The Reg Wilson Gold Album

[jrbeatty]

Reg Wilson is a bit of a legend in Australian detecting circles and has kept a comprehensive photo collection of his finds over 4 or 5 decades. Now everyone likes gold images and stories -  and there are plenty here!  I've been offered existing topics to post on, but I believe the topic deserves its own thread to do it full justice. All images are those of Reg Wilson unless otherwise attributed.

The album consists of hundreds of photographs of not only gold, but many gold detecting industry characters, some of whom are no longer with us, but who all contributed in their own unique ways to the great gold chase we still enjoy today. Firstly, a bit of background.

Reg first shot to international fame with the finding of this 98 ounce piece which he named the "Orange Roughie" in 1987, decades later to be fraudulently rebirthed as the "Washington Nugget"

By no means his first find, Reg was already a successful detector operator and at the time was testing a prototype GT 16000 for Minelab's wizz kid engineer Bruce Candy:

Photo: Australian Sun Herald

L to R:  Bruce Candy, the late Doug Robertson, Ian Jacques, Reg, John Hider Smith.

Reg recalled: "The man standing next to Bruce Candy is the late Doug Robertson, who with his brother Bruce worked the aluvials below the famous and fabulously rich Matrix reef at McIntyres. They had an old Matilda tank with a blade attached to clear Mallee scrub. Between them they had a wealth of knowledge of the northern Victorian gold fields.
(Doug's name may have been Robinson. Memory is a bit foggy)"

Ian, Reg and John were prototype SD 2000 testers in Victoria, AU and were collectively known as the "Beagle Boys" a name bestowed upon them by Dave Chappel, the publican of the Railway Hotel Dunolly. On any Friday night huge nuggets, some weighing well over a hundred ounces could be seen displayed on the bar.

120oz from Longbush. Found all on its own, finder anonymous:

The playing cards and US currency indicate that the nugget has just been purchased by the late "Rattlesnake" John Fickett, a US gold buyer who bought many of the big pieces back then:

Ian Jacques and Reg with 44 oz 1989:

Ian Jacques with his SD 2000 prototype late 80's.
Real prospectors don't use bungees  

All for now, but at least we've made a start - - -

 

[mn90403]

JR

Thank you for the posting.

Mitchel

[jrbeatty]

Mitchel: Thank you for the topic offer and your encouragement for the idea of reposting the album here on Steves forum. I'll post more soon!

[vanursepaul]

Very enjoyable stuff...

Thx mate

[jrbeatty]

Thanks Dave and Paul.

I'm just basking in reflected glory here. Reg's lovely wife Jannine did all the slow tedious image scanning and Reg is a self confessed computer image upload agrophobe, hence my role.

 Ian with 20oz specimen, Moliagul:

Blue quartz specimens, northeast of Wedderburn. Weight forgotten. On a personal note, of all Reg's gold, these lovely specimen pieces are easily my favourites. This image copy has almost lost the beautiful blue colour.  

30 ozs Havelock and Maryborough:

John H S and Ian Jacques: Stinking hot summer day. Prototype SD and battery backpack on ground

"Beagle Boys" Ian, John and Reg (with SD prototypes) keeping out.  

35 ounces from Kingower:

the late Timmy Raven with a 60 oz piece from "Ravens Patch" Longbush:

8 oz and 5 oz "Ravens patch" longbush:

Reg, foxy Digby and detecting partner Murray Cox. Mid 80's (photo: Sun Herald)

[mn90403]

JR

The big coils from an earlier time, the old Datsuns you might even say a generation ago but some of you are still out there finding the big chunks.  When do you think Reg first started finding gold?  Who was his mentor?

When did you find your first nugget?

Mitchel

[beatup]

Just outstanding posts

[goldenoldie]

Thanks JR for the pics and your words in the other thread regarding my triumph over cancer. And speaking of triumph it was that photo of Reg with that nugget in the GG & T magazine that inspired me with my 1st detector the GT16000 which if I am correct was the same detector that located that particular nugget. 

[jrbeatty]

Mitchel:

I'll get Reg to answer the first part of your question. He's currently at the Laanecoorie gold bash in central Victoria, and when I phoned him last night he was having  a glass (or two) of his famous home brew single malt whisky with Howard, the QED detector inventor

My first find? I started gold detecting comparatively late. I used to chase old coins with a Whites 5000D in the 70's. Like Goldenoldie, it wasn't until I saw that iconic image of Reg and his dog chomping on the "Roughie"  (featuring in an ad for a Minelab GT 16000)  that I bought one in Wedderburn from the late Barrie Johnson.

I had met John Hider Smith earlier and he allowed me to detect on one of his Miners Right Claim's in the Beggary Hills. Little did I know that he and Ian had already combed it with those strange looking Goldseeker 15000's with the roughly made big coils (It wasn't till much later that I discovered they were SD proto's and could penetrate almost twice as deep as any then current detector)

I remember I fired up my new machine and within minutes had a signal which turned out to be a pretty 1 oz colour. I still have it:

Later on, when I excitedly showed them what I had found, the look on John and Ian's faces was priceless - - -

More soon  - - -

[jrbeatty]

Colours from Poseidon. Shed from the Woolshed Reef. Notice all the bits had a distinctive perforated appearance.

The late Roy Harris with a 14 oz piece detected by the Beagle Boys from Roy's property at Poseidon. Roy kept this piece as his share of the gold recovered:

60 odd ozs from John Condins paddock, Wehla, detected by Ian and Reg:

John Condin looking happy, as Ian and Reg paid him 20% of the 60 oz recovered from his property

Condin paddock gold. Reg said: "Ian with some of the better slugs that we found with our brand new SD2000's on the first day we used them. Between the two of us we pulled over 60 ozs in 2 days. What a way to break in our machines!"

John Condins wife Lynne with some of the gold: