Metal Detecting Misadventures

I’ve got a 10" x 5" coil and it sends me over 40cm deep.

Don’t want to waste my time on beach detecting really, just doing it for a bit of fun.
[unless it’s the South Island where that gold is :moneybag:]
Funny, but it’s more of a crash course in metal detecting, I’m learning lots about where to detect.

And I’ve got good at the one handed spade dig - trying not to get my detector all muddy.
Ha! No wonder my shoulders are sooo sore after a day of doing that. :smiling_imp:

Iggy, you know exactly how the holes are :grin:

Any makers marks on the underside of the eggcup? Thought it might be Spode, but the design looks too rough for that.
Re: brass filter - I thought it might have been perforated in the original pic but wasn’t clear. Just looked interesting.

There’s plenty of gold and silver in those Auckland beaches buddy - I bring some home every time I’m forced to visit the ‘smoke’ :money_mouth:

Just a thought PD…:thinking: I don’t know anything about the GPX models but guess they are tones only like the Xcal and others.
What about checking out one of your beaches and just digging the ‘slightest change in threshold’ only signals, ie the faintest signals and hopefully in most cases the deepest.
If you don’t have a scoop a cheapo wee shovel would do the job if your on dryish sand.

Could be worth a go, especially if she reaches that far towards the centre of the earth😃

@mudwiggle the base is not perfectly round, and there is a fault in the glazing. I’ve not found any mark on the bottom. A google search has found much sturdier similar looking pieces - this one far more chinaish. Yes that is a very cool piece of brass.

@Iggy Let me describe my beach detecting.
Main thoroughfair to beach - all sorts of rubbish, maybe a modern 20cent if I’m lucky.
White sand strip only rusty iron chunks of dingi’s I guess & litterally thousands of beer caps, I feel lucky when something different comes up (that includes pull tabs).
Up on banks where people sit, some bottle caps, but a lot of nails and pull tabs.
Just below white sand I begin to find interesting things, and fish hooks/swivels.

I use a mini spade, half the length & 1/3 weight, but nearly full spade head, bit of a shovel really.

When I was on my Coromandel test trip last year, in the Mount Tauranga I tried this whole beach

I know it wasn’t the most popular beach, but I figured I’d have perhaps a better chance of finding things (and being new I was a little shy :blush: )
Didn’t have a spade back then, and tides were not on my mind, so it was coming in and I probably should have been down further. Though I did do a test run up & down from water to grass. All the same rusty clumps of iron. Spent about 4 hours detecting that beach.

Now if I returned. I would time it with the tides, test both ends of the beach first. And of coarse hit the main beach on the other side.

Cool post, yeh it sounds like your up against it a bit.
Just trying to offer some suggestions… Thought you were going to chuck in the towel for a minute there :weary:. Those wee baby shovels are not too bad at all for the beach, no good in the water though. I had mine with me last night, left the scoop at home.
Keep at it, I love reading your interesting posts, and hopefully you are rewarded with a chunk of GOLD… Nugget or other. :moneybag:

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Thanks.
Yeah I am a bit over coin hunting.
My intention was never to do that, gold is my goal and the reason I bought one of the most expensive machines (so it can take the largest coils)
Although I will be travelling to Nelson Bush where old hotels were put up for the miners then torn down 10 years later with no record of where they were located. So I’ll probably come across some nice artifacts maybe even some sovereigns and such!

Apparently most of the miners got their gold and rushed to the hotel to blow it on booze & trollops!
All that drunken debauchery probably resulted in many a coin being lost to the earth.

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Sounds an interesting journey for sure. :thinking: GOLD sov, now that would be nice! I would love to know just how many have been lost or ‘hidden’ over the years.

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heres something to think about,i am told there were twenty million gold sovs minted in oz .some were sent to the uk to help the war effort i wonder how many made there way to nz

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Terrible - who would do such a thing.

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I read a historical article about some guy that travelled from Nelson with 250 sovereigns to buy the West Coast from the Maori. Wonder if any got lost along the way or if the maori lost a few here & there, they didn’t care too much for gold.

Using a Gold detecting machine for coins…I know the feeling. What was the saying, “like bringing a knife to a gunfight!” I’m using the Goldbug Pro with the large coil fitted so I guess its the DP. My mate uses the Fisher F4…a killer on silvers on the park. I had my best coin shoot yesterday along side him. I found 19 coins including a NZ half crown. He double trumps this within minutes and goes on to find a real silver one.
I’m getting better though, he didn’t find his usual 8 times the number of coins that I find. Probably 3 times the number…and he kindly allowed me the undetected area of the park. The F4 finds stuff the Bug doesn’t even dream of detecting. Mumble Mumble!

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Yeah. Those guys do find silver, but that have a little trouble distinguishing aluminium from gold I believe.
And them trade tokens were made of iron, so dig it all!

Just a side note:
I went for a quickfire detect late the other day.
Tide was coming in and it was getting dark fast.
Got a very nice tiny sinker 8g, much roofing lead 58g.
Was surprised, they were shallow and near shore, makes me feel a little bit more confident of doing a proper dig.

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I was messing around on the internet, when I noticed my first Google Gold.

An old house site just down the road!
Even 90 year old didn’t know anything about it.

Rushed down. Found some evidence, even some old bottles. Seems as if it was in the middle of the road though :neutral_face:

Lots of iron scrap, even a whole bucket.
Much more digging to do, might have to tear up the road with a pick!

Here is a few bottles I pulled out tonight, on the left were still sealed.

Best thing was this Giant Native Gecko that I found, very cool. Just like a dinosaur, scaly kind of skin that showed the bones when it moved. Very quiet though.


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Tried a brand new beach today.
Found my smallest sinker yet 2g, larger one is 8g.
The usual beer bottle caps, iron, and electronics (I think a lot of this stuff floats in).
I included that macs beer cap because when I pulled it out my heart started racing. It’s the perfect shade of gold.
Put the ruler in so you could see that little bit of Iron, that is what my detector sends me after, that little round copper thing is the end of a .22 round.

5 cent coin was 1985.
Found a few old pull tabs, one was under a tree, very shallow - does that mean the beach is untouched?
Pretty sure there are more decimals to be dug, as I had to go just as I dug a coin hole at the bottom of a large sea slide.
Very promising.

Few people came to talk to me, one guy drove down the beach in his car especially! Then he told me to try the Cemetary, um, yeah okay… seriously, WTF! People come on, or am I missing out on the good stuff? That’s the second person that’s told me to hit the graveyard.
Told him I was digging fish hooks, to keep the children safe.
I now actually feel like making a reflective Jerkin with “Fish Hook Remover, Please Do Not Disturb” on the back of it.

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Lol unless you like looking out of windows with bars on them I’d be staying well away from cemeteries.
My B in law wanted to do that…“oh but we will just detect, we won’t dig anything” yeh right NO WAY. I know he was just looking for a reaction and he got one.

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hi pandemic,yeah nah,stay away from the dead centre,lay out some targets on the ground in your backyard,silver gold ring,lead ,copper, brass, and scan them,take note of the tone and meter readings you get,then slowly add a bit of junk to the targets,a rusty nail,pull tab,note again the change in tone and meter reading this helps me to understand how other metals distort what your detecting and can be applied to the field,hope this helps.

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I run a gpx5000, no indicators of metal type or depth! Only thing it tells me is “that could be ferrous.”

Thats the way- dig everything.
Cool Ghecko.

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