The GPZ Gold Rush

[Norvic]

On 3/3/2015 at 3:15 PM, brogansown said:

Minelab has made a commercial decision to both create a powerful innovative gold finding machine and simutaneously price it out of the reach of 90% of the metal detecting hobbyists.  So as an engineer who built his first metal detector in 1964 and used every trick and innovation to eek out another 1/4 inch of depth, I applaud what appears to be a great leap forward in detection and at the same time I am confused at Minelab's marketing tactic.

Steve is right, we are, at least here in my area, pretty much at the tail end of our nugget finding efforts with metal detectors  and the GPZ 7000 will, it seems, take us to the end and I think the 90% would like to be in on it.  Having said all that, I am reading with great interest the pros and cons of the 7000 and the 2300, which I might be able to afford if I can prove to myself that it will outperform my 4500 and Gold Bug 2.

So I encourage those of you who have the 7000 to provide videos and pictures of your finds, but please mention all the bullets, nails, tin and tobacco tags that come along with the effort.  Most of us devoted nugget finders I believe, have our own secret patches that we think are worked out, but hope that a few more pieces lie just six inches below the reach of our GPX's and I guess that is where we will have to leave them for now.  Maybe I can morgage the house.

To me Minelabs pricing has a lot of R&D factored in, I have no problem paying for that, they have come up with the goods each new detector. Their share price has been declining over the years, lets hope the GPZ can stop that decline.

 I got into this back in 79, VLF was king and the refinements until 95 led me to believe we were at the end of the electronic gold rush, PI proved that very wrong and perhaps ZVT or another tech will keep the electronic gold rush running. I personally will know if ZVT is the go once I get my GPZ this weekend, but age will definitely stop us. I`ll be ten years younger for awhile but, tis exciting.

[jasong]

The electronic prospecting segment of a gold rush is very peculiar. I started metal detecting for gold about 8 years ago so by the standards of many on these forums I'm a relative newbie. But over the years, of all the lessons I've learned, one of the most important is that information can be as valuable, if not more valuable then gold itself. When a person finds and then cleans out a patch, especially if said person is careful to leave minimal traces of activity, then the gold itself isn't the only thing taken from the area, the knowledge that gold was found there is also erased, or at least kept only among the person(s) who discovered the patch. As this information is forgotten, or dies with the original prospector, there is often no traces of the discovery left and it is relegated back to obscurity, potentially forever since the targets visible to current technology are now completely missing. We have to wait for new technology to come along, but if by that point the knowledge of the location is gone then the chances of it being rediscovered become sequentially less and less with each new leap in technology.

Other forms of mining and prospecting generally leave traces which a person can use to narrow down their search. As we are all familiar with, it's not uncommon to blanket new areas by first "walking in the footprints" of the old-timers. We can see where they were 50, 100, or 150 years ago, sometimes only faintly, but it gives us a place to start. And even more importantly, it gives us confidence that gold was found in the area before. Any serious detector knows how frustrating it can be to prospect cold locations without even the faintest idea wether there is even gold there or not. Having first hand knowledge that gold has been discovered before can be the difference between losing confidence in a new spot after a few days versus sticking it out for weeks looking for a patch you know must be there. 

We've all heard the stories: back in the "day" so and so used to pull 10 ounces every few weeks out of X area, and this other guy used to get 1-5 oz nuggets every other day out of Y area, etc. Then, at some point it diminishes and gives way to sequential generations of stories with less and less gold until you get to the present day where most of the finds in the storied old goldfields of decades past are completely uneconomic from a detecting standpoint and no longer produce anything beyond a few nuggets here and there somewhat randomly.

But every now and then a guy gets lucky and finds a new area. Or a patch in an old area that was completely missed for whatever reason. I've been that guy on a few occasions thankfully, and I've got to witness what its really like stumbling into an area where gold was literally just strewn about, hitting a nugget with every few steps and every other swing. I guess it's hard to believe the old stories until you see it for yourself. But I've almost always detected alone, anything I've discovered I've done on my own, never been taught or trained or shown any areas by anyone else, and as a result everything I've ever found probably dies with me.

And the last few patches have really got me thinking about all this. I know where these patches are, or "were" is probably a better term. I've hit them, flogged them again, and then came back to hit them sideways, upside down and then backwards just for good measure. I'm very careful to leave minimum traces of my presence. A lot of these places quite literally have almost no fine gold to give drywashing leads, no evidence of old placering, and will probably remain completely undiscovered and unprospected except by myself barring a prospector with a very hot streak of luck now that I've cleaned out the nuggets that can be had with current technology.

My point is that it was real "easy" to find them once I hit the first target. I knew something was there, and like a bloodhound on a scent it gets real easy to put my nose to the ground and spend days and days tracking down every little fly speck. And further, when I get a newer piece of technology I know exactly where to go, and even if I've spent 2 days straight hitting absolutely zero targets, I'm going to keep trying because I know what used to be there.

