Author Topic: Gold prospecting using a metal detector (Read 80408 times)

NigelP · « **Reply #360 on:** September 10, 2024, 08:37:09 am »

Current gold prices of 60 UK pounds per gram that was a lucrative day out!

Ben Framed · « **Reply #361 on:** September 10, 2024, 08:41:02 am »

Quote from: Terri Yaki on September 10, 2024, 07:58:56 am

That sounds like a great day. Congratulations.

Congratulations! Great find Les!!! Looks like another wonderful vacation may be in the works!?

BeeMaster2 · « **Reply #362 on:** September 10, 2024, 08:44:16 am »

Les,
How deep are you able to detect gold?
I wonder what would happen if you found a farmer and worked a newly plowed field. My New Ground Plow can turn over 18 inches of dirt. I?ll bet that would make a big difference as to what is available.
Jim Altmiller

Terri Yaki · « **Reply #363 on:** September 10, 2024, 09:23:31 am »

18"? I believe you'd be getting into clay up here in my neck of the woods. And our farmers no longer plow, they just put the seeds into the ground. It seems they found no benefit to plowing.

Lesgold · « **Reply #364 on:** September 10, 2024, 05:05:58 pm »

It was a good day out Nigel. I should be jarring up honey today and making labels for sundays markets but I think Joe and I will be back to the spot again today. Beekeeping work will be put on hold for a couple of days until the gold fever subsides. It is a horrible disease lol. Joe and I have often spoken about how much gold we actually walk over. We always laugh about what we could find if we had a 20 ton excavator. This would be illegal but we are allowed to fantasise. Detectors can find gold at depths well over a foot in ideal conditions but often very small pieces are on.y found at depths of less than 4?. By moving large rocks and scraping off an inch or so of gravel, gold can be detected that could not be heard from the surface. We have taken much of the easily detected gold and we now need to work harder to find our treasure. Yesterday was just one of those lucky days where a plan came together and we reaped the rewards. Today will be a day where we just finish picking up a few leftover scraps as the run of gold is just about finished.

Lesgold · « **Reply #365 on:** September 10, 2024, 05:28:52 pm »

Nigel, I just checked the price of gold here in Australia. It?s pretty high at the moment at $121 per gram. That?s for pure gold and of course, gold nuggets generally contain impurities such as silver and copper and may also contain bits of quartz, dirt etc. I cleaned the gold in an ultrasonic cleaner to remove most of the dirt and there was very
little quartz attached. The gold in our area is some of the purest gold in Australia and normally comes in at around 98% purity. If the gold we found yesterday was melted into a small ingot, I would expect to get over 10 grams in total. We have a shop in town that is going to buy gold and will pay 90% of spot price for it. They melt the nuggets down, weigh the resulting block of gold and then test it in an XRF machine for its purity. They will then calculate the real quantity of gold and pay accordingly. If we wanted to sell it, we could expect to get just over $100 per gram. If we wanted to sell the gold privately as gold nuggets we would be able to attract a premium and get a bit more than spot price for it. A guy I know in Western Australia recently found a 58 gram nugget on top of the ground. (What we call a sun baker) It was a pretty piece and would sell for a good price to a collector. The biggest nugget that I?ve actually seen and held was one that a local guy found in Western Australia a couple of years ago. It weighed well over 600 grams. It was a thrill to be able to hold it.

Lesgold · « **Reply #366 on:** September 11, 2024, 09:35:32 am »

Joe and I went back to the spot just to finish things up. We moved some gravel and detected as we went. The further we moved away from the pool we were detecting around, the deeper the ground became. Eventually the gold ran out and we came home exhausted. We scored a nice 2.2 gram nugget at depth and picked up a few nice pieces that helped to get our total weight to a respectable 6 grams. This was another great day out in the bush. It is now time to focus on some beekeeping stuff for a few day.

Lesgold · « **Reply #367 on:** September 13, 2024, 11:26:05 pm »

Joe and I made it back to the creek yesterday to see if we could dig a few more pieces out. We found a few but they were small. WeWent for a long walk upstream and eventually Joe picked up a beautiful 2.5 gram nugget in some flood gravel. That piece really made the day for us and helped the tally mount up.

Ben Framed · « **Reply #368 on:** September 14, 2024, 12:45:08 am »

Quote

Joe picked up a beautiful 2.5 gram nugget in some flood gravel. That piece really made the day for us and helped the tally mount up.

