I would've had someone to show me these few details when I first started. Below is what she dug while we were there...a pretty respectable junk to coin ratio. She's hooked! 😀 I managed a handful of modern coins, couple old Hot Wheels cars, another handful of junk, and the few keepers below. The cooler weather has been nice recently! Hope y'all got out today...Jeff
  11. Spent a lot of time in East Idaho back in this shaft right in the middle of good gold country. shaft goes back some 200 feet with a short drift here and there. Huge seams of quarts all thru this place. Don't know if the old timers found anything in here as I sure didn't. Did get one hit in the wall using GB2with 6" coil (no quartz)and tried to chisel it out with a small 2lb hammer and east wing rock chisel but no go. Nothing outside in the tailing pile other than blasting caps. They had to be chasing something. Is a real nice area with good gold 70 ft away in creek bed.
  12. Australian pre-decimal coin patch along Geoffrey Bay on Magnetic Island So far I’ve been very lucky at finding ‘old’ pre-decimal Australian coins along the island’s bays (although I’m yet to find a gold sovereign).. most of them have been very corroded King George or Queen Elizabeth pennies (with a big kangaroo on the other side), half-pence, 6-pence or 3-pence and I’ve found one silver ‘ram’s head’ shilling.. This morning I found an awesome patch at Geoffrey Bay, a bay I rarely detect along because it always seemed an unlikely place to find anything worthwhile.. More fool me.. It’s a longish bay with a row of houses along it, and I drive past it on my way to detect at other bays where tourists and locals hang out.. But looking for somewhere different, this morning I decided to have a go near an old stone/concrete boat ramp.. Here I found a little patch with 2 silver florins (a King George and a Queen Elizabeth), 2 silver ‘ram’s head’ shillings (both King George), 4 half-pence (all King George), 5 pennies (including a 1919 King George penny without the kangaroo), some 3 and 6 pence and best of all a Queen Victoria gold half-sovereign.. It’s still soaking in vinegar but I can just make out the date: 1887.. The patch was remarkably clean (no bottle tops, ring pulls or other crap, including decimal coins) and nearly every time I dug a hole I recovered a coin.. A more modern find was a copper dog tag belonging to a dog called Nelson (it’s also got Nelson’s phone number on it).. If you’re wondering what I’m going on about with all this King George or Queen Elizabeth stuff, in my head I’m dating them according to when the queen was coronated in 1953, so in the real world probably not that old.. Decimal coins were first introduced in 1966.. From 1852 to 1931 all Australian gold coins were struck from solid 22ct gold.. Gold half-sovereigns were minted from 1871 to 1918, whilst sovereigns were minted until 1931.. Silver coins minted between 1910 and 1945 contain 92.5% sterling silver. From 1945 until 1966 silver coins contain 50% silver (both florins are after 1945 but one of the ram heads is before). I’m so used to seeing the queen on decimal coins that it always blows me away to also see her on all these Australian sovereigns, florins, shillings and pennies.. Both the silver florins, one of the ram’s heads, one of the half-pence and the 1919 penny are in good shape considering they’ve been on the beach for so long, especially the penny which is the shiniest of the lot.. these coins were buried about 40 to 50cm deep a few metres above the high-tide mark, all the other coins were very corroded (as is usually the case at the other bays). Sadly the Queen Victoria gold half-sovereign is a bit worse for wear.. it also didn’t help that I hit it with my steel shovel so the old girl’s got a great big gash to her head.. But in this little patch, Queen Victoria is the top dog in the family hierarchy.. so this coin makes the list of favourite finds.. if only because it’s always good to get that ‘first discovery’ sort of feeling when digging up this sort of coin, especially in a spot I drive past a hundred times a day.. After a long soak in vinegar and a hard scrub I can make out it’s a ‘Jubilee Head’ half-sovereign as opposed to a ‘Young Head’ half-sovereign.. these coins sell for a small fortune in top condition, but I won’t be selling this one any day soon.. Just a quick technical question: I’m using an Equinox 600 on Beach mode 1, and the gold half-sovereign read a solid 26 on the target ID.. Why is it not reading 1,2 or 3 as you’d expect for gold? Is this because of purity? Where 24ct would get very low reading? Thanks to anyone who can help me out on this question, it’s been bugging me..
