How Small Does It Need To Be?

[LuckyLundy]

Big or little…they all go in the Poke!  Now, I have left tiny targets that I can’t fish out knowing that it’s Gold to find the next.  The GB2 is an amazing VLF and Robin and I have been more than fortunate to have found a few places that you can sit down and just toss your scoop full of multi targets into a 5 Gallon Bucket to pan out later!  Here is a photo of my GPX 4000 vs Robin using a GB2 for 2 1/2 days.  Them little nuggets are important they fill in the spots between the big nuggets in your poke!  Love them all Big or Small.

LuckyLundy

[Lead Detector]

So from all of the responses, it's nice to see that even the guys doing this for many years feel every tiny piece is a thrill and a treasure. This tells me this is a rare hobby. Seems like a lot of things we do in life end up being less exciting, and we need new and improved,  or bigger and better to keep our enthusiasm.  I guess it really is a fever. 😊

[Steve Herschbach]

15 minutes ago, Lead Detector said:

Seems like a lot of things we do in life end up being less exciting, and we need new and improved,  or bigger and better to keep our enthusiasm.

Oh, there is plenty of that here!!

2019 GPZ 8000 Rumors People predicting with certainty it was coming in 2020

2024 And Still Waiting For GPZ 8000

Every new detector.... "it's not a GPZ 7000 replacement so it's junk"

Lots of people just barely hanging on waiting for the next magic wand.  Leaked photo of GPZ 8000 prototype:

[Lead Detector]

4 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Oh, there is plenty of that here!!

Yes, I have to agree with that too. We are all foaming at the mouth to get the latest and greatest detector, that finds even SMALLER bits even deeper than before. It seems the challenge and the hunt, and the pure satisfaction of accomplishment is the true addiction. 

[beatup]

size can be important but I like digging any nugget big or small 

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

54 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Wow Ron, we have the exact opposite outlook on that. My goal my whole life was to work super hard and be super frugal to hasten the day when I no longer had to do either.

Steve, that’s a great goal, hopefully you have been successful at meeting it.

I originally had the same outlook as you and I did meet that goal years ago. My only issue now is I beat my body up working in the woods for a good living and if I stay idol for any period of time my body starts to suffers, so I found I got to keep working hard to maintain my health. Getting older doesn’t make things any easier either, but at least for now it is a labor of love job and I just go detecting now tilling the earth till the day I die. 😃

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

56 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

 Leaked photo of GPZ 8000 prototype:

Looks like OSHA has gone after Minelab now for all the injuries caused by theirs heavy detectors. The 8000 now has to have a no body strain safety feature . 🤓

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

My goal my whole life was to work super hard and be super frugal to hasten the day when I no longer had to do either. I was the hardest working lazy person you would have ever met. Now I'm just lazy and loving it. 

That was my tactic too., in fact exactly what I did.

[phrunt]

14 hours ago, Gold Seeker said:

Simon, I'm going to call you out on "the smaller the better", I can just see you now cussing up a storm 🤬 because you found a 1/4 ounce nugget instead of a .009 piece!!! 🤣

This is more unbelievable because the 1/4 nugget is a much more rare of a find where you are than the .009 piece.

Oh, perhaps that was worded wrong, I'd never complain and of course be super happy to find a bigger piece, but I really enjoy the challenge of the smallest of small pieces, I get more of a thrill out of finding a really tiny bit than I do a .1 of a gram for example which is probably my most common size find.

[Steve Herschbach]

There is actually something satisfying about recovering an incredibly tiny bit of gold, kind of a "I can't believe I found something that small" sort of thing. It does take some proficiency to be good at it.

Efficiency of recovery with a scoop is as important as the finding - many people leave little bits after they find them because they can't find them! "It's not worth it" really means "I've been trying to find that bit for ten minutes now - I give up!"  It is not worth ten minutes but if you get it down to a minute now we are talking. There are 480 grains per Troy ounce and at US$2082.00 right now that is $4.38 gold. If you are hot you can hit gold to 1/10th grain (0.0064 gram) and even 1/10th grain is worth almost a half dollar. Would you leave a half dollar lay if you saw one? No? Me either.

Some Gold Bug 2 gold

28 little guys. The largest bit, in the lower right hand corner, weighs 6 grains. The smallest is about 1/10th grain. The total weight is 41.7 grains, or 2.7 grams.