Now that would add to my gold fever if I were in gold country!

Lesgold · « **Reply #369 on:** September 24, 2024, 05:54:10 pm »

Joe and I went back to the gully for another look around to see if we could find a few more scraps of gold. Joe found a small patch and ended up pulling 5 small pieces from it. Apart from that, we only added a few more pieces to the tally. It was still a good day out with the pieces being a little larger than the small nuggets that we usually find. We put that down to the machines that we were swinging. The GPZ 7000 was used to try to find some deeper gold and cover more ground due to its larger coil size. It doesn?t find the tiny scraps that the 6000 picks up but we were interested in the larger chunks buried at depth. I picked up a piece in a vertical wall. As I was digging it out, it showed itself and a photo was taken while it was still partially buried.

Lesgold · « **Reply #370 on:** September 25, 2024, 11:22:11 pm »

Just put up a clip made from footage that I took about 3 months ago. Was never happy with the quality of the audio and the commentary was also pretty ordinary but the day held good memories for Joe and I. We worked hard that day for very little return.

https://youtu.be/_jFxFWqM5Xs?si=U-7sqH47dFFyHDlu

Kathyp · « **Reply #371 on:** September 26, 2024, 10:22:57 am »

Your video popped up on my phone this AM. It looked like a fun day even if the return was not so great. It's the adventure that counts, right

Lesgold · « **Reply #372 on:** September 26, 2024, 05:31:31 pm »

It was an adventure for sure. Lots of fun in a really pretty environment.

Kathyp · « **Reply #373 on:** September 26, 2024, 08:34:06 pm »

Quote

Lots of fun in a really pretty environment.

I don't have as fancy a metal detector, but it's mid-range. I have a problem tuning it so that it isn't going nuts on iron rich ground and rocks, but still picks up good stuff. I don't really expect to find gold, although it's possible. I do like finding coins and stuff. I think I'm just not so good at recognizing the sounds. How sensitive is the tuning for your detectors or do you just have enough experience to know what to ignore?

Lesgold · « **Reply #374 on:** September 26, 2024, 10:18:38 pm »

The detector in the video is a specific gold detector that is designed to handle the noisy ground. It still does go nuts in some areas and sends us a bit crazy but that?s OK. It?s all part of the challenge. Treasure detectors will find gold but it?s a bit harder when the gold is small and the area is mineralised. Hunting for coins and treasure is good fun.

Kathyp · « **Reply #375 on:** September 26, 2024, 11:07:01 pm »

Quote

Treasure detectors will find gold but it?s a bit harder when the gold is small and the area is mineralised. Hunting for coins and treasure is good fun.

It is fun. One of my best finds was a 1925 silver quarter and it might have been worth a couple of dollars except someone shot a hole right through the middle! Good shot

The rest is mostly old farm stuff, and a few low value bits of jewelry, but I have not spent the time at it that I'd like.

Lesgold · « **Reply #376 on:** September 27, 2024, 01:22:24 am »

Would love to see a picture of the quarter. I reckon the bullet hole would add value(if not character). When I get time, I work the beaches. On a good day enough money can be found to buy a coffee lol. I have found a few old gold rings but I don?t do it often enough. We have to wait for things like your hurricane to stir the ocean up and move sand around. Lead fishing sinkers are a common find these days. Credit cards killed it for the beach prospector.

Kathyp · « **Reply #377 on:** September 27, 2024, 10:52:44 am »

Helene should have stirred up the water off West FL. With all the wrecks in the Gulf and Atlantic, many around FL, there are plenty of treasures and treasure hunters!

Lesgold · « **Reply #378 on:** September 30, 2024, 01:18:37 am »

Hope the bad weather didn?t cause too many issue for you guys.

Terri Yaki · « **Reply #379 on:** September 30, 2024, 05:03:52 am »

Quote from: Lesgold on September 30, 2024, 01:18:37 am

Hope the bad weather didn?t cause too many issue for you guys.

In some places it's pretty bad but where i am, we're usually safe, as was the case this round. Beemaster2 might be in a pickle, though I haven't seen that he posted to that effect. Some of those along the inland route got hit really, really bad. Like in Tennessee and North Carolina. Houses washed away, unbelievable accumulations of debris in the waterways and such. I hope all here are safe and sound (as well as all others, flooding is a terrible experience).