Gold and Ghosts books - Do they have the secrets?

Good morning all, I am new to detecting and I have read that the Gold and Ghosts books are the bible to finding the holy grail.

What are your thoughts all!

They are selling for huges amounts on Ebay $500, $600 plus.

I have seen some of the maps and they are mainly hand drawn and very accurate. Has anyone followed these maps and found the elusive gold stuff.

WA is tretated very well, the other states less so. Let me know what you all think Thanks Acan

Gday Acan


Although the gold and ghosts books are now a bit dated and some of the places listed are now open cut mines etc, they are still a valuable resource when it comes to planning a trip and also to get you into the zone so to speak.

With the aid of these books as a guide it at least gives the beginner the chance to be right on the gold bearing ground, as a lot of the ground looks the same and as we all know some places produce gold and others do not, so keeping that in mind, pretty much all places look the same and you can spend a lot of time walking barren areas while you are learning thats for sure, so any advantage you can get is better than nothing at all.

At least once you have been to a few of the listed areas and have seen for yourself what the area looks like, the lay of the land, the mixture of the rocks etc, how it was worked, etc, then you start to learn to recognise features that are common to a lot of the places that have produced gold, its all part of the learning process.

In reality what other options are there as far a publications that are currently available that cover so many areas as the gold and ghosts series do?, I am sure quite a number of the members here would agree that they are an assett and an excellent learning tool.

Think about this, even if you spent a $1000 on two books, its a small investment when you consider that its less than the cost of 1 oz of gold, a couple of good coils, or a round trip from say Vic to WA and at least it will give you a better chance of finding the gold on your trip by putting you on the right ground to start with, seems a simple choice to me.

cheers

stayyerAU

I've got Vol 1 and it came very handy for my last 2 trips to WA. The history & maps shown in the book were beneficail in us finding a lot of gold in one area near Laverton WA and some other spots. Nearly all the areas we went to shown in the book we found gold, mainly small bits & one 15 gram sunbaker (see video on Youtube).

I am considering selling my copy as I don't see a time for me to go back anytime soon. Although, I might keep it & sell it when the price, like gold goes up.


WA June 2008 Sunbaking Gold Nugget 15.1g

Still cant believe my luck that Gold and Ghosts helped me to find a 43 gram nugget, my biggest yet, with detector holes close by and next to some dry blowings, very weird that nobody else found it at only 4 inches deep.

The deepest we found gold was only 10 inches!!!

No need for large coils, I used 11" x 7" nuggetseeker coil

Acan wrote:Good morning all, I am new to detecting and I have read that the Gold and Ghosts books are the bible to finding the holy grail.

What are your thoughts all!

They are selling for huges amounts on Ebay $500, $600 plus.

I have seen some of the maps and they are mainly hand drawn and very accurate. Has anyone followed these maps and found the elusive gold stuff.

WA is tretated very well, the other states less so. Let me know what you all think Thanks Acan

I use the Gold and Ghost books as reference as to places not to go, every Tom dick and Harry has been there, its more fun finding new places that De Havilland has not wriiten about.

PM sent to you Acan

Round up and plagerism aside, the books are one of the best printed resources for gold field locations in Australia. The information held within can be accessed without the expensive second hand purchase price by your own efforts in research and personal enquiries. David did it, so logic says, so can you. If your time is worth money then buy, if not enjoy the adventure for the search of new knowledge.

Go to the state library with a camera
Its in the Vic one but the books arent about vic sadly

Most library's that had them have lost them to thieves.Enclosed link to another forum with one book for sale and a few comments.
http://forum.kimbucktwo.com/index.php/topic,4806.0.html
Rwork

Do what i did acan go to your nearest library and request them ,they would not let the books leave the library but i got the full set to read for a week .Unfortunately i was away that week so will have to do it again sometime.Good luck with the search

Hi Cranky, thanks for your message.

I purchased Volume 1 and 2 last year and nearly grabbed 3 and 4 for a great price. Sadly missed them. The local library does have them and I can read them any time and copy them. I would love to have my own set. I will keep hunting. Happy digging. Acan

Acan wrote:Hi Cranky, thanks for your message.

I purchased Volume 1 and 2 last year and nearly grabbed 3 and 4 for a great price. Sadly missed them. The local library does have them and I can read them any time and copy them. I would love to have my own set. I will keep hunting. Happy digging. Acan

I think the Gold and Ghosts books are great but there are programs available with all the historical mines listed on them and as I found out a lot more than what is in Gold and Ghosts.

The Modern Day Prospector wrote:

Acan wrote:Hi Cranky, thanks for your message.

I purchased Volume 1 and 2 last year and nearly grabbed 3 and 4 for a great price. Sadly missed them. The local library does have them and I can read them any time and copy them. I would love to have my own set. I will keep hunting. Happy digging. Acan

I think the Gold and Ghosts books are great but there are programs available with all the historical mines listed on them and as I found out a lot more than what is in Gold and Ghosts.

Couldn't agree more The Modern Day Prospector.

The G&G books are a good read but contains nothing in them that you can source from elsewhere at much cheaper prices. These books contain approx 50% mud maps with approx directions and 50% old stories from yesteryear.

The software available today is a fraction of the cost of those books and finding the info and data you are after can be done many times faster and much more accurately.

As someone already mentioned above, most of these locations written in the G&G books already have massive open cut pits over the top of them so prospecting anywhere near these "live" mine operations is all but impossible and besides, if the mining operation is now closed then just take a look at Google Earth and look to see where the open cut operations are located and go from there. The Tengraph can be linked to Google Earth so finding out whether the leases are still active is just a click of a mouse button away.

Look, I take my hat off to the author for putting into print something that must of taken him years to research, but these books have become outragiously overpriced for nothing more than old information.

Personally I wouldnt waste my money on them but this is just my opinion

stayyerAU wrote:Gday Acan


Although the gold and ghosts books are now a bit dated and some of the places listed are now open cut mines etc, they are still a valuable resource when it comes to planning a trip and also to get you into the zone so to speak.

With the aid of these books as a guide it at least gives the beginner the chance to be right on the gold bearing ground, as a lot of the ground looks the same and as we all know some places produce gold and others do not, so keeping that in mind, pretty much all places look the same and you can spend a lot of time walking barren areas while you are learning thats for sure, so any advantage you can get is better than nothing at all.

At least once you have been to a few of the listed areas and have seen for yourself what the area looks like, the lay of the land, the mixture of the rocks etc, how it was worked, etc, then you start to learn to recognise features that are common to a lot of the places that have produced gold, its all part of the learning process.

In reality what other options are there as far a publications that are currently available that cover so many areas as the gold and ghosts series do?, I am sure quite a number of the members here would agree that they are an assett and an excellent learning tool.

Think about this, even if you spent a $1000 on two books, its a small investment when you consider that its less than the cost of 1 oz of gold, a couple of good coils, or a round trip from say Vic to WA and at least it will give you a better chance of finding the gold on your trip by putting you on the right ground to start with, seems a simple choice to me.

cheers

stayyerAU

StayyerAU Hi, I understand what you say and I agree, but you have an idea of ​​how many people in all these years, since the books were published, were placed on the right ground ?
I do not think that's a good idea to encourage people to spend a lot of money on outdated books, with the illusion that the books give you an edge, in my opinion the only things you need when you are out detecting, a lot of determination and a good dose of luck.
Cheers
Goldquest

Don't see it mentioned but there is an ebook in circulation on Book 1,

It was I think about $80.00 pdf or CD.

It came from the United States, will have to see if the copyright extends to there?

Majindi

I think that you will find that any CD's for G&G books are illegal.

cheers dave

JUst wondering -- I know G&G covers Qld and WA -- what other states do they cover pls ?

The books are in the libary. You can copy 10% of a book for research purposes, without breaching copywrite.
I took a music stand and a digital camera.

bye

Hi there Acan,
I'll just put my two bob's worth in here. To me, any book that's mass produced will be read, of course by thousands and thousands of people. So all these people will know about all the spots mentioned in whatever book. Brings back the words to an old Eagles song.........'if you call a place Paradise, you can kiss it goodbye......' Sad but true.... Suz

Hi
The main reason I brought Gold and Ghosts 1 & 2 was to get an idea of the right ground to be on and its very good for that.A viable alternative is Doug Stones metal detecting for gold and relics in australia. Fourth edition.From memory it cost $125 and covers all of Australia.Should be available in most dealerships.
Cheers Dig