New member from Tassie fossicker and hopefully gold prospector

Howdy all just thought id give you all a brief introduction and my plans for the future

Since a young age I've always been interested in minerals and have gone panning for gold on the odd occasion aswell. Around 8 months ago i joined the Burnie District Lapidary Club and although im quite sick ive still managed to get there abit more recently and have been working on some nice minerals. I've gone one one field trip with the club upto the Calder quarries where i found some nice agates, i've also fossicked around penguin where i found aheap of jasper aswell. I mostly make cabochons of all my specimans and have been given quite a few over the course of my membership and from family and friends. i have lots old petrified wood from lume? river area aswell as a few pieces of petrified man-fern(hoping to start silvermsithing on a cabochon into a necklace for mum for christmas). now i have speciams of amazonite, tiger iron, jade, emuite, coral and many more i cant think of at this time.

over the last few weeks i've been really studying into prospecting for gold and i believe im suffering from 'gold fever'. In Tasmania i believe most of the gold is alluvial so my thoughts are going towards a fisher gold bug 2 with the 6" coil but ill get the 10" coil aswell for some depth if i need it. Im very sick unfortunately and on a small income with only 15 hours work a week so its going to take me a few months until i get a detector so still studying but it seems like the best option for what i can afford.

looking forward to getting to know you all abit better and be an active member of the community, thats all i can think of for now

thanks for reading,
Luke Elphinstone

Hi Luke

Welcome to the forum.
Hope you enjoy it here.

Sorry to hear your health isn't a 100%

Looking forward to hearing more of your stories.

Jen58 wrote:Hi Luke

Welcome to the forum.  
Hope you enjoy it here.

Sorry to hear your health isn't a 100%

Looking forward to hearing more of your stories.

thanks and although my health issues are incurable i still see a positive side to things and I'm slowly building myself up more and more. Over the next few days i'll share finds from the field trip i went on as i found a very nice big agate aswell as many other of my minerals and maybe some cabochons if theirs interest!

Luke, welcome to the forum.
Don't let your health get in the way of what you want to do, and good to hear you are positive about it.
Sounds like you got a real mineral bug, nothing wrong with that. A good hobby and better than a lot of other vices.
Some agate specemins cut are so beautiful. And gold is hard to find in tassie, but there is some good forum members over there and if you need help I'm sure they will give you some advice.
Another tassy forum is www.tas-prospecting.com i think most of the guys are also on this forum.
cheers, TG

Hi Luke,
Welcome to the forum.

Wish you better luck and fun with your new hobby.

GoldEN