New Tv Series - America's Backyard Gold With Dave Turin

[phrunt]

A new TV Series has just started, Americas Backyard Gold.   It has Dave Turin from Gold Rush with the idea being teaching people how to find gold with sluices, pans, metal detectors and the like. 

"In recent years, new gold has been uncovered in California due to heavy storms and flooding. From picking nuggets out of rivers, to metal detecting rare gold worth millions, Dave Turin shows you how and where everyday miners can find it."

I've seen the first episode so far and I guess the metal detector manufacturers and those selling prospecting equipment are going to love it, it's going to bring in new to prospecting people in big numbers to the USA just like Aussie Gold Hunters did in Australia.

A little rundown video of it.    They sure make it sound and look easy in the episode.

[MSC]

I always liked Dave, he never had a situation where TV did not control and screw with what he could really do.

[GB_Amateur]

36 minutes ago, phrunt said:

...I guess the metal detector manufacturers and those selling prospecting equipment are going to love it....

I saw an ML Gold Monster and what I think was a GPX 5000.  (Surely you recognized whatever it was.)  Also he gave away a Royal cleanup device.  I suspect both ML and Royal have contributed -- it should show up in the credits, I think, if that's the case.

The problem I have with the show is that it seems to be exaggerating what can be done.  (And you're correct there.  If the audience falls for this it's going to sell quite a bit of equipment.)  "$3 trillion in gold still available (in the USA alone)"??????  30 minutes of sniping leads to several hundred dollars worth of gold?  Even if some have the sites, knowledge, stamina, etc. to accomplish that, claiming the general public can do so??  Give me a break.

That middle aged+ couple in Siskiyou County California (borders on Oregon) sluicing in the Klamath River for (maybe) $1000/wk, both working 7 days/week and probably 10-14 hour days -- divides out to less than $10/hr per person.  That's more realistic, IMO.  Then he says "that's over $50,000/yr", (assuming, of course, they can do this every week of the year).  How realistic is that?

[phrunt]

Yep, it's very unrealistic, the shows' primary purpose is going to be selling prospecting equipment to new comers that think they'll strike it rich.

They were using Minelab detectors, one guy the GPZ and Dave Turin had a brand spanking new Gold Monster, so white was its coil it near blinded me, that things never touched the soil and no doubt at the end of the episode they could put it back in the box and sell it as new.

Notice something missing? Dave doesn't even have anything to dig a hole, no digging equipment at all, just some gloves in his pocket so maybe he's going to dig by hand. 

Like all of these shows they're for entertainment purposes, and very unrealistic.  They make it all sound so easy and if you spend a few bucks and get a detector you'll have fistfuls of gold in no time.

Nothing in the credits about thanks to Minelab or anything though, and Dave does wear a Garrett hat later in the episode, and the hat looks like it's been around for a while, so not handed to him for the show like the Gold Monster was 🙂

It was quite good to watch to see a bit of America, it seems strange pulling nuggets out of that grass paddock like that though, wish we could have nice flat grass paddocks like that here to detect 🙂

[GhostMiner]

I just hope people watching don't quit their jobs and think they can go out and find enough gold to make a good living. Yes, it's possible. But the odds are not in your favor. It's sure a great hobby though. Also, if gold continues to climb in value as I think it will then it will become easier to make a living by prospecting. I once spent a month just panning on an overworked gold bearing creek in northern California. It was tedious and I only got an ounce of fine gold. At the time it was worth about $1100. Now it would be over $2000. Of course everything else is more expensive as well. 

[Lost Scout]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

Yep, it's very unrealistic, the shows' primary purpose is going to be selling prospecting equipment to new comers that think they'll strike it rich.

They were using Minelab detectors, one guy the GPZ and Dave Turin had a brand spanking new Gold Monster, so white was its coil it near blinded me, that things never touched the soil and no doubt at the end of the episode they could put it back in the box and sell it as new.

Notice something missing? Dave doesn't even have anything to dig a hole, no digging equipment at all, just some gloves in his pocket so maybe he's going to dig by hand. 

Like all of these shows they're for entertainment purposes, and very unrealistic.  They make it all sound so easy and if you spend a few bucks and get a detector you'll have fistfuls of gold in no time.

Nothing in the credits about thanks to Minelab or anything though, and Dave does wear a Garrett hat later in the episode, and the hat looks like it's been around for a while, so not handed to him for the show like the Gold Monster was 🙂

It was quite good to watch to see a bit of America, it seems strange pulling nuggets out of that grass paddock like that though, wish we could have nice flat grass paddocks like that here to detect 🙂

I grew up south of that area. It's all grazing land and private. Beautiful country if you can get permission.

[Gold Ryder]

He did a show with a couple of my gold hunting buddies here in Montana.  Both of them have pulled pounds of gold out of the ground with 5000s and now sometimes six's.  Gonna be interesting to see how he portrays them.   They are both 25 year veterans.  I think Tim's section will show him panning with his young girls. But hes a pro with a detector. 

[Valens Legacy]

A person can find gold almost anywhere in the world, if they try, no matter how small it may be.

[walkerrj]

I like that at the start of the show he warned folks to ask for permission on private property.

[jasong]

He was out working that Marble Rock prospect or whatever people call it in NV with a mini ex for some TV show that wasn't this one, I was ATV'ing around and saw the machine down in the pit then someone said he was set up next to them at the RV park.

That show never make it to TV, or what happened to it?

I was hoping to see what kind of gold they got out of there - I'm positive that's an old tongue of a paleoplacer, lots of boulders in that whole area for miles that aren't coming from the mountain there, and I've never known or met the owners to see what type of gold comes out of that place, I suspect it's river worn gold and not the local area crystalline stuff? Woulda liked to see more there just for knowledge sake. I love searching for those old river channels.