  13. Allen's great story of the commissioned search for that family's cache, reminded me of one I'll add here : There is a local dealer here, who has a rental model they rent out (an old 5000D series 1) . A person had rented it, but brought it back the next day having failed to find what they were looking for. They just didn't have the expertise, and were running into common junk where they were trying , etc.... They asked the dealer if he knew of any hobbyists, with more experience, that could help. The dealer referred them to me. I got the call , and asked what he was trying to find. He explained that about 10 yrs. earlier, he was going through a divorce and some hard times. He didn't want his coin collection to be subject to any split terms , so he had boxed it all up, put it into a plastic sealed tupperware tray. He took it to a buddy's house and explained that he needed to hide this "till the heat was off", and asked if he could bury it in his friend's yard. The friend agreed, and the two of them went to this guy's back yard (nearly an acre in size) and buried it. They made mental note of which bush it was near, and paced off the # of steps from a nearby fence, so that they'd have place-markers. Years and years went by. During that time, the homeowner did a lot of garden work in his back yard. Planting new shrubs, moving others, etc.... He also updated his fence. Finally, about 10 yrs. later, the friend came back to get the buried coins. But lo & behold, every bush seemed to look alike. And the fence post they had made mental note of, was no longer the same fence post arrangements. So the two men just started digging random holes in the area that they best recollected from that time 10 yrs. earlier when they'd buried it. To no avail. So they rented the detector. But were in for a rude awakening : The homeowner had installed gopher wire (like chicken-screen substance) around all the tomato plants and such. They got a few typical garbage signals from the yard (aluminum, etc...), but simply didn't know what they were doing. By this time, there were now holes all over the yard. I asked the guy how many coins, and what type he had buried. He described it as 50 or 70-ish gold coins, all together in a cigar-box sized tupperware container. And said he recalled that they buried it no-more than 2 ft. deep. My immediate thought was that this should be child's play. But after a few hours hunting with my standard detector, I was coming up empty handed ! Unbeknown to me, was that all the coins, even though in single container, were all individually in plastic sleeves. Ie.: not touching each other. Therefore, in the same fashion as a necklace, the detector will tend to see them as individual objects, not as a composite whole. The next day I came back, armed with a borrowed TM 808 2-box machine. After another hour or so, I finally got a weak beep. So weak that I almost figured it couldn't be the target (because I was still expecting a lunch-box sized signal). But this was it ! Once we got it out of the ground, and opened it to look at the coins, it was then that I realized why such an amount of coins, at only 2 ft. deep, was difficult : Because since they're not touching, it's not seen as one big signal. It's a more difficult signal, when they're not a continuous singular piece of metal. And the plastic container, of course, wasn't giving any signal. Wish I could say it had hundreds of gold coins like Allen's, but .... oh well 🙂
  14. I had a Jones again for a nugget hunt. Mind you the places I go that are 3 hours away don't have many nuggets left but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I did it. My Barstow location was the choice. I've been stumped there many times in the past but it is a very beautiful place on a Full Moon night. Last night was simply THE BEST. It didn't matter if I found a nugget. When I got out of the car there was no wind. The temperature is in the mid 80s and there were no bugs chasing the lights. This was what I was after. I used Chet settings for the most part with my 7000/X 15x10 and just got to it. The first target was so small I just had to save it in the bottle. We've all had them. This one is iron. I was ready to go. My brain was working and my hearing was on. This was my close to parking target. I was hoping I had stopped on a nugget. My first location and walk around for 2 hours produced no gold. It consisted of new areas to me and an area where I had previously found a nugget. I could see it on my 7000 GPS! The next location less than a mile away took me to familiar nugget territory but by a different route. I ended up in an area next to a Joshua Tree where I had found my second nugget with the EQ 800/11 about a month after they came out. You have to really work things slowly as Lucky said in order to get a signal but that I did. Then like Simon said it took me a long time to finally get the target in the scoop. It was sounding off and I should have had my glasses but I finally knew I wasn't going to get skunked this trip. This is only my second nugget with the X. Staying in the same general area after that find it was just time to work the ground. I was in manual ground balance and the hot rocks were everywhere and a few wires. Eventually I came upon one of those signals that you just know sounds different. It was only about 3 inches deep. I made it back to my car at 3 AM for a snack and time to use the 800. I had been at it for 5 hours but I had two nuggets. This was my first use of the 800 since the 3.0 update. I like it. I didn't notch anything out in Gold 1 and just read the numbers. I could run sensitivity with the 6" coil at 20 and it would ignore many hot rocks. It was fun swinging the little thing but no gold with it this trip. Daylight was coming (5:30 AM) and I still had 3 hours to get back. It's expensive gold but worth it to the soul. Mitchel
