The Reg Wilson Gold Album

[Reg Wilson]

I could write a book on the gold I've missed. Far more than I ever found .

A mate and I detected not far from the old school house at Kingower. 2 years later the 'hand of faith' nugget was discovered about a hundred meters or less from our spot. [we only found small gold there]

[mn90403]

Reg,

I've seen that nugget several times.  I think the first time was about 1998 if I remember correctly when I was there for a Comdex show.  The World Series of Poker had been held across the street.  It's still there.

Here's a link to it and some others from your neck of the woods.

http://www.discoverychannel.com.au/images/worlds-biggest-gold-nuggets/ 

Mitchel

[jrbeatty]

Detail of the Poseidon 14 oz specimen presented to Roy Harris:

Another shot of the Poseidon gold:

Reg : "Ian crowbars out a 14 ouncer at 'Little Red Streak', Patchy Flat, after John pinpoints it using my old prototype GT 16000"

"A small virgin patch from west of little Red Streak gully, Dunolly, detected by Ray Daniel and myself"

"19 oz lump from Rheola. So shallow I could have kicked it out with my boot"  

"Ray Daniel operating my detecting 'sled' at Baringup West"

"Cleaning up some old heaps on the Kangaroo diggings, south of Berringa, using my little Massey Ferguson drott. A handy machine"

 

 

[Northeast]

That Little Red Streak, Patchy Flat picture is so reminiscent of the Vic GT goldfields.  The thin forest, the type trees, quartz everywhere, trees bringing up the quartz at the base. 

I'm assuming old mate that runs sheep in the paddock next to the forest got a knock on his door??

[jrbeatty]

Many of the paddocks in that area were pegged and "pushed" in the 80's/90's. I've got some ancient VHSC videotape of such work on my MRC claim at Billy Goat Gully (Kingower) featuring John and Ian with SD 2000 prototypes:

To see the result, check out "Kingower Gold 2"  

[Northeast]

Very nice indeed.

When did the saying "low and slow" get invented?  Must have not been until the late '90's??

Hard to argue with the results though!

[jrbeatty]

Didn't have to be too slow detecting a "push" claim since you were "peeling" off only a few inches at a time.

John H.S was by far the best detector operator I ever encountered. Found huge quantities in his time. It was a learning experience for me watching him work. Partially due to arthritis, he retired from detecting in the late 90's a wealthy man.

[jrbeatty]

"John with 14 oz bit from Guy's Rush. This was detected by me using a 24'' coil wound by Lance Hewitt and kevlared by me"

My comment : Guys Rush is an extraordinarily rich Tertiary deposit set amidst rural farmland north of Possum Hill in central Victoria. Despite being shallow "pushed" in the early 80's, It has yielded many large deep nuggets to detector operators.
In the late 90's, John found a 30 odd oz piece at depth there working alone with his own flat litz wound 36" coil (nothing new about flat wound coils)
Jim Stewart "specked" a 6 oz piece under a bulldozed rock there. He at first thought it was a crumpled Benson and Hedges packet.

 Guys Rush has special significance for me -

It was about the mid 90's. John arrived about midday at Jim Stewarts Laanecoorie Lakeside park with the welcome news that he had met the new owner of Guys, and had arranged permission for us to detect it, but we were allowed only one day to do so. John was quite the diplomat and often organised properties to detect which others had failed to get on.
It took awhile to get Jim organised (as it often did, he was a late morning starter) but after numerous coffees and fags, we finally bundled him into John's ute, along with the "Bismarck", a 36" bundle wound coil Jim had wound for the SD 2000. It had a special 2000 box with a low clock speed which Bruce Candy had made especially for Jim - ideal for large deep targets and it found much big gold:

By the time we arrived it was late afternoon. We took turns wearing the shoulder mounted "Bismarck". After a few hours the first colour (a 5 oz bit) was unearthed and, by the time a faint broad signal was detected further downslope, evening had arrived. In the gathering darkness we started digging.

First the pick handle broke, then we discovered that in our haste to depart, we had no other digging equipment. The clincher was to discover that we didn't have a torch either, and couldn't get the vehicle headlights anywhere near where we were digging. Of course, to make matters worse, we next discovered that the sd2200 we used as a pinpointer had a flat battery.

Regardless, we soldiered on, taking turns with the pick head in the hard cemented wash, digging the dirt with our bare hands throughout that pitch black night, pinpointing  with a 3 foot loop. After many more hours, with skinned knuckles and blisters, we had dug about a meter.

Finally, John felt the weight of the 30 oz nugget in his hands, and we eventually left about midnight, our day's permission utilised to the last minute!

Of course, there was a big "ding" mark on one end of the Aboriginal axe shaped solid gold piece, along with much more ancient scratch marks left by its journey along a long gone rocky stream bed.

[jrbeatty]

"Rough gold from Havelock, with a couple of smooth 'ring ins'. The specimen in the middle was about 6 ozs, and detected by Ian sitting on the surface"

Detail of specimen:

"This was detected by Ian Jacques at Paddy's gully, Rokewood Junction. Unfortunately, because the quartz was yellow the gold does not stand out very well, and I neglected to include something for scale. It was about the size of a small apple, and contained about 6 ozs of gold, with the gold standing out from the very worn quartz, a phenomenon I have noticed with other worn quartz specimens. Why this should occur is a bit of a mystery"

Probably caused by impact abrasion operating in a high energy water environment. The gold being malleable is better able to withstand this form of erosion:

"I can't remember where these came from, so let's just attribute them to the 'Beagle Boys'