If someone else comes along, even with great new fancy technology, and they'll walk right over it, never knowing that there is probably big and deep gold right under their feet because there are literally no indicators left.

So I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that if you are a guy who has a dozer and 5 patches, the gold rush keeps going for you. Or if you are the guy who has been travelling the west for the last 3-4 decades and knows where every old patch is then you are going to be right smack in the middle of any new technologically driven rush. But if you are a guy born a little late, each subsequent "gold rush" due to technological advancement gets harder and harder to participate in unless you know someone who can provide you with something that can be even more valuable than the gold itself: information. Either that or you have to be phenomenally lucky because there is just too much empty space out there. At some point a guy is just going to spend years wandering aimlessly with no targets or other indicators before he just gives up in frustration, even with a full on gold rush happening all around him.

Just something that's been rolling over in my head for the last few years. In the gold detecting world, it's a game that is going to be limited to fewer and fewer people with every passing year if nothing else just due to the limited and expiring nature of information and knowledge. I'm not talking about hobby detecting where you are happy to find a nugget every few weeks as a more or less random occurence, I'm talking about doing it at least semi-full time if not completely full time.

[klunker]

  Lots of good points to ponder. But something most hobby detectorists don't realize is even if you have good gold bearing ground and the equipment to work it, it takes months of red tape to get a small operation approved and years for a full time operation. We will be regulated out of the mining industry (and the mining hobby) long before the minable/ detectable gold runs out.

[jasong]

I hear ya, last year I wrapped up my first NOI level operation with a small washplant and a backhoe and got a nice education in mining regulation which did take months. The BLM took like 3 weeks jut to process my bond, not sure how hard that could be. If I had gone to a full POO (suitably named!) level I'd still be waiting for permits today probably, if not for another 5 years.

But...I've never had so much fun in my entire life as going in and tearing up an old patch with real machinery and metal detecting it though. Can't wait to do it again in fact next time I'm just skipping the washplant and just dozing/detecting which hopefully streamlines the NOI too.

[NuggetBob]

I've never had so much fun in my entire life as going in and tearing up an old patch with real machinery and metal detecting it though. Can't wait to do it again in fact next time I'm just skipping the washplant and just dozing/detecting which hopefully streamlines the NOI too.

 

Skipping the wash plant might help, never know the BLM is finicky and just generally a waffle. Don't forget there is a lot of gold in lode still undiscovered and while detectable veins are rare they are out there and many vein and stringers just have small gold, but it's gold. Pocket gold, bench gold, hillsides...man I'm still excited after many years of dirt diggin...the gold rush is far from over! 

[jasong]

Good points, lode is so often overlooked, gotta think the 7k might have a chance at pulling a few new reefs up from the results we've seen so far. I'm kinda looking forward to using it on ore piles too, I've gotten lazy and if I don't hit anything with the GB2 on the outer layer I move on to the next one, I know others do the same since very rarely are they raked down. 7000 might punch a bit deeper on the species and bring new ore piles to life too - some of my best gold finds have just been a big pile of quartz that some other kind gentleman already dug out for me.   Built a 4" impact mill for those special piles.

[brogansown]

On 3/3/2015 at 3:25 PM, NuggetBob said:

brogansown...r u kidding me? six inches...that's not far...just get the pick and shovel out and start at the best possible place you can determine! Grid that ol patch off and dig, you'll find more gold. I gotdang guarantee it 

NBob-Although I've done my share of suction dredging and dry washing and I still carry around a sluice and pan in my pickup, I've pretty much settled on my Minelab 4500.  I'm still very interested in all forms of mining and try to keep up with the new equipment, regulations and finds, but I'm just not in your league as far as real mining equipment is concerned.  I agree with you though, if we want to enjoy the outdoors and reap some rewards every once in awhile we have to keep at it as long as our health holds out.   But around my area each year for the last several years we are finding less and less and keep hoping that the metal detector companies will provide the technology that will help us find a few more in the worked out patches.

By and large, Minelab, White and Garrett, etc. have been able to keep just ahead of the curve.  But as Steve H. says, using just metal detectors will reach an end point one day and I for one was hoping that I would get to use a "gold only" light weight detector that was within my budget before I quit.  But like you, I'm not giving up by golly.

[normmcq]

Great Post! 

 As we reach our sunset years. One can only hope that something will change (technology) to give us senior citizens a chance to find a few more pieces of gold. One thing that always crosses my mind is the fact that I was born naked and will not mind leaving the planet the same way. I will not be having any regrets on spending what it takes to have my fair chance at enjoying this great hobby.

                                                                              Norm McQ

[vanursepaul]

Amen to that Norm!!!!

[LuckyLundy]

Now your talking Norm! Go find some new gold with your new detector...see ya in the goldfields

LuckyLundy