  15. Tonight I went for a detect. When I got to the beach I could see a detectorist coming in my direction on the edge of the water. I could also see another one up in front on the same line a couple hundred feet in the direction I wanted to walk. Those two were on a 'collision course' so I got away from the water to avoid the one in front of me. As it turned out the guy behind me went to the guy in front of me and then they were gone in the opposite direction from where I was going. I didn't step on their pattern of the water's edge. I walked and walked and finally got into my pattern and a beach without a detectorist. It had not been dug. The tide was low so I sampled the area as I know how to do and when I got to the end I turned in the direction I came from so that I could work the patch I had found. It started with one cheap ring and then I found some hoops and then some quarters, pennies and dimes. I was gridding and working it slowly. Someone approached me from behind and I could see it was another detectorist. I normally don't talk to others even before the virus. This guy came up to me (kept social distance) and asked if I was Gary. I said no and then he said 'I see you have been digging up the place here, how are you doing?' I didn't mention the ring but said I was getting coins and hoops (earrings). He said he worked that beach a lot over the years. He asked my detector and name and we exchanged a few more pleasantries before he said 'I'm going home.' He walked about 30 feet in front of me in the direction I was gridding and he detected. He stopped and was digging while I'm working my pattern getting closer. And then he still didn't move so I had to go around him but as I did he had a lighter out making some light to look at something he found (I assumed). He stayed in that little area for some time and I was now about 50 feet on the other side of him when he came up to me and said 'Can you turn on your light so that I can see what I just found?' Well, I'm already a bit pissed because he jumped my pattern and now he wants to use my light ... ok. He holds up a ring in the light and he declares it cheap. It was corroded. Next he has another ring. He says 'cool, it has sapphires and other stones, I think it is silver but it might be white gold!' Oh my goodness. He said what did you just find? (It was a dime.) I'll never forget the sight of that ring in my light. I'll never forget him jumping my pattern. Soon after he did in fact walk down the beach and leave me to my patch. I was pissed as I said and wondered the real etiquette or 'right of way' in this case. I felt I would have found that ring if he hadn't taken advantage of my search pattern. After a bit I said that I needed to go back where he found the rings and see if any were missed. Sure enough I got another cheap ring and then I found a sterling band. He hadn't gotten it all but he got the best piece. Later I found one other cheap ring to make it 4 ring finds for the night. As I was getting near the end of my 4 hour session the Rolling Stones song 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' popped into my mind. I didn't get what I wanted tonight. As a metal detectorist I don't always get what I want but I do get what I can find. Maybe we could paraphrase the lyrics and make it universal to metal detecting. Mitchel
  16. Packed up the toy hauler and headed out to meet up with some friends and hit a few hydraulic pits in the Sierra Nevadas. MikeB was, as usual, happy to share his knowledge and give some good advice; only had one skunk day during the trip. I had forgotten how rugged and steep the terrain is out there compared to Idaho! After 5 days of lugging the 7000 up and down rocky, slippery, manzanita covered steep ravines, Chet and I decided to work as a team on a hillside where nuggets were found. We dug and detected: he used the 7000, then I used Gold Monster to quickly identify and locate the nuggets...we pulled a quarter ounce out of a 6 x 6’ area that day! Can you believe this guy is over 80 years old? He can work that pick like a man half his age! This great hobby certainly keeps us in shape! One day I was down deep in a narrow ravine when I heard a distant shout....then Chet came on the radio saying he just saw the biggest bear he’s ever seen, up close and personal, and that it was heading down the ravine. Crap! You mean the ravine I’m in that’s only about 5’ wide here at the bottom?!?! Luckily, I then could hear it crashing through the brush running up the hill to my left. Wish I could’ve seen him though. No big lunker nuggets on this trip, but a few chunkies were found: And here’s my total for the 7 or so days detecting....I’m happy with it! On the last day, I sat overlooking The Motherlode country....thanking her for a good time, good friends, and for sharing a bit of her riches with me!😊
  17. I detect several days a week no matter the beach conditions. Lately I make it simple and go to a couple of the same beaches and I get what is available for that particular day. Yesterday, Monday morning I got out a bit late (7AM) after a busy weekend for the beach and saw that the tractors had already raked the blanket areas. It is not a pattern I usually follow in dry sand but I know it can be productive. I headed to my small wave, wet sand beach and found next to nothing. I was getting ready to leave when I was approached by a guy with his gf/wife. He said 'Do you want to hear a joke,' in an 'island accent' and I said, ok. He said 'I was swimming yesterday and I lost my Gucci Chain!' I'm looking at this tall, polite black guy and thinking ... this is not a joke. haha He proceeded to tell me that he was here from St. Thomas and he had gone in the water on Sunday afternoon and forgot to take off his chain he had bought at his home island. This is something I wanted to help him find but also know more. He told me that it was just a couple of life guard stations down from where he found me. Ok, 4 life guard stations later we made it to his swimming area. This is one of MY beaches. When conditions are right it is a good detecting beach. As we walked his wife showed me pictures from the day before on her phone. I got to see the round (50g) chain he had been wearing. I told them it could be near where they lost it because the waves had been small, the tide was not big and the current was weak. When I started detecting the area I knew it was going to be a problem because it was the little 'suck out' waves that weren't going to take a heavy chain and push it up a sloped beach. I searched the water/wave line and it was a hard pack with the rocks churning up and down. We needed a snorkel! It was clear and if a chain was there you would be able to clearly see it but we were now 18 hours after the loss. I had been over this beach to get my 4 rings on Saturday morning. There was no new patch in the area. It was time for me to go. They were flying back to NYC in the afternoon and would be back at their island sometime this week. He had lost his prized chain but we agreed he should still enjoy the trip. We exchanged phone numbers. He would have paid me a reward (he offered) but I couldn't find it but I got a good STORY. That beach will never be the same. I will always look for Lebron's chain on that beach. I hope you get a good STORY about a beach where you detect. Mitchel
  18. Watched this vid then went out to the most scoured and hunted to death place I know...my tiny front lawn. Not saying everything he says or does in this vid is gospel or will work in all dirt everywhere but he has his theories and what he does the way he does them works for him and he manages to find some great things in a few very hunted out parks so I got inspired to try to find just anything in my very difficult SE. mineralized devil dirt. After several years of scouring this tiny patch of land for many hours with 6 different detectors and tons of different coils and digging all decent signals I am down to the the odd, weird, strange, severely masked and incomprehensible ones only. I watched this vid, got inspired, and went out to try to find one decent target using some of his advice...just one. I didn't do exactly everything I saw done in this vid, that turning thing and examining targets from more than one angle always worked well for me here but my dirt is way weirder than his and I tried a few things but the most important point I attempted to do and prove to myself was just slow down...examine targets a bit more closer, don't just blow off jumpy signals or others that don't make sense. Not that I really ever do that but on this hunt I looked at each signal I got with a more critical eye and attitude than usual. Could still be junk hiding down there, could be wasting a bit more time over some iffy targets but none of my hunts are timed events, I just go out and get signals and decide whether to dig....or not. If it takes a little more time to figure out a confused signal, site or situation so be it. The rewards for extra patience might be nothing but maybe, just maybe...they could be great. My Nox had the sniper mounted, I did a factory reset before the hunt to start with a clean plate and didn't modify too many of the factory settings. I hunted in 5 tones, Park 2, usually I use Field 2 but changed it up a bit on this one....I left the horseshoe on through most of this short hunt. Fe was at 6, recovery at 5, switched to Fe2 after awhile and eventually maxed it out along with the recovery but didn't find much else after these four targets showed up. All these targets were found in Multi...single frequency hunting just doesn't seem to work very well around here at all with the Nox. It wasn't all peaches and cream, I still got fooled on a couple of rusty nails and a few small and crazy tiny pieces of iron but not all that much, dug very little trash that wasn't iron so I was happy with that. The 1953 nickel was the absolute first target dug, short, sweet, jumped a bit from 11-13 and a bit iffy unlike most of my usually solid nickel signals but when this thing popped up first thing I was actually shocked and thrilled. The lead hem weight was an older one, #4, nice and heavy and really jumpy initially but solid once I dialed the coil into its location. The dime is modern but hiding in a tiny crack vertical between the grass and the curb. The older Naval button was the prized treasure of this hunt, the only one I have ever found. Faces to the left so pre WW ll as they changed the eagle from looking left in 1941 to looking to its right. Don't believe civil war and could be anywhere from 1850 to 1941...but I am thinking maybe around or a bit later than WW l on this one. Mower hit but sweet find never the less. Kept switching between 4kHz and Multi checking out many targets, other frequencies too, I still don't see a whole lot of advantage to me in my sites using 4kHz or any other single frequency but I still switch to them to check some signals and will continue to do that until I see something positive or just lose patience and give up. Basically, my point of this post is just to urge you to look a bit closer at some of your signals, with a bit of extra attention and coil manipulation signals can change from initially good to bad or, hopefully, from initially bad to good. Also to thank this hunter for taking the time to make this vid and I enjoyed seeing another hunter's thought process, experience and skill on display. If any of us take just one thing, idea or insight from watching the vid that could make a difference for any of us even on just one stellar piece of future treasure it will be 49 minutes well spent.
  19. That is what my friend got for a 1934 biological survey duck band 15 years ago. That is for less then a gram of aluminum. I have found 4 of those old ones on land with my machine plus 2 more modern ones in the water .I even got a goose band from the 90's on a river bank. I called the goose one in and got a paper with the history of the bird of where it was banded and when and where I found it .I called in one of the more modern duck ones I found in the water and they only give you info online now.I even got 4 hunting with a gun and one was banded in Maryland by the big bay and was taken (A very old bluebill) at a pass shooting spot between Lake Ontario and the St.Lawrence river on a grassy hill. I even called the old ones in and they could not find any info. Metal detecting is like a box of chocolate and you never know what you will get.
  20. I am going to write a little bit about my outings with the GMX. It will be fun and maybe I will be able to harvest some advice from more experienced detector/prospectors. I did go to a creek/swimming hole but had very little time with the detector. I have a very young family and it can be hard to concentrate when 1 of my 4 kids is getting hurt or stuck or .... so I gave up on it pretty quickly that day. I was able to get out to the Lynx Creek withdrawal area with a friend. He's new as well and using a Time Ranger Pro. I looked on Google Earth and picked out a wash that ran parallel with the main creek. That way we would be able to detect in and out on our hike. Unfortunately, the borders of the withdrawal area are not marked well on the maps I found available but the private claim the wash was on is marked really well once you get out there. We hiked along the fence for a while looking for area that might be interesting to detect. The only spot I found was a large hole. The material excavated was a different color than the surrounding soil so I dug a few iron targets from the pile. It doesn't seem like anyone has thoroughly gone through all that material with a detector and there are many hot rocks and pieces of iron mixed in with the material. Eventually, we hiked down to the main creek bed. My partner moved quite a bit faster than me and found many tin cans along the way. I tried to be as meticulous as I could whenever we found a wash to detect and found only one large can. I think I will bring him on my future trips and send him in front of me to remove large trash items. We detected up the mostly dry creek bed and dug trash target after trash target. I heard it was trashy here but I had no idea it would be this bad. The area had many hot rocks which would send my detector into overload if touched. I ended up needing to set the detector down to level 3 sensitivity just to get around without overloading constantly. All in all it was a fun outing with some rugged hiking and a near heart attack when a deer jumped up about 5 feet in front of me. I was using the 6inch concentric coil but would like to take the 4x6 double d out here and see if it is able to handle the hot rocks any better. Outing 3 was to the same area but I wanted to try the mineralization tracking feature of the detector. Lynx creek is more known for gold panning so I thought I might have better success that way. I swung it around and everything in the area is really mineralized. I was able to find a couple spots with a bit of an increase on the meter and it was really did seem like there was quite a bit more black sand in the areas the detector was interested in. I panned for a while in these areas but found no gold. After a while I wanted to try detecting up the hillside in front of me. It was pretty steep and, I thought, difficult enough to deter some prospectors. When I got up there it was definitely steep and full of loose rocks. I was only able to detect a small portion of the hillside but I found plenty bullets. Many of the loose rocks were quite hot. At this point I was getting better at listening to the detector and figuring out which sounds are hot rocks but it was still pretty challenging on this hillside I was worried about pushing one of the rocks out of the way and killing one of my kids who might have wandered underneath me. After a short time of this I could tell that my families patience had run out and we probably needed to head home, still gold-less Unfortunately, there is a new issue in this area. The management of the forest forgot to renew the mineral withdrawal and now large areas are now private claims. The area i had originally planned on going the 3rd outing was all claimed up with fresh signs everywhere. I can only assume fences will follow. In the end I don't know if Lynx Creek is a good area to detect. If I come out here again I will bring my TDI and see if that makes the hot rocks anymore bearable. I am digging all the targets anyway so I don't know if the discrimination afforded by the GMX is helping. I will try and head out again soon. Hopefully the temps here in AZ will go down soon and I can get into more of the GPAA claims in the area.
  21. Enjoyed the question and answer about Steve Herschbach with Dick Stout and a lot of great stories past and present. I liked the one about Goose Lake and Elderberry Park in 1972. Check it out at: https://stoutstandards.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/a-qa-with-detectorist-prospector-steve-herschbach/
  22. Last night I wanted to go out and see the Comet so I needed to go to a dark sky. I know a couple of very dark sky places where I have hunted nuggets in the past. I had checked the weather and it said it was going to be 106 for a high and still at 100 at sunset but it was a pleasant 88 when I got there. I left the coast at 4 PM and the trip was just awful with traffic. It took 4.5 hours for a 3 hour trip. I got to the viewing area at a good time and couldn't see anything because the sky was still too bright because the sun had just set. Before I could get my boots on a couple of the red ants had already stung me. While I was waiting I started to detect. I was getting some little bbs and some trash so I was in an area that had not been completely worked. Meanwhile the sky is getting dark and then I see a faint glimpse of the Comet. I tried to take some pictures but I don't have those skills so I'll show a sunset picture. I could see the Comet well with the unaided eye but it is not possible to see details. It has quite a long tail against the dark sky. I was detecting with a light and checking back against the sky until it became too difficult for my eyes to adjust from lighted ground to sky. I concentrated on my detecting as the Big Dipper rotated and the Comet got too close to the horizon. At midnight I had no nugget and I wanted to make a short move. As you can see the moon is a sliver and it set so the desert is a very dark place. I think I would be there until sunrise if I didn't use the GPS on 7000. The car gets lost after a 100 plus yards or so. I had two detectors with me but I was determined to use the 15x10 Xcoil and find its first nugget. About an hour at the new location and several hot rocks later I got an almost 'ghost sound' and decided to scrape. The signal got better and it wasn't surface trash but I had dug hot rocks this deep already. When I got down 6-7 inches the target was out. I knew it wasn't big but I could see a little hot rock and I captured it with the magnet. I waved over the spot and the response was still there. Could it really be an end to the skunk? The last time I detected for gold was April 3. I had been out 3 other times this year with no result. I had dug bullet pieces tonight that I was 'wishing' were golden in color but all were dull gray. I separated the scoop material and heard a little thunk and saw a glimmer of gold. It was time to relax. This was a .4g nugget. I've found larger nuggets, smaller nuggets and more nuggets than this night but I had accomplished my goal. I had seen the Comet and gotten a nugget. It was time to get back safely and not fall asleep on the 3 hour drive. I got back at 5 AM before the traffic this time. Mitchel
  23. ...to my uncle! I was detecting a local park when I got a solid 55 at 4 inches with the simplex. When I dug it out I saw a big fat ring in the hole! My uncle was visiting our house and when I showed him the ring he immediately took it and said is this tungsten? Yes, I replied confused. He said I lost this 2 years ago on my last visit to your house! I was in the park and when I got home it wasn’t on my finger! I was stunned and I happily offered it to him. He thanked me a million times and almost cried. It feels really good to make someone’s day especially your uncle! Thanks for looking!
  24. For the holiday weekend last week I was determined to get a little more time on my new Nox 800 despite the heat and humidity. Most of my old permissions have changed hands now, so I headed to a bed and breakfast owned by my sister just to try to learn the new machine more. I'd been there a few years ago without much success, but recently studied a map from 1872 and saw there had been a fairly large house across the street where they have one of their cottages now. The door to the 1872 house appeared to be approximately where there is now a rock and gravel driveway. Knowing I wouldn't last long in the heat even though it was the morning, I left the driveway for another day and moved to the grass under some trees near the ditch, hoping for some old coins. Within a few seconds I got a solid (but elongated in one direction in pinpoint mode) repeatable tone in the lower to mid 20s. In the bottom of the plug there was a partial old red brick, and the edges of two more bricks in the side of the hole. I took this as good potential in terms of time period. Anyway, I removed the brick from the bottom of the plug and found a square nail with the pinpointer. Knowing that wasn't what I heard, I probed deeper in the plug and pulled out an intact skeleton key! Didn't detect anymore because my brother-in-law came out and we visited for quite a while, and it was getting hotter by the minute. The next morning I went back for some more. About 4' from where I found the skeleton key I got a solid 24 signal that seemed to be shaped more like a coin. This one had broken glass in the hole and plug. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when I pulled out what looked like jewelry with lots of rhinestones instead of a coin! A little while later my sister came by and I showed her the piece of jewelry. She took it inside and cleaned it, and brought it out on the porch while we tried to figure out what it was. We finally decided it may be an old hat pin? Anyway, my sister said that the rhinestones were a really good quality. I took my pocket knife out and tried to scratch one, but it was too hard. Hmm. For the fun of it I got a piece of the broken glass I'd dug out of the hole and cleaned a small area on it. Would the "rhinestones" scratch the glass? They did! I felt kind of sick for a while! I know there are other things that can scratch glass besides diamonds, but just the thought that these might be real diamonds was pretty exciting. But it looks like the metal was silver plated and not solid silver, so I'm thinking that real diamonds wouldn't have been set into cheaper material. I plan on taking it to a jeweler to find out what the rocks really are, but that probably won't be very soon due to the current pandemic situation in my state. Thanks for looking, and happy hunting! Wow, just realized this was the length of a short novel--sorry!
  25. I received a text message from a friend yesterday telling me that one of our neighbors up the street lost his wedding band while playing on one of those large inflatable water slides. He asked me if I could help. Of course I said yes and my friend picked me up in his golf cart and we headed to the man’s house. Our neighbor was standing by the water slide staring pensively at the ground--his face and body language told me the whole story. 😰 He pointed out where he was standing when he shook the water from his hands and felt his ring fly off. He and his young son had searched the area for over an hour...even using a magnet in desperation--not very effective on a gold ring. 🥴 Fortunately, the suspected area was only about a 10 foot square. I cranked up the EQX in Park 1, noise canceled, lowered the sensitivity since this would be a surface find and started to grid the area. I hadn’t gone 3 feet when I got a nice solid mid tone. I pulled out my Pro Find 35 and told him to look exactly where it was pointing. He parted the grass, which was about 3-4 inches high and there was his ring. The look on his face was one of total relief and incredulity. He couldn’t believe I found it that quickly (neither could I). I’d spent all of 1 minute at the most swinging the EQX before it sounded off. To say he was mightily impressed would be an great understatement. He then asked me all about my equipment and detecting since he knew zero about any of it. His wife came running out of the house and thanked me profusely saying her husband was no longer in the dog house! Quick find; quick return and all is well. 🙂
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